Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [34]
At our first meeting von Dortann confirmed Sal’s warning that I was there for a long walk off a short pier.
“No hurry. Don’t rush,” he assured me. “Just write a treatment of what you think should go from the book into the film. An outline. Forget about the screenplay.”
Bullshit, little Eva. I was ready. Not that I was planning a Hollywood career, but after a lifetime in cheap sneakers the money, the office, the secretary, the new car, the power, the beautiful little home I was able to lease were like a stroll on the glory road.
You know what the hell it’s like taking your wife into a dress shop on Rodeo Drive and peeling off eighty dollars, cold cash, and not feel like you’ve been hit in the stomach? And not have to say for the first time in your life, “How much is this going to cost?”
I knew all about this place being a writers’ graveyard when I came. But dammit, as a poor boy, I wouldn’t have been human if I didn’t think I’d died and gone to heaven.
So, from day one, excuse me for repeating, I was ready.
“Can I get a film run for me?” I asked von Dortann.
“Surely.”
“I’d like to see High Noon and I want the final script as well.”
High Noon, for me, was the ultimate motion picture. It had a perfect, miraculous blend of script, acting, direction, music, art, sound, every element of film. As I watched the picture, I read the script simultaneously. Every few minutes I’d signal for the projectionist to stop and I’d dictate to my secretary the type of shot, what the camera was doing, how the film was scored and cut, sound effects, stunts. I broke it down almost frame by frame.
That was my entire schooling on film writing.
I knocked off a two-page treatment in twenty minutes and then went immediately into a first-draft screenplay. Von Dortann didn’t ask to see pages for the four weeks of my employment contract. When he did, I handed him a two-hundred-and-fifty-page screenplay. He gaped in disbelief.
Most of the other writers dragged ass to prolong their weekly salaries. They hated my guts. Tough shit, gentlemen; you sink, I swim. In the history of Pacific Studios they had never seen a novel of this size and scope turned into a screenplay so fast.
The golden moment arrived! I was summoned to the office of the head of the studio and its founder, the almighty Colonel Stanley Gold. My secretary cleaned some spots off my shirt and borrowed a necktie and jacket for me.
The opulence of Gold’s office was staggering. The array of “yes” men seemed like something out of a really bad movie. Gold had earned his rank during the war when patriotic fever swept the town.
“Find out what rank they gave Zanuck and Jack Warner.”
Thus, Colonel Gold.
“Hell of a piece of work, Zadok. We’d like you to carry on with a second-draft screenplay.”
Bingo! I was counting the money. Val! We’re rich!
“Cut this thing down to two pounds,” Gold continued, pointing to the screenplay. On cue laughter broke out, led by von Dortann.
Stanley Gold was in a folksy mood, retelling a story to me about how his family ran a butcher shop in Chicago and how they cheated their “colored” customers by putting their thumb on the scale when they weighed the meat. More laughter.
He cleared his throat and the entourage leaped to its collective feet. The audience with his eminence was over.
“It’s been a real pleasure meeting you, Colonel,” I said, “but the next time you buy one of my books, keep your fucking thumb off the scale.”
Everyone turned a pale shade of green in unison, while the Colonel mulled that one over. He finally decided it was funny and burst into laughter, at which time the ten others present also burst into laughter.
I HAD A strange, wild, and unique situation working for me at Pacific. For a number of years after the war, many