The Berlin Connection

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  The Nazis, in the name of Germany, in the greatest of mass genocides, were guilty of the death of six million Jews; guilty of a war in which sixty million people of all nations and races died. The guilty were undisturbed by conscience. The dreadful events passed. Whatever doubts their countrymen had were fleeting as a dream, about as permanent as a night watch. Feverishly the world was preparing for a new, even more dreadful war. Since my days as a child star nations had advanced, even philosophers had become activists; satellites circled the earth; a few cobalt bombs were sufficient to atomize the earth. All this had happened in the past twenty years, ever since I had last stood waiting for a car to take me to my work. Once again I was waiting: freezing, alone, afraid of failing, of being inadequate.

  I drove north through the desert streets, passing freezing laborers waiting at tram stops; newspaper delivery men and boys on bicycles. I passed the dismal Eppendorf-er peatbog swamp above which screeching crows circled. There were no more dwelling places here. I saw blacksoil, occasional farms, and rotting meadows. A scene of desolation. I would drive this route to the studio for the next few weeks usually at this early.hour. As I was playing the lead and would be in most takes, I had insisted that those scenes be shot first. Wardrobe, hairdressers, make-up took an hour for preliminaries. That meant a daily morning arrival at the studios by seven-thirty.

  I turned off into a country lane and slowly drove the car toward a dilapidated barn. Behind it, hidden from the road, stood an old Volkswagen. I left my car and opened the door of the other.

  "Good morning," said Schauberg. ''Get in."

  I did. He wore a new camel-colored flannel overcoat and a new blue suit. During the last few days I had seen him many times at the camp. Schauberg treated me daily and conscientiously. I received injections and medication for my circulation, my liver, my heart. Now he gave me an intravenous injection. He wore a new beret and smelled of cologne. He must have taken morphine; in time he seemed relaxed, confident, in good spirits. While giving me the shot he whistled the March of the Toreadors. Then, "Take one of these tablets now. Take the other two only when it is absolutely necessary. The first few days are the most difficult ones. Tm quite satisfied with you. When do you have lunch?"

  "From one to two."

  "Come back here then. And I'll be here again after six. You know you can always call Kathe should you need me. Apropos." He reached over to the backseat and picked up a bunch of asters. On the attached card was written in awkward letters "Good luck—Kathe Madler."

  "I wish you the very best too," said Schauberg, "because I still have forty-five thousand marks coming from you."

  16

  Professor, When you asked me to record my experiences you said and said more than once, "I want everything."

  Well, I have been conscientious, hiding nothing while I play monologist to the insensitive audience of this electronic mechanism. Its only response to the revelations of my most tormented experiences, my most agonizing secrets, is a routine, indifferent whirr and, as a variation, a click to warn me that the tape has come to its end.

  m tell you everything—but it would be unfair to you if I included the details of shooting in the studio. You wouldn't really care to know, would you, how often the signal sounded for silence, how often the slateboard listing the scene was held before the camera, what the script girl recorded, which takes were printed, which rejected, which of the film rushes were printed.

  Surely you know, if only generally, how films are made; how actors, directors, producers, technical men behave on the set. Surely you can imagine how bravely, how amiably we began; how earnestly we hated each other after weeks of work on the set.

  Most of what I will tell you about those days in the studio is what you will want to hear. The moments of creation and failure, of frustration and despair—of death and resurrection.

  • The Alhambra Studios were floodlit. There was the usual intense activity, the suppressed hysteria that precedes a first day's shooting.

  A white-haired man approached me as I entered and

  directed me to my dressing room, murmuring that it was the most comfortable in the studio. He was pretty old but genial, and he remained genial through my most diflBcult days.

  There were the usual telegrams offering good wishes and flowers too. After a quick look I murmured my thanks. Then, for an hour I went through the ordeal of make-up.

  17

  Not unexpectedly, the first quarrel came early. The production manager, Albrecht, thin, bent, grim-faced, limped into the room. He shouted at my make-up man. "What's going on, Otto? Olga says Miss King still has her curse!"

