The Dream Merchants Read online

  Johnny sat there quietly, looking up into Peter’s face. Peter had been roaring ever since Johnny had come out with the idea of making a six-reel picture. Peter had listened quietly enough when Johnny proposed that they buy The Bandit, a play that was then running on Broadway, and make it into a picture. He had been quiet enough while Johnny told him he would hire the author of the play to write the screen version. He had been quiet enough while Johnny explained to him how they could capitalize on the play’s already established market value. His interest in the idea was evident from the question he had asked Johnny: “How much would it cost?”

  Johnny had anticipated the question. He had prepared a budget on the picture, and he figured it would cost around twenty-three thousand dollars. He gave Peter the budget.

  Peter took one look at the budget and threw the whole thing back at Johnny. “Twenty-three thousand dollars for one picture!” he yelled. “A man’s got to be meshuggeh! Buy a play and hire a man to write it for twenty-five hundred dollars? For the same money I could make a whole picture!”

  “You’ll have to start somewhere,” Johnny insisted, “and some day you’ll have to do it.”

  “Maybe some day,” Peter replied hotly, “but not now. We just got into the clear and now you want to put me in hock again. Where am I gonna get that kind of money? I’m not the United States mint yet.”

  “Nothing ventured nothing gained,” Johnny quoted quietly.

  “Neither do you lose your shirt,” Peter replied quickly. “Besides, it ain’t your money you want to put up.”

  Johnny grew angry at that. “You know damn well I wouldn’t ask you to put money into anything I wouldn’t.”

  “Your money!” Peter sneered. “It ain’t enough to buy toilet paper for the studio for a week.”

  “It’s enough to pay for ten percent of the picture,” Johnny yelled. His face was getting flushed.

  “Take it easy,” Joe said, stepping between them. “All this hollering ain’t going to settle anything.” He turned to Peter. “I got enough for another ten percent of the picture. That leaves only eighteen thousand for you to get.”

  Peter threw his hands in the air. “‘Only eighteen thousand,’ he says. Like I can pick it up on the sidewalk.” He turned and slammed the top of his desk down and then looked up at them.

  “No!” he shouted. “Positively no! I ain’t gonna do it!”

  Johnny’s anger had evaporated. He could understand Peter’s reluctance to endanger what he already had accomplished, but Johnny was convinced that what he proposed must be done. He spoke slowly and quietly.

  “Back in Rochester you thought I was crazy about this,” he pointed out, “but we didn’t do so bad, did we?” He didn’t wait for Peter to answer. “You got a nice apartment on Riverside Drive, eight thousand in the bank that’s all clear, a paid-up mortgage, haven’t you?”

  Peter nodded his head. “And I ain’t going to risk it on one of your crazy ideas. We was just lucky the last time. This time it’s different. This time it’s not only money we have to risk, but also we’d have to fight the combine. And you know how far we’d get doing that.” He, too, had cooled off a little. He spoke more sympathetically now.

  “I’m sorry, Johnny. Honest. Maybe your idea is good, for all I know, even if I don’t think it is. But with things the way they are we can’t take the chance. That’s my final word on the subject.” He walked to the door. “Good night,” he said, and shut the door behind him.

  Johnny looked at Joe and shrugged his shoulders expressively. Joe grinned at him. “Don’t look so disappointed, kid. After all, it’s his dough and he’s got a right to his ideas.” He got to his feet. “Come on out and have a beer and forget it.”

  Johnny looked thoughtful. “No, thanks. I’m gonna sit here awhile and see if I can figger some way to make him see it. This is one business you can’t afford to sit still in. If you do, you’re cooked.”

  Joe looked down at him. He shook his head slowly. “All right, kid, have it your way. You’re beating your nut against a stone wall, though.”

  For a while after Joe left, Johnny sat where he was; then he got up and walked over to Peter’s desk. He rolled up the top and picked up the budget he had given Peter and looked at it.

  He stood there almost ten minutes looking at it. At last he put it back and rolled the top of the desk down. “All right, you old buzzard,” he said to the desk as if it were Peter, “some day you’ll do it.”

