Marcus, Luckie, and Rex stood at the Wilshire Boulevard curb and read the marquee.
SPECIAL PRESS
PREVIEW TONIGHT
“THE BEGINNING
OF THE END”
The 4 Star Theater was where Selznick had held Gone with the Wind’s press preview. Marcus didn’t know how Luckie had swung it so that their screening was at the same place, but this was impressive.
Luckie slung his arms around Marcus and Rex. “We damn well did it!”
“How did we pull this off?” Marcus asked. “It feels like only last week that we were clanking Moscow Mules in the Melrose Grotto.”
“Hitchcock was right: to make a great film you need three things—the script, the script, and the script. And your script, dearest Marcus, was the tops. That Four Freedoms idea of yours made the story so much more complex.”
Marcus was secretly pleased someone had mentioned it. Claude’s script had been a fine jumping-off point, but it had needed deepening. Thinking about their four protagonists had reminded him of Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms State of the Union address: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear. Their characters wanted to get the hell out of town but for different reasons; using Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms enriched the entire project.
Luckie pulled Rex in closer. “We couldn’t have met our deadline without you working out every camera angle, close-up, and jump cut ahead of time.”
They headed inside the theater’s lobby, where the air-conditioning beat back the August heat.
“I have a surprise for you both.” Luckie pointed to the Coming Attractions poster board.
Their film’s title was in rough letters, as though a teenager had scrawled it using a chunky pencil. Underneath it, the four young actors stood behind a weather-beaten picket fence, their arms raised over their heads, hands balled into fists, and mouths wide open, mid-scream.
“This is great!” Marcus exclaimed.
“Absolutely,” Rex said. “A first-rate job.”
Luckie jiggled his head to shake off his nerves. “Let’s hope someone shows up.”
They had invited every movie critic, columnist, magazine reporter, and publicity agent they could think of. Securing a theater as prestigious as the 4 Star was great but they needed 900 asses to fill those seats, so they’d also invited everyone they knew and told them to bring a friend.
The decision to not seek the Production Code’s approval coupled with Melody’s casting had fueled the public brawling between Vincent Haynes and Kathryn Massey. Every day had brought fresh articles and columns debating the pros and cons of rewriting the Code and eliminating the blacklist. The free promotion had been heady stuff, but now Lucky Productions would see if anybody gave enough of a damn to find out what The Beginning of the End was really like.
Gwendolyn and Chuck were the first to arrive, announcing that they had champagne in the car to celebrate afterwards.
“Or commiserate.” Luckie had grown paler in the last few minutes.
“We’ll have none of that,” Gwendolyn admonished him. “At least, not until people are filing out of the theater looking like they wished they’d stayed home and watched Jack Benny instead.”
Luckie smiled weakly. “Didn’t Kathryn come with you?”
After that awful day on the Some Like It Hot set, Kathryn had fled to the sanctuary of the Garden wailing that she should have taken that job at Ladies’ Home Journal. Marcus had reminded her that it was The Saturday Evening Post and had meant moving to Chicago so it was never really on the table. Gwendolyn had pointed out that she’d dealt with worse situations, like Bugsy Siegel, so by comparison, what had happened at MGM was small potatoes. And besides, she’d made The Beginning of the End into a cause célèbre. She couldn’t not be there.
Kathryn’s response had been that she could stay away if she damn well chose to.
“You know Kathryn,” Marcus said airily. “Always with a hundred things on her plate.”
For the last week, he’d taken on “Que Sera Sera” as his theme song. They’d done everything possible to make this movie the best it could be. Its destiny now lay in the hands of the people who, with fifty minutes till show time, should have started turning up by now.
“What about Jesse Ray?” Marcus asked. “He’s flown in from Dallas; the least we could have done was drive him the last five miles.”
“I offered but he’s hired a car and driver.” Luckie stared forlornly across a largely deserted Wilshire Boulevard. “If he doesn’t like it, he’s got The Old Man and the Sea as a back-up.”
“But he will like it,” Gwendolyn insisted. “With that many screens, you could recoup your money just on his chain alone.”
“And the rest of it will be gravy,” Chuck chimed in. “Sweet, delicious gravy.”
The theater’s glass doors swung open and Doris, Arlene, and Bertie burst in, with Monty bringing up the rear guard.
“Good golly!” Bertie exclaimed. “You won’t believe what’s happened! The most ginormous truck overturned on Highland at around Beverly Boulevard.”
“Filled with chickens!” Doris exclaimed. “Live ones! Hundreds of them. They escaped in all directions, squawking loud enough to raise the dead.”
The majority of people coming from Hollywood, the canyons, and the Valley would be passing through that intersection.