  Otto, Olga's husband, replied as loudly, "We sent you a notification in plenty of time. Now don't tell me that's not true! I have the carbon."

  Kostasch came in. "Don't yell like that, Albrecht! What's the trouble?"

  Still shouting, Albrecht explained.

  It seemed at first a silly argument over just when there would be close-ups of Miss King, then hardly in condition to have them taken. Somehow I sensed that the argument had been designed by Albrecht. He had some reason for dishking me. The quarreling trio finally agreed to hold the close-ups until later. Instead, shooting would begin with the difficult scene between the second lead, Henry Wallace, who was to play Miss King's husband, and me. Thanks, Albrecht, I thought, you managed that cleverly.

  I finished dressing and went to the set. I held Shirley's little cross tightly.

  Wallace who was about to murder me in a violent scene, already on the set, put out his hand in welcome.

  Seaton, the director, clapped his hands. "We'll run a test." A moment's pause while everyone froze in place. "Ready," said Seaton.

  Wallace seized a bronze lamp. I tried to evade him. He held its base high and sent it whirling at me. It struck the back of my head. Soundlessly, I collapsed on the thick carpet.

  For a few seconds there was silence. Then Seaton said, "That was quite good." He took Wallace and me aside, told us what he wanted changed. We played the scene three more times before Seaton was satisfied.

  "Ready," said Seaton.

  Then, for the first time in twenty years, I heard the words, the melody of my childhood.

  "Sound!"

  "Sound okay!"

  "Camera!"

  "Camera ready!"

  "Four twenty-seven, take one!" The take slate clicked.

  "Action!"

  An hour later the first of what was to become four hundred and thirty-three takes had had the director's approval.

  18

  In the next take Belinda King, playing Henry Wallace's wife, entered, discovered what had happened. The scene was long, but since her close-ups had been rescheduled we made more progress this morning than had been planned.

  I was playing dead on the floor. After a long argument with his wife, Wallace had called the police. The distressed couple were waiting for the homicide detectives to arrive. Then the camera moved in for »noth6r close-up

  of me, swung away, and focused on a script I had brushed off a table before my death. The camera lingered on it. Come Back, This shot was to be the last frame of the completed movie.

  "Break for lunch!" called an assistant director.

  Kostasch and Seaton came to me.

  "Great," said Kostasch.

  "Well, I don't know," I said.

  "No, really," said Kostasch. "Your expression was great. Am I right Thornton?"

  "Perfectly," said my director. "You were first class, Peter. I can't remember when I last had such a beautiful corpse!"

  "That's very nice of you," I said. Seaton had been one of Holl)rwood's greatest directors. He had one serious weakness: young boys. As young as they were, they had blackmailed him. In 1949 there had been a scandal; Seaton's arrest and trial. His lawyers had in turn blackmailed the boys and their parents. The verdict was favorable to him but, after the trial, women's organizations were vociferous in their disapproval. No studio dared employ Seaton for the next nine years. He had had lean
years writing scripts under a pseudonym or working as a cutter for television. Hopeless about his future as a director, he was suddenly rehabilitated when engaged to direct Come Back, He was known as a superb director—and he was now available for a relatively low fee.

  For this man, now past sixty, our film was as desperately important as it was for me. This was his last chance too. All his energies were focused on what had to be a triumph.

  But Kostasch was worried. He had mentioned to me that Seaton had been seen in nightclubs with his young German assistant, blond Hans, positively cute with his bright blue eyes and silky lashes.

  I left the studio quickly and drove to the dilapidated barn where Schauberg was waiting.

  After lunch we went through the rest of the sequence we had been shooting. Wallace knew that I had deceived him with his wife. I declared that I hated him, always had, and why. The scene began calmly, intensified, and climaxed with the murder.

  Everything went well, I made no mistakes. It astonished me that I was so confident before the camera. If Miss King's close-ups had been shot we would have been finished for the day. Now two hours remained. An earlier scene which I had not expected to play until the following day was to be shot. For me, what followed then was disastrous.

