“I heard it from his own lips,” he said. Another old line.
“Since when is he so susceptible to distraction? All his films were created in the midst of chaos. She’s got some hold on him, I know it.”
“I had the impression once she was coaching him. That means nothing. A lot of old people take direction from their spouses. Even some young creative types depend on someone to prod them into action. He certainly didn’t act as if he was afraid of her.”
“You’re absolutely sure it was him.”
“He’s almost as recognizable as his stars. I’ve seen his Sixty Minutes interview at least—” He broke off.
“What is it? You just thought of something.”
He shook his head. “Probably nothing. I watch millions of feet of film every week; it’s easy to get mixed up. Do you have any of your father’s interviews on film or tape?”
“At the office. I have my key with me.”
“You take all the fun out of breaking and entering.”
Angela’s desk was no different from the others at Celluloide except for the work piled on top. It stood in the middle of the floor without any partitions to separate it from those of the lowly columnists and copywriters whose labor filled the magazine. When she switched on the gooseneck lamp the cone of hard white light reminded Valentino of the monochrome settings of most of Giuseppe Diavolo’s early films.
She rummaged through drawers filled with videotapes in cardboard sleeves, found one bearing the hand-lettered label she wanted, and popped it into a combination TV/VCR on the desk. The tape contained an interview with the director on Italian television. Diavolo sat in a plastic scoop chair on a bare soundstage with his legs crossed and one hand holding an unlit cigar resting on his raised knee. He wore a white suit and black sunglasses, just as he had on his terrace. Only the Panama hat was missing, exposing his full head of snowy hair.
“Shall I translate?” Angela asked.
“Not necessary. Doesn’t your father ever light his cigars?”
“No. He only holds them to make that hand look natural. He lost the use of it when the Allies bombed his village during the war.”
“That’s what I’d heard.” He leaned his face close to the screen, then straightened. “Your eyes are younger than mine. Can you read the monogram on his shirt pocket?”
“G.D.,” she said after looking. “What did you expect?”
“I wanted to be sure the film wasn’t reversed. That happens sometimes, by accident or design. Whenever William Bendix stepped up to the plate in The Babe Ruth Story, they reversed the negative so he appeared to bat from the left side, like Ruth. The editors didn’t seem to mind that he ran the bases backwards. If the monogram reads all right the film wasn’t tampered with.”
“What does that have to do with my father?”
When Valentino looked at her, his excitement turned to sympathy. “It means you may have to prepare for the worst.”
She parked the little car down the hill from the villa and they got out. It was a clear night; the archivist could scarcely tell where the stars ended and the lights of Florence began. “Do you think you can keep her from slamming the door in your face long enough for me to walk around to the terrace?”
“I can try. Are you sure we shouldn’t call the police?”
“With no more than we have to go on, I wouldn’t be surprised if Inspector Cabrini fined you and deported me for invading the privacy of Florence’s most distinguished citizen.”
As she rang the doorbell, he slipped around the corner of the house and waited between two windows, hugging the wall like Cary Grant in North by Northwest. When he heard the door open he hurried to the back of the house and stepped onto the terrace.
It was deserted. He tried the back door. It was locked. He sagged against it, cursing every movie he had seen in which illegal entry was so much more convenient. At that instant a latch turned on the other side with a dry rasp. He scrambled behind a tall planter just as the door opened and Giuseppe Diavolo came out.
Except it wasn’t Diavolo.
The man in the white suit whom Valentino had met that afternoon wore neither hat nor glasses. His pink bald head gleamed in the light of the electric lamps flanking the door. He had not a strand of the impressive white hair of the man in the television interview. The film detective was still assimilating that fact when the bald man drew a cigar from an inside pocket and set fire to it with a lighter, using both hands.
Valentino stepped out from behind the planter. “Who are you?” he demanded.
The bald man started and turned. Rapidly his expression changed from shock to recognition to a bluff smile.
“Signore Chaplin, is it not? I did not hear Constanza announce you.”
“The name is Valentino. And yours is not Diavolo. Who are you?”
He puffed at the cigar, obviously framing an argument. Then he looked at the hand holding the cigar, and from that to the other in which the lighter still rested. At that moment he appeared to shrink in upon himself like a balloon deflating.
The back door banged open and Constanza Diavolo tore out onto the terrace. She was still wearing the maroon velvet dress and her face flushed nearly as dark when she saw the hatless impostor and Valentino standing together. Valentino stepped back involuntarily from the flood of harsh Italian that rushed out at him.
Angela Mondadori appeared in the doorway. “I couldn’t hold her any longer.” Then she saw the bald man wearing one of her father’s white suits. “Who are you?”
“I’m waiting for that answer,” Valentino said.
Signora Diavolo added gestures to her diatribe, slashing her sharp-nailed hands at the air. The bald man said something in Italian, then repeated it in a louder voice. She stopped in mid sentence, looked from one face to another, and burst into tears. “Rovina! Imbecille, you have ruined me!” She stumbled over to the table beneath the umbrella and collapsed into a chair with her face in her hands.
Valentino told Angela to call the police. She turned to comply.
“Wait!”