  ***

  Johnny opened his eyes slowly. The air in the room was warm. Spring had come early this year, with a more than ample hint of the summer to come. It was only mid-March, but already winter coats had been shed and men were going to work in their jackets and shirtsleeves.

  Lazily he got out of bed and walked through the parlor of the apartment and opened the door. The Sunday papers were lying on the floor in front of it. He bent down and picked them up. Reading the headlines, he went back into the parlor and sat down in an easy chair.

  He heard the snoring coming through the open door of Joe’s room. With a grimace he got up and walked over to Joe’s room and looked in. Joe was curled up in a corner of the bed, sawing wood. Quietly Johnny shut the door and went back to his chair.

  He turned the pages until he came to the dramatic section. Motion pictures were not covered regularly on the amusement pages of the daily papers as yet, but the Sunday papers devoted an occasional item to the new medium. This Sunday there were two items that made Johnny sit up suddenly in his chair.

  The first was an item from Paris. “Mme. Sarah Bernhardt to make four-reel motion picture based on the life of Queen Elizabeth.”

  The second was from Rome. “The famous novel Quo Vadis? will be made into an eight-reel film in Italy next year.”

  The items were brief. They were hidden in the corner of the page, but to Johnny they were banner headlines proving he had been right. He stared at the paper for a long time, wondering if Peter would agree with him now. At last he gave it up and went into the kitchen and put a pot of water on the stove for coffee.

  The smell of coffee brought Joe from his bed, sleepy and rubbing his eyes. “Morning,” he grunted. “What’s for breakfast?”

  It was Johnny’s turn to make Sunday breakfast. “Eggs,” he answered.

  “Oh.” Joe turned back and began to stagger toward the bathroom.

  “Wait a minute,” Johnny called after him. He picked up the paper and showed the items to Joe.

  Joe read them and handed the papers back to Johnny. “So what does it prove?” he asked.

  “It proves that I was right,” Johnny said, a note of triumph creeping into his voice. “Don’t you see? Now Peter will have to listen to me.”

  Joe shook his head slowly. “You never give up, once you get something in your nut, do you?”

  Johnny was indignant. “Why should I? It’s a good idea and I was right in saying that bigger pictures were coming.”

  “Maybe they are,” Joe admitted, “but where are you going to make them? And how are you going to make them?

  “Even if we get all the dough, you know our studio isn’t big enough to do it in. It would take all the raw stock we use for six months’ production to do a job like that. And you know the combine is dead set against anything over two reels, and if they get wise to us they’ll take away our license and then where’ll we be? Up the creek?”

  “So we give up making small pictures for a time,” Johnny answered. “We can save up enough film for the picture and make it before they find out what’s going on.”

  Joe lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke. He eyed Johnny shrewdly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we can get away with it, maybe we can’t. If we can’t, then Magnum’s out of business. They’re a little too big for us to take on. They’ll squash us like you step on an ant. Let Borden or one of the others take them on. They got more dough to do it with, and even with that I don’t see any of them falling over themselves to get into trouble.”

  “Well, I stil
l think there is some way we can do it,” Johnny insisted stubbornly.

  “Still think you’re right, huh?” Joe looked at him strangely.

  Johnny nodded his head. “I am right.”

  Joe was silent for a moment, then he heaved a sigh. “Maybe you are, but look what you’re riskin’. I’m not worried about my neck or yours. We’re alone. We don’t have to worry if things go wrong, ’cause we kin get along. But Peter’s another story. If we go wrong on this, he’s broke. If he goes broke, then what’s the guy gonna do? He’s got a wife an’ two nice kids to look after. He put everything he’s got into this business, an’ if it misses out, he’s finished.” He stopped and drew a deep breath. He looked right into Johnny’s eyes. “Yuh willin’ to risk that?”

  Johnny didn’t answer him for a long while. He had thought about it before. He knew of the risk, Joe didn’t have to tell him about it. But there was something inside him that kept pushing him on. It kept saying over and over: “The golden fleece lies just ahead. All you need to grab it is the nerve.” The vision of the picture in his mind was like Circe calling to him. He could no more stop following it than he could stop breathing.

