“I believe it,” said Harold.
Mr. Untz looked at him sharply and said, “You don’t have to believe it so quickly. You could give me a chance to explain.”
“Look,” said Harold—now being truly interested and forgetting some of the first principles of buttering-up one’s boss, “take the scientific attitude. Everything is relative.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Untz, “In Hollywood everything is relatives, believe me.”
“No, no—I wasn’t referring to nepotism,” said Harold. “I was thinking that you and many others, of course, prefer musicals. But there are vast other groups who prefer westerns, detectives, comedies or what have you. One man’s meat is another’s poison.
“But nourishment stays the same in principle. The artistic demands still hold and a good picture is a picture, whatever its field. Now, if you, as a producer, can shift to the other fellow’s viewpoint—find out why the thing that terrifies you amuses him—or vice versa.”
“Harold,” said Mr. Untz, not without suspicion, “are you an assistant producer or a philosopher?”
“Sometimes to be the one,” sighed Harold, “you have to be the other.”
The big jungle cage arrived presently. While it was being set up another assistant came to Mr. Untz and said, “Jimsy LaRoche is outside, yelling to get in, Mr. Untz.”
Mr. Untz whirled on the assistant and said, “Tell that overpaid brat—who I personally didn’t want in my picture in the first place—tell him in the second place the President of the United States could not get in here this afternoon. No, wait a minute, that wouldn’t mean anything to him—he makes more money than the President. Just tell him no.”