Angela turned back. The bald man lowered the hand he had raised, and with it the last vestige of his facade. His eyes were gray and watery. Valentino wondered how he could ever have mistaken this beaten old man for an immortal director.
“My name is Lloyd Bugleman.” The accent now was eastern American, possibly New Jersey. “I’m an entertainer.”
Constanza Diavolo moaned, a heart-rending sound. The film detective ignored her. “Entertain us.”
“Believe it or not, I’ve faced tougher rooms.” Bugleman’s attempt at humor died in the silence. He cleared his throat. “My impressions didn’t go over so well at home, so I came here, where they’re not so particular about my Jimmy Cagney. My mother was Italian. She taught me the language.”
“She did a good job,” Valentino said. “You managed to fool an Italian police official.”
“It helps that I look so much like Giuseppe Diavolo. People trust their eyes more than their ears. When Constanza’s brother caught my act he was impressed enough to offer me an extended gig for three times what I was making in that ratty little club in the suburbs. All I had to do was study Diavolo’s TV interviews, put on the suit, and do my act for visitors who wouldn’t go away. He said it was just a job,” he added quickly.
“It isn’t my brother’s fault. Don’t blame Roberto.”
Angela and Valentino looked at Constanza. She was staring at the flagstones now with her hands limp. There might have been a time when her tears would have added to her fragile beauty. Now they merely made ugly tracks in her heavy makeup.
“Where is my father?” Angela’s voice was toneless.
“He died. Two months ago. It was his heart, I think. He went to sleep one night and I could not wake him in the morning.”
Valentino said, “Why didn’t you call the police?”
“He was dead and cold. There was no use.”
“When a man dies, you’re supposed to report it,” Ange
la said. She seemed about to say more, but stopped when Constanza raised her head to look at her. She was no longer crying. Her eyes were dead.
“I was born povero, misero.” She looked at Valentino. “There is no proper word for it in English; poor does not answer. Giuseppe willed this house, this property, everything in it, to the government in Rome. For a museum, he said. He didn’t care about me. Only his memory. I could not be povero again.”
“Where is my father’s body?” Angela’s voice broke.
“Under these stones. Roberto buried him. Do not blame him. He was only helping his sister.” Her eyes came to life, softened. “I am so sorry I did what I had to do to you. You were the one person Bugleman could not have fooled.”
Bugleman spread his hands. “They didn’t tell me any of this. It was just a gig to me. You’ll tell the police I cooperated when I found out.”
“Not asking the questions you didn’t want to know the answers to doesn’t make you innocent.” Valentino was cold.
Angela said, “Constanza is right.”
All eyes were on her. She stood framed in the doorway, a tall, beautiful young woman with not a little of her father’s presence.
“If my father cared as much for people as he did for his legacy, this would not have happened. I know how it feels to be abandoned through no fault of one’s own. I can’t punish Constanza for that.”
“The authorities have to be told,” Valentino said. “If they find out on their own, it will go a lot harder for her.”
Angela went over and sank down on one knee beside her stepmother. “Celluloide’s copyright attorney belongs to a large firm. He’ll recommend a good criminal lawyer, as well as a probate attorney who will see that you receive a decent settlement from my father’s estate. You were with him almost twenty years. There are laws to protect you.”
Constanza shook her head. “I cannot afford lawyers.”
“The magazine can. I have backers.”
“What’s in it for the magazine?” asked Valentino.
“First screening privileges on all the Diavolo films that have been in storage for forty years. That is, if Constanza agrees.”
“But I do not own them.”
“That will be the settlement.”
Her stepmother’s face filled with wonder. In that moment she looked no older than Angela. “I do not go to il penitenzario?”
“I’m the daughter, and the injured party. I’ll testify on your behalf. You may have to pay a fine for improper disposal of a body.” Angela made a wry face at Valentino. “We can introduce a respected historian from America as a character witness. I think the donation of a print of L’enfanti del Inferno to the UCLA archives would be an appropriate gesture of gratitude.”
Valentino said, “She’s the finest woman I’ve ever known.”
Angela stood and helped Constanza to her feet. The two women went into the house, one supporting the other with an arm across her back. Valentino and Lloyd Bugleman were left alone on the terrace. The entertainer relit his cigar, the flame shaking. He took a puff and let it out with a shudder. “So what happens to me?”
“Back to the ratty little club.”
He nodded. Then he narrowed his eyes. “I thought I had my act down cold. What tipped you off?”
“The cigar. You held it in your left hand. It was Diavolo’s right that was paralyzed. The cigar was a prop to discourage people from grabbing and shaking it.”
Bugleman looked down at his hands. “Constanza told me about that in the beginning. I tried to make the switch, but it just didn’t feel right after all those weeks onstage. I didn’t think anyone would notice.”
“Next time, don’t rehearse in front of a mirror,” Valentino said.
The Day Hollywood Stood Still
“KLAATU BARADA NIKTO.”
“I’m sorry?”
In confusion, Valentino repeated the phrase. “You know,” he said. “From the original. If Patricia Neal got it wrong, Michael Rennie was dead. I thought it might break the ice.”
