Текст книги "Little Golden America"

Автор книги: Евгений Петров

Соавторы: Илья Ильф
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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

The average Hollywood picture is "shot" in three weeks. If it takes longer than three weeks to make it, then it represents a financial failure. There are exceptions, but the exceptions also bear an American character. The famous dramatist, Marc Connelly, was at the moment filming a picture after his famous play, Green Pastures. This is a charming production, on the theme of how a poor Negro imagines God's Paradise. Mr. Connelly worked under exceptional conditions: he was the author of the play, he wrote the scenario according to it, and he was producing it himself. In this exceptional case he was given the special privilege of filming his picture in a month and a half. His picture belongs to the Class A category. Pictures which are "shot" in three weeks belong to Class B.

Before the filming begins, everything is gathered to the last piece of string. The scenario is in order, the actors have been rehearsed, the stage sets have been prepared. So the "shooting" of the picture proceeds purposefully and uninterruptedly.

Marc Connelly was producing his Green Pastures in the Warner Bros, studios. We do not recall exactly at the moment how many pictures a year Warner Bros, make, whether it is eighty, a hundred, or a hundred and twenty. At any rate, they make a multitude of pictures. Theirs is a large, excellently organized factory of potboilers. Green Pastures is not a frequent recurrence for the enterprising "brothers." They seldom produce a picture according to a good literary scenario. We were told that recently a picture was slapped together in eight days, and it was no worse than other pictures in Class B—a neat, clean, and nauseating picture.

On the territory of the studio an entire city is built.

It is the strangest city in the world. From a typical street in a small American town with a garage and a five-and-ten-cent store, we walked out on a Venetian square. Right behind the Palace of the Doges could be seen a Russian inn, on the signboard of which were painted a samovar and a Caucasian astrakhan hat. All the decorations are made to look like the original. Several steps away you cannot believe that these monu-, mental entrances into cathedrals, these coal mines, ocean ports, bankers' offices, Paraguayan villages, railway stations with half a passenger car, are made out of beaverboard, coloured paper, and plaster of Paris.

The strange phantom city through which we walked changed at every step: centuries, people, cultures—all of it was here mixed with an extraordinary and intriguing ease of manner.

We entered a large half-dark pavilion (stage set). At the moment no one was working there, but not so long ago a great feast of art had transpired here. One could judge of it by the tremendous frigate with many guns which occupied the entire pavilion. All over the place lay piles of weapons—cutlasses, grapnels, officers' swords, axes, and other piratical properties. Here people had not been fighting just for fun. The frigate was made so conscientiously that if it had been a whole ship and not only a half of one, we have no doubt that one could have gone out into the ocean in it without further ado and captured commercial ships —to the glory of those great corsairs, the Warner brothers.

In the next pavilion we saw the effulgence of Kleig lights and the gilded set of the "Musketeer standard" type. The famous cinema actor, Fredric March, was standing in a camisole, stockings, and shoes with clasps. His unusually handsome, lustreless face was luminous in the shadows of the set.

This is what was going on in the pavilion at the moment—the light was being fitted to Fredric March. But since every effort is made not to fatigue a great actor, the light was being fitted to a stand-in. When everything is ready, then March will come forth to be photographed.

In another pavilion we saw the actress Bette Davis, whom our audiences know by the picture The Crime of Marvin Blake. She sat in a chair and in a low voice, but irately, was saying that in the course of ten days she could not find an hour in which she could have her hair washed. She had no time! The picture had to be "shot."

"I have to be photographed every day," she was saying in a tired voice while the habitual grin of a dazzling cinema smile was on her face.

In the expectation of being photographed, the actress looked with disgust, or perhaps rather with complete indifference, at the set, where under Kleig lights in front of the camera walked a man with a familiar face that tormented us. Where had we seen this second-rate actor–in the picture Kidnappers (machine-guns and pursuits), or in the picture The Love of Balthazar (catapults, Greek fire), or was it in Mene Mene Tekel, Upharsin?

From the face of Balthazar, who was now being photographed in a top-hat and swallow-tails (picture of the type of Child of Broadway), it was evident at once that the work did not rouse the slightest vestige of enthusiasm in him. He was bored and disgusted with it.

