"Sit down, Pat."
"That Eric's got talent, hasn't he?" said Le Vigne. "He'll go
places. How'd you come to dig him up?"
Pat felt the straps of the electric chair being adjusted.
"Oh--I just dug him up. He--came in my office."
"We're putting him on salary," said Le Vigne. "We ought to have
some system to give these kids a chance."
He took a call on his Dictograph, then swung back to Pat.
"But how did you ever get mixed up with this goddam Shaver. YOU,
Pat--an old-timer like you."
"Well, I thought--"
"Why doesn't he go back East?" continued Le Vigne disgustedly.
"Getting all you poops stirred up!"
Blood flowed back into Pat's veins. He recognized his signal, his
dog-call.
"Well, I got you a story, didn't I?" he said, with almost a
swagger. And he added, "How'd you know about it?"
"I went down to see Estelle in the hospital. She and this kid were
working on it. I walked right in on them."
"Oh," said Pat.
"I knew the kid by sight. Now, Pat, tell me this--did Jeff Manfred
think you wrote it--or was he in on the racket?"
"Oh God," Pat mourned. "What do I have to answer that for?"
Le Vigne leaned forward intensely.
"Pat, you're sitting over a trap door!" he said with savage eyes.
"Do you see how the carpet's cut? I just have to press this button
and drop you down to hell! Will you TALK?"
Pat was on his feet, staring wildly at the floor.
"Sure I will!" he cried. He believed it--he believed such things.
"All right," said Le Vigne relaxing. "There's whiskey in the
sideboard there. Talk quick and I'll give you another month at two-
fifty. I kinda like having you around."
A PATRIOTIC SHORT
Esquire (December 1940)
Pat Hobby, the writer and the man, had his great success in
Hollywood during what Irving Cobb refers to as 'the mosaic swimming-
pool age--just before the era when they had to have a shinbone of
St Sebastian for a clutch lever.'
Mr Cobb no doubt exaggerates, for when Pat had his pool in those
fat days of silent pictures, it was entirely cement, unless you
should count the cracks where the water stubbornly sought its own
level through the mud.
'But it WAS a pool,' he assured himself one afternoon more than a
decade later. Though he was now more than grateful for this small
chore he had assigned him by producer Berners--one week at two-
fifty--all the insolence of office could not take that memory away.
He had been called in to the studio to work upon an humble short.
It was based on the career of General Fitzhugh Lee who fought for
the Confederacy and later for the U.S.A. against Spain--so it would
offend neither North nor South. And in the recent conference Pat
had tried to co-operate.
'I was thinking--' he suggested to Jack Berners '--that it might be
a good thing if we could give it a Jewish touch.'
'What do you mean?' demanded Jack Berners quickly.
'Well I thought--the way things are and all, it would be a sort of
good thing to show that there were a number of Jews in it too.'
'In what?'
'In the Civil War.' Quickly he reviewed his meagre history. 'They
were, weren't they?'
'Naturally,' said Berners, with some impatience, 'I suppose
everybody was except the Quakers.'
'Well, my idea was that we could have this Fitzhugh Lee in love
with a Jewish girl. He's going to be shot at curfew so she grabs a
church bell--'
Jack Berners leaned forward earnestly.
'Say, Pat, you want this job, don't you? Well, I told you the
story. You got the first script. If you thought up this tripe to
please me you're losing your grip.'
Was that a way to treat a man who had once owned a pool which had
been talked about by--
That was how he happened to be thinking about his long lost
swimming pool as he entered the shorts department. He was
remembering a certain day over a decade ago in all its details, how
he had arrived at the studio in his car driven by a Filipino in
uniform; the deferential bow of the guard at the gate which had
admitted car and all to the lot, his ascent to that long lost
office which had a room for the secretary and was really a
director's office . . .
shorts department, who walked him into his own chambers.
'Jack Berners just phoned me,' he said. 'We don't want any new
angles, Pat. We've got a good story. Fitzhugh Lee was a dashing
cavalry commander. He was a nephew of Robert E. Lee and we want to
show him at Appomattox, pretty bitter and all that. And then show
how he became reconciled--we'll have to be careful because Virginia
is swarming with Lees--and how he finally accepts a U.S. commission
from President McKinley--'
Pat's mind darted back again into the past. The President--that
was the magic word that had gone around that morning many years
ago. The President of the United States was going to make a visit
to the lot. Everyone had been agog about it--it seemed to mark a
new era in pictures because a President of the United States had
never visited a studio before. The executives of the company were
all dressed up--from a window of his long lost Beverly Hills house
Pat had seen Mr Maranda, whose mansion was next door to him, bustle
down his walk in a cutaway coat at nine o'clock, and had known that
something was up. He thought maybe it was clergy but when he
reached the lot he had found it was the President of the United
States himself who was coming . . .
'Clean up the stuff about Spain,' Ben Brown was saying. 'The guy
that wrote it was a Red and he's got all the Spanish officers with
ants in their pants. Fix up that.'
