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“No, I haven't read
Samuel's Castle,
” she heard one woman, who had referred to the book on her television program as “exciting,” telling her companion, “I glanced through it, but, my dear, what a bore!”

The head of a television network, who had tried to buy the rights to the book for a ninety-minute spectacular and had been turned down by Bradley Holmes, gave an interview to a national magazine in which he said, “I dread to think what a number of good books have been ignored while
Samuel's Castle
has clung to the top of the best-seller list.”

It was only with Lewis that Allison could let down the barriers a little, and even with him she was careful not to reveal how much she was hurt. For the most part, she did her weeping alone.

“The public loves to create a hero,” Lewis had said. “Sometimes I think they do it for the sheer joy of knocking him down from the highest peak. Like a child who builds a house of blocks and then destroys it with one vicious kick.”

“I don't care,” Allison had cried with forced gaiety. “It's wonderful to be famous while it lasts. And I don't really care that much what anyone says about the book. I don't really care at all.”

Allison wept without sound into the pillow on her bed.

I don't care, she cried. Century bought it. I took their money. It's theirs, and I don't care what they do with it.

A
T NINE-THIRTY
the next morning, when Bradley Holmes joined her for breakfast, Allison MacKenzie looked as if she had never shed a tear in her life.

“Did you read the script?” asked Brad, sipping his coffee.

“Yes.”

“How did it strike you?”

“As the biggest piece of foolishness one man could possibly get down on paper,” said Allison. “If he worked really hard at it, that is.”

“Well, it's not the end of the world,” said Brad. “Arthur told you that it was only their first effort.”

“He also said that the basis they have now will remain the same,” said Allison angrily. “If that's so, they're going to be laughed out of every theater in America.”

“Come now,” said Brad. “It can't be that bad.”

Allison shrugged. “See for yourself,” she said.

“No time,” said Brad, glancing at his watch. “We have to get started for the studio.”

“I'd just as soon get started for the airport if you don't mind,” said Allison. “The sooner we leave here the better.”

“You sound like David Noyes,” said Brad. “Come on, Allison, cheer up.”

She found it impossible to do so. All the way out to the studio, she sat in the back of the limousine in a little world of her own. It was a world of rancor. She hated Hollywood, Tishman, the writer, the director. All she could think of was that Tishman had bought her book because he admired it and thought it would make a great film; but he had bought it only to change it. She thought of the flat, platitudinous lines of dialogue and shuddered. The film would be called
Samuel's Castle,
her name would be listed on the credits; but it had nothing to do with her.

And yet, it would. She knew that in Tishman's Hollywood world, as in the Broadway world, no matter how remote was your connection with a flop—even if you were only the author of the book and had nothing to do with the adaptation—you were still considered to be partly responsible for it.

Having read Tishman's script, she had no doubt that the film would be a flop, that it would be laughed off the screen, that audiences would be so bored by it they'd leave their popcorn behind and flee the theater.

When she and Brad entered Tishman's studio, he was at his desk going through a loose-leaf folder containing the costume designer's preliminary sketches. On the margins of each sheet he wrote comments in red ink. Allison noted that he had the calligraphic handwriting that always reminded her of monastic orders, of dedicated men working alone. So much for handwriting analysis, she thought; Tishman was no monk, and Hollywood was a million miles from the nearest monastery.

Arthur Tishman looked closely at Allison from under his heavy, hooded eyelids. He swung his chair around and, in a sudden movement, stood up.

“Brad,” he said, “why don't you go over to Publicity and look over what Jenks has prepared. I'd like to take Allison and show her around the lot.”

“Of course, Arthur,” Brad said. “That's a very good idea.”

Allison looked at Brad and thought, You've missed your calling; you'd have made a perfect Yes man.

When Brad had gone, Arthur turned to Allison. He moved toward the door and she found herself following him.

“Do you mind walking?” he said.

“I like walking,” Allison told him.

“I like it, too. But it takes too long,” he said.

Then he was silent. Allison walked along beside him, thinking, What kind of man is this? He has the handwriting of a monk, dresses like a man from Mars—today he wore a sport shirt on which palm trees swayed across his chest, casting their shadows on beautiful Waikiki Beach which stretched across his stomach—believes walking is too slow, and thinks he can make a great movie out of this incredibly dull and unimaginative script.

After five minutes of walking, the ordinary world of ordinary buildings was behind them. Allison felt like Alice; the world had gone topsy-turvy. Next door to a crumbling southern mansion was the façade of the palace at Versailles; and when they left those behind, they walked down the main street of a small town that Hollywood, by using it so often, had made the American people (and half the world) believe to be typical. Six cowboys wearing green eye shadow, their lips rouged, loped past them, their horses' hoofs clattering on the asphalt road.

When they left the typical small town Allison saw, on her right, an artificial lake. A rowboat with three wet actors was being tossed about by high waves. From a tower, a voice called, “Okay. Turn off the storm.” The wind machines stopped; the storm ended; the actors stepped out of the boat into the knee-deep water and waded ashore.

“When you see that on the screen,” Arthur said, “you will be certain it was filmed on the open seas. And if the director is good and the producer is imaginative and the actors right, you will believe in the plight of that shipwrecked trio.”

They came to a western town. There was the dusty main street, the sheriff's office, the saloon, the general store, the wood sidewalks. Allison expected at any moment to see Gary Cooper, tall and lean, cautiously move out of the sheriff 's office.

Arthur pushed open the swinging doors of the saloon and they went inside. Sunlight filtered through cracks in the roof; the long mirror behind the bar returned their images. Seeing herself, Allison had the feeling she was out of place and out of time, an interloper in the American past.

She sat down at one of the tables. Arthur leaned against the bar.