This was exceedingly typical of every Hollywoodite who thinks at all. He disdains his work, thoroughly realizing that he plays nothing but trash. One cinematographist, showing us the studio in which he works, literally poked fun at all his pictures. Sensible people in Hollywood, and there are not a few of them there, simply moaned at that defilement of art which goes on there every day and every hour. But they have nowhere else to go, and there is nothing they can do about it. They curse their work, be they scenarists, directors, actors, or mere technicians. Only the bosses of Hollywood remain in good spirits. With them it is not art that matters, but the box office.

In the very largest pavilion was being photographed the scene of a ball aboard ship. Several stand-ins were crowded on a platform. The place that was being photographed was amazingly lighted. Hollywood studios have at their disposal a great"quantity of light, and they are not stingy about it. An intermission came in the photographing, the light was decreased, and the stand-ins, breathless from their dances, ran off into the half-lighted corners of the pavilion to rest and to talk. Girls in naval uniforms with medals and the epaulets of admirals now began to chatter loudly about their feminine affairs. Young men in white naval uniforms, with the stupid eyes of motion-picture lieutenants, were walking up and down the pavilions, stepping over the electric cables lying on the floor.

Oh, those resplendent motion-picture lieutenants! If grateful humanity were suddenly to think of placing a monument to the god of potboiling, it could not find a better model than the motion-picture lieutenant. When in the beginning of a picture the hero appears in I white tunic with a naval cap, set cockily on his head, it is safe, without a single qualm, to walk out of the theatre. Nothing sensible or interesting will happen in such a picture. He is the god of potboiling himself, joyful and empty-headed.

While we were looking over the decorations and the extras, suddenly we heard behind us a Russian voice–such a good Russian voice, juicy, aristocratic—say:

"What do you say, Kolya, shall we go somewhere today?"

The other voice, in a junior captain's timbre, replied:

"And what shall we use for money, Kostenka?"

We turned around quickly.

Behind us stood two gentlemen in swallow-tails. The brownish make up covered their quite haggard faces. The stiff collars forced them to hold their heads up proudly, but there was despondency in their eyes. Alas! Kolya was no longer young, and even Kostya looked oldish with his numerous wrinkles. They have grown old here in Hollywood, these two who seemed apparently Vladivostok emigrants. It was no fun at all to play a nameless steamship gentleman in a dancing picture about the life of young idiots. Soon the light will be turned off and they will have to return these swallow-tails and the stiff collars to the local storeroom. All their lives they had to deal with storerooms, and so will it evidently be unto death itself.

A signal sounded, and the blinding light was on. The girls, the lieutenants, and the swallow-tailed gentlemen hurried to the stage.

We walked out of the studio, and half an hour later were slowly rolling along with the automobile flood which was making its way to Santa Monica to breathe the ocean air. The great motion-picture capital smelled of petrol and fried ham. Young girls in bright flannel trousers were busily walking the sidewalks. All the girls of the world congregate in Hollywood. Here the very freshest merchandise is needed. Crowds of those who had not yet become rising stars, beautiful girls with unpleasant, spiteful eyes, fill the city. They want fame and they are ready to do anything for it. Probably no place else in the world is there such a number of determined and unattractive beauties.

The cinema stars of both sexes (in America men also have the title of star) live on streets which lead to the ocean. Here we saw a man whose profession is in all probability inimitable. He alone represents this remarkable means of earning money. This man sat under a large striped umbrella. Beside him was placed the following bill-board:

Houses of motion picture stars.

From 9 A.M. until 5.30 P.M.

He would not show you the inside furnishings of these houses and not Gloria Swanson at her morning tea (they will not let him inside), but just on the outside, from the street. Here is the house where Harold Lloyd lives—and here is the house where Greta Garbo lives.

Although the business day was at its height, no one engaged the guide, and on his face was expressed an irrepressible disgust for his foolish profession and for American motion pictures.

Farther on, we saw a young man standing in the middle of the pavement. On his chest hung a placard which read:

I am hungry. Give me work.

