Skin Flick

We'd still be shooting that damn movie if it hadn't been for Harry. And I want to tell you it was me who at the very beginning said Harry would be no good for the project, and don't forget it. That's because Harry is a dope. I am not talking about his acting ability. He probably was as talented in his own way as the rest of us put together. I am only talking about his capacity to understand a very good deal that could have made everybody extremely happy, if only some dope wouldn't fall in love with a dizzy broad the way Harry did. I will never forgive Harry. I don't know where he is right now, but someday I'm going to meet him someplace, I'm going to spot him coming down the street with his skinny face and his eyeglasses, and he'll probably have that dumb blonde on his arm, and I'm going to walk up to him and say, "Hello, dummy, you happy now? You happy you blew the whole thing?"

I don't want to hear anything about morality; there's no such thing as morality when you are making a pornographic movie. In fact, the only thing obscene was that Harry went off the deep end for that girl and ruined my idea. Yes, it was my idea from the beginning, though I've been hearing around town that Ben says it was his idea. I don't like to hear that kind of talk. It breaks my heart to hear that kind of talk. I give credit where credit is due, and Ben was the one who thought of the empty loft, but that was after I got the idea of doing the movie. Anyway, it was that dumb bastard Harry who blew it all, so what difference does it make whose idea it was in the first place, even if it was Ben's? Which it wasn't.

And I admit that Solly was the one who found the girl; I'll even admit he did the preliminary talking; he's a very smooth talker, Solly, and a good dresser besides; I'll tell that to anyone who'll listen, you'll never hear me bad-mouthing a friend. But it was me who convinced the girl we could make her a star. Even Solly will admit it was me who finally sewed up the deal that day in the R & M Cafeteria when she was sitting there at the table nibbling on a jelly doughnut and driving us all crazy just from the way she licked powdered sugar from her lips. She was no beauty, but she had something, all right; she had star quality. Solly recognized her star quality while she was giving him a massage in that place on Eighth Avenue. Solly's got a good eye, no one can take that away from him.

It was raining the day she came into the R & M and she was wearing this soaking-wet black raincoat, and she apologized for being late, but she'd just come from dance. She took off the coat and what she was wearing underneath was this black leotard with a short leather skirt wrapped around it and black boots, and right away I got an idea for a scene in the picture, but I didn't tell her about it just then, because what we were there to do was sell her on becoming a porn queen. I did most of the talking; I'm the one who sold her. Ben was the one who explained the project to her, but I'm the one who finally nailed down the deal. In fact, it wasn't even Ben who told her what we planned to do. It was Solly. Yes, that's absolutely correct, what's right is right.

They had got to talking in the massage parlor and she had apologized for not being so good at this line of work, but she was really an unemployed actress and had just taken the job to make ends meet. Solly had immediately told her we'd been looking for somebody exactly like her to play a role in a low-budget movie we were doing, and this had got her interested and she'd agreed to talk it over with us the next day. And it was Solly who picked up the ball the minute she came to the table shaking rain out of her frizzy blonde hair and saying she was always starved after dance class, could she order something to eat, or would that be all right? She ate like a friggin' horse, that girl. I hope Harry, wherever he is, is spending a fortune on food bills. Solly explained that we were three movie buffs who'd managed to save a little money, not a lot, and who were now ready to take a chance on a lifelong dream, which was to produce a quality motion picture that, if everything went OK, would make us all millionaires, God willing. He went on to say that he himself had written a pretty good screenplay----

"It's a great screenplay," Ben said. "Don't knock it."

And Ben would be cameraman on the picture and I would be directing. We had none of us had too much experience, but we were sure we could make a movie that was a lot better than some of the junk being shown around these days, though plenty of those pictures, too, were making tons of money.

"Like I told you in the massage parlor," Solly said, "we've been searching for a girl about your age and build who also has that nice quality of looking innocent and sophisticated at the same time together."