  19

  About halfway through a rather long scene, I shouted at Wallace, "You think with your goddamn money you can buy everybody!"

  We were rehearsing when I saw Albrecht whisper to Kostasch. Kostasch whispered to Seaton who then called Wallace and me to one side. It seemed "goddamn" was frowned on by the American movie code.

  "You know how it is," said Seaton. "We'll have to change the word later if we don't do it now. You'll say 'miserable' instead of 'goddamn,' Peter. Okay?"

  "Okay."

  We rehearsed it once. In the take everything went well until I came to the altered sentence. I yelled, "You think with your goddamn misery—"

  "Cut," said Seaton.

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  "It doesn't matter. We'll do it once more."

  This time I cried, "You think with your money you can buy all miserable—"

  "Cut."

  "I'm terribly sorry. It will be all right next time."

  "Well, of course!" said Seaton.

  The next time I spoke the line correctly but fluffed the next sentence.

  "Cut."

  I began to perspire.

  The make-up man dabbed my face and Seaton said amiably, "Just keep calm. It doesn't matter even if we have to do that take ten times!"

  20

  After I had ruined the tenth take most of those on the set avoided looking directly at me. A few did smile encouragingly in the manner of hospital nurses comforting a very sick man. I had gone through the dialogue with only minor slips but, in the last three takes, I had ruined the end of each scene. Nervous concentration on my role had exhausted me, left me quivering.

  Preparing for the eleventh take Wallace was whistling. Albrecht was cleaning his fingernails.

  Seaton asked me, "Perhaps we should leave the 'goddamn'; would that help? Then we'll have to synchronize the word later on."

  "That won't make any difference now," I said and looked at Albrecht. He smiled.

  "Peter boy, even if you ruin three kilometers of film— doesn't matter! I've never seen anyone perform the way you do!" cried Kostasch. I did not notice then how often he praised me.

  "I swear, next time there'll be no slip!"

  1 kept that promise.

  Then Henry Wallace slipped up.

  At each new take he had been waiting for the moment

  when I would make a mistake. In his malicious eagerness he had missed his own cue.

  Scene 421 for the twelfth time, the thirteenth, the fourteenth. Now we took turns making mistakes.

  Albrecht said to Kostasch, "May I remind you that in ten minutes we'll be through for the day?"

  "Shut up," Kostasch repHed. And to Wallace and me, "Will you try one more time?"

  I nodded. Wallace, his smile blinding, said, "But as often as you like, dear Mr. Kostasch! I've been in the business long enough to know how patient one has to be with child stars!"

  "You dirty son-of-a-bitch," I said to him.

  21

  Kostasch and Seaton exchanged glances. I knew then we would have to repeat 421 until midnight if necessary. The action called for Wallace and me to hate each other. Now we really did. Our dialogue would sound very convincing.

  There had never been any love lost between us. In America his reputation was lofty. He had received two -Oscars, ardently pursued James Joyce research, collected early Indian art, corresponded with Jean Cocteau and Bernard Buffet, and was the author of a book on atonal music.

  He would never have become my acting partner, never would have played opposite me in a movie, had it not been to his advantage to come to Europe for a year in an effort to straighten out his tax problems.

  Disagreeable. Arrogant. An intellectual snob. Yet a most accomplished actor.

  "It is now five to seven," Albrecht said.

  "I told you to shut up! If we don't finish 421 today

  167 •

  we'll be behind on the first day and tomorrow's schedule will be upset."

  "That's hardly my fault, Mr. Kostasch!"

  "We'll try it again," said Seaton. I swallowed the two red pills Schauberg had given me. We did the sequence again. And again. I had fluffed the line.

  A buzzer sounded.,It was seven o'clock, the end of a workday.

  "Overtime!" called Kostasch.

  "It's not my money, thank goodness," said Albrecht, smiling at me.

  Half an hour later I was bathed in sweat. Black spots, fiery wheels before my eyes. I overheard the stagehands making bets.