No one walked up to this man either.

The vastness of the ocean, the steady wind that blew toward the shore, the tranquil pounding of the surf, reminded us that in this world there is still a life that is real, with real emotions, which do not necessarily fall within a set quantity of footage filled with tap-dancing, kisses and gunshots.

When we entered the lobby of our hotel, a mighty figure rose from a divan and came to meet us. Leaning on a cane, the figure came close to us, and in a stentorian voice said:

"Allow me to introduce myself. Captain Ivanov, a former White Guard."

The captain had a large, smiling face. He looked at us in a friendly manner with his little boarish eyes, and at once declared that he had not been engaged in politics for a long time, although as a matter of fact we had heard nothing about the captain even when he had been presumably occupied with them.

The captain seized us by our hands, sat us down on the divan, and at once, without wasting a single minute, began to talk. In the first place, he told us that it was he who had been entrusted with bringing to Siberia the famous Order of Denikin in which the latter placed himself under the command of Kolchak. Since we happened to recall a name other than his, we did not express any special surprise, in spite of the fact even that the captain was picturesquely telling us how he had carried the order around the world.

"You see, I raced in express trains! From the train to the ship! From the ship to the train! From the train again to the ship! From the ship, and again to the train! Through Europe, the Atlantic, America, the Pacific, Japan, the Far East... I arrive, as wet as a wet hen, but Kolchak is no longer there. They have made short shrift of him. So I tore back from the train to the ship, from the ship to the train, from the train again to the ship. Bang! While still in America, I learn it's all over with Denikin, he had transferred his command to Wrangel. The devil take it! Again I go from the train to the ship, from the ship to the train. I arrive in Paris—but it is all over with Wrangel too. Well, I thought to myself, all of you can go wherever you like, while I myself backed up to America. Now I am a traveller and a lecturer ..."

The captain took out a fat cigarette-case and began to treat us to Russian cigarettes with mouthpieces.

"I fill them myself," he said. "I import the cigarette wrappers from Bulgaria. I refuse to put this American trash in my mouth."

And right there and then, without the slightest transition, he informed us:

"Do you see the skin on my face? A remarkable skin, isn't it? Amazingly smooth and pink. Just like a milk-fed porkling's. I'll tell you a secret. In 1916, at the front near Kovel, a gun explosion tore the skin off my face to the devil's mother! Shshsh . . . They had to graft some skin from my behind. Ah! How do you like that? Well done! A marvel of medicine! Remarkable skin! What ? Of course, I never tell a word of it to the ladies, but to you, as writers and psychologists, I have told about it. But, please, not a word of it to anybody!"

Then he compelled both of us in turn to hold his cane.

"Splendid! What?" he cried eagerly. "Twenty-two pounds of pure iron. I was ill, was forbidden to engage in sports, so I carry this cane, that my muscles shouldn't weaken."

In farewell he informed us that not so long ago, before departing for South America, he had to have seven of his teeth filled at one time.

"I simply didn't have the time! You see, I was so preoccupied prior to my departure, so tired, that I fell asleep in a dentist's chair. I awakened an hour later, and what do you think? All the seven teeth were filled, and I didn't even know anything about it. A marvel of medicine! What?"

When we were going up the stairway, the captain was loudly shouting after us:

"Now, please, gentlemen, not a whisper to the ladies!"

Saying this, he pointed to his pink cheeks and in farewell waved his twenty-two-pound cane.

37 Hollywood Serfs

WE WERE SITTING with one of the American motion-picture folk in a small Hollywood cafe decorated, like many of them, in something like Baghdad style. It was a sultry December evening and the entrance doors of the cafe were wide open. The dry wind rattled the leaves of the street palms.

"You want to know," the motion-picture man was saying, "why, with all our remarkable technique, with all our excellent actors, with our directors, among whom are the best artists of the world, why we, who now and then, but very rarely, make excellent films, why we spend day arid night preparing our revolting, idiotic pictures, which little by little stupefy the spectator? You want to know that? Let me tell you, then."

The motion-picture man ordered a glass of sherry.

