While the block of tenements on the Grove Pictures lot was just a film set, the rundown, brown shingled building with the sagging verandahs and the drooping drainpipes that housed the studio’s film editors was a reality.
Located about a quarter mile from Emerson Waldie’s compound, this was one of Los Angeles’ oldest surviving structures, dating back to the time when L.A. was a rural, agricultural community isolated from the rest of the country by the San Gabriel mountain range that surrounded it on the northeast.
Everything about the editor’s building squeaked. From the floor boards to the mice that lived under them. And as for such 20th century amenities as proper plumbing and air conditioning, they didn’t exist. On a really hot day, when the temperatures climbed to over one hundred degrees, even the film broke out in a sweat.
But even with all the building’s drawbacks, to Erne Parkin, this was home. He preferred to stay where he was rather than to take up the offer of moving to Grove’s executive office building, an eight floor, Art Deco structure on the other side of the lot. This was where all the stuffy, and in Erne’s opinion, useless, executives had their offices. If there was ever a Hollywood specimen Erne had absolutely no use for, it was the studio exec.
“They wouldn’t know a good movie if it crawled between their legs,” Erne had said when he’d been ordered to completely re-edit the only good movie the studio had made in years. It was called End OjA Rhapsody, the story of a concert pianist who loses the use of his hands.
The top execs at Grove had strongly opposed the director’s cut and the way Erne had originally put it together. The director, a man who never strayed too far afield of his master’s wishes, then had Erne start all over again with the emphasis now being on the weepy scenes.
Head office had dictated that a great movie was measured not by what the critics thought of it, nor by how many academy awards it received, but by the number of handkerchiefs a movie-goer was apt to go through during one sitting.
It was this kind of thinking on the studio’s part that so mightily pissed Erne off. But in separating himself from Grove’s executive class and the entire way of life that went with it—the dinner parties, the golf course scene, the martini lunches—Erne found himself unable to complain about the conditions of his present workplace. Which was pure torture for a man who spent his life complaining.
When Tom arrived at the badly-decaying building, he found Erne busily sorting out the various takes on four different features he was editing simultaneously.
To make sure he didn’t mix up the stock, he had strips of film hanging from special hooks into what looked like oversized laundry baskets.
Erne rummaged through the bottom of one of the baskets and came up with what he’d been looking for: an unopened bottle of Jim Beam, not always possible to get during wartime.
He poured a generous glass for Tom and another for him- self. “To Maggie Graym,” he said, winking at Tom and downing his drink in one.
“How did you find out about that?” Tom asked, referring to his rescue of Maggie in the parking lot of the Hollywood Canteen.
“I have my sources,” Erne said with a grin on his face as he poured them both another. “Seen her since?”
“Didn’t you know? We went dancing at the Trocadero last night.”
Erne looked at Tom to see if he was serious. “Old man Waldie would drop dead if that was true,” he said. “His very own creation, the beautiful and highly marketable Maggie Graym. And a mere stuntman.”
Tom poured the third round. “Waldie doesn’t drop dead. He hires other people to do it for him.”
The two men said nothing for awhile. Tom watched with admiration as Erne sliced and spliced film with the extraordinary speed and accuracy that only a master editor possesses.
“Anyway,” Tom said after a few minutes. “Maggie Graym doesn’t do a thing for me.”
Erne stopped what he was doing. “Well, she sure as hell does something for me,” he said.
Erne poured another drink for himself and offered the bottle to Tom who declined.
“I’ll pass,” Tom said. “Gotta get back to the set before Bradford has a fit.”
At the mention of Bradford’s name, Erne’s mood shifted from one of cheerful banter to one of irritation. It didn’t happen all that often that Erne became serious, but he was serious now.
“I’ve been doing a little investigating on that guy,” Erne said. “And if I ever get a break from all this work they keep shoving in my face, I’m gonna do a lot more. I wanna find out, number one, why he’s wasting so much film around here, and number two, how he’s getting away with it.”
“What are you getting so steamed up about?” Tom asked. “You’re not the one he had doing the same dumb stunt over and over again.” He tried to make a joke of it because he didn’t like seeing Erne worked up like this. The guy already had a couple of ulcers as well as high blood pressure. He didn’t want to see a heart attack added to the list.
“You may think it’s funny. But I don’t. Aside from this whole film thing, that idiot keeps entire film crews working overtime for no reason at all. If Waldie knew about it, there would be hell to pay, I can tell you that much. Waldie makes you use both sides of the studio toilet paper. Can you imagine how loud he’d scream if he knew what Bradford was trying to pull off here?”