  His face was set and determined as he answered. “I got to do it, Joe, it’s the only thing that counts. It’s the only chance the business has to become really big, really important. Otherwise we’re in the nickelodeon business all our lives; this way we’re something that really counts. We’re an art. Like the theater, like music, like books, only some day maybe we’re better and bigger than all of them. We gotta do it.”

  “You mean you gotta do it,” Joe said slowly. An odd sense of disappointment tugged at him. He ground his cigarette out in a tray. “You got dreams of what you want, an’ you think that’s what the business must have. If I didn’t know yuh better an’ like yuh so much, I would say you’re selfish an’ ambitious. But I know differen’. Yuh really mean what yuh say, but there’s one thing yuh gotta know.”

  Johnny’s face had gone white as Joe spoke. With difficulty he forced himself to ask: “What?”

  “Peter’s been awful good to us. Don’t never fergit it.” Joe turned and walked out of the room.

  Johnny looked at his back and then turned to the water boiling on the stove. His hand was trembling as he turned down the gas.

  3

  “Whose apartment did you say, sir?” the elevator operator asked as he slowly shut the door and the elevator began to move upward.

  Johnny finished lighting his cigarette. He hadn’t mentioned any names, just the floor he wanted. He thought to himself that these fancy houses didn’t miss a trick. Their tenants weren’t going to be disturbed unnecessarily. “Mr. Kessler’s,” he answered. It was a long way from Rochester—where all you had to do was look upstairs over the store—to Riverside Drive.

  His mind flashed back to his conversation with Joe that morning. What Joe had said still troubled him. They hadn’t spoken very much, and soon after breakfast Joe went out. True, Joe had asked him if he wanted to come along and see May and Flo, but he had said that he was going up to Peter’s that afternoon.

  The elevator stopped and the door slid open silently. “Just down the hall to your right. Apartment 9 C, sir,” the operator said politely.

  Johnny thanked him and walked down the hall to the door and pressed the buzzer.

  The maid answered the door. Johnny stepped in and handed her his hat. “Is Mr. Kessler in?” he asked.

  Before the maid could answer, Doris came sweeping into the hall. “Uncle Johnny!” she cried. “I heard your voice!”

  He picked her up and hugged her. “Hello, sweetheart.”

  She looked into his face. “I was hoping you’d come today. You don’t come to see us very often.”

  His face reddened. “I haven’t much time, sweetheart. Your father keeps me pretty busy.”

  He felt a tugging at his trousers. He looked down.

  Mark was pulling at them. “Swing me, Uncle Johnny,” he cried.

  Johnny put Doris down and swung him up in the air and then onto his shoulders. Mark yelled with glee and dug his fingers into Johnny’s hair as Esther came into the hall.

  “Why, Johnny,” she smiled, “come in, come in.”

  With Mark still on his shoulders, he followed her into the living room. Peter was there, reading his papers. His shirt was off and with some surprise Johnny noticed he had developed a little paunch. He looked at Johnny and smiled.

  “Look at him,” Esther said to Johnny, a smile deep in her eyes. “With a maid in the house, he sits around all day in his underwear. Mr. Fancy of Riverside Drive.”

  Peter grunted. He spoke in Yiddish. “So what? I know the village she comes from in Germany. There, if they got shirts, it’s a miracle.”

  Johnny looked blank and they both laughed at him.

  “Go put on a shirt,” Esther said.

  “All right, all right,” Peter grumbled as he moved toward the bedroom.

  Peter came back into the doorway as Johnny put Mark down. He stood there buttoning his shirt. “What brings you up here?”

  Johnny looked at him quickly and smiled to himself. Peter didn’t miss much. This was the first time in weeks that Johnny had come to visit them. “I wanted to see how the other half lives,” he laughed.

  “You been here before,” Peter pointed out with a complete lack of humor.

  Johnny laughed aloud. “Not since you had a maid.”

  “And that should make such a big difference?” Peter asked.

  “Sometimes,” Johnny said, still smiling.