"You have to remember who used to be the villain in the old American motion-picture drama. He was almost always the banker. In those cinema plays he used to be the villain. Now look at thousands of films made in Hollywood during the last few years and you will see that the banker has disappeared as a negative personage. He has even become an attractive type. He is now the kindly sympathetic businessman who helps the poor or the lovers. This has happened because bankers, big capitalists, have become the bosses of Hollywood. They, as you can readily see, will riot permit that they be portrayed as villains in their films. I'll tell you more. American motion pictures are perhaps the only industry into which capitalists have come not for profit alone. It is no accident that we make idiotic films. We are told to make them. They are made on purpose. Hollywood systematically stuffs the heads of Americans, befogs them with its films. Not one serious problem of life will be touched in a Hollywood film—I'll guarantee you that. Our bosses will not allow it. This work of many years has already yielded a frightful harvest. American spectators have completely unlearned to think. Today any motion-picturegoer stands on an unusually low level. It is very hard for him to sit through something more significant than a tap-dancing film or a pseudo-historical play. He will not even bother to see an intelligent picture, but will rather take his girl and go to the neighbouring motion-picture theatre. Therefore, European films, in which after all there is more sense than in the American ones, enjoy a pitiful distribution here. I am telling you horrible things, but such is the actual state of affairs. It would take many years of hard work to restore to the American motion-picture fan his proper taste. But who is going to do that? The bosses of Hollywood?"

The' man we were talking to spoke sincerely. Evidently this subject continually tormented him.

"We have not a single independent man except Chaplin. We serve our bosses and do everything that they tell us to do. You will ask me, how is it then that occasionally appear a few good pictures made in Hollywood? They appear against the will of the boss. They are an accidental success, a concession by the boss to a servant whom he values highly, to keep that servant from foolishly giving up his job. Occasionally it is necessary to hide a good film from the bosses, so that they will not have an opportunity to spoil it. Do you know Lewis Milestone? When he was making All Quiet on the Western Front, being afraid of his bosses, who have the habit of coming in during the filming to offer their advice, he spread the rumour that there were constant explosions during filming that were a menace to life and limb. The bosses were frightened and left the wily Milestone in peace. But even then he did not succeed in hiding everything to the end. Once he was called out by his worried and excited boss and asked:

"'Listen, Lewis, they say there's an unhappy ending in your film. Is that right?'

'"Yes, that's so,' Milestone admitted.

"' But that's impossible!' cried the boss. ' The American public won't go to see a film with such an ending. You must attach another ending.'

"'But we're taking the film according to the famous book by Remarque, and there the ending is unhappy,' replied Milestone.

"I don't know anything about that,' said the boss impatiently. I never read that Remarque, and it has nothing to do with me. It's enough that we paid a lot of money for filming rights. But I repeat to you, the American public will not go to see a picture with such an ending.'

"'All right,' said Milestone. 'I'll make another ending.'

"' Now that's fine!' said the boss, overjoyed. ' How is it going to come out now?'

"'Very simple. In Remarque's book the French win, as it actually happened. But since you insist on changing the ending, I'll make it so that the Germans win the war.'

"It was only with this witty rejoinder that Milestone saved his picture. It had a tremendous success. But that happens rarely. Usually even a well-known, even a famous director is compelled to do everything that he is ordered to do. At this particular time—it happened only a few days ago—one of the cinema directors who is famous throughout the world received a scenario that he liked. For several years he has been looking for something significant to produce. Can you imagine his satisfaction and joy when he finally found it? But in that picture the Hollywood star, Marlene Dietrich, had to be filmed. She read the scenario and decided that the roles of the other artists were too big and too well turned out and that they would interfere with her starring in the picture. And so the inimitable Marlene demanded that these roles be cut. The play was irretrievably spoiled. The director refused to work with the scenario in this mutilated form. You can well imagine that the director I am telling you about is so great and famous that he dares to refuse a job that does not please him. There are only a few such people in Hollywood. But the star won, because for our bosses the star is the main thing. The American public goes to see the star, not the director. If the advertisements bear the name of Marlene Dietrich, or Greta Garbo, or Fredric March, the public will bring its millions to the box office, no matter what nonsense these remarkable artists might portray. It all ended very simply. They called in another director, who did not dare refuse anything for fear of losing his job altogether, and they commissioned him to produce the spoiled scenario. He cursed his pathetic fate and began to 'shoot' the picture.