"Thanks," the girl said. She had listened to all this while first she demolished a big bowl of clam chowder and then a plateful of pot roast, boiled potatoes and string beans, with two buttered rolls. She thought it over now while she sipped at a glass of milk and nibbled at a sugar-covered jelly doughnut--Jesus, that doughnut. Then she said, "How big is the part and how much are you paying?"

Now, that was when Ben came in, I remember it distinctly, I always give credit where credit is due. It was Ben who put her on the defensive by telling her we naturally wanted somebody with acting experience, and preferably acting experience before a camera, because, after all, we were going to be shooting a movie here and not doing some crumby little play downtown in some grubby little theater. And I remember she got very offended when he asked her what her acting credits were. She told him she'd been doing plays even when she was a high school freshman, and since her graduation four years ago, she'd done a lot of summer stock and could even show us some of the really very good reviews she'd got, if we cared to see them. She'd never been before a camera except in home movies, but she was only 22 and she figured she had plenty of time yet. Of course, things weren't going exactly her way just then, which was why she'd taken the job in the massage parlor, but a girl with her talent was sure she'd make it sooner or later, so what was the hurry? And, besides, how big was the part and how much were we ready to pay her?

Solly almost blew it right then and there; I think he was very premature in asking whether or not she had any objections to doing nude scenes. For a minute, I thought she was going to get up and walk right out, especially since by now she'd also finished the doughnut and the glass of milk. But she looked Solly straight in the eye and she said in this very tiny sort of breathless voice she had, "What do you mean? Do you mean I'll have to take off my clothes in front of a camera and everything?" And that was where I stepped in and saved the day. I figured there was no sense kidding this girl, she had to know sooner or later what the project was. If we lost her, we'd just have to look for someone else.

"Miss," I said, "this is a pornographic movie we have in mind here."

The girl blinked and said, "Could I have another doughnut and glass of milk, please?"

I sent Ben up to the counter, and while he was gone, I patted her hand gently and told her I knew this must come as a terrific shock to her, but she shouldn't think for one minute that we were going to make a dirty movie, so-called. The sex scenes would be explicit, yes, but Solly had written a beautiful screenplay with plenty of socially redeeming value, and the film we planned to make would be something that no one would be ashamed to take his wife or his sweetheart to, or maybe even both together--something, in fact, that might be beneficial to poor unfortunates who had sexual hang-ups as well. I told her that the film would be shot on a closed set, no exteriors, we would never even consider asking her to take off her clothes in public. There'd be only her on the set, and a few actors, and Ben Cranking the camera, and Solly there to make any necessary script changes, and me, of course, directing. I told her I was a man of sensitivity who would most certainly be aware of her innermost feelings and the feelings of any actor working with her, and, besides, I'd be the first to take offense at any line or gesture that seemed merely dirty or obscene without being also artistic and socially redeeming. This was going to be a story of quiet beauty and delicacy, I told her, and she said, "Gee, I don't know, I've never fucked in front of a camera before."

Ben came back with the milk and the doughnut, and he began talking about the kind of salary she could expect. He explained that some very fine dramatic actresses like Linda Lovelace and Tina Russell and Marilyn Chambers had got their start in pornographic movies of taste and distinction but that their salaries were very low when they were just starting out--Georgina Spelvin, for example, had got only $500 for the extraordinarily (continued on page 122) Skin Flick (continued from page 112) sensitive work she did in The Devil in Miss Jones--but, of course, now that she was a star, now that they all were stars, they could call their own tunes and were even being sought after for work outside skin flicks. Considering the circumstances, and realizing that we were interested primarily in turning out a quality film, which would mean making sure that every inch of footage was in good taste and carefully shot, the most we could offer her was double what these other actresses had got. In short, we could offer what was a very high salary for a beginning actress in a starring role in her very first big movie, and that was $1000 from the start of principal photography to the day of completion.

"Gee, I don't know," she said.

"We'll pay you an advance of one hundred dollars on signing," Ben said.

"How long will it take to make this movie?" she asked.

"Twenty weeks," I said.

"Twenty weeks is a long time for only a thousand dollars," she said. "I make more than that in the massage parlor."

"You can't become a star in a massage parlor," Solly said.

