Flicker (21 page)

Clare offered a tactful compromise. “Let's say: if he'd lived another ten years, he would've been … nearly as good as you.”

Almost suspiciously, the old man asked, “You think I was
that
good, huh?”

“Good enough to win an Academy Award.”

His face collapsed in disappointment. “Phaw! They give those away every year. What's that mean? You know how many klutzes got little gold statues? Hell, they give Billy Daniels one of those. A goddam fashion photographer was all he ever was.”

“But
Glory Road
deserved an award,” Clare insisted. “That's the difference. And,” she added teasingly, “it wasn't even your best.”

Lipsky studied Clare warily. “Oh yeah? So what was better, tell me that.”

“
Prince of the Streets—
1943. With King Vidor.”

The old guy spread his mouth in a delighted toothless grin and pointed a quivering finger at her. “Right! By Christ, that's right.” He craned around to tell the woman behind him, “She's right. You hear that, by Jesus!”

“You didn't even get a nomination for that one. But it was still your best. Practically invented the Neorealist style.”

Lipsky gave a contemptuous snort. “Too good for 'em, it was. Ahead of its time. Sons a bitches loved all that greasy newsreel shtick when the wops did it after the war. Sure. Cuz that was Your-o-peen. Jesus! You know what Rossellini said to me? Nineteen fifty-three. He let me do some shootin' for him after I got the bum's rush in the U.S. Said, 'Zip—you invented my movies.' ” Then, turning tough guy again, he gave Clare a wised-up grimace. “You got it
almost
right, sister.
Prince of the Streets
was the
second-best
I ever did. The first best was
House of Blood.”

Clare was honestly astonished.
“House of Blood?”

“Right! With Max. Shot it in eight days. Practically no retakes. Cleanest damn job I ever done. Beautiful!”

Clare sent a questioning glance my way.

“I came across that film in one of the catalogues,” I explained, “but I couldn't find a print anywhere.”

“Course not!” Lipsky snarled. “Scrapped it. Like all the best stuff Max did. They tried to scrap it all. Bastards!”

“Listen, Mr. Lipsky,” Clare said eagerly, “we've got to talk.”

“Yeah? About what?”

“About you. About your work. I'm a great admirer of yours.”

“Yeah? Then what about in there?” He jerked a thumb toward the theater. “You're crucifyin' me in there. Me an' Max both.”

“Those are the best prints we could find,” Clare assured him. “Besides, I honestly didn't know that was
your
work. I mean—there
is
a Lipsky listed in the credits. But I didn't think it could be you.”

Clare had mentioned the point while we were previewing Castle's films. The credits for three of them included an A. C. Lipsky as key grip. She'd asked, “Could that be Arnold Lipsky?” I recognized the name when she pointed it out. In the forties and fifties, Zip Lipsky became one of the celebrated Hollywood cameramen. He received a number of Academy Award nominations and one Oscar. In his time he was a minor legend around the studios, where his camera work was as distinctive as his physical build. Clare had also remarked that he dropped out of sight during the Hollywood blacklisting period, one of its many talented victims. We agreed that would be worth mentioning in the notes, but we couldn't be sure it was the same man.

“You're not listed for the camera work,” Clare explained.

“Listed!” Lipsky scoffed. “Who the hell kept track of that on these quick hitters? Warren Kettle—they listed him. He got the paycheck. Hell, he was drunk from the first day. I shot the whole thing. That's
my
work, sister. And it looks like ground cow shit up there on the screen. It's a goddam sacrilege.”

That night, I was running the projector. Which meant the second feature was now more than a half hour late in getting started. Even so, Clare and I hadn't yet succeeded in mollifying Lipsky. We had, however, managed to gather a small circle of spectators around us in the lobby. Some of them, film students who were regulars at The Classic, were more interested in the talk between Clare and Lipsky than in the movie that was waiting to be shown. Clare, offering her audience one of the rare apologies she ever gave, explained with a distinct note of pride in her voice, “This is Mr. Arnold Lipsky. Zip Lipsky. One of the great cinematographers of American film.”

“Phaw! Cinematographer,” Lipsky grumbled. “I was a
shooter,
that's what.”

