by Ray Succre
Emery had been very cautious with Banry’s story, changing nothing but directives and removing a small bit of tertiary dialogue that was not needed. If this had been his own script, he would have changed much more. Being that Larry Belmont had come from Banry’s Orange Grove writers group, Larry brought the retouched script to Banry for his approval (out of respect and as a sort of peace-offering, for the author’s approval was no longer necessary). Banry disapproved of the changes and spit out a series of insults aimed at Emery. Larry defended his employer, suggesting that perhaps Orson was being stubborn and needed to think over the changes. Banry, tested thus by one of his Orange Grove writers, exclaimed that Larry was trying to make him a Boo Radley. When Larry protested this and again tried to promote reason, he found himself shouted out of Banry’s house as having become an “instrument of the machine”. Banry then promptly wrote a cold and inflammatory letter to Emery. Worse, Banry began squealing charlatan throughout his Orange Grove writers group.
Soon, Orson Banry’s arguments and inciting remarks made news. Banry had been disgruntled and was loud enough that his remarks began reaching his own fans and, in one particularly snide attack, he stated during an interview: “Emery Asher is a mercantile man with commercial-grade interests, and The Other Side is a means for him to sell his face and his awards. When he’s grandstanding for the camera, keep in mind that he might not have written the episode you’re watching. I like Asher, but he isn’t a writer so much as an announcer.” Banry’s injured whininess had a hidden fang, it seemed. The interview ran in Life magazine, and was stylized through the haphazard perspective (and headline thereof) that Emery Asher somehow thought Orson Banry was “not skilled enough” for The Other Side. Emery had no choice but to try and move past this, to go on with the show he was known for and put Orson Banry’s esteemed squabble as far behind him as he could.
To counter those journalistic rumors of Emery’s arrogance, and quell the smearing Banry had started, I Sing of Arms and a Man would be shot and aired in the third season, and until then, Emery tried to get his dilemma with the famed writer out of his thoughts and regimen. He would deal with the episode when it was time.
CUT TO:
INT. SOL JAMISON’S OFFICE - DAY
The office is quite small, and has but a desk, chair, and several filing cabinets. There’s a small hole in one of the walls, a hole that is mostly covered with a vacation photograph of Sol and his wife standing on a city corner, the Seattle Space Needle in the background.
SOL is standing near a wall, examining the picture, a blank expression on his face. We see him take a deep breath and then slowly let it out. He seems distant. There’s a knock and he turns his head toward the door, then makes his way to his chair and sits down.
SOL:
Come in.
EMERY enters with LARRY. They close the door behind. Due to there being no other chairs in the room other than Sol’s, the two writers stand before the desk.
LARRY:
What’s buzzin’, cousin?
EMERY:
Morning, Sol.
SOL:
(with a distant look)
Sure, good morning. Look, Variety just ran another interview with Mr. Novel, and I have to know, how far is this Banry prick going to take this? This guy’s mouth opens and it’s like the back end of a damn cow. You know him, Larry. What’s it gonna take to get him to shut up already?
LARRY:
Ah, this. Listen, it’s like I told Em, I don’t really know Banry that well. I wish there was something I could do to help out, but I just don’t know the guy.
SOL:
You were in his group. You’ve talked to him before, I’m sure.
LARRY:
I joined his writer’s group a year ago, went to a half-dozen meetings, but he was only at four of ‘em, and he just talks a lot, mainly about things he doesn’t like about publishing. Sometimes movies. Honestly, I’ve only spoken to him a couple of times, and never longer than maybe a few of sentences. He hates me now, anyway.
EMERY:
Orson Banry is full of hot air. He’ll blow out soon and we can shove all this behind us.
SOL:
(seeming to focus more)
It’s hot air in Variety. In the Los Angeles Times. It’s hot air that can burn us. Christ, Asher. After that shit he said in LIFE, you should have put on war-paint. Take some fucking initiative and handle this. You barely made it back for a second season, and this jackass is loud enough for the network to hear, you understand? You need this to go away. You paid him and he couldn’t provide; he either has to pay you back, or shut his mouth.
EMERY:
I agree.
SOL:
Belmont, I want you to go talk to him. Pay him a visit, see if you can calm him down. Explain our side of things.
LARRY:
Sure, I’ll do it if I have to. But I don’t think he’s gonna listen.
SOL:
Yes, you have to. Go tell him if he wants this network to keep an open mind regarding his writers, he’ll let business be business and stop making things personal.
EMERY:
I’m not sure a threat is in order, Sol.
SOL:
(annoyed)
Oh, what does it matter, Asher? When you let a guy like this run his mouth, like you have, he only gets worse. Get that through your skull. This prick will badmouth us until we do something about it. That’s how these people are. He’s the one pushing us to see what we’ll do. He’s asking. So we’ll tell him.
