Adam Morley, Grove’s answer to Robert Taylor, came down the magnificent staircase wearing jodhpurs, tweed jacket, and the air of a pampered young playboy, born to a life of immense wealth and privilege.
Entering the dining room of his ancestral estate, he saw that several family members were already there having breakfast. These included his mother to whom he gave a kiss on her high, aristocratic forehead.
She wasn’t pleased with her son this morning. Apparently he’d been seen in the company, of all people, a YWCA swimming instructress! It wasn’t as if there weren’t a great many girls who were socially right for Adam, including Daphne Swade, her own personal choice. But there he was, going out with a mere person. The entire episode was just too, too exasperating.
Adam’s father, sitting at the head of the table, was a man who liked to keep out of these little family dramas. Instead of joining in the conversation, he concentrated on the financial pages of his newspaper.
But Adam’s sister, Eleanora, made no such attempt at reticence. “How could you be seen in public with that...that...mermaid!” she burst out.
“How can you be seen in public with that wet fish of a boyfriend, Wilfred Beeble?” Adam retorted, heading for the long, marble-topped sideboard upon which were the silver salvers containing scrambled eggs, kippers, kidneys, pancakes, bacon, sausages and muffins. He took a dollop of this and a dollop of that, but he wasn’t particularly hungry and merely toyed with his food.
In the audience, watching this scene on the big screen, Douglas Tanaka could have climbed right inside the picture and polished off the entire silver salver of scrambled eggs. It was getting on for six a.m. and he’d been in this place since the previous afternoon. Those Spam sandwiches on the set of Behind Japanese Lines were the last food he’d had and he was ravenous.
Sitting next to him, Tom was fast asleep. He’d snuck Douglas, disguised in one of his old hunting jackets and caps, into the only place he could think of stashing him: a 24-hour movie house in the seediest part of downtown. And rather than leave the kid there all on his own, Tom had stuck it out with him overnight. Keeping him here would do until he could think of a more permanent solution.
The theatre was a formerly grand movie palace dating back to the 1920s when Los Angeles architecture duplicated the castles of Spain. Today, however, it was a dilapidated habitat for people, mostly derelicts, who stared, glassy-eyed, at the same old feature films being played over and over again. Or slept through them. The sounds of snoring and clattering whisky bottles were constant.
This particular film was called Swim Queen. It had been one of Grove’s big budget, big box office offerings for 1941. By 1942, with every cent wrung out of it in general release, and every bit of interest in it drained, the film was relegated to fifteenth-rate venues such as this one.
The story on the screen progressed. Adam, having been threatened with disinheritance, had bowed to his family’s wishes. He’d broken up with the swimming instructress, played by Alexis Lee, Grove’s high-profile swimming star. Accepting her rejection with her head held high, Alexis had gone off to show Adam and that snobbish family of his a thing or two by swimming the English Channel. Not just one way, but both.
Now, some time later, Adam, and the debutante to whom he was betrothed, Daphne Swade, were sitting under the stars at an exclusive country club when who should walk in but Alexis Lee. Looking agonizingly beautiful. On the arm of Adam’s onetime rival, Dudley Appleworthy.
Sitting several tables from Adam, Alexis was being feted by some country club members who were impressed by her newly-acquired celebrity status. “And when are we going to witness your skills as a swimmer?” one society matron asked.
Alexis, discovering that she was still in love with Adam and wishing there was a way to get him back, realized this might be her opportunity.
“How about right now?” Alexis answered. With Hollywood magic at work, a man in a tuxedo pushed a button and the dance floor disappeared into a wall, revealing a huge swimming pool beneath.
Alexis, who just so happened to be wearing a seamless white Jantzen under her gown, climbed to the high board. She knew she couldn’t compete with the debutante as far as money and pedigree were concerned, but she also knew she could do something the debutante couldn’t. Which, in this case, was a perfect quadruple-gainer that thrilled the crowd.
Afterwards, in the brilliant aquamarine water, made even more brilliant by Technicolor, the cameras captured the lovely Alexis as she performed a series of balletic turns and twists, her stylish upswept hairdo intact.
Meanwhile, Adam, realizing the terrible mistake he’d made giving up Alexis, got up from his table and went to her as she came, dripping wet, out of the pool. Not caring if his tux got sloshed by water, Adam held Alexis in his arms and gazed into her eyes. He was so entranced that he didn’t notice as the enraged Daphne turned their table over, kicked a waiter in the shins, dashed her wine glass against a wall, and exited the country club.
With all the male onlookers envying Adam, and all the female onlookers wishing they could look and swim like Alexis, Adam and Alexis delivered their closing words:
“Do me a favor and marry me, willya?” Adam asked.
“I’d like to...” Alexis hesitated, “but what will your family say?”
“Aw, the heck with my family,” Adam said in a manly tone.
“In that case,” Alexis said, laughing and throwing her arms around Adam’s neck, “the favor is granted!”
As the music increased in volume, and as Alexis and Adam kissed on fadeout, Tom seemed to suddenly wake up.
“Hey,” he said, getting up from his seat. “That’s it. The line about the favor!”