In the office assigned him Pat looked at the script of True to Two
Flags. The first scene showed General Fitzhugh Lee at the head of
his cavalry receiving word that Petersburg had been evacuated. In
the script Lee took the blow in pantomime, but Pat was getting two-
fifty a week--so, casually and without effort, he wrote in one of
his favourite lines:
Lee (to his officers)
Well, what are you standing here gawking for? DO something! 6.
Medium Shot Officers pepping up, slapping each other on back, etc.
Dissolve to:
To what? Pat's mind dissolved once more into the glamorous past.
On that happy day in the twenties his phone had rung at about noon.
It had been Mr Maranda.
'Pat, the President is lunching in the private dining room. Doug
Fairbanks can't come so there's a place empty and anyhow we think
there ought to be one writer there.'
His memory of the luncheon was palpitant with glamour. The Great
Man had asked some questions about pictures and had told a joke and
Pat had laughed and laughed with the others--all of them solid men
together--rich, happy and successful.
Afterwards the President was to go on some sets and
see some scenes
taken and still later he was going to Mr Maranda's house to meet
some of the women stars at tea. Pat was not invited to that party
but he went home early anyhow and from his veranda saw the cort�ge
drive up, with Mr Maranda beside the President in the back seat.
Ah he was proud of pictures then--of his position in them--of the
President of the happy country where he was born . . .
Returning to reality Pat looked down at the script of True to Two
Flags and wrote slowly and thoughtfully:
Insert: A calendar--with the years plainly marked and the sheets
blowing off in a cold wind, to show Fitzhugh Lee growing older and
older.
His labours had made him thirsty--not for water, but he knew better
than to take anything else his first day on the job. He got up and
went out into the hall and along the corridor to the water-cooler.
As he walked he slipped back into his reverie.
That had been a lovely California afternoon so Mr Maranda had taken
his exalted guest and the coterie of stars into his garden, which
adjoined Pat's garden. Pat had gone out his back door and followed
a low privet hedge keeping out of sight--and then accidentally come
face to face with the Presidential party.
The President had smiled and nodded. Mr Maranda smiled and nodded.
'You met Mr Hobby at lunch,' Mr Maranda said to the President.
'He's one of our writers.'
'Oh yes,' said the President, 'you write the pictures.'
'Yes I do,' said Pat.
The President glanced over into Pat's property.
'I suppose--' he said, '--that you get lots of inspiration sitting
by the side of that fine pool.'
'Yes,' said Pat, 'yes, I do,'
. . . Pat filled his cup at the cooler. Down the hall there was a
group approaching--Jack Berners, Ben Brown and several other
executives and with them a girl to whom they were very attentive
and deferential. He recognized her face--she was the girl of the
year, the It girl, the Oomph girl, the Glamour Girl, the girl for
whose services every studio was in violent competition.
Pat lingered over his drink. He had seen many phonies break in and
break out again, but this girl was the real thing, someone to stir
every pulse in the nation. He felt his own heart beat faster.
Finally, as the procession drew near, he put down the cup, dabbed
at his hair with his hand and took a step out into the corridor.
The girl looked at him--he looked at the girl. Then she took one
arm of Jack Berners' and one of Ben Brown's and suddenly the party
seemed to walk right through him--so that he had to take a step
back against the wall.
An instant later Jack Berners turned around and said back to him,
'Hello, Pat.' And then some of the others threw half glances
around but no one else spoke, so interested were they in the girl.
In his office, Pat looked at the scene where President McKinley
offers a United States commission to Fitzhugh Lee. Suddenly he
gritted his teeth and bore down on his pencil as he wrote:
Lee
Mr President, you can take your commission and go straight to hell.
Then he bent down over his desk, his shoulders shaking as he
thought of that happy day when he had had a swimming pool.
ON THE TRAIL OF PAT HOBBY
Esquire (January 1941)
I
The day was dark from the outset, and a California fog crept
everywhere. It had followed Pat in his headlong, hatless flight
across the city. His destination, his refuge, was the studio,
where he was not employed but which had been home to him for twenty
years.
Was it his imagination or did the policeman at the gate give him
and his pass an especially long look? It might be the lack of a
hat--Hollywood was full of hatless men but Pat felt marked,
especially as there had been no opportunity to part his thin grey
hair.
In the Writers' Building he went into the lavatory. Then he
remembered: by some inspired ukase from above, all mirrors had been
removed from the Writers' Building a year ago.
Across the hall he saw Bee McIlvaine's door ajar, and discerned her
plump person.
'Bee, can you loan me your compact box?' he asked.
Bee looked at him suspiciously, then frowned and dug it from her
purse.
'You on the lot?' she inquired.
'Will be next week,' he prophesied. He put the compact on her desk
and bent over it with his comb. 'Why won't they put mirrors back
in the johnnies? Do they think writers would look at themselves
all day?'
'Remember when they took out the couches?' said Bee. 'In nineteen
thirty-two. And they put them back in thirty-four.'
'I worked at home,' said Pat feelingly.