"That's true," she said, "but----"

"I can understand what she means," I said. "We're offering her a thousand dollars for twenty weeks' work. That only comes to fifty dollars a week."

"That's right," she said.

"And suppose we run over?" I said.

"We won't run over," Ben said.

"How do you know we won't?"

"What do you mean, 'run over'?" the girl asked. "What's run over?"

"That means if it takes more time to shoot than we planned."

"More than twenty weeks?" she said. "This must be some long movie you've got in mind here."

"We want to do a quality job," I said.

"Well, I can tell you one thing," she said. "If it runs over twenty weeks, I want fifty a week for as long as it takes. That's if I decide to take the job, which I haven't decided I'll take it yet."

"Well, take your time," Ben said.

"Who's going to be in this picture with me?" she asked.

"We haven't found a leading man yet," I said.

"How much will you be paying him?"

"All we can afford is five hundred dollars."

"Mmm," she said. "So that's fifteen hundred for both of us, right?"

"That's right."

"And you guys expect to make millions on this picture, right?"

"Yes."

"Then I want a percentage," she said. "I want twenty-five percent of the profits."

"No," Ben said, "that's out of the question."

"Just a minute, Ben," I said.

"Out of the question," he said.

"And, also, I want script approval."

"No script approval," Solly said.

"OK, I'll forget about script approval, but I still want twenty-five percent."

"Make it five," I said.

"Make it ten," she said.

"Boys?" I said.

Solly and Ben looked at each other.

"This is highway robbery," Ben said. "There must be a thousand young actresses in this city----"

"Ben," Solly said, "I want this girl for the part. She's perfect for the part."

"Do you know what ten percent of a million dollars is?" Ben asked.

"Yes, it's one hundred thousand dollars," Solly said, "and I'm willing to give her that if she turns out to be only half as good as I think she'll be."

"I think she'll be very good, too, Ben," I said.

"I was hoping for a redhead," Ben said.

"What do you say?"

"All right, all right," Ben said. "Give her the ten percent."

"Have we got a deal?" I asked her.

"We've got a deal," she said, and grinned.

Powdered sugar was clinging to her lips.

•

We had budgeted ourselves very carefully, because it simply wouldn't have paid to undertake the project if it was going to come to too much of a weekly investment for the three of us individually. You have to remember that whereas this dream of ours had been taking shape over a long period of time, during which we'd had many meetings and discussions, we nevertheless knew very little about the movie business and were a little bit afraid we wouldn't be able to make the thing work. Ben, for example, though he had naturally taken a lot of photographs in his lifetime, both still and motion picture, made his real living as an accountant and naturally had a lot to learn. Solly worked as a short-order cook in a delicatessen downtown and had written his beautiful screenplay at night and on Sundays. And I personally was a lingerie salesman for Benjamin Brothers Apparel, but this doesn't necessarily mean I did not have a feel for directing; I have always been very good with people; there are those who say I am maybe too sensitive when it comes to personal relationships.

What I'm trying to explain is that the project was a risky one for three amateurs, and we all knew it would require a great deal of concentration and energy to bring it off and make our dream come true. And, also, it couldn't cost us too much, because then the economics of it would have been self-defeating, if you know what I mean. We were paying the girl $50 a week, and we were planning to pay her leading man $25 a week, and also we had rented a big empty loft for another $50 a week, which came to a bottom-line cost of positively $125 a week, which was maybe not expensive for what we had in mind but which was a considerable sum for us to be splitting three ways. If you figure it out, it came to almost $42 a week for each of us. And if the girl didn't work out, we would have lost our initial $100 advance, which was supposed to cover the first two weeks of shooting the scenes with her leading man.

The leading man we found was Harry.

