by Sam Toperoff
Hammett wrote:
Telephone rings twice.
EFFIE: Samuel Spade, Private Investigations. Mr. Spade isn’t in at the moment. May I take a message?
TELEPHONE VOICE, BREATHLESS, DESPERATE: This is Miss Carver, Sheila Carver. I must see Mr. Spade as soon as possible.
EFFIE: Try to be calm, Miss Carver. Just tell me what the problem is. I’m sure Mr. Spade will be able to help.
SHEILA, TEARFULLY: It’s my father. They say he killed himself. He never would have … he couldn’t have. I’m sure he was murd—
“Hammett, Samuel.” It sounded exactly like roll call. The master sergeant pointed to the first office door: “Major’ll see you now.”
On that first visit Major Gold never looked up from the old man’s application. All his words were discouraging: age, of course, rigors of basic, not the same army as twenty-five years ago, problem fitting in with the kids. Hammett said he had the legal right to a physical exam and didn’t plan to leave until he received one. Dr. Gold took his blood pressure, listened to his heart, looked down his throat and in his ears, tapped his patella, grabbed his nuts, and had him cough and then cough again. A passable forty-eight-year-old man. But barely. Chest problems?
“Heavy smoker.”
“Pneumonia maybe?”
“Long ago. A touch.”
Hammett said, “I don’t want to seem pushy here, Doc, but don’t the country owe me a little consideration for my first service?”
Major Gold did look at him then and said he would need to see some new lung X-rays and offered to make an appointment for him at Fort Hamilton Veterans Hospital. Come back in three weeks and we’ll look at the pictures. Gold was sure he’d seen the last of Samuel Hammett.
Hammett was back with his X-rays one week later. Dr. Marvin Gold came out of his office as soon as he heard Hammett speaking to the master sergeant. Gold said, “Why didn’t you tell me who you were? It hit me soon as I saw the middle name.” He led the celebrity to his office.
Hammett said, “I’m the same old codger I was last week. Only a week older.”
“You know what I mean. Please. Sit.”
Gold was a movie buff and had seen every Thin Man twice. He wanted to know what Myrna Loy was really like. As sweet and funny as she seemed? And Powell, what kind of guy? How long did it take Hammett to write one of those scripts? And Asta, how did they get him to do all those things; was it trick photography?
Hammett not only answered all his questions, he expanded his answers with anecdotes, lots of them, a few of which were true. By the time they finally got around to discussing his enlistment, Major Gold was inclined to be an ally. There were still some significant bureaucratic obstacles—Gold said he had to clear these sorts of cases with superiors—but he himself was favorably inclined. Somewhat less so when he put Hammett’s X-rays up on the scope. They called it consumption back in ’19 when he first succumbed. Then tuberculosis. It was TB to the world now. It had left indelible scars on Hammett’s left lung that were going to be a very hard sell to the doctor’s colonel, but Gold would see what he could do. Come back in two weeks … and more important, did Hammett actually know any of the stars personally as friends? Who, for example? Marlene Dietrich, did he know her to talk to?
“Extremely well,” Hammett said. He’d met her twice briefly.
“Was there any chance he could get her to …?”
“You’ll have it next time I see you. Do you want it To Major Gold or Dear Marvin?”
“Marvin would drive my wife crazy.”
“Marvin it’ll be.”
Hammett bought a posed glossy photo of Dietrich in Morocco from Steuben’s Stationery on Broadway. He had a choice and opted for the still with the brightest background. Von Sternberg, the director, was so in love with Dietrich he always highlighted her brilliantly with surrounding darkness. In the Morocco glossy she wears the signature top hat and tails. A cigarette holder is clenched in her teeth. There is at least enough light in the upper right-hand corner for an inscription. Hammett wrote, To my dear Marvin—There’s something about a soldier! Fondly, Marlene.
He slipped the photo in an oversized envelope in which he had received a returned screenplay from Paramount. Perfect fit.
