boil some water. He says, 'Boil some water--lots of it.' And we
were wondering what the people would do then."
"Why--they'd probably boil it," Helen said, and then, somewhat
confused by the question, "What people?"
"Well, somebody's daughter and the man that lived there and an
attorney and the man that was hurt."
Helen tried to digest this before answering.
"--and some other guy I'm going to cut out," he finished.
There was a pause. The waitress set down tuna fish sandwiches.
"Well, when a doctor gives orders they're orders," Helen decided.
"Hm." Pat's interest had wandered to an odd little scene at the
Big Table while he inquired absently, "You married?"
"No."
"Neither am I."
Beside the Big Table stood an extra. A Russian Cossack with a
fierce moustache. He stood resting his hand on the back of an
empty chair between Director Paterson and Producer Leam.
"Is this taken?" he asked, with a thick Central European accent.
All along the Big Table faces stared suddenly at him. Until after
the first look the supposition was that he must be some well-known
actor. But he was not--he was dressed in one of the many-colored
uniforms that dotted the room.
Someone at the table said: "That's taken." But the man drew out
the chair and sat down.
"Got to eat somewhere," he remarked with a grin.
A shiver went over the near-by tables. Pat Hobby stared with his
mouth ajar. It was as if someone had crayoned Donald Duck into the
Last Supper.
"Look at that," he advised Helen. "What they'll do to him! Boy!"
The flabbergasted silence at the Big Table was broken by Ned
Harman, the Production Manager.
"This table is reserved," he said.
The extra looked up from a menu.
"They told me sit anywhere."
He beckoned a waitress--who hesitated, looking for an answer in the
faces of her superiors.
"Extras don't eat here," said Max Leam, still politely. "This is
a--"
"I got to eat," said the Cossack doggedly. "I been standing around
six hours while they shoot this stinking mess and now I got to
eat."
The silence had extended--from Pat's angle all within range seemed
to be poised in mid-air.
The extra shook his head wearily.
"I dunno who cooked it up--" he said--and Max Leam sat forward in
his chair--"but it's the lousiest tripe I ever seen shot in
Hollywood."
--At his table Pat was thinking why didn't they do something?
Knock him down, drag him away. If they were yellow themselves they
could call the studio police.
"Who is that?" Helen Earle was following his eyes innocently,
"Somebody I ought to know?"
He was listening attentively to Max Leam's voice, raised in anger.
"Get up and get out of here, buddy, and get out quick!"
The extra frowned.
"Who's telling me?" he demanded.
"You'll see." Max appealed to the table at large, "Where's Cushman--
where's the Personnel man?"
"You try to move me," said the extra, lifting the hilt of his
scabbard above the level of the table, "and I'll hang this on your
ear. I know my rights."
The dozen men at the table, representing a thousand dollars an hour
in salaries, sat stunned. Far down by the door one of the studio
police caught wind of what was happening and started to elbow
through the crowded room. And Big Jack Wilson, another director,
was on his feet in an instant coming around the table.
But they were too late--Pat Hobby could stand no more. He had
jumped up, seizing a big heavy tray from the serving stand nearby.
In two springs he reached the scene of action--lifting the tray he
brought it down upon the extra's head with all the strength of his
forty-nine years. The extra, who had been in the act of rising to
meet Wilson's threatened assault, got the blow full on his face and
temple and as he collapsed a dozen red streaks sprang into sight
through the heavy grease paint. He crashed sideways between the
chairs.
Pat stood over him panting--the tray in his hand.
"The dirty rat!" he cried. "Where does he think--"
The studio policeman pushed past; Wilson pushed past--two aghast
men from another table rushed up to survey the situation.
"It was a gag!" one of them shouted. "That's Walter Herrick, the
writer. It's his picture."
"My God!"
"He was kidding Max Leam. It was a gag I tell you!"
"Pull him out . . . Get a doctor . . . Look out, there!"
Now Helen Earle hurried over; Walter Herrick was dragged out into a
cleared space on the floor and there were yells of "Who did it?--
Who beaned him?"
Pat let the tray lapse to a chair, its sound unnoticed in the
confusion.
He saw Helen Earle working swiftly at the man's head with a pile of
clean napkins.
"Why did they have to do this to him?" someone shouted.
Pat caught Max Leam's eye but Max happened to look away at the
moment and a sense of injustice came over Pat. He alone in this
crisis, real or imaginary, had ACTED. He alone had played the man,
while those stuffed shirts let themselves be insulted and abused.
And now he would have to take the rap--because Walter Herrick was
powerful and popular, a three thousand a week man who wrote hit
shows in New York. How could anyone have guessed that it was a
gag?
There was a doctor now. Pat saw him say something to the
manageress and her shrill voice sent the waitresses scattering like
leaves toward the kitchen.
"Boil some water! Lots of it!"
The words fell wild and unreal on Pat's burdened soul. But even
though he now knew at first hand what came next, he did not think
that he could go on from there.