Knowing what I now know, I wish we had never laid eyes on him. In fact, knowing what I now know. I wish Harry had got hit by a bus on the first day of shooting. Or even the second day. Or a falling safe from a high building. Or a catastrophe in the subway. Harry was a dope. He wasn't even good-looking, but that was OK, because we didn't want her leading man to be too good-looking, as that would run contrary to the intent of Solly's script when it got to the play-within-a-play sections, which were actually the major sections of the movie. Harry was working daytimes as an insurance adjuster and he was reluctant to accept our offer at first, because he was very conscientious about his job and he didn't want to get to work tired in the morning. I should tell you at this point, though I hold no hard feelings, that it was Ben who brought that dope Harry around. They had gone to high school together, and Ben remembered him from the locker room as somebody who was not too spectacularly built, which was also in keeping with the tone and the intent of Solly's beautiful screenplay.

Anyway, we told Harry that our shooting schedule, as far as it concerned him, would be from eight p.m. to midnight, and then he could go home and get a good night's rest before he went to his job at the insurance company. We told him that $25 a week was really just a token payment, but the work was not exactly disagreeable and, besides, we were willing to pay him five percent of the profits once the picture broke even and we were all on the way to becoming millionaires. We did this because we felt certain he would begin talking to the girl later on when they became acquainted and we didn't want any jealousy on the set about who was getting a percentage and who wasn't. It was offering him the percentage that did the trick. Up to then, he was only mildly interested; we had shown him pictures of the girl--fully clothed, of course--which Ben had taken the minute we signed her, and though she was very nicely shaped--in fact, very marvelously shaped--she wasn't too beautiful in the face, though she did have a nice innocent and sophisticated look about her. Harry wasn't too sure he wanted to make love to her in front of a camera. He said he had gone out with much prettier girls in his lifetime, which, (continued on page 294) Skin Flick (continued from page 122) frankly, I found hard to believe when you consider this was Harry the dope talking. But when we offered the five percent, he all at once decided that maybe it would be all right for him to lower his standards just this once, provided it really wouldn't take more of his time than from eight to midnight. We told him that as the shooting went on, he would be required to perform even less and less, and he agreed to work for us. So there we were. We had our script, we had our leading players, we had this big old loft to shoot the movie in and we had our dream.

So we began.

•

It was very difficult to explain Solly's script, especially to a pair of dummies like Harry and the girl. The first thing she wanted to know was what the cast of characters page meant. That particular page was at the very beginning of the script and it looked like this:

Cast of Characters

(In Order of Appearance))

The Girl

The Leading Man

The Writer

The Cameraman

The Director

Solly explained to her that the movie utilized a play-within-a-play technique, which these days was very popular and chic, not to mention tasteful. He also explained that the movie was about a movie. That is to say, we were really making two movies here, one of them the movie we were making and the other one a movie about the movie we were making. The girl immediately complained that we hired her to make only one movie and now we were telling her she had to act in two movies. It took us an hour and a half of valuable time to explain that it was really only one movie, and if she just trusted our taste and our judgment, she would see that it worked as art and also as a delicate probing of the sexual impulses, dreams and realizations of all human beings. She listened carefully to everything we said, and then she thought it over, and then she said, "Still, if it's two movies, I want a bigger percentage."

So we upped her percentage to 15 points, and since Harry was standing there listening to all this, we were forced to raise his percentage to ten, which meant that together they were into the movie for 25 points. This didn't bother us. We just wanted to get the thing going. But now that the girl had 15 percent of the picture, she began immediately behaving like a star. First she wanted to know what kind of camera Ben had there on the tripod.

"That is an eight-millimeter camera," Ben told her. "We will have the film blown up later. It's cheaper to do it this way than to shoot in thirty-five from the beginning. It's the stock that costs a lot of money, you see."

"What do you mean, 'stock'?" she said.

"The raw stock. The film."

"Is this picture in color?" she said.

"Yes, of course." Ben said.

"Because I look very good in color," she said.

"Oh, yes, everything will be in color," he said. He turned to me and said, "I'm ready to roll whenever you are."

"What about the lights?" the girl asked.

"Are we just going to shoot with just the lights that are here?"

"I'm using very fast film," Ben said. "We don't need any special lighting. Also, it will make the picture look more natural this way."

"And where's my make-up man?" she said.

"We want you to look very natural," I said. "That was one of the things that first attracted us to you. The natural look you have."

