What Makes Sammy Run? (37 page)

“But now I’ll really show you something,” he said. “My grounds.” He turned on the floodlights that illuminated the garden. “I’ve got my own barbecue pit and my own badminton court. And have I got flowers! Do you realize you’re looking at twelve hundred dollars’ worth of hibiscus plants?”

“And you’re going to live here all alone?” I said.

“Well, the cook sleeps in,” Sammy said. “By the way, I’ve got Claudette Colbert’s cook. And, of course, my man.”

He must have felt self-conscious about that, for he added, “He’s off tonight but he’s really something. I think he must have been Ronald Colman’s stand-in. It’d panic you to see him bringing my breakfast up in the morning in a full-dress suit. The first time he stuck his puss in the door I said, ‘Charles, you look as if I ought to be waiting on you.’ And Charles just gave me the business, ‘Yes, sir, will there be anything else, sir?’ He never steps out of character!”

Neither do you, I thought, neither do you.

For the next couple of hours we sat in the study batting the story back and forth. Sammy’s mind drew a blank when it came to originality—but since the same goes for most screen stories, he actually turned this to advantage. What he had was a good memory and a glib way of using it. Our story was like so many others that he could lift ready-made situations from the shelves in the back of his mind, dust them off and insert them into our yarn like standard automobile parts.

“Now, I want you to work night and day on this,” he said. “Because MGM is making a submarine picture too, only on a terrific scale, and if we can get out with ours first we can steal a hell of a march on them and cash in on their publicity.”

Our work was over and I started to go.

“It’s early yet,” Sammy said. “You don’t have to run. How about a nightcap?”

He had a Capehart and a canopy bed and shiny new sets of Balzac and Dickens and twelve hundred bucks of hibiscus, but he
didn’t seem to know what to do with himself when he wasn’t talking to somebody.

He mixed a drink for me. He was very solicitous. He said, “You know we’ve been working so hard we never have a chance to talk any more.”

I wondered when we had ever talked about anything but the life and works of S. Glick. And while I was wondering, that is just what the conversation drifted to again.

I happened to say that I thought Fineman was one of the best gents in the business.

“I guess everybody in the studio likes him,” Sammy said. “But that doesn’t mean so damn much. Between you and me, he’s just an old woman. He’s beginning to lean on me like a crutch.”

“He still seems to be able to navigate under his own power,” I said.

“That’s what I used to think,” Sammy said. “Until today.”

“The talk you had with Fineman?”

He said, in the way people have of saying much more than they are saying, “The talk I had with Fineman.”

Okay, Sammy, I thought, spill it, you predatory genius.

“When I was in there talking with the old man, all of a sudden it hit me—I had him by the balls. You understand, this is strictly between you and me. It mustn’t go out of this room.”

Strictly confidential between you and the world, I thought, and if you don’t tell it to somebody quick your lungs are going to blow up in your face like punctured balloons.

Fineman filled his pipe painstakingly and lit it It was hard to begin
.

“Sammy, we’ve been working together for over a year now and I think we understand each other. I’d like to feel I can talk to you as a friend.”

Sammy’s face was what is known as expressionless. A very definite and frightening expression
.

“You know you can, sir,” he said
.

“Good. You may not have learned it yet and I hope you never
will—but this is a business with a very short memory. It doesn’t matter what you did last year or the year before. If your last few pictures are lemons, you’re in hot water. That’s why I’ve decided to talk to you, Sammy. I know you appreciate how much I’ve done for you—and I felt you’d be willing to help me.”

Help. That was the turning point. That was the moment Sammy had been waiting for. He sat there trying to look noncommittal, like a poker player who has just discovered he is holding a royal flush
.

“I’m your man, Sidney,” Sammy said. “Just say the word.”

“Some of the Wall Street crowd who control our lot are coming out to look over our production set-up.”

Sammy had got that tip from Young’s secretary two weeks before
.

“They want to try to find out why we slumped to third place among the major studios this year. And I have it from a fairly reliable source that Harrington, the chairman of the board, favors a new production chief. Now, these aren’t men who know pictures. They’ve got ticker tapes in their brains. They know the pictures I let you make have been our most solid moneymakers and they’ll be interested in hearing what you’ve got to say. You know what I mean, I want them to know that we’re working well together. And, if I’m still in harness, I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you: Let you make four of the A’s on next year’s program—even suggest that you head your own independent unit, if that’s what you want—and I’ll get a new assistant. There’s a new lad on the lot called Ross who’s supposed to be very promising. How does that sound?”

Somewhere between the time Fineman started that speech and the time he finished, one era ended and another began. Sammy had sneered at Fineman before, but that had been mostly bravado for Sheik’s benefit. He had entered the office still in awe of him. Now, as Fineman went on talking, Sammy could see him shrinking as if he had drunk an Alice-in- Wonderland potion. Wondering, what the hell keeps that weak sister in this office at five G’s a week? An old-fashioned story mind—a quiet, indirect method of getting his way that’s supposed to pass for executive ability—an old-womanishness that’s won him the reputation of best-loved producer
.

“Sid, old pal,” Sammy said. “You’re in. Just let them come to
me. I’ll give them an earful Ani it will come from right here.”

