Max Collins - Quarry's cut

“Like when you came to the door,” he said. “I misjudged you. I thought you looked… I’m sorry… but I thought you looked suspicious. I know that’s silly. You’re a very normal looking guy. I mean, nice looking, even. But I misjudged you. Screwed up.”

“It’s okay,” I said. Not meaning it.

“No, really. I mean, if I’d known you were from Oui magazine.. ”

“You might not’ve called me ‘smart-ass’ so many times?”

“I had that coming. Go ahead. Lay me out.”

“No thanks.”

“Look, I… I’m glad you sat down. I’d like to start over.”

“I only sat down because for my article’s sake I need to get to know everybody involved with the filming… including you. But according to what your friend Harry said, I guess you might not be too willing to talk to me. He doesn’t seem to be.”

“Harry just doesn’t want it getting out he’s done a porno. He.. he just doesn’t understand.”

“What doesn’t he understand?”

“A lot of things. Jerry Castile, for one. Harry doesn’t understand who Jerry Castile is. All Harry can see here is a porno film being shot. He doesn’t see this for what it is.”

“What is it?”

“Film.” He said it almost religiously.

“I see.”

“Castile is… he’s a director. What more can I say?”

“Not much.”

“That’s right. After you’ve said it… after you’ve seen him for what he is… a director… it makes all the difference. Subject matter, what’s that? It’s not substance that counts. It’s style. Look at Howard Hawks.”

“What?”

“Look at Howard Hawks. He did westerns, he did comedies, war pictures, a private eye picture, crime pictures. but in them all, through them all, he was Howard Hawks.”

“I can’t argue with that,” I admitted.

“Look at Hitchcock,” he went on. “Suspense films. That’s what the public thinks of when they think of Hitchcock. But is it the subject matter of those films that’s important? No. It’s the style. It’s Hitchcock.”

“That’s a real good point.”

“I could make the same point about Alan Dwan, Fritz Lang, Samuel Fuller, a dozen others.”

“I’m sure you could.”

“They’ll be doing books on Castile someday. This period… the sex films… will be just one small, if interesting, part of his oeuvre. He’ll go on to do other films, initially simple genre pieces, I’m sure, but whatever he does, he’ll remain one thing, essentially.. Castile.”

“And a director.”

“Yes! A director. Might I say… an auteur?”

“You might.”

“I’m glad you understand what I’m getting at. It’s so frustrating to talk to someone like… like Harry, who just can’t see the forest for the trees.”

“It’s hard, in a snowstorm.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling solemnly, nodding, finding several layers of meaning below the surface of my flip remark. If I’d said it before, when I was some guy knocking at the door, he’d have called me “smart-ass” and let it go at that; now that I was with Oui, I was suddenly deep.

He leaned in close to me, across the plastic tabletop; he was wearing cologne that smelled like fruit, and I resisted the temptation to look for any layers of meaning in that. “Harry doesn’t understand,” he said, “what a rare privilege it is to work with a director of Castile’s standing. And this particular film is particularly important.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s Castile’s last sex film, and as such is, well, historic.”

“Then I take it you don’t have the reluctance to have your name seen in print, regarding this film, that your friend Harry has.”

“Not at all. The name is Richard Hudson. H-u-d-s-o-n.”

“Is that your real name?”

“Legal name. I had it changed.”

“From what?”

“From,” he said, coyly, “something I didn’t like.”

I let that pass, asked, “If Castile is such a meticulous filmmaker, why is he working with such a small crew?”

“Well, we did have some other actors here, but they finished their scenes and left yesterday. And actors, on a film like this, assuming they aren’t superstars like a Frankie Waddsworth, will often help with the technical side of things, when they aren’t in a scene. But this is a small crew… normally, a picture like this would probably require, oh, twice as many people… but the difficulties of lining up good people, in Chicago, willing to work on a film like this, well

… it limited Mr. Castile. But then he has a reputation for working with a smaller crew than most. Does a lot of his own camerawork… all the hand-held stuff. That’s how he helps retain control, puts his personal stamp on every frame of film. He even does his own cutting and editing as well. Part of his reputation comes from the quality he has been able to achieve on very low budget productions. He’s doing quality comparable to Radley Metzger… the hardcore films Metzger has done he’s done as ‘Henry Paris’… and Castile’s budgets are far smaller, perhaps a third as big.”

“And that’s one reason the Hollywood people want him.”

“Yes. You, obviously, can see what this could mean, working with Castile, and at this point in his career… but Harry can’t seem to grasp it. He doesn’t see how this could open so many doors. If Mr. Castile should happen to like my work, or Harry’s for that matter, we could be in California shooting film, in a matter of months, weeks, days! We could leave commercials, industrial films, pornography, all the demeaning shit behind, and do real films.”

For a moment I wondered what happened to the triumph of style over subject matter, but never mind.

“Harry’s a good friend of yours, I take it. His opinions seem to mean a lot to you.”

“I’m not afraid to tell it like it is.”

“That’s admirable. What is it?”

“I’m… bisexual. A lot of people in the arts are.”

“There’s a lot of it going around.”

“Yes, and there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“I didn’t say there was.”

“I don’t mean to be… defensive. I didn’t imagine you’d be terribly shocked by my admission.”

No, nor interested. But I said, “We run pictures of women together, in Oui. People are getting more open-minded on the subject,” and hoped that would mollify him.

“Harry and I met through our work… we both work for the same agency, doing, as I said, commercials and industrial films and so on. And despite his Archie Bunkerish exterior, Harry is a sensitive man, intelligent, and a little enigmatic. We’ve been… together… for six months now. But he’s very possessive.”

“Is that right?”

“He’d even be upset if he saw us talking. He’s that small.”

“Size isn’t everything.”

“Last night, I… well, I got a little something going with Frank. You know… Frankie Waddsworth, the star of the picture.”

“Frankie Waddsworth likes boys?”

“And girls. Bi — sexual. Bisexual. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“I still didn’t say there was.”

“That’s good, because there isn’t. And there’s nothing wrong with

… having a little interpersonal relationship now and then, is there?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned.”

“I mean, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but, as I said, I tell it like it is… and if you want to print it in your magazine, so be it. I won’t try to stop you.”

“Thanks.”

“So Frankie and I, we were kind of fooling around, and things got out of hand, and Harry butted in. Made a scene. It was ugly, I don’t mind telling you. Can’t he understand? Frankie Waddsworth isn’t just anybody. He’s a superstar.”

“Superstar?”