Kino (24 page)

“What do they want?”

Schnark accelerated up a freeway ramp and settled into an empty lane. It was past midnight and there were only a few cars on the road. “Movies are America's greatest export,” he said. “Billions of dollars.”

Oh great
, Mina thought.
Another lecture
. Didn't Dr. Hanno just give her that speech? “I know, I know,” she said. “Propaganda and all that.”

Schnark ignored her.

“By and large, the industry controls itself. Hayes had it exactly right: ‘The quality of our films is such that censorship is unnecessary.' But that doesn't mean the US government doesn't keep a keen eye on the potential of film.”

“They also keep a keen eye on speeding,” Mina said, “so you might want to slow down a little. This isn't the Autobahn.”

Schnark turned his head to give her a half-smile, but he didn't slow down. “In the sixties, the CIA set up something called MK/PSYNEMA, a secret program dedicated to the possibilities of mind control, propaganda, and psychological warfare. But it goes back further than that.
Why We Fight
couldn't compete with the best of the German films, and the Americans knew it. Have you heard of Operation Overcast?”

Mina hadn't.

“Immediately after V-E day, in a race with the Russians, a special unit of Marines rounded up German scientists: nuclear research, cryptography, aeronautical secrets, as well as mind control and propaganda experts. The same guys who built the V2 to attack London gave the Americans their space program. Heisenberg and Werner von Braun helped them get to the moon and develop ICBMs, and Riefenstahl helped them build modern Hollywood.”

“Leni Riefenstahl?” Mina wasn't sure if he were kidding or not. Then she remembered something. “Oma was telling me about secret Nazi experiments, something called
Schwarze Sonne
?”

Schnark whistled through his teeth and regarded Mina with some kind of newfound respect. “Yes, Dr. Spielmann's unit. A disciple of Goebbels. All Ufa directors were ordered to cooperate with him. Apparently, tests with Kino's material consistently yielded better than random results. They were, in some way no one understood, effective.”

“Oma said they did horrible experiments.”

Schnark nodded. “I got hold of Kino's immigration files. Lots of blacked-out pages. He told the Americans that the Nazis could never use his movies because his was the art of liberation, beyond anyone's control, but I'm not so sure they believed him.”

“Where are we going?” Mina finally thought to ask.

“I'd like to introduce you to someone who has some answers for you.”

“Now?”

“Marty never sleeps. I hope you're not tired?”

Mina shrugged. She wasn't tired. She was wide awake.

“I'm fine,” she said. “I feel fine.”

“Good.” Schnark settled back into his seat. “Hey, this is a great car!”

They arrived at an art deco house somewhere in the Valley. It was the only one on its block with the lights still on. Schnark rang the bell, and they were buzzed in. They found their way to the kitchen, where a white-haired man greeted them. He looked like he'd once been handsome but was now old and balding, with a rough grey stubble covering his wrinkled cheeks. He wore black silk pajamas. He'd been doing the crossword puzzle at the kitchen counter and eating soup.

“Hey Marty,” Schnark said. “It's late for soup.”

“I never sleep. Did you bring my cigars? You must be Wilhelmina. It's such a pleasure. I used to work with your grandfather. Aber
Mädchen
, you're soaked! Do you need dry clothes? I got some duds my ex-wife left behind.”

“Please, call me Mina. And yes, I would love dry clothes.”

Mina followed Marty to a bedroom with a walk-in closet, where she picked a pair of slacks and a white shirt, both too big for her, but they would do for now.

She found Marty and Schnark in a dimly lit study lined with book shelves, reclining in cushy armchairs, drinking scotch and smoking cigars. They were talking in hushed tones when Mina came in.

“Much better,” Marty said. “You look like Kate Hepburn.”

He offered her a seat, a glass of scotch, and a cigar. Mina settled into the free armchair and declined both the drink and the smoke. The men seemed like co-conspirators to her, accomplices, sharing secrets in the dead of night. Mina leaned back in her chair, ready for anything. Marty exhaled a pungent cloud of cigar smoke. “Inspector Schnark tells me Penelope is in the hospital?”