LARRY:
Uh, Mr. Jamison, I don’t want to threaten the Orange Grove like that. I don’t want to be the guy. If you’re gonna do that, fine, but the messenger should be somebody else. Do it by mail, or call him on the phone. Executive producer carries clout. I mean, Banry’s an ass, but he did help me out when I didn’t know how things worked out here. I don’t- I don’t want to push him around.
SOL:
(angry)
How many threats do I have to make today? Do it tomorrow, Belmont. Go to the Emmys tonight, look pretty, clap for whatever monkeys they get up there, and then tomorrow, bright and early, handle Banry. Tell him it’s all on me. Tell him I’m the reaper. Tell him I’m crazy and want blood. I don’t care. Just cut the power to his mouth and protect your job.
EMERY:
Sol, what’s gotten into you?
SOL:
Everything. I don’t like you, Asher. And I don’t like your writers. Creative control... what a gut pig. As far as I’m concerned, the two of you are babies stuck on my doorstep and I don’t have the tits for it. I’m tired of dealing with other people’s mistakes. I’m tired of everything. No one is accountable anymore and nothing counts. It’s infuriating and if you want to keep this show, and I know you do, you’ll take my advice and you will fucking handle this guy. I’m trying to teach you how to fish, you get it?
LARRY:
I’ll do it. I’ll just- I’ll go out to his house tomorrow morning.
EMERY:
(with distaste)
Thanks for your support, Sol.
SOL:
You have no idea how bad it can get for you, Asher. I’ve been holding up the dam to keep your little flowers safe and you’re thankless for it. About everything. The dam is gonna break sooner or later, and you, Dozier, your writers, that Mifflin, any of you guys... you have no high ground.
EMERY:
Neither do you, but don’t take your bad mood out on us.
SOL:
Us? What, we’re a family? There is no ‘us’. For the record, Asher, and I want you to take this to heart, let it rattle around in that arrogant little head of yours: You’re alone out here. You understand? Alone. Everyone is. Make a plan B, watch your ass, and either get used to it or get the hell out. Deal with your own problems or fuck off. That’s all the advice I have left for you.
FADE TO:
The Emmys. The heat in the audience was sweltering and stardom, it seemed, bore with it a peculiar sort of ste
nch. Emery sat with Belmont and Moffat, wishing there had been enough room to bring Beth and the girls this year. They would be watching at home. Maybe they would see him in the crowd, wave at the television.
Not being nominated for the Emmy in the second season was unexpected, as the directing, acting, and writing were all of a greater range than the first season, and the crew were getting good at finding the nuances that made the show worth watching. Emery was not so vain as to believe he deserved another award, and he had discovered in himself somewhat of a disregard for them. He considered them cohorts in keeping his name in the hat, but had learned they could not stop a show from being cancelled. He now considered his Emmys to function mostly as a bonus to his resume. The reason he hoped a nomination would occur was more due to the hard, strong work others were putting into the program of late, and especially the work of Larry Belmont. Unfortunately, three of the episodes shot on videotape had been Belmont’s, and most of the staff, and possibly the Emmy nomination group, felt the episodes looked like garbage (a result that made Buck Mifflin, the director for most episodes of the season, furious).
Larry had been turning in fetching, excellent scripts. The younger writer deserved some recognition. Calvin Moffat had three episodes in the season, and they were good ones, but Belmont had begun to demonstrate an ability to rise quite high in the game, and he was no longer emulating Emery’s previous scripts, but branching in his own direction. This was rapidly becoming an excellent direction. Larry deserved a bit of award, but this might have to wait for another season, another show, perhaps the next probable point in Belmont’s career.
“Listen, Larry. I’ll go talk to Orson Banry tomorrow. You shouldn’t have to do that.”
“Thanks, Em. But no, I’ll do it. It should be me.”
“Are you sure? I could go with you.”
“He hates you, Em.”
“That’s true.”
The Best Writing Emmy went, surprisingly, to Major’s Mission, a farcical serial about World War I, and a ramshackle group of men that were all, to general estimation, bumbling and inconsequent. The show felt almost as if the network was trying to shoot the comic Beetle Bailey as a prime-time, television event, but somehow hadn’t been able to secure the rights. As comedies went, the show was not so bad, but being awarded an Emmy was unexpected, and it shocked just about everyone. The directing was adequate, but the writing was poor and hackneyed. If an Emmy needed to be given to Major’s Mission, for whatever reason, it would have been better suited for the director, who showed a fair skill, and not the writer, who exhibited little talent.