Finished with her mirror he wondered if she were good for a loan--
enough to buy a hat and something to eat. Bee must have seen the
look in his eyes for she forestalled him.
'The Finns got all my money,' she said, 'and I'm worried about my
job. Either my picture starts tomorrow or it's going to be
shelved. We haven't even got a title.'
She handed him a mimeographed bulletin from the scenario department
and Pat glanced at the headline.
TO ALL DEPARTMENTS
TITLE WANTED--FIFTY DOLLARS REWARD
SUMMARY FOLLOWS
'I could use fifty,' Pat said. 'What's it about?'
'It's written there. It's about a lot of stuff that goes on in
tourist cabins.'
Pat started and looked at her wild-eyed. He had thought to be safe
here behind the guarded gates but news travelled fast. This was a
friendly or perhaps not so friendly warning. He must move on. He
was a hunted man now, with nowhere to lay his hatless head.
'I don't know anything about that,' he mumbled and walked hastily
from the room.
II
Just inside the door of the commissary Pat looked around. There
was no guardian except the girl at the cigarette stand but
obtaining another person's hat was subject to one complication: it
was hard to judge the size by a cursory glance, while the sight of
a man trying on several hats in a check room was unavoidably
suspicious.
Personal taste also obtruded itself. Pat was beguiled by a green
fedora with a sprightly feather but it was too readily identifiable.
This was also true of a fine white Stetson for the open spaces.
Finally he decided on a sturdy grey Homburg which looked as if it
would give him good service. With trembling hands he put it on.
It fitted. He walked out--in painful, interminable slow motion.
His confidence was partly restored in the next hour by the fact
that no one he encountered made references to tourists' cabins. It
had been a lean three months for Pat. He had regarded his job as
night clerk for the Selecto Tourists Cabins as a mere fill-in,
never to be mentioned to his friends. But when the police squad
came this morning they held up the raid long enough to assure Pat,
or Don Smith as he called himself, that he would be wanted as a
witness. The story of his escape lies in the realm of melodrama,
how he went out a side door, bought a half pint of what he so
desperately needed at the corner drug-store, hitchhiked his way
across the great city, going limp at the sight of traffic cops and
only breathing free when he saw the studio's high-flown sign.
After a call on Louie, the studio bookie, whose great patron he
once had been, he dropped in on Jack Berners. He had no idea to
submit, but he caught Jack in a hurried moment flying off to a
producers' conference and was unexpectedly invited to step in and
wait for his return.
The office was rich and comfortable. There were no letters worth
reading on the desk, but there were a decanter and glasses in a
cupboard and presently he lay down on a big soft couch and fell
asleep.
He was awakened by Berners' return, in high indignation.
'Of all the damn nonsense! We get a hurry call--heads of all
departments. One man is late and we wait for him. He comes in and
gets a bawling out for wasting thousands of dollars worth of time.
Then what do you suppose: Mr Marcus has lost his favourite hat!'
Pat failed to associate the fact with himself.
'All the department heads stop production!' continued Berners.
'Two thousand people look for a grey Homburg hat!' He sank
despairingly into a chair, 'I can't talk to you today, Pat. By
four o'clock, I've got to get a title to a picture about a tourist
camp. Got an idea?'
'No,' said Pat. 'No.'
'Well, go up to Bee McIlvaine's office and help her figure
something out. There's fifty dollars in it.'
In a daze Pat wandered to the door.
'Hey,' said Berners, 'don't forget your hat.'
III
Feeling the effects of his day outside the law, and of a tumbler
full of Berners' brandy, Pat sat in Bee McIlvaine's office.
'We've got to get a title,' said Bee gloomily.
She handed Pat the mimeograph offering fifty dollars reward and put
a pencil in his hand. Pat stared at the paper unseeingly.
'How about it?' she asked. 'Who's got a title?'
There was a long silence.
'Test Pilot's been used, hasn't it?' he said with a vague tone.
'Wake up! This isn't about aviation.'
'Well, I was just thinking it was a good title.'
'So's The Birth of a Nation.'
'But not for this picture,' Pat muttered. 'Birth of a Nation
wouldn't suit this picture.'
'But not for this picture,' Pat muttered. 'Birth of a Nation
wouldn't suit this picture.'
'Are you ribbing me?' demanded Bee. 'Or are you losing your mind?
This is serious.'
'Sure--I know.' Feebly he scrawled words at the bottom of the
page. 'I've had a couple of drinks that's all. My head'll clear
up in a minute. I'm trying to think what have been the most
successful titles. The trouble is they've all been used, like It
Happened One Night.'
Bee looked at him uneasily. He was having trouble keeping his eyes
open and she did not want him to pass out in her office. After a
minute she called Jack Berners.
'Could you possibly come up? I've got some title ideas.'
Jack arrived with a sheaf of suggestions sent in from here and
there in the studio, but digging through them yielded no ore.
'How about it, Pat? Got anything?'
Pat braced himself to an effort.
'I like It Happened One Morning,' he said--then looked desperately
at his scrawl on the mimeograph paper, 'or else--Grand Motel.'