She felt her entire chest flare red as she said, stammering like Fred, “Um, okay, sure. Did you?”
“Of course not. He was in love with Miriam. I didn’t sleep with her, either.”
“Was that an option?” she asked, stunned.
“No, it wasn’t. I tried to propose it one year. Don’t remember which one, but it was still the Depression and we were hard up for recreation. She told me to find a hobby.”
“That’s good to know,” she said, battling the sense that she had lost her grip on the conversation and possibly her entire day. “Sort of adds texture. But I really had in mind more the professional interactions, because it’s more relevant to the movie.”
“Professional,” he repeated, sounding almost disapproving. “For example?”
“For example, how was it to work with Emil, if the atmosphere was tense?”
“Emil was fine. It was everyone else who made things difficult.”
“How did they do that?”
“By not doing what Emil wanted them to do.”
Now that she finally had him talking about the movie, he had turned into Mr. Brevity. “You were on Emil’s side?”
“Certainly. Emil cared a great deal more than they did. Miriam cared, too, but it was only because of Emil.”
“They didn’t care how the movie turned out?” That would explain the level of interest she’d encountered so far.
“Not ex-actly.” He sat back and crossed his legs, and she realized who he’d been reminding her of. William F. Buckley. Same accent. Almost the same vocabulary. “You have to understand the sort of place Civitas was. It wasn’t one of the big studios. The budgets were strict and so were the schedules. A factory. And that was the approach they were accustomed to. They didn’t want a bad product, but they didn’t see why they needed to fuss more over this one.”
“But I thought this was Frank Gregory’s prestige picture.”
“Gregory.” It was the first sound of venom in his voice. “He thought prestige meant a literary property and a larger budget. He couldn’t wrap his flat little head around the notion that prestige comes from making a bloody effort.” He sniffed. “He was such a crass individual. Before Emil arrived I overheard him saying that if Paramount and Fox were importing Germans he figured he should, too.”
“Was he joking?”
“No. Gregory did not joke. He was anti-humor. In the sense of anti-matter, or the antichrist.”
She decided to take a chance. “Lucile Pierrepoint thought he was wonderful.”
“How do you know?” His brows snapped together and his eyes narrowed.
“I wrote to ask her about the movie.”
“How creative,” he responded, his face relaxing. “So few people would think to contact the studio secretary.”
“We’re trying”—she made a note, to show him this was important—“to get a sense of how everyone is affected when a film is lost.”
“Poignant,” he chirped. “Since this is deep background, I’ll be blunt. Lucy was Frank Gregory’s mistress from her first day of work to the day he died. The rest of the world saw a pockmarked gargoyle with the soul of an abacus. Lucy saw Sir Galahad.” He rolled his eyes. “You know how some women get about men they can’t have.”
“I bet Miriam never did,” she said, feeling somehow that her gender was being maligned.
“No, Miriam had the opposite problem. How to get rid of them. Before her first day Emil showed me a picture and I thought ho-hum, another good-looking girl, never seen that before at a movie studio.” He waved his arm. “Then she walked on the set and the lighting men nearly fell out of the flies trying to get a better look. Lovely as she was on camera, in person she was not to be believed. The legs were good, but she didn’t have a figure—that was Lucy’s department. Miriam was shaped like a yardstick. But that face! The camera could only capture about half of it.” He chuckled. “Edward Kenny was standing right next to me, and I thought he was going to have a stroke.”
That was a surprise. “She told me Edward Kenny was mean to her.”
He laughed louder. “Of course he was mean to her! He was hell-bent on deflowering her. And then Emil, who was older, not a star and not as handsome, got there first. Eddie was absolutely beside himself. He never forgave either one of them.”
“How did you get to be friends with Emil?”