“One of the great shooters,” Clare corrected. “The film you're about to see is one of Mr. Lipsky's uncredited works.” Glancing at Lipsky, she asked, “Is that right? Your name isn't on this one either.”

“It's mine,” Lipsky announced belligerently. “Christ, I shot 'em all for Max. If he could get me, Max never used nobody else.”

Kiss of the Vampire
finally got shown—with Lipsky groaning and cursing in the back of the theater at every cut he could recognize. Halfway through, with a yip of pain, he decided to leave. That gave Clare the chance to hustle him off to Moishe's for a private talk. By the time I got there after running the film and closing down the house, Clare had found out something spectacular.

“He's got them all!” she announced as I slid into the booth beside her, across from Lipsky and the woman. “Castle's films. Or at least the ones he shot. How many did you say? Sixteen movies?”

“Seventeen,” Lipsky answered smugly, “plus which I got the camera originals, sonny. Not this hashed-up crap you're showin'. Just the way Max wanted it. The whole works. Best stuff I ever did.”

They'd managed to get him out of his wheelchair and into the rearmost booth of Moishe's. The little man's chin and shoulders just barely cleared the top of the table. He was wedged awkwardly between the wall and the big woman who still hadn't been introduced to me. I gathered she was Lipsky's wife, or possibly his nurse. The old guy was still smoking away like a furnace. In front of him there was a cup of hot water with a lemon slice floating in it.

“You really think some of these Castle films are better than
Glory Road
or
Prince of the Streets?”
Clare asked.

“Damn right! Cuz you know why? Me and Max, we was workin' on a total zilch budget. Leftover sets, lousy lights, almost no retakes. You
had
to be good. Good the
first
time. That's where I learned shootin'. Shit!
Glory Road
—we had a couple million bucks for that. A baboon can make a good picture for a million bucks. But when you're workin' on a shoestring—that's when you gotta have what it takes. Max planned every shot so careful … God, he was good. You see how close in we worked? That was to cut out all the phoney sets. You see how we used the edges of the screen? Spooky, huh? Never know what's comin' at y'. Learned it all from Max. From the ground up. Every trick there was. 'Silk from pig's ears' was what he called it. Max an' me. What a team!”

“Can … can we see the films?” I asked.

Apparently Clare had already raised the question. “Mr. Lipsky is being difficult about that.”

“Damn right!” Lipsky shot back, putting on his tough-guy face. “Those pictures're mine. Nobody else's. Nobody's takin' 'em away. They did Max so much dirt. Me too. Goddam bloodsuckin' bandits.”

“This would be a private screening,” Clare said. “Just the two of us.”

“Oh yeah? Next thing, you'll wanna show 'em in that fleapit of yours. One raw deal after another, that's what they give Max. So let 'em do without. Nobody sees them pictures but me.”

“But why save the films if nobody can ever see them?” I asked.

The old man's face went enigmatic. “There's reasons,” he sniffed. “I got a reason. I can do just what I want with them pictures. They're mine.”

“But what harm could it do?” I pursued. “Clare and I—we'd really appreciate seeing them.”

“Nothin' doin'.” Lipsky was adamant. “After how I got burned in this town, I don't owe nobody any favors, see?” This was clearly a matter of vengeful pride with him.

Responding to a rub and stroke of the ankle under the table, I turned to the big woman across from me. I thought it was accidental contact at first. It wasn't. She was running her stockinged foot along my instep. Bewildered, I decided to treat the occasion as a chance to appeal to her. “We'd be very respectful,” I said. “We really care about Castle's work.”

The woman began to smile back. The smile didn't quit; it kept widening into something like a leer. And the leer became so frankly lascivious, I felt myself blushing. By now, her foot was probing its way up my trouser leg, her wiggly toes spelling out little lecherous messages all over my calf. She gave a flirtatious wink and leaned a meaty shoulder into the little man beside her. “Don't be so poo-poo, Zippy,” she piped in her Shirley Temple voice. “Let him see the dumb ol' movies.” To me, she said, “We got our own screening room and everything, just like a real picture show. You come up to our place and see the movie. We never have anybody visit.” She started to act out a heavy pout. “I get
sooo
lonely.”

