You probably wonder why in hell I should want to play in Sunspots?"
He was startled at her frank admission.
"Why do you, Miss Marlowe? It seems to me you wouldn't want to rock the boat. You've got a pretty good thing going here."
She dropped into a chair. "Screw the boat," she said casually. "I'm supposed to be an actress. I want to find out just how much of an actress I am.
And you're the one director who can make me find out."
He stared at her for a moment.
"Have you read the script?"
She nodded.
"Do you remember the first lines the girl speaks when she wanders into the camp?"
"Yes."
"Read them for me," he said, giving her the script.
She took the script but didn't open it. "
'My name is Mary.
Yes, that's it, I think my name is Mary.' "
"You're saying the lines, Miss Marlowe," he said, frowning at her, "but you're not thinking about them.
You're not feeling the effort that goes into the girl's trying to remember her name. Think it through like this. I can't remember my name but if I could, it's a familiar one. It's a name I've been called all my life, and yet it's hard for me to remember it. Even though it's a name that is mentioned often in church and I have even said it in my prayers. It's coming back now. I think I've got it. 'My name is Mary. Yes, that's it. I think my name is Mary.' "
Rina stared back at him silently. Then she got up and walked over to the fireplace.
She put her hands up on the mantelpiece, her back toward him.
She tugged at the knot in her hair and it fell around her shoulders as she turned to face him.
Her face was suddenly gaunt and strained as she spoke. "
'My name is Mary,' " she whispered hoarsely. " 'Yes, that's it.
I think my name is Mary.' "
He felt the tiny shivers of goose flesh rising on his arms as he looked at her.
It was the same thing he always felt whenever something great in the theater got down inside him.
Bernie Norman came down to the set on the last day of shooting.
He shook his head as he opened the door and walked onto the big shooting stage.
He should have known better than ever to hire that faigele to direct the picture.
Worse yet, he should have had his head examined before he ever let them talk him into buying such a story. Everything about it was crazy.
First, the shooting schedule had to be postponed for a month.
The director wanted thirty days to rehearse Rina in the part.
Norman had to give in when Rina insisted she wouldn't go on before Dunbar said she was ready.
That cost a hundred and fifty thousand in stand-by salaries alone.
Then the director had insisted on doing everything like they had done it on stage.
To hell with the budget. Another fifty thousand went there.
And on top of everything, Dunbar insisted that the sound in each scene be perfect. No looping, no lip-synching. Every word perfect, as it was spoken on the stage.
He didn't care how many takes were necessary.
Why should he, the bastard? Norman thought.
It wasn't his money.
Three months over the schedule the picture went. A million and a half thrown down the drain.
He blinked his eyes as he came onto the brilliantly lighted section of the stage.
Thank God, this was the last scene.
It was the one in front of the cabin when the girl opens the door in the morning and finds the two men dead, the younger man having killed the older, then himself, when he realized the depths to which the girl had led him.
All she had to do was look at the two men and cry a little, then walk off into the desert.
Simple. Nothing could go wrong with that.
Ten minutes and it would be over.
"Places!"
The two actors stretched out in front of the cabin door.
An assistant director and the script girl quickly checked their positions with photographs of the scene previously made and made a few corrections. The hand of one actor was in the wrong place; a smudge had appeared on the cheek of the other.
Norman saw Dunbar nod.
"Roll 'em!" There was silence for a moment as the scene plate was shot, then Dunbar called quietly, "Action."