“She's in a coma. The doctors don't know if she will come out of it. She was doing an insane amount of drugs.”

“Always has, always will,” Marty said, but when he leaned forward, Mina could see his forehead crinkled with concern. “I am sorry. Is somebody with her?”

“This guy Chester. He's her nurse.”

Marty smiled. “I've known some of her Chesters.”

Schnark was quietly sitting back in his chair, and for a moment, Mina thought he might have fallen asleep. Then the end of his cigar flared up, and she saw that he was watching her intently.

“I was a kid when Kino hired me as a grip on
Jagd zu den Sternen.
Did you know that?”

“Back in Germany?”

“I was a huge fan. People said Kino was terrible with plot, that his dialogue was wooden, his characters two-dimensional.”

Mina nodded. Three days ago, she didn't know there was anyone who gave a damn about Kino.

“His movies were adventure stories, and he played fast and loose with facts, but out of the schmaltz and the melodrama, he distilled indelible moments. If you could see past the imperfections, they were full of strikingly persistent poetic images. Hell, if you watched them enough, you began to love the flaws, too. Genius, I tell you.”

He puffed on his cigar. Mina couldn't have said why, but this old man, sitting up in the middle of the night sucking contentedly on a cigar, struck her as the most trustworthy person she'd met in days.

“I worked closely with Kino on the preproduction for
Pirates
, in 1933, but my wife and I left Germany after the
Machtergreifung
.”

“While my grandparents stayed.”

“Kino claimed it was because of Penelope's father. People here thought he was an opportunist or worse. Either way, what happened to his films was a terrible tragedy.”

“You believe that?” Mina asked.

Marty Wagner nodded.

“I was practically a kid when I first met Kino. By the time they finally arrived in Hollywood, I had worked my way up at RKO. My name is on more than thirty pictures.
Cat People
.
Body Snatchers
.
Citizen Kane
.”

“You worked on
Citizen Kane?”

Marty pointed to a framed black-and-white photo on the shelf by the door. “That's me in Xanadu,” he said. “Orson took the picture.”

Mina sat up straight, in awe of the old man in his silk pajamas.
Citizen Kane
was Sam's favorite movie in the entire world.

“Kino and Penny were too proud to ask for my help when they showed up in this town, and I was hurt when they didn't come to see me. Those years were hard for them. They were shunned. Wilder, Lang, Pommer–no one would talk to them. Then and now, it's a company town, and your grandparents were considered Nazi collaborators. They lived in a tiny apartment in East Hollywood, eking out a living I don't know how. After the war I was in charge of the story department writer's stable. The Ruskies were the new enemies, and the movie business boomed. We needed more writers, and I hired Kino under a pseudonym.”

“You helped him,” Mina said, nodding to herself. Kino had spoken fondly of Marty.

“Penny wanted him to get a job, anything but the movies, to live anywhere but in Hollywood, but Kino wouldn't quit. I've never seen anyone so stubborn in my life. So I did what I could, but the mimeographed pages always came back from the front office with unequivocal notes: too melodramatic, too absurd, too violent. They were forever complaining about plot holes. ‘Plot holes?' he'd shout. ‘Miserable accountant souls! Life is filled with plot holes!' But he kept writing. Every Tuesday, he turned in a new draft. When he finally came up with an idea they liked, Penny made sure it went nowhere. I'll never forget the time we were all invited to a party at Marlon Brando's house. She threw a marble ashtray at Orson Welles.”

Mina laughed at the thought; she was quietly proud of the old bat. “I can believe that,” she said, but Marty shook his head. It wasn't an amusing anecdote to him but a painful memory. It seemed to her that Schnark was shaking his head, too.

“I had no choice but to fire him,” Marty said. “After that, I didn't see them for decades, but there were rumors: drugs, suicide attempts, infidelity, you name it. Later, he made TV commercials. Didn't last there, either. By ‘63, they were nonentities. I'd completely forgotten about old Kino until I stepped into his taxi.”