Luckie flung his arms out. “We’re going to be done in by a horde of rampaging poultry.”
“Nah,” Doris backtracked. “It’ll just take a while, is all.”
“Let’s give it until eight,” Marcus suggested, “and see if anybody else shows. If not, the popcorn’s on me.”
“What popcorn?” Luckie pointed to the unattended concession stand. “You really know your canoe has sunk when the popcorn popper hasn’t bothered to show up.”
The Great Chicken Catastrophe of 1958 wasn’t nearly as bad as they’d feared. It hadn’t taken the two thousand liberated pullets long to clear the Highland/Beverly intersection. That was bad news for the Rancho Cucamonga Chicken Farm, but good news for Lucky Productions. By eight twenty, the cinema was two-thirds filled. Kathryn was conspicuous in her absence, but by then Luckie was so relieved to see the turnout that he didn’t seem to notice.
As the opening credits rolled, Marcus, Luckie, and Rex took seats in the back row to evaluate the audience’s reaction. But during the opening scene, featuring Melody’s face encased in a white Pennsylvania Dutch bonnet, nerves got the better of Luckie and Marcus and they fled into the deserted foyer.
“I don’t recall being as nervous as this—ever!” Marcus lifted his hands so that the palms faced upwards. “You can see the clamminess! I need a cigarette.”
They retreated to the brass ashtray next to the Coming Attractions poster and chain-smoked several Camels apiece until a pall of smoke hung over them.
Marcus fanned it away with his hand. “Have you thought about our next movie?” he asked Luckie. “I was thinking that we could shoot Gentlemen of the Jury on just three sets: the courtroom, the hotel room, and the house. There’s that one scene at the park but we . . .”
But Luckie’s eyes were glued to the doors that led into the auditorium.
“It’s too late to worry about what’s going on in there.” Marcus raised his voice a few notches. “It’s a terrific movie, and if Jesse Ray thinks so too, we stand a real good—”
Luckie snapped out of his trance. “After all this is over and done with tonight, I’m going to make my play for Rex.”
Marcus dropped his half-smoked cigarette. “You’re what?”
“I made a terrible mistake letting him go.” He slid down the wall until his butt rested on the floor.
Marcus joined him. The black-and-white tiles sparkled like the set of an Astaire-and-Rogers picture but were icebox cold. “What are you talking about?”
“I was starting fresh—new job, new company, new project, new everything. I thought I needed to jettison the whole lot, Rex included. Boy, was I wrong.”
If Marcus had known there was a chance that Luckie might want to get back together with Rex, he wouldn’t have kissed the guy in the parking lot that night. Yeah, you would’ve, he told himself. You’d wanted to plant your smoocher on him since the day you met. And suddenly there we were. Just the two of us. Plus moonlight.
“I never knew how much I counted on him to be my Rock of Gibraltar,” Luckie continued. “My income, my daily routine, my future. It was all coming at me from new directions. The past four or five months would have been so much easier if we’d gone home together at the end of every day.”
What had Rex said in the parking lot that night? ‘All I could think about was how relieved I felt.’
“But hasn’t it all worked out?” Marcus asked. “The movie got lots of publicity and a great turnout tonight. And if Jesse likes the picture, it could be up on a thousand screens. Maybe you didn’t need Rex as much as you think you did.”
“What are you saying?”
“Just that you managed to muddle through it all without leaning on—”
Luckie’s head landed against the wall. “He’s seeing someone, isn’t he?”
Oh, shit. “I—ah . . .”
“Is it serious? How long’s it been going on?”
“You said it yourself: Guys like Rex don’t stay single for long.” Three days, to be specific.
“I’m an idiot! I’m such a fool!” Luckie struggled to his feet and headed for the sidewalk.
Marcus followed him. “You can’t leave.”
Luckie pressed his hand to the glass door. “I’m just going around the block. To clear my head.” He disappeared into the night.
Marcus wasn’t sure what to do. Run after him? And say what? “Sorry, pal, but I’m the one schtupping your ex-boyfriend. You didn’t want him anymore and I did. If you want to know the truth, we’re in love. It’s blissful, and thrilling, and all kinds of wonderful to wake up next to a guy who’s first thought is to reach out and—”
“Everything okay?”
Marcus had met the theater manager earlier in the evening but couldn’t recall his name. “Just trying out some new dialogue.” He had to pull Rex out of the movie and tell him what had happened before Luckie got back, so he headed inside, but Rex wasn’t where they’d been sitting. He watched the movie for a while, but squirmed and fidgeted until he couldn’t stand it anymore and walked back into the deserted foyer. He returned to the ashtray and lit up a Camel.