"Maybe you think that we are being managed by some enlightened capitalists? I regret to say that they are the most ordinary, stupid moneymakers. Their studios release a mass of pictures every year. Let me tell you a story about the boss of one such firm.

"Once he came to his acquaintances and announced with joy:

"'You know, my wife has such beautiful hands that they are already sculpting a bust of them.'

"They say that one of his actresses, to whom he was paying ten thousand dollars a week (stars receive a dizzying, swinish honorarium, but there is no philanthropy here—a star who receives ten thousand dollars a week brings her boss at least as many thousands of dollars a week of clear profit), invited him for lunch at her castle, which she had purchased in France. Before lunch the building was shown to the old man. He conscientiously felt the silk wallpaper, touched the bed, tested the resilience of the mattresses, attentively examined the turrets. But he was especially interested in the ancient sundial. When it was explained to him how it worked, he was greatly elated and exclaimed:

"Well done! What are they going to invent next!"

"You see, we have to deal with people who are so ignorant that they think the sundial is the latest invention. Such is their level of knowledge, their cultural level. And these people do not confine themselves merely to giving money for the production of a picture. No, they interfere in everything, suggest corrections, change plots. They tell us how to make pictures. Well, I have told you so many sad things that I guess it will last you for a while. You know what, let's get into the machine and go for a ride, freshen up a bit."

We drove out of the city to an alternate reservoir which assures Los Angeles of a water supply in case of damage to the water-transmission station. The night was black. In the stillness of the darkness we actually rested up and recovered from the frightful tales of Hollywood.

On the way back to the city our companion asked:

"Have you seen in the Warner Bros, studio the house of Marion Davies, the famous star? Hearst brought that house over, stone by stone, from somewhere thousands of miles away—maybe even from Europe!"

Returning to our Hollywood Hotel, we slept a cast-iron sleep, devoid of visions, rest and calm—well, in a word, of everything that makes sleep wonderful.

38 Pray, Weigh Yourself, and Pay

THE PREPARATION for Christmas assumed greater and greater proportions. Millions of turkeys and turkey cocks were killed, dressed, and displayed in stores, enchanting Hollywoodites with the yellowish subcutaneous fat and the lilac stamps of the sanitary inspection placed on the turkey breasts.

We have already remarked that an American Christmas is a holiday that has nothing in common with religion. On that day it is not the birth of the Lord God that is celebrated. This holiday is in honour of the traditional Christmas turkey. On that day the Lord, smiling bashfully, retreats to secondary importance.

The worship of the turkey is connected also with one other strange custom—the presentation of gifts to one another. An advertising campaign of many years, cleverly organized by the merchants, has brought matters to such a pass that the presentation of gifts has been transformed for the population into something in the nature of a duty from which commerce derives unheard-of profits. All the old stork, which accumulates throughout the year in various stores, is sold in several days at higher prices. The stores are full of people. The CUSTOMERS, having gone stark mad, grab anything they see. Every American presents gifts, but not only to his wife, his children, or his friends. The main thing is to present gifts to your superiors. The motion-picture actor presents gifts to his director, film operator, sound operator, and make-up man. The office girl presents gifts to her boss, the writer presents gifts to his publisher, the journalist presents gifts to his editor. Most of the gifts go from the lower ranks up the social ladder, and sometimes bear the rather frank aspect of a bribe.

Gifts also pass on the descending line—from superiors to inferiors– but that is a thin stream by comparison with the mighty fountain of love and respect which beats from below upward.

The actor presents his make-up man with two bottles of good champagne, figuring that for the rest of the year the latter will make him up especially well; a gift is presented to the director, to maintain a friendship that is useful, to the operators, that they may remember to film him at the best angles and record his voice as well as possible.