He tapped the breast pocket of his camel’s-hair jacket reverently
.

And while he was tapping it he got a new idea
.

Sammy spent hours with Fineman at the office every day, but at night, except for the occasional Grand Central Station parties, there was a barrier. Fineman had never asked Sammy to his dinner parties or his Sunday morning breakfasts. Sammy finally had to give up hinting. It got Sammy sore just thinking about it. So I’m not good enough for the bastard’s home, but I’m good enough to save his lousy job for him! And Sammy never just got sore. Nothing so luxurious as that. He always got sore with a plan
.

“Look, Sid,” he said. “Why wait for these Wall Street guys to come to me? Why wouldn’t it be smart for me to start working on them the day they blow in? What if I threw a big party for them at my new house, a swell dinner, and entertainment, with all our stars there …?”

“Don’t you think it would be my place to give the party?” Fineman said
.

“But if I’m at your party what does it mean?” Sammy argued. “Hell, I’d have to come to my own boss’s party. But if I give a party in their honor, also celebrating the first anniversary of our association …!”

“If it’s handled right it might have a good effect at that,” Fineman reflected
.

“Don’t worry,” Sammy said. “It’ll be handled right.”

“So a week from Saturday I break into the society columns,” Sammy said. “And by the way, you and Kit are invited. You two are still an item, aren’t you?”

“A permanent one, I hope.”

“By God, that’s what I need,” Sammy said suddenly. “I’m getting fed up with these floozies you’re always promising something to—a day’s work or a test. A man in my position ought to settle down and get some dignity in his life.”

“You mean you’re thinking of getting married?”

“Why not?” he said. “Hell, I’m not one of these guys who’s
spoiled by getting in the dough. You know I’m just a simple down-to-earth guy at heart. All I want is a sweet, healthy girl to put my slippers on when I come home from work and give me a bunch of kids who can enjoy what I’ve got—maybe a nice bright kid to take over my business when I retire.”

“Have you got anybody in mind for the job?” I said.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about it. I’m really thinking seriously of Ruth Mintz. You know, the daughter of the shorts producer on our lot? A nice refined girl. No beauty, but, hell, this town is lousy with beauty, and that’s only good for about ten years, anyway. She’s got a nice build. And she’s nuts about kids. What more could I want?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “what more could you? Do you love her?”

“Love,” he said. “How the hell have I had time to love anybody?”

When I finally made a break, I met Kit at the Derby for coffee. She was coming from a Guild meeting. The Guild had risen from the dead after the Nine Old Men decided to cut the nonsense and declare the Wagner Act constitutional. Three or four hundred writers had returned to the fold again and the battle now was to get the NLRB to come in and hang a company-union charge on the Photodramatists.

“How was the meeting?” I said.

“We saw through the night that our Guild was still there,” Kit hummed off key, patriotically. “How was yours?”

“Sammy was in a reflective mood,” I said.

“Was he sick?”

“No, he was falling in love.”

“With whom? Himself again?”

“With the idea of someone to bring his slippers to him when he comes home at night. And someone to give him an heir.”

“If that’s a pun,” she said, “you have to stand in the corner and repeat the name Sammy Glick five hundred times.”

“That’s the punishment Sammy is always inflicting on himself,” I said.

Our ham and eggs arrived and we were hoggishly silent for a minute.

“Did Sammy ever ask you to marry him?”

“Of course not! All Sammy is looking for is a nice simple housewife like his mother told him to marry, who looks like Dietrich, whose only interest in life is Sammy Glick, and whose father is a millionaire who can finance Sammy’s company and put him in with the Best People.” She laughed and added, “And all I had to offer was the Dietrich department.”

“You’re a fine figure of a woman, all right,” I said. “Nobody could say you were exactly homely.”

“Ah, you’ve hit on it at last—
exactly
. People look at me and say, she’s homely all right, but not exactly homely. And there you have the secret of my charm.”

“By God, you’re right,” I said. “I never realized it before. But there’s something about your face that’s fooled me for years into thinking it’s beautiful. It’s just your personality shining out like one of Oleson’s giant spots. And if you ever switched it off you’d be homely as sin.”

“Al!” she said. “You mustn’t make love to me like that right out here in the open.”

The night of the party Kit and I saw it happen, saw love come to Sammy Glick, or something as close to love as Sammy will ever know. Kit and I and little Ruth Mintz.

This is the way it began. The other members of the Wall Street scouting party were punctual, but Harrington didn’t show until the buffet dinner was almost over.

He came in with a dame on his arm, an amazing-looking dame, who made an entrance like the star at the end of the first act. The first thing that clicked when I looked at her was the horse shows in the rotogravure section of the Sunday
Times
. Only not the smartly tailored horsewoman in derby and cutaway, but the horse
itself. She was a show horse with a dark red mane, prancing, beautifully groomed, high spirited, accustomed and proud to be on exhibition.

If Harrington’s life were ever screened, he would be played by Lewis Stone, though Stone would have to go easy on the make-up and underplay his scenes to do the role justice.

Sammy spotted them at the door like a master of ceremonies, beckoned Fineman over to do the honors and ran toward them.