Major Gold was speechless when he held the photo before him, lip-reading To my dear Marvin … But even before he handed Gold the promised bribe, Hammett felt something had gone wrong. There was a problem with his enlistment.
“I feel terrible,” Gold said. “They overruled.”
“The problem?”
“Lungs.”
“So I’ll go get some better-looking X-rays. Was it an order?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did they order you to reject?”
“It’s not like that. They returned the file with a finding. See, it’s on the folder, here—‘We find the candidate unqualified at this time for …’ ”
“Marvin. Surely you still have some discretion in the matter. It isn’t an order. You’ve got that ‘at this time’ to play with …”
“I’ve never done anything like—”
“Let me ask you this. If you were to accept my enlistment, where would that file go?”
“It would follow you to assignment. I’d recommend Signal Corps. Fort Monmouth.”
“Then it wouldn’t go back upstairs. They’d never know—or even care—what happened to Hammett with the lungs.”
Gold shook his head. And then sat silently. He was mulling. Hammett knew to remain silent. Gold reached into his desk and pulled out an official form. He began to print. “Okay,” he said to Hammett, “I’ll let you into this war. But I hope you understand this is absolutely the last time.”
LILLIAN WAS AT THE TABLE when the phone rang, looking approvingly at her arms and the backs of her strong hands in the sunlight. Her habit of anticipating her caller and determining whether or not to pick up caused her to signal Zenia to let it ring. It could be Hammett, whom she did not want to speak with. Or Childs, whom she did. She picked up warily. The voice was its own identification. Early in the day as it was, his voice was already tuned like a cello. Even before she heard “This is the president,” it was indeed the president.
What she remembered of the conversation was a string of compliments about the quality of her work, especially The Spanish Earth, her courage and patriotism, and the country’s need for an even more pressing political film. When the president left pauses, Lillian filled with, “Yes, Mr. President,” “Of course, sir,” “Thank you, Mr. President.”
Would she be willing to create—that was his word, create—a film that introduced the Soviet Union favorably to the American public?
“More than willing, Mr. President.”
“Object, you see, is to transform a former adversary into an admired ally. Quickly. No mean feat. Up to it?”
“Please, Mr. President.” This was as close as she came to being her truest self with the caller.
Did she know Mr. Goldwyn well? He pronounced the name Goldwine.
“Extremely well, sir.”
Goldwyn’s studio would produce and distribute the film. If Miss Hellman was “on board,” she would hear later today from the president’s son James, who was organizing things in Hollywood. The pause pertained to if and on board.
“They’ll have to throw me off the train, sir.”
“Questions?”
“Only the time frame, sir.”
“Surely you know the answer to that, Miss Hellman.”
Afterward she sat quietly at the table smiling and looking out over Hardscrabble. Zenia was at the sink shaking her head and clucking. The President Roosevelt himself, cluck, cluck, cluck, my, my, my.
Lillian’s personal pleasure gave way to the pleasure of the challenge—adversary to ally. No, not the why of it, only what it could mean to us … the lives saved. Getting even with the Rats. Spain had not gone well, maybe this time …
She was taken out of her thoughts by a tapping on the back window. Ce
dric Childs, right on time.
“Coffee, Zenia.” That meant Lilly wanted to talk. Childs sat down.
She asked him to guess who had just called. He refused. “The president. I just hung up. Right, Zenia?”
“Yes, Mr. Childs.” She placed a cup of coffee in front of him.
“He had an assignment for me, which I accepted. I’m afraid it’s going to screw up our plans for the planting royally.” Lillian explained in general and said she’d know more of the details after she spoke with the president’s son, maybe as early as later today.
“Which means?”
“Which means, I think, our planting season has gone to war.”
“And why exactly is that?”
“The president wants the movie made right away. I’ve got to start writing immediately. I’ll be working on it all the time, probably traveling out to the coast for it. Much as I love farming this place …”
“How long do you anticipate …”
“I’ll know better after I talk to …”
Zenia said, “If you won’t be needing me, I’ll just …” She left the room.