“You've seen this saloon in a hundred movies. Each time it looked a little different. A few minor changes, a change of lighting, a change of faces, and it becomes a new place. All you need are creative film makers with a new way of looking at things, and the most familiar object or place can be made to look strange to you.”

He crossed the room and sat down next to her.

“I want to tell you, Allison, that I know how you feel about the script. You think we've ruined your book and you say to yourself, I don't care that they've ruined my book but they haven't even made a good script out of the ruins. It's all dull, flat and unimaginative.”

Allison opened her mouth to speak, but Arthur went on.

“A lot of skills go into the making of a film, Allison. But after twenty years in this place I've come to the conclusion that the most valuable skill of all is the ability to read a script. To read it, see it and hear it. All at once. And then to be able to judge; will this script make a good movie, or just another mediocre movie.”

He stood up and began to pace restlessly around the tables, then stopped with his back to the swinging doors.

“It's difficult to explain all this, Allison. You read our script like a novelist. You can't. You've got to read it like a sound camera. A sound camera with an imaginative human brain. Listen, Allison. You've heard the expression, ‘the magic of the theater'?”

Allison nodded.

“When idiots use that expression, they mean the ‘glamour' of the theater, its aura, its spectacular appeal. But when theater workers talk about ‘magic,' they mean something altogether different. To them, ‘magic' is the odd, mysterious, inexplicable thing that happens between a director and his actors. The magical thing is that those lines you consider to be dull and innocuous suddenly become meaningful, and reveal qualities you never suspected were there. You make a great mistake to expect that a film script must be literary. In a sense, it must
never
be literary. It has got to have
extra
-literary qualities.”

He came and sat down across the table from her.

“What you are looking for is a script that reads like a novel. What I am looking for, always, is a script that reads like a movie. Allison, I'm an old pro. I know what I'm talking about. If I didn't, I'd have been thrown off this lot years ago. Are you going to take my word for it?”

Allison did not answer. All she could think of was her mutilated novel. She walked to the window and looked out. She saw, walking down the dusty street, a group of white-robed, barefooted men. One of them was leading a white donkey. They were on their way to the lot where a Biblical movie was being made.

It was one of the strangest sights she had ever seen, these early Christians walking through a town of the American West. It was all wrong, yet out here it made sense. She realized suddenly that these people could do anything, that on the outskirts of Los Angeles they could, if they wanted to, create New York or a planetary city of the future. They had worked their magic on her since she was a little girl. Why did she suddenly begin to doubt them now?

She turned and smiled at Arthur. “I think I've been suffering from Novelist's Disease. It's what other people call arrogance. We work alone so much that we begin to think we are the only creative people in the world. And, what's worse, that we don't need anyone else.”

“Only hacks don't take pride in their work,” Arthur said.

He took her arm and they began to walk back toward the administration buildings. At the open door of the sound stage, two ladies in waiting at the court of the Empress Eugénie, wearing ball gowns and powdered wigs, were talking about their favorite rock-and-roll singer. For the first time, Allison began to feel the excitement of Hollywood's creativity and, listening to Arthur, began to have some understanding of the technical aspect of film work.

“We expect to wind up with a great film, Allison,” Arthur told her as he helped her into the car. “Not just a good film, but a great one. Tomorrow we'll have an office ready for you. I want to hear all the ideas you've got.”

The driver picked up Brad outside Jenks's office. Brad got into the car and handed Allison a large manila envelope. “Your photos,” he said, smiling.

She opened the envelope and took them out. She hardly recognized herself. It was her own face, but somehow it had been invested with mystery, with glamour and with a kind of beauty she had never seen in any mirror. She smiled to herself and thought, The magic is even working on me.

She said to Brad, “That lens looked at me with lover's eyes.”

She quickly stuffed the photographs back into the envelope. For some reason, it embarrassed her to look at them; it was as if she had been caught in a fraudulent act.

By her second week in Hollywood, Allison had had to throw out the window every preconception she had brought along with her. It was true that there were more swimming pools in Beverly Hills than in any other town in the world, the houses and grounds were the most fanciful copies of Spanish castles and English manor houses, and without doubt Hollywood attracted to itself the most beautiful women—and even beautiful men—from every part of the world.

But the overriding fact about Hollywood, what made the trappings unimportant, was the work of making movies. She never anywhere saw people work with such energy, with such furious drive. It carried over into their private lives; there was the same kind of driving energy in their love affairs and their marriages and in the way they relaxed.

Making movies was for Hollywood what making automobiles was to Detroit. From the window of her office she could see a large area of the studio lot, the trucks and motorized freight wagons that plied endlessly up and down the studio streets, carrying scenery and costumes. Hundreds of men moved about, each performing an assigned task, hundreds of extras and a handful of highly paid actors and directors committed themselves and their reputations to film.

Allison sat at her desk and spent the first week reading the script. She read it now with new eyes, eyes that had been opened and made more knowledgeable because Tishman had shared with her some of the knowledge that only years of working in films can give.

Parts of the script that, on first reading, had seemed to her arbitrary and capricious, she now saw as reasonable changes.

They had changed the time scheme of her novel. She had thought them stupid for doing so. But now, she understood the reason for making a scene she had set in summer take place in winter. The coldness, the bleak landscape, the white and black of snow and bare trees, all this would heighten the mood and give the sequence precisely the emotional overtones it needed.

She met with the set designer and the costume department and gave her opinions on their work. She found only minor errors, the kind of thing no one would notice except the experts who looked for such mistakes.

She left the studio at five every day and returned to her hotel. It was not the studio but the hotel that was the Hollywood of every small-town girl's imagining. In the lobby and around the pool sat the beautiful girls who were not waiting to be discovered but working very hard at it. And there were the rich widows, elderly women who spent hours each day in beauty salons, and who were always accompanied by handsome young men.