TEAMED WITH GENIUS
Esquire (April 1940)
"I took a chance in sending for you," said Jack Berners. "But
there's a job that you just MAY be able to help out with."
Though Pat Hobby was not offended, either as man or writer, a
formal protest was called for.
"I been in the industry fifteen years, Jack. I've got more screen
credits than a dog has got fleas."
"Maybe I chose the wrong word," said Jack. "What I mean is, that
was a long time ago. About money we'll pay you just what Republic
paid you last month--three-fifty a week. Now--did you ever hear of
a writer named Ren� Wilcox?"
The name was unfamiliar. Pat had scarcely opened a book in a
decade.
"She's pretty good," he ventured.
"It's a man, an English playwright. He's only here in L. A. for
his health. Well--we've had a Russian Ballet picture kicking
around for a year--three bad scripts on it. So last week we signed
up Ren� Wilcox--he seemed just the person."
Pat considered.
"You mean he's--"
"I don't know and I don't care," interrupted Berners sharply. "We
think we can borrow Zorina, so we want to hurry things up--do a
shooting scrip
t instead of just a treatment. Wilcox is
inexperienced and that's where you come in. You used to be a good
man for structure."
"USED to be!"
"All right, maybe you still are." Jack beamed with momentary
encouragement. "Find yourself an office and get together with Ren�
Wilcox." As Pat started out he called him back and put a bill in
his hand. "First of all, get a new hat. You used to be quite a
boy around the secretaries in the old days. Don't give up at forty-
nine!"
Over in the Writers' Building Pat glanced at the directory in the
hall and knocked at the door of 216. No answer, but he went in to
discover a blond, willowy youth of twenty-five staring moodily out
the window.
"Hello, Ren�!" Pat said. "I'm your partner."
Wilcox's regard questioned even his existence, but Pat continued
heartily, "I hear we're going to lick some stuff into shape. Ever
collaborate before?"
"I have never written for the cinema before."
While this increased Pat's chance for a screen credit he badly
needed, it meant that he might have to do some work. The very
thought made him thirsty.
"This is different from playwriting," he suggested, with suitable
gravity.
"Yes--I read a book about it."
Pat wanted to laugh. In 1928 he and another man had concocted such
a sucker-trap, Secrets of Film Writing. It would have made money
if pictures hadn't started to talk.
"It all seems simple enough," said Wilcox. Suddenly he took his
hat from the rack. "I'll be running along now."
"Don't you want to talk about the script?" demanded Pat. "What
have you done so far?"
"I've not done anything," said Wilcox deliberately. "That idiot,
Berners, gave me some trash and told me to go on from there. But
shot?"
"A boom shot? Why, that's when the camera's on a crane."
Pat leaned over the desk and picked up a blue-jacketed "Treatment."
On the cover he read:
BALLET SHOES
A Treatment
by
Consuela Martin
An Original from an idea by Consuela Martin
Pat glanced at the beginning and then at the end.
"I'd like it better if we could get the war in somewhere," he said
frowning. "Have the dancer go as a Red Cross nurse and then she
could get regenerated. See what I mean?"
There was no answer. Pat turned and saw the door softly closing.
What is this? he exclaimed. What kind of collaborating can a man
do if he walks out? Wilcox had not even given the legitimate
excuse--the races at Santa Anita!
The door opened again, a pretty girl's face, rather frightened,
showed itself momentarily, said "Oh," and disappeared. Then it
returned.
"Why it's Mr. Hobby!" she exclaimed. "I was looking for Mr.
Wilcox."
He fumbled for her name but she supplied it.
"Katherine Hodge. I was your secretary when I worked here three
years ago."
Pat knew she had once worked with him, but for the moment could not
remember whether there had been a deeper relation. It did not seem
to him that it had been love--but looking at her now, that appeared
rather too bad.
"Sit down," said Pat. "You assigned to Wilcox?"
"I thought so--but he hasn't given me any work yet."
"I think he's nuts," Pat said gloomily. "He asked me what a boom
shot was. Maybe he's sick--that's why he's out here. He'll
probably start throwing up all over the office."
"He's well now," Katherine ventured.
"He doesn't look like it to me. Come on in my office. You can
work for ME this afternoon."
Pat lay on his couch while Miss Katherine Hodge read the script of
Ballet Shoes aloud to him. About midway in the second sequence he
fell asleep with his new hat on his chest.
Except for the hat, that was the identical position in which he
found Ren� next day at eleven. And it was that way for three
straight days--one was asleep or else the other--and sometimes
both. On the fourth day they had several conferences in which Pat
again put forward his idea about the war as a regenerating force
for ballet dancers.
"Couldn't we NOT talk about the war?" suggested Ren�. "I have two
brothers in the Guards."
"You're lucky to be here in Hollywood."
"That's as it may be."
"Well, what's your idea of the start of the picture?"
"I do not like the present beginning. It gives me an almost
physical nausea."