“Oh, I liked him right away. He’d asked for me, because he’d heard I could speak German. My mother was German. From Hamburg. He could speak to me and get things off his chest about whatever was going on that he didn’t like, and he rarely liked anything. Trouble was, people assume that if you’re speaking a foreign language you’re talking about them. In hindsight all that Deutsch-ing away didn’t enhance our popularity. But we had tastes and opinions in common. I’d been working for hacks before, mostly. That was the Civitas specialty, hacks. I liked Emil for having some vision. He could see.”
She might as well jump ahead. “Miriam said she only saw the movie once, at that preview.”
“Yes, she refused to go again. Me, I saw both versions. I looked at the last cut before the preview, but I didn’t go to the preview and I still think that was a good choice. Not a pretty scene, from what I heard. Then Emil cut it, and Gregory cut it again, and afterward I saw it twice. Place was maybe a third full the first time. Second time, not that much later, there were maybe five people besides Emil and me.”
“You went with him?” Norman nodded. “What did he think?”
“He was devastated,” said Norman. “I shouldn’t have gone. But it was his idea. Called me one night, he’d already had a few. Said let’s go down to the Rialto and see it. I knew it was a terrible idea, but then he said he’d go by himself and I knew that was the worst idea possible. And then I had to sit next to him. They’d taken out a little more than ten minutes.”
“About a reel.” She made a note and saw that Norman approved.
“Yes, that’s right. The lady knows. Not that much in terms of time, but in terms of the screen, they’d butchered it. Rearranged a lot of his scenes, went back and inserted things he’d discarded. Took out everything that didn’t advance the plot, and the trouble was that the plot was one damn thing after another.”
She put her fork down, her appetite gone. “It was bad.”
“Now now, child, I didn’t say that. It was a still a handsome picture. But the first cut was better. It was good, a good movie. And I stayed in the picture business right up to the war, and I know what’s good and what’s not. The trouble wasn’t that the first cut was bad, whatever they thought of it in Pomona. The trouble was that it was strange. He took this old Gothic novel and made a movie that was permeated with sex. Von Stroheim had nothing on Emil. This was almost two hours of everybody in the world trying to, excuse me, trying to fuck one virgin. The villain, the hero, the rejected suitor, he also implied it about her female companion and the maid.”
She smiled. “That was how Miriam saw it.”
“Yes, although I bet she didn’t put it that way.”
It was time to edge up to what she needed to know. “Did anybody from the movie come around to pay their respects the day after he died?”
He put his hand on his chin and let his index finger rest on his cheekbone. Then he said, slowly, “Why would they do that?”
“It’s what people do,” she said, huffily. Why couldn’t he cooperate? “Back home people would have brought Miriam a casserole or something.”
“A casserole!” he exclaimed, as though she’d just handed him one. “For an actress who’d been living in sin with a foreigner who was twice her age. Mississippi has gotten so progressive. I’m delighted.”
“The woman’s gotta eat,” she muttered. She picked off a crumb stuck to her lipstick and was completely off guard when Norman said, “Let’s get back to that in a minute. After you’ve told me what this is really about.”
She swallowed the dregs of her lemonade so she could speak. She didn’t want to look Norman i
n the eye, so she addressed his top button.
“As I said. I’m working on a project about lost films.” She tried to continue and he cut her off.
“No, no, no. You’re good at asking questions. Southerners can be so nosy and still sound polite. But when someone asks you a question … all right, you’re not entirely hopeless. But you’re close.”
“I don’t understand what you’re asking,” she said, with no conviction at all.
“I think you do. I should tell you, I have some experience here. During the war—that would be the Second World War, of course, I had nothing to do with the others—I worked for Army Intelligence, because of my German. Also French. And at the time my Russian was all right too, although it’s rusty now.”
She was flabbergasted. “You were in Army Intelligence? How?”
“I joined the Army,” he said, patiently. “There was a war on. Seemed like the thing to do.”