“It would break my heart to see this place go fallow again. I would never have asked you to. I’m not even asking you to now.”
“The farm’s asking, isn’t it?”
She squeezed his hand. “You’re remarkable.” Lillian stood and kissed Cedric Childs on an unshaved cheek.
JAMES ROOSEVELT CALLED that evening. If the father’s was a cello, James’s voice was a viola. The speech patterns, the intonations, the accent and pronunciations were the same. The son, however, pronounced Goldwyn correctly.
This is what Lillian learned: the project had been presented to colonels Warner, Mayer, and Goldwyn. Only Goldwyn accepted. Production costs would be carried by the government and repaid out of profits, if any. The film would be a commercial release, so Lillian would have to make arrangements with Goldwyn for a fee, a surprise because Lillian hadn’t expected to be paid for her contribution. Some very fine and well-known actors had already committed, Roosevelt said. Which ones? Not yet at liberty to say, which meant that the project was still at the throwing-names-around stage.
Did Lillian have any story ideas?
She did indeed. Her basic Spanish Earth idea, which had really been discarded by Hemingway and Ivens—only now it will be a farming village in the Ukraine that comes under attack. Bombed by the Luftwaffe, taken by the Wehrmacht. The peasants organize and resist. This plot idea came straight off daily news reports as the German army rolled eastward across the wheat fields of the Soviet Union. “The important thing here, Mr. Roosevelt …”
“Please call me Jimmy, Miss Hellman.”
“I’m Lilly, Jimmy.”
“Fine.”
“The important thing is to start the story earlier and show how much like us these people are … or were … before they were attacked. Same hardworking people as us. Same aspirations for our children. Same taste for freedom. That essential similarity is the key for me dramatically and psychologically, and it’s what we have in common and what we both risk losing to these bastards.” Lillian knew she had something good to build on and certainly had Roosevelt’s attention. “So the Nazis take over the village. The young men take to the hills to form partisan defense groups. This all has to be worked out—I only heard about the project a few hours ago, but …”
“I’m enthused, Lillian …”
“… but I can assure you everything will be a drama, not a tract. There must be young lovers, the village mayor, the doctor, the teacher, a class of children. Do you have any idea who will direct?”
“Goldwyn tells me Milestone.”
“Lewis would be ideal.”
Lewis Milestone already had two Academy Awards and two other nominations. For this project his All Quiet on the Western Front was credential enough. Milestone was an American invention: Lev Milstein was born in Russia, another obvious advantage.
“It’s clear this project needed you. Thank you for coming on board.”
“I hate on board. I’m simply glad to have the chance to work on this.”
“Stand corrected. Tell me, when do you think we can see a story outline? No matter how rough.”
“Give me two weeks.”
“If not sooner. They tell me you’re fast.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Anyway, I’ll see what progress I can make out here. Would it be okay to have Mr. Milestone call you?”
“Fine.”
“And Mr. Goldwyn?”
“Less fine, but fine.”
“Well, Miss Hel—, Lilly, I have to say I’m very encouraged having spoken with you. I’ve had my doubts this project would ever happen or be successful. Now, I’m quite sure of both.”
“Thanks, Jimmy.”
A STORY IN TWO WEEKS, something like that required talks with Hammett. She knew she’d have to call him, because she had always called him, but she decided to see how well she could do on her own first.
Lillian knew next to nothing about the Ukraine, at least not about the non-Jewish Ukraine, or village life therein. Nothing about wheat farming. And, other than the headlines, very little about the German advance into Russia strategically or tactically. Hammett. Damn him. Who else?
When Zenia arrived in Katonah, she had a message for Hammett from Lillian: “I have a surprise. Please call.” He did. After the house cleaning Lillian picked them all up and drove them back to Pleasantville. As awkward as it was for Zenia, Lillian insisted she sit in the front with her; Hammett was in the back with Gilbert.
“So what’s your big surprise?”
