The Man In The Seventh Row (6 page)

Anna Fisher walks across the cement blocks bearing Bogart's hand and foot prints and the message 'Sid may you never die till I kill you'.

'The Chinese Theatre was built by Sid Grauman in 1927,' says an enthusiastic young guide in matching yellow short-sleeved shirt, shorts and baseball cap. 'It was built in the style of a Chinese pagoda,' he tells a huddle of Japanese, young and mainly female.

The guide came to Los Angeles to get into the movies and he has made it, for half a dozen video cameras capture his every gesture. He addresses them in turn, offering each a few words and a smile as big and white as Tom Cruise's.

'Actress Norma Talmadge visited the construction site and accidentally trod in the wet cement, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Senior followed her example at the premiere of
King of Kings
and the greatest stars still come here to record their footprints and handprints in the sidewalk for your enjoyment.' He pauses to allow his audience to digest the enormity of what they are hearing and prepare themselves for the possibility of further dramatic revelations.

'And in that year, 1927
AD
, not only did the Chinese Theatre open, but the very first talkie was released.'

'Aaah, Aaahl Jolson,' murmur the group, with much nodding of wise oriental heads.

'And things would never be the same again,' adds the guide.

It was also the year in which Stalin expelled Trotsky from the Communist Party, thinks Anna, who teaches 20th Century European history at
UCLA
. It was the year Hitler addressed his followers in Nuremberg, while Jolson told his to wait a minute, they ain't heard nothin' yet. The young man in the yellow outfit was right; things were never the same again. The movies lasted longer than the 1,000-year Reich and today German tourists come to measure their hands against those of Bogart and buy maps purporting to guide them to the homes of today's stars a few miles away in Beverly Hills.

'There were lots of glamorous premieres here,' says the guide. 'Thousands would turn up just to catch a glimpse of the stars. Has anyone seen the Gene Kelly musical
Singin' in the Rain
?'

There is much nodding of heads.

'That begins with a premiere at the Chinese Theatre in 1927,' says the guide. 'But in the story they decide to go off and remake the film with sound.'

Anna passes the tourists and enters the shade of the temple, as ancient as anything in these parts, old and yet not old, tangible and yet not real. It is not Grauman's Chinese Theatre anymore, but Mann's Chinese Theatre, part of a chain. They took Sid's name off the cinema, but they cannot take his name out of the concrete.

Anna makes her way to Cinema 2 and sits in the seventh row of the near-deserted auditorium. Few tourists venture inside. Their time is limited. They can see films at home. Only here can they see Bogart's handprints.

There is a roll of drums and a crash of cymbals as the film begins, an old grainy black and white print.

'Harry M. Popkin presents,' says the opening credit across the picture of a high-rise building, little squares of light in a few of its windows helping differentiate it against the black night. A figure walks into view. The audience gets only a brief glimpse of his back before the title credit
D.O.A.
fills the entire screen. It is an old film and the picture is the shape of a television screen, only slightly wider than it is high.

Anna had never heard of
D.O.A.
, but it is part of a festival of old films. It had been recommended in the 'Times' and she did not have anything special to do. She never has anything special to do since she split up with Brad three months ago.

The figure moves towards the building and the camera follows him down a white-walled corridor towards an inquiry desk. Just short of the desk he stops and asks a uniformed officer a question. The policeman is talking to a man in a fedora. The officer glances at the stranger and, resuming his previous conversation, gestures with a thumb over his right shoulder. The man follows the direction indicated, down another long corridor, at the end of which is a door marked 'Homicide Division'. He is shown into an office, where a middle-aged man in a suit is sitting behind a desk considering some papers. 'I want to report a murder,' says the newcomer. 'Who was murdered?' asks the man behind the desk. For the first time we see the other man's face. He is a man in his thirties, unshaven, with a heaviness about his jowls and thick, dark hair greased back from his forehead. She is not sure if she would have recognised the actor as Edmond O'Brien if she had not just read the credits, though she knows she has seen him in black and white movies she has watched on television on weekend afternoons and late at night when she can't sleep.

O'Brien pauses for dramatic effect after the question 'Who was murdered?'

'I was,' he says.

Great beginning, thinks Anna. Great beginning.

The policeman turns away and looks at a sheet of paper. The man asks if he wants to hear his story or not, for he does not have much time. The policeman asks if his name is Frank Bigelow. The man's mouth drops open in surprise. He confirms he is Frank Bigelow. The policeman instructs a colleague to send a message that they have found him, and invites Bigelow to tell his story.

A misty whirl transports the viewer back in time. Bigelow is an accountant. Medical tests reveal toxin in his system and he is told he has only a few days to live. He discovers that one of his clients has unwittingly involved him in a convoluted web of deceit, betrayal and murder that will cost him his life. He can still talk, he can still walk, but he is no longer alive. He tracks down and shoots his own killer, tells the police his story and dies. The police classify him 'dead on arrival'.

8

The lounge bar of the Roosevelt Hotel is unusually busy for early afternoon. Tourists coming, going, hanging around. Anna has a choice. She can sit at the table of the loud, middle-aged people, who seem to represent a curtailed tour of the islands of the northern hemisphere in their costume of Hawaii shirts and Bermuda shorts. Or she can sit next to the young bedenimed Mexican couple, holidaying, perhaps honeymooning, absorbed in their Rough Guide itinerary and their love. Or she can choose the seat opposite the man in the plain black tee-shirt and black linen suit, who has just drained the brandy balloon and is now rubbing the rim of a cold Rolling Rock against his bottom lip. Angelic blond hair and blue eyes are offset by the dark stubble on his chin, the furrows across his brow and the downturn of his mouth. His hair is dyed blond. There is something slightly dangerous about him, as if he has just walked out of
Reservoir Dogs
, or maybe just something ever so slightly sleazy.