"Well," she said, and thought this over.

Solly, who is normally a very patient man, said, "I don't want to butt in here on technical matters, but time is what costs money on a movie set. Time costs more money than film. And we have been here since eight o'clock tonight, and it is now almost ten, and we haven't shot a foot of film. If we're going to complete this thing in the time we have laid out for it, then if everybody is ready, I think we ought to start shooting the first scene."

"I was only worried about make-up," the girl said, "because I have a tiny little beauty spot on the underside of my left breast, and I wondered if you wanted to touch it up or anything."

"We'll see about that when we come to it," I said.

"Actually, the beauty spot will make you look even more natural," Solly said.

"We'll see when you take off your clothes," Ben said.

"Will I be taking off my clothes tonight?"

"Yes, in the first scene, you take off your clothes," Solly said.

"Because I feel a little funny about taking off my clothes in a room full of men, in front of a camera."

"Well, there's only us," I said.

"Still."

"And remember that millions and millions of people will be seeing you naked when this picture is released. And we'll all make millions and millions of dollars," I added.

"Yes," she said, "but still."

"I wish we could begin," Solly said.

"Are you ready?" I asked her.

"I guess so," she said, "but if I seem a little embarrassed at first, I hope that'll be all right."

"That's perfect for the part," Solly said. "Don't worry about it."

"Am I supposed to wear just my own clothes?" the girl said.

"Yes, that's part of it, too," I said. "We want this to be as natural as we can make it, without a lot of fancy costumes and such."

"I thought I'd have maybe a special wardrobe."

"Well," I said, "we've picked out some very beautiful and tasteful lingerie for you to wear later on in the picture, and also some attractive costumes with leather and buckles and such, that will set you off to fine advantage, but that's later. In the beginning scenes, in these opening scenes, where you apply for a job in the film, we want you to look as natural as possible."

"If I'd known you wanted me to look so natural, I wouldn't have worn a bra," she said.

"No, the bra is good," I said. "For some strange reason, men enjoy seeing a girl in her underwear; the bra will be fine."

"Well, OK," she said. "But it isn't even my best bra."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," I said.

"Well, OK," she said.

"Are we ready to begin?" I said. "Harry? Are you ready?"

"I'm ready," Harry said, "though if there's any sex stuff in these opening scenes, I don't know if I'm ready for that."

"Let me explain the scene to you, Ok?" I said.

"I mean, a person can't just perform on cue, you know what I mean?" Harry said.

"Yes, I know just what you mean," the girl said, and smiled at him. "I'll tell you the truth, I'm very excited about this being the first day of shooting and all--the first night of shooting, I should say--but I'm not excited that way; I mean, I'm not too terribly physically or sexually excited at this given moment. Are you?"

"No," he said, "I'm not excited at all. In fact, I'm not even excited about it being the first night of shooting. I had a terrible day today; this man came in with his car almost totaled, and he insisted----"

"Could we please begin?" Solly said. "Please?"

"People?" I said. "Are we ready?"

"Ready," Ben said.

"Ready," the girl said.

"Sure," Harry said, and shrugged.

I explained the first scene to them. In this scene, the girl is supposed to come up to the loft and audition for the three producers of the film, who are also serving respectively as scriptwriter, cameraman and director. They have arranged for the girl to meet her leading man, and in a tasteful and artistic setting, they ask that she take off her clothes so that they can judge whether or not she will be physically suited to the role.

"Well, I'm certainly physically suited," the girl said. "Otherwise, you wouldn't have hired me, would you?"

"Yes," I explained, "of course you are, but that's in real life, and this is in the movie. In the movie, the producers aren't sure yet, which is why they ask you to take off your clothes."

"Well, are these producers blind or something? I mean, anybody can see I'm physically suited, even with my clothes on."

"There's a reason for this," I said, "because for some strange reason, men like to see a girl taking off her clothes."

"You mean this is like a sort of striptease, is that it?" she asked.

"Yes, sort of. But tasteful. We don't want to get into any sex scenes right off, you see."

"Thank God," she said. "I really don't think I'm up to anything like that tonight. Are you, Harry?"