Calvin Moffat had turned and mouthed ‘What?” to Emery when the award was announced, and Emery had widened his eyes and shrugged in response. That the writing for this comedy had won an Emmy was right out of left field, and even the applause after the announcement seemed confused and hesitant. The writing was stilted, gag-oriented, and did not change much between episodes, often re-using various jokes in a given season. Emery’s surprise at not having The Other Side nominated was not as great as Jamison’s, however, and in a sort of strange solidarity with The Other Side, Sol Jamison did not attend the Emmy awards. This was arrogant and grumpy, Emery thought, and so he resigned himself to considering Jamison an unrepentant stick-in-the-mud, and going on with the fun time of the award ceremony. Of course, The Other Side had won two the previous year (a situation that had never occurred before, with any show), and this undoubtedly played a big part in who had been nominated this year. There were politics involved, surely.
When the statues were depleted and the faces of the audience had grown tired and antsy from sitting too long, the show closed. The members of the audience made their way outside, some to valets, some to the vehicles that crowded the surrounding parking lots. The public waited outside, attempting to get a word with various personnel and familiar, televised faces. This was somewhat new. There had always been a degree of recognition and fan-dodging after the awards ceremony, but the crowd of these waiting devotees and hobnobbers had ripened over the years; they were now au fait with the awards, and their numbers had grown with sincerity. Emery twice found himself cornered and unable to move, fielding brief and playful answers to people who recognized him as the host of The Other Side. Some of these people were the quiet, staring sort, and amidst these, one could detect the sneaky presence of other writers, here and there, among the waiting fans.
When another writer approached, as an unknown, the questions were sharp and difficult to toy with on the spot. Emery wished each the best of luck, and quickly continued inching his way past the groups. Beth held his hand, staying beside him, a bit startled and put off by the situation of forced milling with strangers, but the fans were tolerable in that, once Emery made his route clear and asked them to make room, they did so. In the coming years, he thought, the studio might find it useful to designate some police in accompanying show personnel to award ceremonies, or at the least, a security agency.
“KEEP IT COMING, ASHER!” a young man shouted.
“THANKS FOR WATCHING!” Emery called back.
Belmont and Moffat followed Emery through the crowd, amazed at the presence of so many people who enjoyed the show. While they were not recognized, and had no screen-time beyond those fun moments when they were placed in costume in a crowd scene, they were most certainly privileged to the warmth of the show’s reception. Moffat couldn’t remove the legitimate smile from his face, and Belmont looked over the crowd as if he were a child glancing from the window on his first ever flight in an airplane.
Over drinks at the Philadelphia Street Café, a large, confusingly named bar in south Hollywood, one that was neither a café nor located on Philadelphia Street, the small after-party for the Emmy ceremony was in full swing. With the bar closed off for the night and reserved by specific television producers and chosen friends, many had gathered and were having a night of celebration. Only one winner that night was present, but there was much fun in the air and the noise of talk was an incessant effect. Emery and Beth sat at a large table with Larry and Helen, listening as Moffat, in an energetic mode of thought, commented to his group that if he had any brains, he would have run off for the night with one of the beautiful female fans that had made such delightful comments when he was exiting the ceremony. The only unmarried writer, and in fact, one of the very few unmarried members of the production, Moffat had many stories to tell regarding his bizarre exploits in Hollywood. Beyond his partial catch-phrase of ‘these Hollywood girls are out of their minds’, usually uttered at least once with each tale, he was also quite apt with describing or improvising his stranger meetings with studio executives and various actors. Moffat had a surreal gift for live storytelling, and Emery had been caught more than once in the position of being unable to turn away during one of Moffat’s tall, Los Angeles tales.
Emery and Larry had been known to tell an autobiographical story or two, as all writers did (and some to an obsessive fault), and director Buck Mifflin was nearly a legend for his outright lies when it came to talking about his past, but Moffat had a special gift for relating himself to others. His gestures, voice, the way he built up over time... it made every outing with crew a strange delicacy, and got Emery thinking about possible future shows, and how Calvin Moffat might make his own sort of excellent host, one day, perhaps with a comedy. You looked at him and you wanted him to make you laugh, right there on the first word. It was that simple.
Beth and Helen arrived shortly, as was the arrangement. Emery and Beth sat at the table in the cafe, discussing the night and various other things with Larry and Helen, while Calvin stood nearby, having stopped his trek to the bar for a moment upon overhearing Emery mention the name of a club downtown.
“Gunner’s? Naw, you don’t want to go over there. That’s no good at all. Place is muy annoying. It’s all free jazz. There’s nothing worse,” Moffat said.
“I’ve been there; I sort of like it. It’s relaxing,” Emery replied.
“With one guy did
dling a bass while another guy blasts you with a sax? Get the rest of the band and we can talk. Two guys? It’s worthless.”
“You just have to sit back and listen. There’s a weird charm to it.”
“Em, without the presence of other horns and strings-”
“It’s about mood. It makes a mood,” Emery added.
“No way. There’s no singer, they’re missing instruments,” Moffat went on, “It’s like this: I’m pretty sure that the lone squeal of a saxophone... is the exact noise a hemorrhoid would make, if its terrible little sting could be represented by a sound.”
“Oh dear,” Helen Belmont said.