“I read about that in his journal,” Mina said, glad to know this part of it was true. “You gave him another chance.”

“I was at Paramount at the time, and there had been disaster after disaster.
Cleopatra
almost bankrupted Fox, TV was taking over. We were desperate. We were willing to try anything. Cinerama, 3-D, Smell-O-Vision–why not Kino? There hadn't been a major pirate epic since
The Buccaneer,
and Kino's script was good, a reworked version of the movie Goebbels shut down in 1933. It had melodrama, adventure, wenches in costumes, and it would look splendid in Technicolor. Hell, we'd shoot it in Cinemascope. I saw the potential, but Katz had misgivings from the start. He wanted someone else to direct. I knew what Kino was capable of behind the camera, and I got the go-ahead. The hard part was getting him to sign.”

“Because of Penny.”

“I'd never seen anything like it. Here I was, offering him the chance of a lifetime, a comeback with a major Hollywood studio, and Penny screened his phone calls and threw my letters in the trash! I mean, sure, we lowballed him on his fee, but money wasn't the problem. Penny was determined that Klaus would never make another movie again. When I finally got through to him, she had him committed and pumped full of downers.”

“She thought making the movie would kill him.”

“And she was right.” Marty gave Mina a long, sad look. “They were both drunks, addicted to God knows what else, and they were smacking each other around. The kid, your father, had been shipped off to some school on the East Coast. I thought she was out of her mind, and I pulled some strings to get him released. Hushed up the whole thing.”

“You believed in him,” Mina said.

“I did. Now, this was not long after Dr. King's march on Washington, Kennedy was still president, and there was hope in the air. 'I have a dream, too,‘ Kino would say. I got a thrill being around him again, sharing his enthusiasm. Kino admired those kids in France who were breaking all the rules–so why shouldn't we be able to make a movie that was popular entertainment and art at the same time? Yes, I believed in Kino, all the things he said. Most of it, anyway.
Pirates
should have been his masterpiece.”

“But that's not what happened,” Mina said.

Marty didn't answer. His cigar had gone out, and it took him several fumbling attempts to relight it. There was no sign that Schnark was even in the room except for the occasional red flare from the end of his cigar.

“We shot on the back lot,” Marty finally went on. “I was to keep an eye on Kino. He dried out, showed up on time, and was in control of cast and crew. It was marvelous. I'd seen him do amazing work with far less talent and money. The dailies looked great, and I was sure we had a quality picture on our hands. We were under budget and on schedule when the entire production went to Mexico for the location shoot.”

“Did Penny go?”

“Oh no. I made sure of that.” Marty grinned to himself but didn't explain. “We took over a remote bay in the Yucatan, with a pristine beach and a town set dressed up as Mulberry Island. The location would really make this picture.
The Buccaneer
was all done on studio sets, and we'd blow it out of the water.”

“
Tulpendiebe
was shot on a sound stage.”

“Right. I don't know what would have happened if we'd stayed inside, but once we got down there, things quickly spiraled out of control. Kino now commanded the biggest production of his career, and when he found himself on location, he lost his bearings. He was like an addict on a binge.”

“And you were there to supervise him?”

“
Ach Gott
,
ja
. I was.” Marty took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, scratched his beard. Mina was touched by how embarrassed he looked. “I don't know what I was thinking–the best I can say in my defense was that we were all swept away by Kino's vision. He certainly knew how to rouse the crowd. He gave an impassioned speech about Lang's dragon, about how we had a chance to make something great and lasting. We were all seduced by this man who had been broken and beaten again and again but still believed in his art before anything else–even those of us who had never thought of the movies as art in the first place. In that tropical paradise, all seemed possible, and the crazier Kino acted, the more we wanted to believe that we were making something special. A cathedral of light, that's what he called it, and we all cheered. He stirred something in me that I'd long forgotten. I wanted him to succeed, no matter what.”