James Cain - Serenade

“Not so fast. Maybe they don’t even try. Maybe they think it’s bad policy. But this is the main point: You run out on this contract, and your name is mud in Hollywood from now on—”

“I don’t care about that.”

“Oh yes you do. How do you know how well you do in grand opera?”

“I’ve been in it before.”

“And out of it before, from all I hear.”

“My voice cracked up.”

“It may again. This is my point. The way Gold is building you up, Hollywood is sure for you, as sure as anything can be, for quite some time to come. It makes no different to him if your voice cracks up. He’ll buy a voice. He’ll dub your sound for you—”

“Not for me he won’t.”

“Will you for Christ sake stop talking about art? I’m talking about money. I’m telling you that if your pictures really go, he’ll do anything. He’ll play you straight. He’ll fix it up any way that makes you look good. And most of all, he’ll pay you! More than any opera company will ever pay you! It’s a backlog for you to fall back on, but—”

“Yeah, but?”

“Only as long as you play ball. Once you start some funny business, not only he, but every other picture man in Hollywood turns thumbs down, and that’s the end of you, in pictures. There’s no black-list. Nobody calls anybody up. They just hear about it, and that’s all. I can give you names, if you want them, of bright boys like you that thought they could jump a Hollywood contract, and tell you what happened to them. These picture guys hate each other, they cut each other’s throats all the time, but when something like this happens, they act with a unanimity that’s touching. Now, have you seen Gold?”

“I thought I’d see you first.”

“That’s all right. Then there’s no harm done. Now before you do anything rash, I want you to see him. There may be no trouble at all. He may want you to sing at the Met, just for build-up. He may be back of it, for all you know. Get over and see him, see if you can fix it up. After lunch, come back and see me.”

So I went over and saw Gold. He wanted to talk about the four goals he made in the polo game the day before. When we did get around to it he shook his head. “Jack, I know what’s good for you, even if you don’t. I read the signs all the time, it’s my business to know, and they’ll all tell you Rex Gold don’t make many mistakes. Jack, grand opera’s through.”

“What?”

“It’s through, finished. Sure, I dropped in at the Metropolitan when I was east last week, saw Tosca, the same opera that we do a piece of in Bunyan, and I’d hate to tell you what they soaked me for the rights on it, too. And what do I see? Well, boy, I’m telling you, we just made a bum out of them. That sequence in our picture is so much better than their job, note for note, production for production, that comparison is just ridiculous. Grand opera is through. Because why? Pictures have stepped in and done it so much better than they can do it that they can’t get by any more, that’s all. Opera is going the same way the theatre is going. Pictures have just rubbed them out.”

“Well — before it dies, I’d like to have a final season in it. And I don’t think the Metropolitan stamp would hurt me any, even in pictures.”

“It would ruin you.”

“How?”

“I’ve been telling you. Grand opera is through. Grand opera pictures are through. The public is sick of them. Because why? Because they got no more material. They’ve done Puccini over and over again, they’ve done La Bohème and Madame Butterfly so much we even had to fall back on La Tosca for you in Bunyan, and after you’ve done your Puccini, what you got left? Nothing. It’s through, washed up. We just can’t get the material.”

“Well — there are a couple of other composers.”

“Yeah, but who wants to listen to them?”

“Almost anybody, except a bunch of Kansas City yaps that think Puccini is classical, as they call it.”

“Oh, so you don’t like Puccini?”

“Not much.”

“Listen, you want to find out who’s the best painter in the world, what do you do? You try to buy one of his pictures. Then you find out what you got to pay. O.K., you want to find out who’s the best composer in the world, you try to buy some of his music. Do you know what they charged me, just for license rights, on that scene you did from Tosca? You want to know? Wait, I’ll get the canceled vouchers. I’ll show you. You wouldn’t believe it.”

“Listen, Puccini has been the main asset of that publishing house for years, and everybody in grand opera knows it, and that’s got nothing to do with how good he is. It’s because he came in after we began to get copyright laws, and because he was handled from the beginning for every dime that could be got out of him from guys like you. If you’re just finding that out, it may prove you don’t know anything about opera, but it doesn’t prove anything about Puccini.”

“Why do you suppose guys like me pay for him?”

“Probably because you knew so little about opera you couldn’t think of anything else. If you had let me help on that script, I’d have fixed you up with numbers that wouldn’t have cost you a dime.”

“A swell time to be saying that.”

“To hell with it. You got Tosca, and it’s all right. I’m talking about a release for the rest of the season to go on at the Met.”

“And I’m talking about what’s good for one of our stars. There’s no use our arguing about composers, Jack. Maybe you know what’s pretty but I know what sells. And I tell you grand opera is through. And I tell you that from now on you lay off it. The way I’m building you up, we’re going to take that voice of yours, and what are we going to do with it? Use it on popular stuff. The stuff you sing better than anybody else in the business. The stuff that people want to hear. Lumberjack songs, cowboy songs, mountain music, jazz — you can’t beat it! It’s what they want! Not any of this tra-la-la-la-la-la! Christ, that’s an ear-ache! It’s a back number. Look, Jack: From now on, you forget you ever were in grand opera. You give it to them down-to-earth! Right down there where they want it! You get me, Jack? You get me?”

“I get you.”

“What did Gold say?”

“He said no.”

“I had an idea that was how he felt. I had him on the phone just now, about something else, and I led around to you in a way that didn’t tip it you had been in, but he was telling the world where he stood. Well, I’d play along with him. It’s tough, but you can’t buck him.”

“If I do, what did you say my name would be?”

“Mud. M-U-D, mud.”

“In Hollywood?”

“Yes, in Hollywood.”

“That’s all I wanted to know. What do I owe you?”

When I got home there were four more telegrams, saying the thing was hot, if I wanted it, and a memo New York had been calling. I looked at my watch. It was three o’clock. I called the airport. They had two seats on the four-thirty plane. She came in. “Well, Juana, there they are, read them. The abogado says no, a hundred times no. What do I do?”

“You sing Carmen at these Met?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“Yes, I like.”

“O.K., then. Get packed.”

I made my debut in Lucia right after New Year’s, sang standard repertoire for a month, began to work in. It felt good to be back with the wops. Then I got my real chance when they popped me on three days’ notice into Don Giovanni. I had a hell of a time getting them to let me do the serenade my way, with a real guitar, and play it myself, without the orchestra. The score calls for a prop mandolin, and that’s the way the music is written, but I hate all prop instruments on the stage, and hate to play any scene where I have to use one. There’s no way you can do it that it doesn’t look phoney. I made a gain when I told them that the guitar was tradition, that Garcia used to do it that way, but I lost all that ground when somebody in the Taste Department decided that a real guitar would look too much like the Roxy, and for a day it was all off again. Then I got Wurlitzer’s to help me out. They sent down an instrument that was a beauty. It was dark, dull spruce, without any pearl, nickel, or highlights on it of any kind, and it had a tone you could eat with a spoon. When I sounded off on that, that settled it.