“Yes, but … doesn’t the Army … as a general rule … sort of … frown on …” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Aha. I see where you are now. Yes, they do.” He dropped his voice to a deep, macho rumble. “But, if you think about it, who better to keep secrets?” He gave her a huge grin. She smiled back. “As I was saying. They put me to work translating, and after Normandy they sent me over to interrogate prisoners of war. And here’s my point. The ordinary soldiers, the enlisted men, they always tried to hold out. But if we captured an officer, that was a different matter. I’d walk in and he’d ask me for a cigarette. Once he got a light he’d say, ‘What do you want to know?’ The men in charge, you see, they knew it was all over.” He waited, then said, “Wouldn’t you rather be an officer?” She decided another bite of cake might buy her some time. He leaned forward. “Would you like a cigarette, too?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said. He brought a glass ashtray, a brass table lighter and a pack of filterless Pall Malls. She lit up, eyed him and said, “What do you want to know?”
“I’d like to know what you’re doing here.”
She tapped her tongue with her fingertip to get a piece of tobacco off, like she’d seen Bette Davis do, and said, “I’m trying to find the film.”
“What on earth makes you think you can do that?”
He sounded as though she’d told him she was trying out for the Olympic discus team. She let her annoyance show for the first time. “First off,” she said, “as far as I know I got ahold of every last person who’s still alive and had anything to do with the movie. And I don’t think a single one of you folks ever looked for it. Did you?”
He stroked his chin. “No.”
“Exactly. Second of all, I’m trying to find Emil’s print. Miriam saw it there in his house the day he died and then it vanished. It must have gone somewhere.”
He dropped his hand and stared at her. “Emil’s print?”
“The one he kept in his house,” she said, still impatient.
“Emil kept a print? Miriam told you that?”
She nodded. Norman was shaking with laughter.
“You didn’t know? She didn’t tell you?”
“No, she did not. Not at any point in all these years. And yet she told you. What an impossible woman she is.” He gasped a minute, and continued. “But I have to say, you’re quite something yourself.”
She wasn’t crazy about being laughed at, but at least she wasn’t having to beat around the bush anymore. “Look, you were at his house the day after he died. Miriam said he had the print in his bedroom, she saw it there. Did you go in the bedroom?”
His laughter was tapering off into a hiccuping sound. Finally he got ahold of himself and said, “Oh god. I can’t remember. I’m so sorry, child.” He gave a sigh. “It was a terrible day. One of the worst of my life. I’ve spent a long time not thinking about it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m trying to—”
“Find the film, yes, I understand. It’s a good cause. You’re out of your mind, but it’s a good cause. Let me see.” He put his hand over his eyes, like a psychic at a sideshow. “I got a call at maybe 6:00 a.m. from somebody at the studio to say that they’d found Emil. And I went right over to Miriam, because I knew nobody else would. And we went to his house, and you never saw anything like it. Only a couple of reporters at the edge of the lawn—Emil wasn’t a big shot and there was no mystery to how he died. But my god, it was a circus. A circus of worms. Every single peon from the studio, carrying things out like it was a rummage sale. I know he owed Civitas money, but there’s such a thing as decorum. I think there were studio people at the house before his body even reached the funeral home.”
“So people were taking things out.”
“Yes, and if I remembered someone carrying a film I’d tell you, but I’m afraid I don’t. I just remember Miriam. By the time we got there, there were other creditors besides the studio, including his bootlegger, if I recall. They’re tossing things around and arguing, and Miriam never looked one of them in the face. They would take books or a painting out into the hall and leave to fetch something else, and she would put the things back without a word.” He shuddered. “They even took out a desk. It was Empire, I believe.”
“What were you doing, helping her?”
“No, I went into his office to argue with Lucy Pierrepoint. What a piece of work she was. And she hated Miriam. I’m telling Lucy that Emil’s papers could have something important and she said, ‘Why yes, Norman. That’s why I’m examining them.’ And I said, ‘Not important for the studio, you bitch, important for the people who actually gave a damn about Emil.’ And instead of getting all prissy about my language, she looked at me and said ‘I think you’ll find the other one of those people out in the foyer. Why don’t you go keep her company.’”