"No," he said, "I'm definitely not."

"OK, then," I said, "what you do is come into the loft and ask if this is where we're casting this movie, and we'll answer you, but nobody will see us, the camera will just be on you. And we'll introduce you to Harry and then ask if you would mind taking off your clothes, and you should take them off slowly and shyly, and that'll be the scene. Later on, we may ask you to kiss Harry or something mild like that; neither of you will have to do anything you don't really feel like doing tonight. We'll just play it slow and easy; we want to do a sensitive job here, and your personal feelings are very much in our minds."

"Well, OK," the girl said.

"Is something wrong?" I said.

"Well, before I take off my clothes, I want you to know the contract is binding, no matter what. I'm getting fifty dollars a week and fifteen percent of the profits, and that's that."

"Of course," I said. "That's our agreement."

"OK," she said. "In which case, I want you to know I'm not a natural blonde."

"That's all right," I said. "Quiet on the set, please."

•

I won't bore you with all the details of that first night's shooting, or even of the progress we made during the next two weeks. I will say that Solly had been absolutely right about the girl. She had looked spectacular when she was wearing clothes, but she looked positively fantastically unbelievable when she took them off. Also, when she got over her shyness and embarrassment, she really did a good job with the sex scenes she performed oncamera with Harry. I guess this was because Solly had written such a good script, spare and neat and what I guess you could call lean. He very much had in mind the feelings of the actors and wanted each of the sex scenes to appear spontaneous, instead of like some of these scenes you see in cheap porn flicks, where you just know the actors are being told what to do each and every minute. Solly's script made it all seem very natural and very beautiful and also, I might say in compliment, very artistic; I always give credit where credit is due. For example, in the scenes we shot that first week, where the girl gets the part and then starts to become acquainted with the leading man--who was Harry the dope--Solly didn't do what a lot of scriptwriters do, he didn't clutter up the page with a lot of unnecessary directions. A sample of his writing from one of the early scenes will explain to you what I mean.

34 The loft--int--night. the girl is becoming acquainted with the Leading Man. They do sexual intercourse together.

During all of these scenes, Ben, Solly and I were sort of what you might call offstage actors, or, since this was a movie we were making, I guess you would have called us off camera actors. That is to say, we were in the script even during those first two weeks of shooting, but all you did was hear our voices. And though you never actually saw any of us, you knew there was a director there, and a cameraman, and a writer, which was the beauty part of the script, the play-within-a-play aspect. It wasn't until after those two weeks of shooting that any of us would appear oncamera as real live actors, which was what the script called for, because, you see, there was supposed to be intensely personal human relationships developed between the girl and the people making the movie--the movie itself was supposed to become an artistic microcosm of life itself, if you know what I mean. In other words, the girl was supposed to perform with her leading man only during the early parts of the movie, and then become gradually involved with the people working with her, and do oncamera with them what she had earlier been doing with him, but more. I know that sounds complicated, but it was in Solly's script, and when we explained it to the girl, she said, "I don't understand. Does this mean I have to do this with Solly in front of the camera?"

"Not Solly himself," I said. "The writer of the movie."

"Solly is the writer of the movie," she said.

"In real life, he's the writer of the movie." I said. "But in the movie, he's only pretending to be the writer of the movie."

"And we're supposed to do it here? In the loft?"

"Yes. The loft is where we're shooting the movie, and what happens is that during a coffee break, The Girl gets involved with The Writer, and this leads to a beautiful sex experience for both of them."

"But Solly is bald," she said.

"My dear," I said, "you'd be surprised how many bald men go to see pornographic movies. There are at least millions and millions of them."

"If we could afford an actor to play the part," Solly said, "we'd hire him in a minute. But that would only cut into our profits."

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, Solly," the girl said. "It's just I have never balled a bald man in my life."

"There is always a first time," Solly said.