  “Never by me,” Peter spoke seriously. “I should have a houseful of servants and still I would act the same.”

  “Sure,” Esther added. “He would still sit around the house in his underwear.”

  “That proves what I say,” Peter came back triumphantly. “Servants or no servants, Peter Kessler is always the same.”

  Johnny had to admit to himself that Peter was right. Peter hadn’t changed in the past few years, but he had. Peter was content with things the way they were, but Johnny wasn’t satisfied. There was something more he wanted, something more he had to have, and what it was he didn’t really know. Only the sense of dissatisfaction was real. He remembered again what Joe had said that morning. Peter had come a long way from the little hardware store in Rochester; he had gained a measure of security and was content with it. What right did he have to ask Peter to risk all this for an idea? But on the other hand, he reasoned, Peter would not have had even this if it hadn’t been for the fact that he had pushed him. Whether this gave him the right to push Peter further, Johnny did not know. He only knew that he could not stop now. The future, no matter how nebulous it seemed, was too much a part of him to give up.

  He looked at Peter quizzically. “You mean you’re not too big to listen to a good idea?”

  “That’s what I mean,” Peter said. “Always I’m willing to take good advice.”

  Johnny heaved a mock sigh of relief. “I’m glad to hear that. Some people say you’re getting very high-hat since you lived on Riverside Drive.”

  “Who could say such a thing?” Peter cried indignantly. He turned to Esther and held out his hands. “The minute a man does a little all right, people start knocking him.”

  Esther smiled sympathetically. Johnny was leading up to something, she was sure of it. She was curious about what he wanted and she felt that it wouldn’t be long in forthcoming. “People can’t help misunderstandings,” she said. “Maybe somebody you gave a reason?”

  “Never,” Peter protested indignantly. “I’m friendly to everybody like always.”

  “So then don’t worry,” she told him reassuringly. She turned to Johnny. “You would like, maybe, some coffee and cake?”

  They followed her into the kitchen. When Johnny had finished his second piece of cake he asked Peter casually: “Did you read the World today?”

  A sixth sense made Esther turn around and look at him. The question was casual, almost too casual, sh
e thought. There was something in the way he asked it that made her feel this was only the beginning. “Now it comes out,” she thought.

  “Yeanh,” Peter answered.

  “Did you read about Bernhardt making a four-reeler? And about Quo Vadis?”

  “Sure,” Peter replied. “Why do you ask?”

  “Remember what I said about bigger pictures?”

  “Sure, I remember,” Peter answered. “I also remember the serial you cut down.”

  “That was something else,” Johnny said. “I was trying to work something out. But this is different, this proves what I said about making a picture out of The Bandit was right.”

  “How does it?” Peter asked. “Things are still the same.”

  “Are they?” Johnny said. “When you get the greatest actress of the time to make a motion picture, when you make a motion picture out of a great novel, are things still the same? Can’t you see that moving pictures are growing up? That the two-reel short pants the combine is making them wear is beginning to chafe?”

  Peter stood up. “This is nonsense you’re talking. Once in a blue moon somebody will make a long picture. You happen to read in the paper about two being made at once and right away you’re right.

  “Maybe if Sarah Bernhardt would make a picture for Peter Kessler, I would make a long picture, but otherwise who would go to see an hour-long movie without any famous actors in it?”

  Johnny looked at him. Peter was right. Without names that were known, it would be difficult to attract people to a picture. When he had been with the carnival, certain acts had been featured by name because it was known that they would attract customers. The stage, too, featured certain actors and actresses for the same reason, but the movies never credited any players. The combine objected to it because it feared that if the players knew of their value they would demand more money.

  Yet people were recognizing certain players, and whenever they heard one of their pictures was playing, they would flock to the theater and plunk down their nickels and dimes and pay to see their favorites. Like that little funny-looking tramp who had just made some comedies. What was his name again? Johnny had heard it once, but he had to think twice before he could call it to mind—Chaplin. And that girl who was known as the Biograph girl. Johnny couldn’t even remember her name. Still, the customers remembered and would turn out to see the pictures they appeared in even if they didn’t particularly want to go to the movies.