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more, as Mitchum stepped into the position that had, till that moment, been held by his stand-in.
The first assistant unreeled the tape measure, announced it; the cameraman gave a turn to one of
the flywheels on the big camera, and nodded ready to the assistant director, who turned and
bawled, "Okay! Roll it!"
A strident bell clanged in the sound stage and dead silence fell. People in mid-step stopped. No
one coughed. No one spoke. Tony, the sound mixer, up on his high platform with his earphones and
his console, announced, "Take thirty-three Bravo!" which resounded through the cavernous set and
was picked up through the comm box by the sound truck outside the sound stage. When it was up to
speed, Tony yelled, "Speed!" and the first assistant director stepped forward into the shot with
his wooden clackboard bearing Kencannon's name and the shot number. He clacked the stick to
establish sound synch and get the board photographed, and there was a beat as he withdrew, as
Mitchum drew in a breath for the action to come, as everyone poised hanging in limbo and Kencannon-
-like all directors--relished the moment of absolute power waiting for his voice to announce
action.
Infinite moment.
Birth of dreams.
The shadow and the reality.
"Action!"
As five men leaped out of darkness and grabbed Robert Mitchum, shoving him back up against the
wall of the alley. The camera dollied in rapidly to a closeup of Mitchum's face as one of the men
grabbed his jaw with brutal fingers. "Where'd you take her ... tell us where you took her!" the
assailant demanded with a faint Mexican accent. Mitchum worked his jaw muscles, tried to shove the
man away. The Arriflex operator was down below them, out of the master shot, purring away his
tilted angles of the scuffling men. Mitchum tried to speak, but couldn't with the man's hand on
his face. "Let'm talk, Sanchez!" another of the men urged the assailant. He released Mitchum's
face, and in the same instant Mitchum surged forward, throwing two of the men from him, and
breaking toward the camera as it dollied rapidly back to encompass the entire shot. The Arriflex
operator scuttled with him, tracking him in wobbly closeup. The five men dived for Mitchum,
preparatory to beating the crap out of him as Kencannon yelled, "Cut! That's a take!" and the
enemies straightened up, relaxed, and Mitchum walked swiftly to his mobile dressing room. The crew
prepared to set up another shot.
The extras moved in. A group of young kids, obviously bordertown tourists from a yanqui college,
down having a ball in the hotbed of sin and degradation.
They milled and shoved, and Arthur found himself once again captivated by the enormity of what was
being done here. A writer had said: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF CROWD IN ALLEY and it was going to cost
about fifteen thousand dollars to make that line become a reality. He glanced at Valerie beside
him, and she was smiling, a thin and delicate smile part remembrance and part wonder. It really
never wore off, this delight, this entrapment by the weaving of fantasy into reality.
"Enjoying yourself?" he asked softly.
"It's as though I'd never been away," she said.
Kencannon came to her, then. He held both her hands in his, and he looked at her: as a man and as
a camera. "Oh, you'll do just fine ... just fine." He smiled at her. She smiled back.
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"I haven't read the part yet," she said.
"Johnny Black hasn't finished expanding it yet. And I don't give a damn. You'll do fine, just
fine!" They stared at each other with the kind of intimacy known only to a man who sees a reality
as an image on celluloid, by a woman confronting a man who can make her look seventeen or seventy.
Trust and fear and compassion and a mutual cessation of hostilities between the sexes. It was
always like this. As if to say: what does he see? What does she want? What will we settle for? I
love you.
"Have you said hello to Bob Mitchum yet?" Kencannon asked her.
"No. I think he's resting." She was, in turn, deferential to a star, as the lessers had been
deferential to her. "I can meet him later."
"Are there any questions you'd like to ask?" he said. He waved a hand at the set around him.
"You'll be living here for the next few weeks, you'd better get to know it."
"Well ... yes ... there are a few questions," she said. And she began getting into the role of
star once more. She asked questions. Questions that were twenty years out of date. Not stupid
questions, just not quite in focus. (As if the clackboard had not been in synch with the sound
wagon, and the words had emerged from the actors' mouths a micro-instant too soon.) Not
embarrassing questions, merely awkward questions; the answers to which entailed Kencannon's
educating her, reminding her that she was a relic, that time had not waited for her--even as she
had not waited when she had been a star--but had gathered its notes in a rush and plunged panting
heavily past her. Now she had to exercise muscles of thought that had atrophied, just to try and
catch up with time, dashing on ahead there like an ambitious mailroom boy trying to make points
with the Studio executives. Her questions became more awkward. Her words came with more
difficulty. Crewes saw her getting--how did Handy put it?--uptight.
Three girls had come onto the set from a mobile dressing room back in a dark corner of the sound
stage. They wore flowered wrappers. The assistant director was herding them toward the windows of
a dirty little building facing out on the alley. The girls went around the back of the building--
back where it was unpainted pine and brace-rods and Magic Marker annotated as SUBTER'GE 115/144
indicating in which scenes these sets would be used.
They appeared in three windows of the building. They would be spectators at the stunt-man's fight
with the assailants in the alley ... Mitchum's fight with the assailants in the alley. They were
intended to represent three Mexican prostitutes, drawn to their windows by the sounds of combat.
They removed their wrappers.
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