This was at one a.m. in the morning at the start of the third week's shooting. Ben had told the girl he needed to reload the camera, and he was in the bathroom now, with the light out. We had sent Harry home at midnight. He had gone reluctantly, it seemed to me, but I didn't yet suspect anything was developing between him and the girl. All I knew was that he had done his job very realistically during those first two weeks and we were ready to phase him out, since his services were not too strenuously required during the remaining 18 weeks of shooting. In fact, as I explained to the girl, she was supposed to become more and more involved with the people making the film, and less and less involved with her leading man, until the very end of the picture, when she got married.

"Married?" she said. "To who?"

"To Harry. We have a nice little scene where you get married at the end. But that's after you have sort of experienced all different kinds of sexual experience and gratification with the various men working on this film, which experience provides the bedrock of a good marital relationship later on."

"You mean, sort of, I learn different things from them, and this prepares me for being like a good wife to Harry later on, is that it?"

"That's it exactly," I said.

"That's beautiful," she said, and she began to weep.

Ben came out of the bathroom, camera in hand. "All loaded," he said, "and ready to shoot." He looked at the girl. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

"Everything's fine," I said. "Solly, are you ready?"

"Ready," Solly said, and began taking off his clothes.

We worked very hard during those next few weeks, both oncamera and off. Now that we were really into the movie, so to speak, the hours got longer; we would start work at eight and sometimes not finish till three or four in the morning. You have to remember that we were all holding daytime jobs, and I mention this only to explain our dedication to the project. And, besides, this was still costing each of us close to $42 a week, because, since we were gentlemen, we agreed to continue paying Harry his $25 a week, even though his services would not be required on the picture again till we came to the very end of it. We explained to the girl that the end might be some time away, since whereas she was doing an excellent job and we were all very pleased with her (including Ben, who had preferred a redhead for the part), we were nonetheless not getting exactly the kind of professional footage we wanted, and this might require shooting a great many scenes over again, maybe even three and four times. So this would probably take us past the 20 weeks we were hoping for.

The girl said this was OK with her, she was as interested in doing as artistic a job as the rest of us, but it would help if she understood a lot of the words in the script, like sometimes Solly's descriptions were very artistic but a little difficult to understand. We asked her to point out a specific instance in the script and she said, "Well, like this one":

174 The loft--int--night. the girl is clad in leather straps. She does fellatio on the cameraman.

"I just don't know what he means by 'clad in leather straps,' " the girl said.

"We'll show you the costume when we get to it," I said.

"And also," she said, "it would help if I could see some of the scenes we already shot, so that I could know what I was doing right or doing wrong."

"That's very bad for an actress," I said. "It only makes her self-conscious. Just take our word that you look beautiful and entirely convincing. I think I can say, in fact, that even in those scenes where Solly or I were handling the camera while Ben was working with you, even those scenes came out beautiful."

"Even the close-ups?"

"The close-ups are particularly beautiful."

"Well, OK." she said. "But this scene we're supposed to shoot tonight, the one where I'm supposed to be between you and Solly?"

"Between The Director and The Writer, you mean."

"Yeah, you and Solly," she said. "I want you to know that I can't even draw a straight line with my left hand. So I don't know how I'm supposed to do this both together. I might get mixed up."

"Just do your best," I said. "Believe me, you're everything we hoped for. You're making our dream come true."

"Well, thanks," she said, and lowered her eyes. "And I want you fellows to know something, too. And that is that I think you really are trying hard here not to make a cheap or dirty picture. I think it's marvelous the way you pay so much attention to detail and want to get things absolutely right. I really do hope we make lots of money on it, but that's not the important thing. The important thing is that I got a chance to work with professional people who really care. That, to me, is very, very important, and I just wanted to thank you."

And that was when Harry the dope stepped in and ruined the entire thing.

•

He called me at Benjamin Brothers Apparel and left a message that I was to return his call right away. When I got back off the road, it must have been three or four o'clock in the afternoon. I called him up and he said he wanted to meet me for a drink before we began shooting that night. I thought for a minute that maybe Ben had forgotten to send him his $25 check, and I asked Harry if that was the problem, but he said, "No, no, I got the check, it's something else." So I agreed to meet him at a bar near the loft, though, to tell the truth, I wasn't too anxious to talk to him. We were supposed to shoot a very delicate scene that night in which The Director and The Girl experiment with a great many interesting and artistic approaches to exploring personalities through sexual experience, and I wanted to prepare myself for it by taking a little nap before I reported for work.

