Did you ever see one of these French pictures, or a Russian, and comment on the reality and depth brought out by working on a small budget that can’t afford famed actors?
This, what there was of it, was as good, or better.
It wasn’t until the picture ended with a pan shot of a dreary desolation that I began to add two and two.
You can’t, for pennies, really have a cast of thousands, or sets big enough to fill Central Park.
A mock-up, even, of a thirty-foot fall costs enough to irritate the auditors, and there had been a lot of wall.
That didn’t fit with the bad editing and lack of sound track, not unless the picture had been made in the old silent days.
And I knew it hadn’t by the color tones you get with pan film.
It looked like a well-rehearsed and badly-planned news-reel.
The Mexicans were easing out and I followed them to where the discouraged one was rewinding the reel. I asked him where he got the print.
“I haven’t heard of any epics from the press agents lately, and it looks like a fairly recent print.”
He agreed that it was recent, and added that he’d made it himself.
I was polite to that, and he saw that I didn’t believe him and straightened up from the projector.
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
I said that I certainly did, and I had to catch a bus.
“Would you mind telling me why, exactly why?”
I said that the bus—
“I mean it. I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me just what’s wrong with it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” I told him.
He waited for me to go on.
“Well, for one thing, pictures like that aren’t made for the sixteen millimeter trade.
You’ve got a reduction from a thirty-five millimeter master,” and I gave him a few of the other reasons that separate home movies from Hollywood.
When I finished he smoked quietly for a minute.
“I see.”
He took the reel off the projector spindle and closed the case.
“I have beer in the back.”
I agreed beer sounded good, but the bus—well, just one.
From in back of the beaverboard screen he brought paper cups and a jumbo bottle.
With a whimsical
“Business suspended” he closed the open door and opened the bottle with an opener screwed on the wall. The store had likely been a grocery or restaurant.
There were plenty of chairs.
Two we shoved around and relaxed companionably.
The beer was warm.
“You know something about this line,” tentatively.
I took it as a question and laughed,
“Not too much.
Here’s mud,” and we drank.
“Used to drive a truck for the Film Exchange.”
He was amused at that.
“Stranger in town?”
“Yes and no.
Mostly yes.
Sinus trouble chased me out and relatives bring me back. Not any more, though; my father’s funeral was last week.”
He said that was too bad, and I said it wasn’t.
“He had sinus, too.” That was a joke, and he refilled the cups. We talked awhile about Detroit climate.
Finally he said, rather speculatively,
“Didn’t I see you around here last night?
Just about eight.”
He got up and went after more beer.
I called after him.
“No more beer for me.”