He has been watching her, hoping she would not sit at his table, and then hoping she would. She moves elegantly between the tourists, with her cup of coffee balanced on its saucer. Her brown eyes sweep the bar area, ascertaining there are no tables free. Her hair is cropped short and tinted with henna. As her face turns to him he notes the suggestion of a smile, not quite a smile, not nearly a smile, just a suggestion. She is younger than him, early thirties, maybe even late twenties. The brandy wants her to sit down.

'Is this seat free?' she asks Roy.

Her voice is matter of fact. He says nothing, but nods, and gestures with his open palm towards the empty chair. She sits and sips her coffee and watches Roy sip his beer. He sips his beer and watches the Mexican couple chatter over the Rough Guide.

Roy never knew what to say to an attractive woman he had never met before. What would Bogie say? Woody Allen had written an entire play with Bogie as the ultra-cool role model for picking up babes.

Roy racks his brains, but all he can remember is Bogie telling a dame that when he slaps her she will take it and like it ... Bogie's most memorable lines are not exactly small talk. He never seemed much good at opening conversations with women, or indeed relationships, just ending them. He packed Ingrid off on a plane in
Casablanca
and buggered off down to Brazzaville with Captain Renault, for a beautiful friendship. And, offered romance with Mary Astor at the end of
The Maltese Falcon
, he turned her over to the cops to face a murder rap instead. Of all the bars in all the world she had to walk into mine.

Roy lifts the Rolling Rock to his lips. She watches him do it and still says nothing. His bottle is almost empty. He stops a passing waiter and requests a coffee.

'How would you like it?'

'Espresso, please.'

'Certainly sir,' says the waiter, as he moves off towards the bar.

It is Anna who eventually opens conversation.

'You're English,' she says.

He is about to speak, but she raises her hand to stop him, reconsidering the way he had rolled the R of espresso momentarily on his tongue before letting it go.

'No, not English ... Scottish. Like Sean Connery.'

'We grew up in the same street,' he says. 'Same street, different time ...'

'I knew Scotland was small, but I didn't know it was that small,' she says.

He thinks the joke sophisticated for an American, displaying a knowledge of geography beyond that of most of her compatriots. Her lips carry the faintest trace of lipstick and the merest hint of a smile.

'Glasgow? Or was it Edinboro, that he came from?'

'Edinburgh.' He pronounces it almost as if it might rhyme with 'hurrah', but not quite.

He is not unattractive, she thinks, the youthfulness of his blond hair and blue eyes offset by the stubble on his face and a world-weary air.

'I love Sean Connery's movies,' she says and quickly realises she is indulging herself in that most American habit of overstating enthusiasms.

'I love movies,' he says. 'It's almost like a compulsion for me. Bond movies, good movies, bad movies. I've always loved films, the whole experience.'

'I love it too ... though I'm not exactly a cinephile
,' she says and she almost smiles. 'I've just come out of an old movie that was wonderful. I'd never heard of it …
DOA
?'

'Yeah, yeah,' he says, his eyes lighting up in recognition and enthusiasm. 'I want to report a murder,' he says.

'Who was murdered?' she responds.

'I was,' he says.

'It must be about the best beginning to any movie ever,' she says. And they both smile at a shared enthusiasm.

'About the best,' he says, thinking of beginnings. But she beats him to it.

'
The Godfather
,' she says. 'The first words when the screen is black: "I believe in America". The guest at the wedding who wants Don Corleone to avenge the assault on his daughter ... Remember?'

Roy nods.

'But he doesn't even call Marlon "godfather".'

Roy is impressed by her memory and her enthusiasm, though he has never been impressed by the common practice in Los Angeles of calling film stars by their first names as if imparting some tasty little titbit of gossip about a mutual friend before Marlon or Marilyn or Mel gets back from the washroom. 'Did you hear that Julia is going to be in ...' or 'I see that Sean is coming to the Oscars ...'

'Ah,' he says, 'but I think the best beginning to a Francis Ford Coppola film is ...'

She raises a finger.

'I know what you're going to say.'

She pauses as the waiter delivers the espresso Roy ordered. Roy smiles, suspecting she does know.

'This is like one of those riddles,' she says. 'Which end is a beginning?'

Roy nods in confirmation.

'The peaceful jungle ... the sight of a helicopter ... and the jungle explodes in flames as Jim Morrison announces, "The End." '

'
Apocalypse Now
.'

The words instantly transport Roy to another place. The face of the woman opposite is transformed by the mists of time into that of a young man. Roy can no longer remember his name, but he thinks of him sometimes when
Apocalypse Now
is mentioned. They played 'charades', and the young man whose name Roy has forgotten mimed someone holding a sort of container in both hands, and shaking something into it, and lifting a small object from it. The object was hot, so he blew on it, before popping it in his mouth. He ate one, and then another, until the container was empty. He crumpled the container into a ball and tossed it away. 'A poke of chips now.' Not only did it make Roy want to see the film again, but he had a sudden hankering for chips, like he used to have, wrapped in newspaper, after he had been to the Playhouse in North Berwick with his father.

The woman opposite hardly pauses before urging him to remember
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
.

'The wonderful, grainy, old newsreel. And the movie begins in sepia monochrome. Paul Newman goes into the bank, with its metal bars and security guards, and asks what happened to the old bank. The guard says people kept robbing it. And Paul says that's a small price to pay for beauty.'

'And Robert Redford,' says Roy, 'is playing cards and this other man accuses him of cheating.'