“Heard about Mendoza’s new company?” asked old Jack, filling his pipe.
Michael pulled up a chair and sat down.
“No, I haven’t.”
“She’s starting a new production company. There’s never a star I’ve fired that hasn’t! It gets all written out on paper, capital in big type, star in bigger! It’s generally due to the friends of the star, who tell her that a hundred thousand a year is a cruel starvation wage for a woman of her genius, and she ought to get it all. Generally there’s a sucker in the background who puts up the money. As a rule, he puts up all but enough, and then she selects a story where she is never off the screen, and wears a new dress every fifty feet of film. If she can’t find that sort of story, why, she gets somebody to write her one. The only time you ever see the other members of the company is in the long shots. Half-way through the picture the money dries up, the company goes bust, and all the poor little star gets out of it is the Rolls-Royce she bought to take her on location, the new bungalow she built to be nearer the lot, and about twenty-five per cent. of the capital that she’s taken on account of royalties.”
“Mendoza will not get a good producer in England?”
“She may,” nodded Jack. “There are producers in this country, but unfortunately they’re not the men on top. They’ve been brought down by the craze for greatness. A man who produces with a lot of capital behind him can get easy money. He doesn’t go after the domestic stories, where he’d be found out first time; he says to the money-bags: ‘Let’s produce the Fall of Jerusalem. I’ve got a cute idea for building Ezekiel’s temple that’s never been taken before. It’ll only cost a mere trifle of two hundred thousand dollars, and we’ll have five thousand extras in one scene, and we’ll rebuild the Colosseum and have a hundred real lions in the arena! Story? What do you want a story for? The public love crowds.’ Or maybe he wants to build a new Vesuvius and an eruption at the rate of fifty dollars a foot. There’s many a big reputation been built up on sets and extras. Come in, Mr. Longvale.”
Michael turned. The cheery old man was at the door, hat in hand.
“I am afraid I am rather a nuisance,” he said in his beautiful voice. “But I came in to see my lawyer, and I could not deny myself the satisfaction of calling to see how your picture is progressing.”
“It is going on well, Mr. Longvale, thank you,” said Jack. “You know Mr. Brixan?”
The old man nodded and smiled.