It was worse than she had imagined. The warmth and humor in Norman’s face were gone. “Waste. Such waste. He wouldn’t have had to hang on that long. A year or two at most. Miriam wasn’t going anywhere. By ’31 I had some connections. All he had to do was spin out that Civitas contract, then I could have helped him. We’d have found something. I know Miriam says all the bosses were philistines, but that isn’t true, not by a long shot. People recognized talent. And Emil stayed on time and under budget. They all appreciated that.” He sighed and turned his head away. “I never did try to talk to him about the drinking. Except once, after …”
“After he broke his hand.”
“Miriam told you that, too. My, my. Yes. He called me the next night, absolutely raving drunk. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I went over and poured coffee into him until he was sober enough to talk. I told him to pull himself together. Frightening a woman like that, it’s not done. He wanted me to call her, and I told him he’d have to do that himself.” Norman lit a cigarette and blew the smoke away from her. “I was at a loss. All I ever did was offer him food and coffee when the evening got late.”
“Miriam said he didn’t talk much about himself. Not his family, not his growing up, nothing. She said he might have been Jewish, but he never even told her that.”
“I know she thought so. It’s possible. There always was something sub rosa about Emil. Part of our bond, perhaps.” He gave her a wan smile. “Miriam told me much later she thought he’d changed his name. I could have told her that. Arnheim sounds phony, doesn’t it? He liked to joke that he asked for a ‘von’ at the border, but they told him Stroheim and Sternberg had cleaned them out.” He offered her another cigarette. “Of course, a lot of people changed their names. Like that ghastly Leon Whitman. Running around, pretending to be a set dresser. He said he did it because his real name wouldn’t look good in credits, not that anyone would have put any of his names on the movie. But we all knew the reason. He was hoping no one would realize he got the job because he was Gregory’s wife’s cousin.”
“What was his real name?” she asked. They were both trying to collect themselves, and this was as good a topic as any.
“Reifsnyder.”
3.
“CHRIST. ARE WE IN CANADA?”
The street was dotted by cement planters with no plants and lined with short, plain putty-colored buildings housing 99-cent stores and cheap groceries. Matthew was determined to point out, repeatedly, that the moment they exited the subway station, they had found the precise Euclidean middle of nowhere.
Norman knew where to find Leon Reifsnyder. The man had written him a letter, out of nowhere, after Ira’s obituary appeared in the Times. “A condolence letter, if you please,” said Norman. “Full of all these ‘my, that was a time we had’ sort of remarks. You could say I was taken aback. When we were working on the picture, he all but called me a faggot to my face. And the last I heard of Leon, he was fighting real-estate fraud charges out in Arizona.”
The letter had been written from the Cadwallader David Colden Home in Queens. She bolted to a pay phone, got the number from information, then scrambled downtown to catch Matthew’s office hours so she could beg him to call. This was too important for her meager deception skills. Plus, the accent couldn’t hurt, she told him.
It turned out, however, that were some instances in life where sounding like Laurence Olivier was not an asset. Matthew called, reluctantly, the home put Leon on the phone, and it soon became clear that the two men had something approaching complete mutual incomprehension. She blocked the office door with her back so students wouldn’t keep barging in. As the conversation stalled Matthew sounded more Masterpiece Theatre by the minute, his volume rising until he was almost shouting into the phone.
Finally, Leon put a nurse on the line, and she explained that his hearing aid didn’t work well for phone calls. They agreed to stop by on Monday for visiting hours. The journey involved two fares, subway and bus, and Matthew, who’d been to Turkey and Japan and Australia, behaved the entire time as though she’d insisted they go backpacking in the Arctic Circle.
At the bus stop, two women with high heels and high-teased hair were having a loud conversation. “I told him, I said, you were standin’ right there with your hand on her ass and you’re tryin’ to tell me there’s nothin’ goin’ on here? What am I, a moron or somethin’?”
Missing Reels Page 31