“Nothin' doin',” Lipsky protested, holding firm.

The woman crowded him still harder, so that his wizened little figure began to disappear into her voluptuous bulk. “You wanna be tickled tonight or not?” she asked. “Huh, baby? Huh?”

“What's 'at gotta do with it?” Lipsky whined, now almost suffocated under her pressure.

Nodding across at me, her gaze shifting from lascivious to predatory, she mock-whispered, “He's sure a cutey. I want him to come see the pictures.”

Clare came up with another idea. “What about the
Judas?”
she asked. “Wouldn't you like to see Max Castle's greatest film?”

“What're you sayin'?” Lipsky asked, suddenly alert and eager. “What'd she say?”

“Judas Jedermann,”
Clare replied. “We've got it. Wouldn't you like to see it without coming back to this fleapit, as you call it? We could show it for you privately. It's Castle's best film.”

“Pfaa!” Lipsky refused to believe her. “How would you know?
Judas Yeh-mer
… ,
Yeh
…
her
… I never heard of no film by Max like that. You're bluffin'.”

“Judas Everyman
in English. You wouldn't have heard of it under that name either. It's been lost since the early twenties. It's in perfect condition.”

Lipsky sent her a skeptical one-eyed squint. “How d'you know Max made it? Does it say so?”

“This is a rough cut … we think. No titles or credits. But it comes from somebody who knows it was his film.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Someone named Joshua Sloan.”

Lipsky wagged his head. “Never heard of him. Who's that?” Then, stiffening noticeably, he asked, “One of them goddam orphans?”

“Orphans? Why, no. He's a film collector in Chicago,” Clare answered.

“So how's he know Max made it?”

“There were some papers in with the film. A couple of them were from a Thea Von Pölzig at the UFA studios. She says … ”

Lipsky flashed on the name. “Pull-zik! Christ! She still around? That skinny old bat! Them damn orphans live forever. Like zombies.”

“As a matter of fact,” Clare went on, “the film
was
found in an orphanage. In Germany. That's where Sloan got it.”

Lipsky looked amazed. “The orphanage give him the picture?”

“No, the orphanage was bombed out. The film was found in the ruins.”

“Good! They bombed it? Good!”

“Well, anyway,” Clare continued, “that's how we know it's Castle's film. From this woman Von Pölzig's letter.”

“Okay, this guy Sloan in Chicago, he got it from the orphanage.” Lipsky gave Clare a narrow squint. “So how'd
you
get it?”

Clare hesitated, then went ahead and lied. “It was a gift from a local collector.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Ever hear of Ira Goldstein?”

“Goldstein! That
gonif!
He give you a film? For free? Not likely. Anyways, I thought he was dead.”

“He is. I know his son. He's been selling some of Goldstein's films.”

“Well, Goddamit! Nobody told me they was sellin' Max's pictures.”

“There was just this one,” Clare said.

“And how come they sold it to you?”

“Because people know I care about movies—good movies. And this is a good movie. Strange, but good. Maybe great.”

“What d'you mean 'maybe'?” Lipsky asked aggressively. “It's Max's movie, isn't it?”

“Wouldn't you like to judge for yourself? It's very, very original. Lots of spectacular camera work. We could bring it to you. How about it, Mr. Lipsky? Fair exchange. We'll show you
Judas.
You show us your Castles.”

“That's seventeen pictures for one. You call that fair?”

“But
Judas
is special. A true collector's item.”

“It isn't worth seventeen to one.”

“All right. How about just two for one? The two best Castle films. You pick them.”

Lipsky hesitated, muttering and grimacing. Maybe he would have held out still longer, but the big woman closed in on him again with another nudge of her intimidating bosom. “Come on, Zippy. Don't be a poo-poo head!” she said, and, grudgingly, he caved in.

Before they left, we had their phone number and address and an arrangement to visit the following week. They drove off in an overaged Cadillac badly in need of body work, the Japanese chauffeur at the wheel, Lipsky in the back seat smoking and wheezing.