Harry was already sitting at a table when I came in. I walked over, pulled out a chair and sat down. He stared at me for a long time, the dope.

"I can guess what the problem is," I said. "You're wondering when you'll be back in the movie again. Well, I'm happy to tell you it's going along splendidly, and it'll seem like no time at all till we shoot that big wedding scene."

I smiled at him. He was still staring at me.

"That's not what I want to talk about," he said.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"There is no film in the camera," he said.

"What?"

"There has never been any film in the camera."

"That's ridiculous," I said. "Who told you that?"

"I found out for myself."

"How did you find out?" I said. "And, besides, it's a lie."

"It's not a lie," Harry said. "Do you remember going out for hamburgers last night at two in the morning? Do you remember that?"

"I remember it."

"I sneaked into the loft."

"You didn't sneak into the loft. We locked the door behind us."

"I went up the fire escape and in through the window. There was no film in that camera."

"That's because we were finished for the night. Ben had already unloaded."

"You were not finished for the night. You came back to the loft at precisely three-ten a.m."

"At which time Ben probably reloaded the camera."

"There was no film anyplace in the loft. I looked all over the loft. There was no film. None. Now I understand why Ben always went in the bathroom to reload. You are not shooting a movie there," Harry said.

"Of course we're shooting a movie."

"You are paying a girl fifty dollars a week so that the three of you can indulge whatever bizarre sexual fantasies you have, sometimes seven and eight hours a night, every day of the week, including Saturdays and Sundays."

"We are doing nothing of the sort."

"That's just what you're doing," Harry said. "You are treating that girl like a common streetwalker, except that you'd have to pay a streetwalker more than you're paying her. It's obscene."

"Harry," I said, "don't be a dope."

"I am not a dope," he said, "I happen to be a very highly regarded insurance adjuster. And, anyway, I wanted to see you today only to tell you it's finished."

"What's finished?"

"The picture's finished, the whole setup is finished. I've already discussed it with her, and she's quitting. In fact, she's already quit."

"You've discussed it with the girl?"

"I've been seeing her regularly. I've been seeing her every day. She told me what was going on, and that was when I got suspicious and decided to check up."

"Harry," I said, "don't be a dope. If that's what you suspect ... if what you suspect is that the three of us figured out a scheme to get a little sexual pleasure at a minimal weekly cost ... if that's what you suspect, which is a lie, we'll be happy to cut you in on the deal, we'll put you back in the picture starting tonight. I'll ask Solly to rewrite the script so that there's a great deal of action between The Girl and The Leading Man; we'll do that right away, if that's what you suspect, though of course it's a lie."

"I love her," Harry said.

"You what?"

"I love her. I've asked her to marry me."

"Harry," I said, "that's in the movie!"

"It's in real life, too," he said. "She's going to marry me; we're leaving this city as soon as you and I are finished with our talk here. You just try to go anywhere near her, or telephone her, or anything, and I'll call the police. I'm sure what you did here was illegal. You signed a contract with her, and also with me, and we're supposed to get a percentage of the profits on this movie you were making without any goddamn film in the camera!"

"Harry," I said, "you can't fault us for a small oversight like forgetting to put film in the camera."

He hit me in the nose then and broke it.

I will never forgive Harry. Never. I don't mean about the nose, because, to tell the truth, my nose was never such a prize to begin with, and, besides, they taped it up nice, and the bones knitted, though a little crooked. I am talking about the way he ruined our dream. Solly tells me the best-laid plans, and all that, but it doesn't make me feel any better. And Ben has been going around town telling anybody who'll listen that the idea was his to begin with, which it wasn't, and, anyway, that's not the point. The point is he's killing any chance we might possibly have of finding ourselves another girl and making her a star, too, when, if only he'd shut up....

Ah, what the hell.

That's showbiz.