The selection of the gift is a subtle matter. It is necessary to know exactly what gift should be made, and to whom; otherwise, instead of gratitude, the gift may yield a grudge. The gift fever causes Americans a lot of trouble, costs them a lot; but then, it does present the merchants with paradisiacal moments and weeks.

People present each other with cigars, wines, perfumes, scarves, gloves, trinkets. Delivery boys fly all over the city, bearing gifts wrapped in special Christmas paper. Trucks distribute nothing but gifts. Preceded by orchestras, in the handsome uniform of generals, red-nosed Santa Clauses with a cotton beard, wrapped in a naphthalene storm, ride through the city. Boys run after this god of gifts. The grown-ups groan at the sight of the Christmas grandfather, and with an effort remember to whom else they must bear offerings. God forbid that they should forget someone!—or for the rest of the year important business relations would be spoiled.

As a matter of fact, it is only on such occasions, during the feverish pre-Christmas days, that the name of God is mentioned. But God has no bearing whatever on Christmas itself. He is not even allowed to come near it.

In America there are many religions and many gods. Millions of people want to believe in something, so scores of mighty church organizations offer them their services.

The old and, if one may say so, the European religions, suffer because Of a certain abstraction. Let them stay in Europe, on that old and decrepit continent. In America, side by side with skyscrapers, electric washing machines, and other attainments of the age, they somehow pale into in-significance. Something more contemporaneous, something more infective, and, let us speak-honestly and frankly, something more business-like than eternal bliss in heaven for a righteous life on earth is needed.

In that respect, the most Americanized is a sect which calls itself Christian Science. It has millions of adherents, and essentially is something in the nature of a colossal hospital, only without doctors and medicines. Christian Science is great and wealthy. In many towns and cities remarkable temples with beautiful banklike porticos belong to it.

Christian Science does not ask that people await an endlessly long time for reward in heaven. It transacts its business right here on earth. The religion is practical and convenient. It says:

"Are you ill? Do you have rupture? Believe in God and your rupture will pass!"

Christianity as a science, as something which brings immediate benefit! The average American understands that, it reaches his comprehension, which is befogged by years of unendurable and hurried work. Religion which is as useful as electricity. That's good. One can believe in that.

"Well, all right! But suppose the rupture does not go away?"

"That means that your faith is insufficient, that you have not sufficiently given yourself to God. Believe in Him—and He will help you in everything."

He will help you in everything. In New York we happened to go into one of the Christian Science churches in the centre of the city. A small group of people were sitting on benches, listening to an elderly gentleman dressed in a good tailored suit (in America, a made-to-order suit is a sign of affluence).

Mr. Adams, who accompanied us on that excursion, pricked up his ears and, bending his head, listened attentively. He made a sign to us to come closer. What we heard was very much like the scene in the New York flophouse which we saw on our first evening in America. With this exception : there paupers were being persuaded, while here the rich were being persuaded. But they were being persuaded in absolutely the same manner—by means of living witnesses and incontrovertible facts.

"Brothers," the elderly gentleman was saying," twenty years ago I was poor and unhappy. I lived in San Francisco. I had no job. My wife was dying. My children were starving. I could turn nowhere for help, except to God. And one morning the voice of God said to me: ' Go to New York and get a job in an insurance company.' I forsook everything and made my way to New York. Hungry and in tatters, I walked through the streets and waited for the Lord to help me. Finally, I saw the sign of an insurance company and understood that God had sent me to that place. I entered the huge and shiny building. In my tattered suit they did not want to let me see the manager. I nevertheless went to him and said:

" 'I want to get a job from you.'

"'Do you know the insurance business?' he asked me.

"'No,' I answered in a firm voice.

"'Why, then, do you want to work for an insurance company?'

"I looked at him and I said:

"' Because the Lord God sent me to you.'

"The director did not say anything in reply to me. He called out his secretary and told him to give me a job as an elevator operator."

Having reached this point, the narrator stopped.

"What happened to you then?" one of his auditors asked impatiently.

"You want to know what I am now? Now I am the vice-president of that insurance company. It was God who did that."

We walked out of the church somewhat dumbfounded.