“Hold on, buddy,” Tom said, trying to calm Erne down. “We don’t know that he’s trying to pull anything off here. He’s probably some kind of perfectionist or something, will probably turn out to be a great director someday.”
“Bullshit,” Erne said.
“And besides,” Tom continued, “he has to get his requisitions for film stock cleared. Along with the fact he has to account for all the extra takes. He can’t just do what he damn well pleases, unless somebody in head office isn’t paying much attention.”
“Or,” Erne said, “unless somebody in head office knows all about this and is in this with Bradford.”
“In what with Bradford?” Tom asked frustratedly.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Erne shouted. “But I mean to find out.”
“Hey Erne,” Tom said, “I know this is Hollywood where everybody’s imagination works overtime, but if you ask me, I think you’ve been editing too many of those Phil and Rosemary, Junior Detective series.”
“Well, nobody asked you,” Erne snapped. “And you can just think what you want to think. But I know something fishy is going on at this studio and I don’t like it.”
“Okay, okay. Just calm down, willya? I’ll see you later and we can discuss it, alright?”
Tom left Erne muttering to himself and working on his miles of film. He was pulling away from the editor’s building when a wine-colored Cadillac Fleetwood Limousine arrived. Marcus Wood, long considered Hollywood royalty, sat in the back and waited for the chauffeur to open the door for him.
Wood, in addition to his many wartime responsibilities and business interests, had, six months previously, been summoned to Washington where he had been appointed executive director of the Motion Picture Information Bureau, also known as MPIB. This was a government office established shortly after Pearl Harbor. Its main function was to make sure American movie audiences were being given Washington’s version, not Hollywood’s, of how the war was progressing.
According to Washington’s rules for Hollywood, propaganda was encouraged, but rewriting history wasn’t. That honor was reserved for Washington itself. Especially when it wasn’t in Washington’s best interests to let the public know what was really going on. Too realistic a picture of the war could create a flurry of bad publicity resulting in an enormous public outcry. It was better to do a cover-up job when mistakes were made or when promises were not kept.
A fairly recent promise not kept was to the troops during the fall of Corregidor. Instead of backing them up with reinforcements and supplies, these troops had been sacrificed to the horrors of the Bataan Death March and the infamous Japanese POW camps. But rather than blame Washington for what appeared to be a case of heartless abandonment, the American media machine focused on the self-sacrifice and suffering of the trapped soldiers. This, apparently, painted a more acceptable picture for the American civilian population to digest.
To have even hinted at betrayal in a feature film about Corregidor would have spelled disaster for the film studio. The same would have been true for a studio exploring a possible conspiracy theory concerning the attack on Pearl Harbor. Some critics of FDR had claimed that he’d arranged for the American warships to be left as sitting targets, thereby inviting Japan to attack. That way, America could be drawn into the war and the Great Depression would be over. It was, of course, just a theory, but a dangerous one.
Therefore, it was the job of Wood’s staff to scrutinize all of the scripts from which war movies were being made. A second check at a later date would be made on the completed film to see that it conformed with the script that had been initially okayed by MPIB.
Grove Pictures, known as the studio making the most war movies these days, was also known as the studio that disre- garded MPIB regulations most often. As a result, Grove Pictures was under almost constant surveillance of the MPIB.
Wearing a superbly tailored pearl gray suit and matching fedora, Wood got out of the limousine and climbed the rickety steps of the old wooden building. This was an unannounced visit as were all his visits. Wood’s policy was to try and catch people in the act of doing what was strictly forbidden by MPIB. And then pounce on them.
His presence at the Editor’s Building would irritate Erne Parkin quite a lot, Wood knew. Especially when he went through the MPIB stipulations as he did each visit. And even though Erne wasn’t in a position to say exactly what was to go into a film and what wasn’t, this being up to head office, Wood knew that his real control lay in inspecting films at random during final editing, just in case the studio was trying to sneak something through, as it did on a regular basis.
Wood would have liked nothing better than to have gotten Erne retired from the studio. Waldie, however, had been extremely stubborn on this point because Erne, despite his well-known stand-offishness, was very valuable to Grove Pictures.
Both Wood and Erne went back the same amount of time in Hollywood, the two of them having arrived from the east just as the industry was starting to grow. But whereas Erne had stayed out of the political arena, Wood had used it to his own advantage. And with great success. His charm and tact were legendary. Everyone admired him and loved him. With possibly one exception: Erne Parkin.
But he could handle Erne, and then do what he really came to the editor’s building to do today.
Which had nothing whatsoever to do with his position as head of the Motion Picture Information Bureau.