  "Make-up softening," reported the man who made me up.

  "Ten-minute break!" called Seaton.

  In his room he quickly restored the facial work, talking to me while his deft fingers moved. Yet I heard nothing: something was stirring the pit of my stomach.

  The fist.

  I just made it to my dressing room. I abruptly ordered out the man assigned to help me. Now I was staggering; I could hardly walk. Bells reverberated in my ears. My hands shook as I struggled to open my black bag.

  I did not bother to lock the door or close the rattling window; the storm had returned during the past night. I pulled the cork with my teeth and drank from the bottle. I drank and drank, and then slumped into a chair, the bottle in one hand, the other pressed to my abdomen in an attempt to keep that fist from reaching my heart.

  The whisky restrained the fist. Whisky. alleviated my fear but not my desperation. Twenty-three times for number 421. If we were to go forty-six takes—I could not do it. And if I could, what, after all, did that signify? Today was only the first day of the forty-three days scheduled for the movie. The work was too demanding. I would not be able to keep it up. Never. Shirley was coming. Joan was coming. Shirley was expecting a child.

  The child. The movie. Another forty-two days. In a hotel together with Joan. The child. The doctor. Shirley. It was too much.

  Whisky.

  I drank leaning back, my face to the window. Startled I spilled some whisky and sat rooted to the chair.

  An elephant was coming toward me.

  It was huge. Its ears flapping in the storm. It walked slowly up the road leading to my dressing room. It came closer, grew larger step by step.

  From the light of the streetlamps I could see its fissured hide. Its small, black, shiny, cunning eyes were looking directly at me.

  I knew those eyes. Fear gripped me. They were the eyes of the dead seagull I had seen on the balcony of my hotel suite, the morning of my first attack. The gull which had vanished when I had wanted to show it to Natasha.

  23

  Closer and closer came the huge animal. I couldn't escape its eyes. Gull's eyes staring at me. How can they?

  169

  I'm sitting here in this brightly lit room. How can those eyes look
at me?

  But they do. I can see them.

  Closer. Closer. Closer.

  No one is outside. Only the animal. The trunk swings. The ears flap. The elephant leaves the road and steps on the lawn outside my dressing room. A wall. A gray wall. There is no way out any more. I'm closed in. I'm going to suffocate. I'm going to die here. Just as it happened once before.

  Drink.

  The gray wall moves, wrinkles. The elephant bends down and his left eye looks into my room. The eye. The all-knowing eye. The pitiless eye of the gull which seems to say: Blasphemer. Liar. Scoundrel.

  24

  I screamed.

  I jumped up and threw the whisky bottle at this eye which quickly moved and disappeared. Glass from the broken bottle and window fell on the grass outside.

  The view was clear again. I felt hot. I felt cold. I staggered to the window, looked out. The animal had disappeared. Had it ever been here?

  "Mr. Jordan?" A knock at the door.

  I must pull myself together.

  "Come in!"

  My dresser entered. "Now, if we—" He broke off. "Don't you feel well, Mr. Jordan?"

  "I'm all right. I just had a fright."

  "The window—"

  "Yes. The ... the storm ripped it open. And slammed it shut. It broke the glass . . ." The whisky was working. I had drunk a lot.

  The whisky. Damn, I have no more whisky. Idiot. Why hadn't I thrown a book, a shoe, a brush? No more whisky. I had thrown away my best friend. Idiot!

  My man finished helping me dress just as the loudspeaker announced, "Mr. Jordan! Will Mr. Jordan come to the studio, please."

  I asked. "What other movie are they shooting here— what is your name?"

  "Harry, Mr. Jordan. Old Harry."

  "What else are they shooting here, Harry?"

  "Only a war movie. In Studio Two."

  "No circus movie?"

  "What makes you think that?"

  "I've read it somewhere."

  "That's right too. There was a circus here. Tigers, lions, elephants!"

  So there. Of course. Naturally.

  "But they finished shooting two weeks ago. Good God, Mr. Jordan, are you sure you are all right?"