Quincy Dundrear, twenty-four, with his head shaved clean as a stone and one nostril pierced with a pearl the size of a thumbtack, scratched his chest through a black T-shirt with a pair of pigs making love on the front. His last two pictures had made a billion and a half for Fox.
“I thought you were remaking The Day the Earth Stood Still,” Valentino said. “If you’ve forgotten everything else about the film, you’re sure to remember Klaatu barada nikto.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I never saw the picture. We’re going a different direction this time. When the alien stops all the power on earth, the fire engines can’t get around and L.A. burns to the ground.”
“L.A.? The original took place in Washington, D.C.”
The young director wrinkled his nose. The pearl looked like a giant zit. “Washington’s so done since Independence Day. We’re going to blow up the Hollywood Bowl and the Hall of Justice.”
“What’s Gort doing while all this is going on?”
“Gort?”
“The giant robot. The one Patricia Neal had to persuade to bring Michael Rennie back to life and save the world from destruction.”
“Why would she want to do that? No explosions, no box office. You have to wonder how the industry got along before The Terminator.”
“So no Gort.”
“If that’s his name. We’re making the robot small and cute, like R2-D2. Our villain’s scary enough; an oil company CEO who wants to demolish a homeless center in East L. A. so he can drill for crude.”
“He shouldn’t have to drill too deep in this movie.”
Valentino shifted his weight in the beanbag chair. Dundrear’s office was done entirely in early seventies, complete with orange shag wall-to-wall and Charlie’s Angels posters in frames. The director was leaning against one of those clunky dark-veneer-over-chipboard desks with phony chisel marks.
He looked at his watch, a gold Rolex on a chain around his bare neck. “Who did you say sent you?”
“UCLA. I’m with the Film Preservation Department. We have the master print of the 1951 Day the Earth Stood Still and we want to strike a new print and digitally enhance the soundtrack for video re-release, to coincide with the premiere of your version. We’ll divide the profits with Fox in return for distribution rights. You producer likes the idea, but he suggested I talk to you so we’re all on the same page.”
“What’ll you do with your end?”
“Invest it in film preservation. Did you know ninety percent of all movies made before sound are lost forever? We want to prevent such attrition in the future.”
“Why?”
“Well, as a cinematic artist yourself, I’m sure you agree that the classics of the form should remain available for appreciation and study. You must have gone to film school.”
“I quit tenth grade to direct rock videos. I went from there to TV commercials. In between jobs, I shot a slasher flick on a ten-thousand-dollar budget. It grossed two million domestic, and here I am.”
“Why’d you choose to remake a picture you haven’t seen and care nothing about?”
“Financing. All these rich computer geeks sat through it a thousand times. The title alone saved making a pitch. They couldn’t turn out their Swiss bank accounts fast enough. From what I hear, there were almost no special effects in the original; that’ll add the extra half-hour the running time needs and dress up the trailer. Also there’s a babe, an obnoxious kid, and a jerk boyfriend. The casting call will look like an episode of Entertainment Tonight.”
“Who plays the alien?”
“Jim Carrey’s looking for a change of pace.”
Valentino needed a change too. “What about the rights to distribute the original?”
“Officially I have no control over that, but if the studio agrees to give them to you, I’ll walk. The last thing I need is another property competing with mine.”
“That doesn’t say much for your property.”
Dundrear
’s tongue came out when he smiled. A silver stud glittered in the ambient light. “When Godzilla tanked the first weekend, sales and rentals on the original spiked up forty percent. If the videotape hadn’t been available, the new film might have made back its investment Saturday night. I didn’t get this job by sitting around letting history repeat itself.”
“In that case we have nothing to talk about.” Valentino stood.
“Stay in touch. I’ll send you two tickets to the premiere.”
“No, thanks. I’ll wait till it comes out on video.”
Franklin Poll, Quincy Dundrear’s producer, had changed in the years since his first directorial effort, a gritty crime drama set in his native Chicago, had revolutionized the gangster movie. He’d put on weight, shorn his curly locks, and trimmed his beard, now streaked generously with silver; but the eyes behind the granny glasses were bright, and his voice was youthful. He welcomed Valentino back into his office with a firm handshake and sat him down in his prized Eames chair. The walls were paneled in teak and bare but for a huge original four-sheet poster of Captain Blood mounted behind the desk, where his Oscar for Best Direction stood on display. Poll took a seat on the Eames footstool with his hands gripping his thighs.
“What did you think of Quincy?”
“Not much,” Valentino said. “He’s a snotty kid well on his way to becoming a full-grown jackass.”
“Agreed. But a jackass with talent. How he manages his narrative pace without leaving half his audience in the dust is beyond me. In film school, we thought the screwball comedies of the thirties moved quickly, but Bloodslide makes Blonde Crazy look like Ivan the Terrible.”
“If you told him, he wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. He has little interest in cinema history and less respect.”
“He’s not alone. This new crowd knows only jump cuts and blackouts. They grew up on MTV. But they bring the kids into the theaters, and that’s all the studios care about.” The adolescent tenor took on a bitter edge.
Valentino: Film Detective Page 8