beyond the ramparts of the outer office, through the anteroom where Minnie guarded the sofa worn shiny by nervous behinds, and to the extraordinary art-encrusted office which was kept for his exclusive use. He spoke to New York and California, as he did every day from wherever he was. He retired to his private bathroom, took a shower and changed his clothes. By six o’clock he was ready for the audience.
An agent brought a director who wanted to do a musical about Marx and Engels and a girl who’d spent all afternoon painting her eyes. A Cockney actor was modelling his Biafra hairdo. A producer showed everyone a photo of his new house in Palm Springs and a scriptwriter in a studded leather jacket brought the eighth rewrite of Copkiller – Anarchy Rules in Youth’s New State.
‘There’s a frisson or two there,’ said the scriptwriter modestly. He took off his dark glasses and scowled. Koolman flipped it carelessly and read a line. ‘It’s good,’ said Koolman, although the line he read had remained unchanged in all eight versions. In fact Koolman had read none of them: his script department took those sort of chores off his back. He looked around the room. A girl in a see-through dress embraced the European head of publicity enthusiastically enough to break a shoulder strap. Suzy Delft brought a friend named Penelope and they both kissed Leo Koolman, who blushed.
The gathering continued for two hours, although few visitors stayed that long. Agents paraded their clients and cued their exits. One of the first people to leave was a pretty young girl named Josephine Stewart. She was one of the few people in the room to address her host as Mr Koolman and yet the very formality of that might have indicated the influence she wielded. Not only was she a beautiful young wife with a wealthy family and a brilliant Oxford degree not so very far behind her, she was also an active campaigner against the bomb, apartheid and censorship. She was in addition one of the most influential London film critics.
She gave her readers sociology, history and art for the price of a film review. She could recall shot by shot a Jean Vigo masterpiece, relate it to the abortion rate in pre-war California and explain how Vigo took the idea from a Kurt Schwitters collage before excoriating a director for its misuse in the film she was reviewing.
To Koolman she said, ‘I loved The Sound of Music. Don’t quote me, but I loved it. Three times I’ve taken my little daughter back to see it.’
‘Did you pan it?’ Koolman asked.
‘Nowadays directors think only of foreground action – television directing – they can’t handle big scenes.’
‘You panned Sound of Music, didn’t you?’
‘Beautifully photographed, superbly edited, with jump-cutting at least ten years ahead of its time.’
‘Did you pan it?’
‘I can’t afford to tell my readers to go and see schmaltz.’
‘Do you think they haven’t taken their kids three times, too?’
‘They probably have. But that doesn’t mean they want me to tell them to.’
Phil Sanchez brought drinks for them: whisky and soda for Jo Stewart and tonic water for Koolman. ‘Thanks, Phil.’ Koolman grasped the girl’s arm and turned her so that he was looking directly into her eyes. In some other environment such passion might have attracted comment, but here it was strictly professional. Koolman said, ‘One of our companies did a market survey about the way people borrow money. People preferred to go to a moneylender than to a bank, even if the bank gave them easier terms. They felt inferior in a bank, they felt out of place there. But in the money-lender’s office they felt morally superior.’
Jo Stewart said, ‘That’s fascinating.’
‘You critics go to your Press shows at the nice comfortable hour of ten-thirty A.M. Champagne, lobster sandwiches…’
‘When was that?’
‘OK, but you do get a carefully matched print, a chosen track. No adverts or people coming in halfway through.’
‘Going out halfway through sometimes.’
‘You are confident and at ease. Right? You had a nice printed invite to go and you’re being paid to be there. You welcome a stimulating film and you’ll judge it in intellectual terms. You’re looking for talent. You’ll respect a film that you have difficulty in understanding and maybe you’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. Right?’
Koolman raised an admonitory finger alongside his ear. No imitation of him omitted this hand movement. With the right timing any wag could use it to raise a smile or a shudder. For Koolman’s finger jabbed at heaven suggesting that he was in close collusion with God. ‘Right?’
Koolman said, ‘But my audiences are in their neighbourhood movie houses, sitting in wet coats, after a day’s work, maybe tough manual work. They don’t need mental challenge by some smart little movie-maker. They don’t want to feel inferior to a film’s intellectual content. They want a laugh and a bit of excitement. They’ll forgive a movie that is predictable, slick and superficial because those very faults will make them feel superior.’
‘That’s a gloomy policy for a movie-maker.’
‘It’s a realistic policy,’ said Koolman.
‘I never know when you are teasing,’ said Josephine Stewart.
‘I’m never teasing,’ said Koolman.
Weinberger came into the room warily. He reached inside a fake bookcase and opened the refrigerator. He poured himself a bitter lemon and sat down in the corner. Koolman squeezed Jo Stewart’s arm as she said goodbye and waved hello at Weinberger. He looked around the room to see if there was any unfinished business. Having decided there was not, he looked at his watch. He used a fob watch so that he could look at it without any danger of the gesture passing unnoticed. Dennis Lightfoot noticed and took it as his cue. ‘It’s about time, Leo,’ he said loudly. Lightfoot was the executive in charge of European production. He could OK anything with a budget under two million dollars. Leo Koolman was here to see how Dennis Lightfoot’s guesses were making out.
Koolman put his arm around Lightfoot. ‘Let’s go, everyone,’ he said softly. The roomful of people began to move. The lift gates were open and the canned music was moaning softly. The men who travelled in the elevator were relaxed and smiling and yet they were as alert as the Secret Service men who guard their president. Only Weinberger and six chosen executives took the lift to the basement where the viewing theatre was situated. The others wandered down to the lobby where they chatted and laughed, sub-divided and re-formed several times until they were in three mutually agreed groups. Only then did they make their separate ways to three very different restaurants.
The viewing theatre had thirty seats. Two of them were already occupied by Edgar Nicolson and the director of Silent Paradise, the film they were about to see. Nicolson was sitting at the console tapping his fingers on the projection room phone. Koolman guided Lightfoot to a chair and then sat between him and Nicolson. The rest of the men seated themselves in the four corners of the theatre, knowing that whether the film was good or bad it was just as well to have a row of seats between oneself and Koolman.
‘Everyone here?’ said Koolman. Silent Paradise had finished shooting over three months before and still was not ready. His voice clearly implied that no one was going to leave the room until he knew why.
‘Everyone is here,’ said Lightfoot.
‘Where’s