“Tell you after you’ve got a fire going and we have drinks in hand.”
“Sounds like a surprise I’m going to like.”
Gilbert played with a toy soldier, a British “Tommy” Hammett had given him. Except for some machine gun sounds the boy made, they drove the darkening back roads in silence.
Hammett started a fire and made drinks. Zenia began dinner. Lillian changed from a sweater and slacks into another sweater and slacks. She joined him on the sofa that faced the fire. The wood crackled while they watched. Hammett raised his glass first.
“So?”
Lillian traced what she knew about the project from the president’s phone call to the present moment.
Hammett thought while fingering his mustache, his lips, his chin. All his first questions dealt with the specifics of production. Commercial release? Goldwyn’s role? Director? Cast? Locations? Time frame? Censorship? Basically all the questions Lillian had asked and was still waiting to have clarified. Had she signed anything? Would she be paid? How much? Was it only script work?
They spoke slowly and with care about all these things before they advanced to the more challenging matter of how to make a movie that could change an American’s attitude about Communist Russia.
Zenia called, “Dinner.”
As they walked into the kitchen, Hammett said, “I’ve got your title.” He explained over T-bones, green beans, and baked potatoes that the most successful farm collective in the Ukraine was called “The North Star.” Hellman liked the title.
This was what Lillian loved—talking about projects—his and hers—discovering facts, finding connections, developing strategies. Hammett was especially good at this. What he said rarely translated directly into what she did with an idea, but what he said usually set her off on a Hellman riff that produced music he could never make himself. If collaboration of this quality was a form of love, Hellman and Hammett were very much in love again on this night.
His most important suggestion Lillian had already come up with on her own: set the piece in a time before the Germans arrive so we see the contrast between people working hard and raising families well and those same people later fighting for their lives. Americans are just starting to learn these same lessons for themselves. Remind the audience of that dramatic contrast—normal life poisoned by a war they did not start.
She let him
speak on and on. Costumes authentic, yes. Tractors, hay wagons, wheat fields, all location stuff really. But no phony Russian accents. Make them all sound like Americans. Give the Germans the accents. As the Nazis advance, the people are required to burn their crops, or they will be used to nourish the enemy—in one scene the villagers argue among themselves about Russia’s “scorched earth” policy. Imagine! Farmers having to destroy what they grow. Farmers! And then having to destroy every other damn thing the Germans might find useful. Homes, barns, farm equipment, everything. The dramatic possibilities were powerful.
It wasn’t yet midnight. Lillian said, “Wait.” She picked up the phone and asked for the long distance operator. “I’m sorry to call this late … You’re kind. I have a working title I wanted to share with you. I find it so much easier to work when I have a title. It tells me where I’m going … The North Star … Yes, I do too … Thank you, Jimmy. Remember, The North Star. Tell the others. Of course … It’s going well … Talk to you soon.”
Hammett said, “He’s single … and they say he’s Jewish too.”
“Very funny.”
Which brought him to Lewis Milestone né Lev Milstein. Regardless of reputation and awards, Lillian knew that no director she worked with could ever be good enough for her in Hammett’s eyes. So when he warned her against caving in to Milestone’s authority, dramatic authority he meant, Lillian said, “But he’s a Russian, for Christ’s sake.”
“No. He’s a Jew from Bessarabia. Here’s what that means. The Ukrainians in the story are not Jews. If truth be told, they hate Jews. Milstein left before the Revolution. Nicholas was tsar. I’d wager he never saw a wheat field in his life. So don’t assume—”
“I won’t, dear.”
It wasn’t enough, he went on, to make it a war story, even an antiwar story, certainly not another All Quiet. It must be a morality play. Evil attempts to destroy good. Good fights back bravely. Will it triumph? Can’t be sure … that’s why we fight. The problem, the writing challenge, is how to create and dramatize the evil. In Spain it was bombing civilians and no one gave a shit. They do it now every night in London, and that gets our attention, but we still don’t see it as a morality play.