And then another one.
Ten minutes crawled by.
And then ten more.
Still no Luckie.
Marcus walked outside. The heat of the day had dissipated, leaving a foretaste of the fall weather to come. He scanned the faces of passers-by, but Luckie was not among them. He went back inside. And waited.
Ten more minutes.
Another Camel.
He lit a fourth from the smoldering butt of the third.
The audience would be coming out soon. He had to be here to greet them, see their faces, gauge their reactions.
The manager opened the doors.
Marcus had attended enough previews to recognize the scowl of an audience who had just endured a dud. He saw no signs of it on the first dozen faces that emerged from the theater but couldn’t relax until he saw someone whose honest opinion he could trust.
Gwendolyn rushed toward him like her hair was on fire. She wrapped him up in a tight hug. “I’m not saying this just because I love you more than life itself, but honest to God! You’ve really got something there.”
“You think so?
“Do you even need to ask?”
Doris and Arlene caught up with her. “I could turn around and see it again,” Doris said.
Arlene nodded. “That scene at the end? With Melody rushing the kids onto the train? And she’s shoving all the money she has in the world into her son’s pocket, and she’s telling him to go have a big life. And out the window we can see the police car and we know they’re going to arrest her? Lord have mercy!” Arlene started fanning herself with her pocketbook. “Is Melody here? I want to congratulate her.”
A woman in the center of the lobby pulled a brown scarf from her head. Marcus pointed out Melody to Arlene and Doris, who scuttled off to greet her. As he did, Rex emerged from the theater.
“Where were you?” Marcus asked. “I went back in but you’d gone.”
“Mr. Ray was sitting by himself so I joined him.”
“And?”
“He told me it’s the one of the best films he’s seen since A Streetcar Named Desire.”
Gwendolyn clapped her hands together. “You’re going to be a great big hit! Oh look, there’s Luckie.” She raised a hand above the crowd.
As he drew closer, Marcus could see the bloodshot haze of too much tequila.
“Brace yourself! Ray loves our movie!”
Luckie struggled to smile. “Seems like they all enjoyed it.”
“Been indulging in a bit of Dutch courage?” Rex said. “Pennsylvania Dutch courage, of course.” He chuckled at his own joke until he caught Luckie’s withering look. “What did I say?”
“It’s okay,” Luckie said. “You don’t have to hide it from me.”
“Hide what?”
“This new relationship you’re in. Marcus and I got chatting and he told me all about it.”
Rex let out a long breath. “Well, that’s a relief!”
NO! Marcus wanted to shout. It’s not. He doesn’t realize—
“We weren’t keeping it from you intentionally,” Rex told him, “but we were all working so closely that it seemed easier to leave it out of the equation.” He slung his arm around Marcus’s neck. “But now that it’s out in the open and everything’s looking great . . .”
Luckie’s eyes trailed along Rex’s arm as though it was a rattlesnake preparing to strike. He drew back, his mouth contorted with dismay. “What?”
“The movie,” Rex said. “With Ray behind it, we’ve got—”
Marcus shrugged Rex’s arm away. “I didn’t get around to telling him who you’ve been dating.”
A deep blush mottled Rex’s face.
“Did you know about this?” Luckie demanded of Gwendolyn.
Her hands quivered like butterflies. “Well, I mean, you know, Marcus is my neighbor and Rex is my director.”
Marcus didn’t blame Luckie for being upset, but it was grossly unfair to haul her into this painful crossfire. “Gwennie, honey,” he said, “I think Melody, Arlene, and Doris are looking for you.”
She fled, leaving the three men in an uncomfortable triangle.
Marcus said, “Obviously, this isn’t how either of us would have preferred to tell you.”
“Is that right?” Luckie shot back. “When exactly were you planning on letting me know?”
“Hold on a minute,” Rex retaliated. “You broke up with me, remember? You don’t get to judge what I do with my personal life and who I do it with.”
“I don’t give a shit, so fuck you.” Then to Marcus: “And fuck you, too.”
“Now, come on.” Marcus said. This was hardly the time and place to have it out; there was a bigger issue at stake. “We have a professional life that’s about to go—”
“We no longer have a professional life.”
“Please don’t do this.”
“I never want to see either of you again, but we’ve got a movie coming out so here are the rules: until The Beginning of the End runs its course, you’ll stay on your side of the room and I’ll stay on mine.” Luckie spun around and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Marcus and Rex crushed under the weight of Luckie’s wrath.
Marcus’s eyes landed on the poster’s childish scrawl. “Who knew the title of our movie would be so prophetic?”