"So then, we got to have something in its place. That's why I want
to plant the war--"
"I'm late to luncheon," said Ren� Wilcox. "Good-bye, Mike."
Pat grumbled to Katherine Hodge:
"He can call me anything he likes, but somebody's got to write this
picture. I'd go to Jack Berners and tell him--but I think we'd
both be out on our ears."
For two days more he camped in Ren�'s office, trying to rouse him
to action, but with no avail. Desperate on the following day--when
the playwright did not even come to the studio--Pat took a
benzedrine tablet and attacked the story alone. Pacing his office
with the treatment in his hand he dictated to Katherine--
interspersing the dictation with a short, biased history of his
life in Hollywood. At the day's end he had two pages of script.
The ensuing week was the toughest in his life--not even a moment to
make a pass at Katherine Hodge. Gradually with many creaks, his
battered hulk got in motion. Benzedrine and great drafts of coffee
woke him in the morning, whiskey anesthetized him at night. Into
his feet crept an old neuritis and as his nerves began to crackle
he developed a hatred against Ren� Wilcox, which served him as a
sort of ersatz fuel. He was going to finish the script by himself
and hand it to Berners with the statement that Wilcox had not
contributed a single line.
But it was too much--Pat was too far gone. He blew up when he was
half through and went on a twenty-four-hour bat--and next morning
arrived back at the studio to find a message that Mr. Berners
wanted to see the script at four. Pat was in a sick and confused
state when his door opened and Ren� Wilcox came in with a
"It's all right," said Wilcox. "I've finished it."
"WHAT? Have you been WORKING?"
"I always work at night."
"What've you done? A treatment?"
"No, a shooting script. At first I was held back by personal
worries, but once I got started it was very simple. You just get
behind the camera and dream."
Pat stood up aghast.
"But we were supposed to collaborate. Jack'll be wild."
"I've always worked alone," said Wilcox gently. "I'll explain to
Berners this afternoon."
Pat sat in a daze. If Wilcox's script
was good--but how could a
first script be good? Wilcox should have fed it to him as he
wrote; then they might have HAD something.
Fear started his mind working--he was struck by his first original
idea since he had been on the job. He phoned to the script
department for Katherine Hodge and when she came over told her what
he wanted. Katherine hesitated.
"I just want to READ it," Pat said hastily. "If Wilcox is there
you can't take it, of course. But he just might be out."
He waited nervously. In five minutes she was back with the script.
"It isn't mimeographed or even bound," she said.
He was at the typewriter, trembling as he picked out a letter with
two fingers.
"Can I help?" she asked.
"Find me a plain envelope and a used stamp and some paste."
Pat sealed the letter himself and then gave directions:
"Listen outside Wilcox's office. If he's in, push it under his
door. If he's out get a call boy to deliver it to him, wherever he
is. Say it's from the mail room. Then you better go off the lot
for the afternoon. So he won't catch on, see?"
As she went out Pat wished he had kept a copy of the note. He was
proud of it--there was a ring of factual sincerity in it too often
missing from his work.
"Dear Mr. Wilcox:
I am sorry to tell you your two brothers were killed in action
today by a long range Tommy-gun. You are wanted at home in England
right away.
John Smythe
The British Consulate, New York"
But Pat realized that this was no time for self-applause. He
opened Wilcox's script.
To his vast surprise it was technically proficient--the dissolves,
fades, cuts, pans and trucking shots were correctly detailed. This
simplified everything. Turning back to the first page he wrote at
the top:
BALLET SHOES
First Revise
From Pat Hobby and Ren� Wilcox--presently changing this to read:
From Ren� Wilcox and Pat Hobby.
Then, working frantically, he made several dozen small changes. He
substituted the word "Scram!" for "Get out of my sight!", he put
"Behind the eight-ball" instead of "in trouble," and replaced
"you'll be sorry" with the apt coinage "Or else!" Then he phoned
the script department.
"This is Pat Hobby. I've been working on a script with Ren�
Wilcox, and Mr. Berners would like to have it mimeographed by half-
past three."
This would give him an hour's start on his unconscious
collaborator.
"Is it an emergency?"
"I'll say."
"We'll have to split it up between several girls."
Pat continued to improve the script till the call boy arrived. He
wanted to put in his war idea but time was short--still, he finally
told the call boy to sit down, while he wrote laboriously in pencil
on the last page.
CLOSE SHOT: Boris and Rita
Rita: What does anything matter now! I have enlisted as a trained
nurse in the war.
Boris: (moved) War purifies and regenerates!
(He puts his arms around her in a wild embrace as the music soars
way up and we FADE OUT)
Limp and exhausted by his effort he needed a drink, so he left the
lot and slipped cautiously into the bar across from the studio
where he ordered gin and water.
With the glow, he thought warm thoughts. He had done ALMOST what
he had been hired to do--though his hand had accidentally fallen
upon the dialogue rather than the structure. But how could Berners