The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [190]
Zev looked at him, astonished. “I just know it, that’s all.”
Giannini laughed and said, “Right, Abramski, the fifty thousand is yours.”
Zev stared back at him, stunned. “But why are you lending me the money?”
“First, because you’ve got a potentially valuable piece of real estate there on Cahuenga. And second, because I like a man who believes in himself the way you do, Mr. Abramski.”
He had gone back to the Hotel Hollywood with sixty thousand dollars in an account at the Bank of Italy, more elated by the fact that the banker had trusted his word than the fact that he had got the money.
Within weeks his toppling barns were rebuilt, a small set of flimsy wooden shacks added as administration offices, and cameras and film stock purchased. With the help of a casting agency he selected cameramen whom he promoted to directors, struggling walk-on artists, who he thought had something special and whose pay he jumped from thirty bucks a week to three hundred with star status, plus a changing cast of extras and assistants. He sat at his desk in the hot wooden shed, drumming up new ideas and plots based on the old popular formats he knew audiences liked, and as he wrote the cameras turned day and night.
It was a one-man operation. He controlled everything; no detail was too small to escape his nervous eagle eye. Consequently his product was good quality as well as entertaining and was soon picked up by the distributors. And when he wasn’t busy at the studios, he kept an eye out for any opportunity to get Magic Distribution into the marketplace.
Hollywood was full of new moviemakers and the competition was stiff. Zev—or C. Z., as he was now known—made a point of doing the rounds of the movie houses, and when he heard that Journey of a lifetime by a new young director called Francis Pearson was to be premiered at the old Woodley Theater, he made a point of going to see it. Pearson was an unknown and the movie was big-scale but made on the cheap. It showed in the rough quality of the film, but somehow the graininess just added reality to the strong saga of the immigrant nation’s trek out West in covered wagons in search of a new life. It had humor, pathos, tragedy, and hope.
As the movie ended and the lights went up Zev wiped away a tear, deeply touched. As an immigrant himself he understood the dramatic life-and-death struggles of that not-too-long-ago generation and he knew instinctively that the rest of America would too.
The movie had attracted little attention, and the Woodley had been three quarters empty. He waited about in the lobby until the producer and the director emerged looking disconsolate and then he introduced himself and offered them forty thousand dollars for the distribution rights. They stared at him as if he had gone mad and then jumped at the offer.
He was in Giannini’s office the next day, asking for a new loan of forty thousand to finance Magic Distribution’s first venture. The banker looked at his first six months’ figures and grinned. “Okay,” he said, “you got it. But it’s sink-or-swim time, C. Z. You’d better know what you are doing.”
“I do,” he promised confidently.
It was a hard sell but he got Journey into a major New York theater. Word of mouth soon had lines around the block, and he found himself inundated with requests for the film. He personally made more than a million from Journey and promptly bought up several of the small independent chains of distributors. Magic Distribution was a reality and he was a millionaire.
Francis Pearson joined Magic’s roster of directors and made his next film, on a bigger budget this time and with spectacular sets and effects, and Magic Movies moved into the major leagues. Product rolled out and money rolled in; more acres were bought, the studios expanded, and new offices were built. C. Z. Abrams was a man to be reckoned with in Hollywood. He had his big house and his servants,