"TV is old," Bronzini countered. His face, flat-cheeked and sad, grew stony. What kind of a game were they trying to run on him?
"You're thinking of old TV," Kornflake said pleasantly. "The new technology coming in means every home will have wide-screen high-definition television. Why go to a sticky-floored movie house when you have the next-best thing in the privacy of your own home? This is the new trend, staying home. It's called cocooning. That's why Dwarf-Star is opening a new home-video operation. And we want you to be our first big star."
"I'd like to talk about the script first."
"Okay, let's. Give me the concept."
"There's no concept," Bronzini said, sliding the script across the table. "It's a Christmas movie. An old-fashioned-"
Kornflake's hands came up like pale flags. "Whoa! Old is out. We can't have old. It's too retro."
"This is classic old. This is quality. That means good," Bronzini added to the blond man. The blond man thanked him through perfectly set teeth.
Dwarf-Star president Bernie Kornflake leafed through the script. Bronzini could tell by his glazed eyes that he was simply checking to see that there were words on the pages. His eyes had that shine that comes from pulling white powder into the brain through the nostrils.
"Keep talking, Bart," Kornflake said. "This script looks good. I mean, check out all these words. A lot of scripts we see these days, they're mostly white space."
"It's about this autistic boy," Bronzini said intently. "He lives in a world of his own, but one Christmas he wanders out into the snow. He gets lost."
"Hold up, I'm getting lost. This sounds complicated, not to mention heavy. Think you could give this to me in six or seven words?"
"Seven words?"
"Five would be better. Just. give me the high concept. That's what it's all about now. You know, like Nun on a Skateboard. I Was a Teenage Dumpster Diver. Housewife Hookers in Vietnam. Like that."
"This isn't a concept film. It's a story. About Christmas. It's got feeling and emotion and characterization."
"Does it have tits?" someone asked.
"Tits?" Bronzini said in an offended tone.
"Yeah, tits. Boobs. Knockers. You know, if there's enough boom-cheechee in this thing we can maybe get around the fact that the audience has to sit through a story. You know, kinda take their mind off it. We expect escapism to be very major in the nineties."
"What do you think I built my career on?" Bronzini snarled. "Ballet? And I don't want them to take their minds off the story. The story is what they're paying to see. That's what movie making is about!" Bartholomew Bronzini's voice rose like a thermometer in August.
Every man in the room got very, very still. A few edged their chairs away from the table in order to give them leg room so they could bolt if, as some of them imagined, Bartholomew Bronzini pulled an Uzi from under his black leather jacket and started spraying the room. They knew he was capable of such atrocities because they had seen him mow down entire armies in his Grundy films. It could not have been acting. Everyone knew what a terrible actor Bronzini was. Why else was he the top-grossing actor of all time, but had never won a best-actor Oscar?
"All right, all right," Bronzini told them, throwing up his hands. A few people ducked, thinking he had tossed a grenade.
When no one exploded, the room relaxed. Bernie Kornflake extracted a plastic nasal-spray bottle from his coat pocket and took a couple of hits. His blue eyes were sixty candlepower shinier after he put it away. Bronzini knew that it was not filled with a commercial antihistamine.
"I want to make this movie," Bronzini told them seriously.
"Of course you do, Bart," Kornflake said soothingly. "That's what we're all here for. That's what life is about, making movies."
Bartholomew Bronzini could have told them making movies was not what life was about. But they wouldn't have understood. Every man in the room believed that making movies was what life was about. Every one of them was in the movie-making business, as was Bartholomew Bronzini. There was just one difference. Every man at the table had the drive and ambition and connections to make movies. None of them had the talent. They had to steal their ideas, or option books and change them so much that the authors no longer recognized them.
Bartholomew Bronzini, on the other hand, knew how to make movies. He could write screenplays. He could direct them. He could star. He could also produce-not that that was even a skill, never mind a talent.
None of the men in the room could do any of those things. Except produce, which in their case was the same as unskilled labor. And each of them hated Bartholomew Bronzini because he could.
"I have an idea!" Kornflake cried. "Why don't we cut a deal? Bart, come in with us on this TV thing, and during the summer hiatus we can knock out this little Easter film of yours."
"Christmas. And I'm not some frigging TV actor."
"Bart, baby, sweetheart, listen to me. If Milton Berle had said that, he'd never have become Uncle Miltie. Think of it."
"I don't want to be the next Berle," Bronzini said. "Then you can be the next Lucille Ball!" someone shouted with the enthusiasm usually reserved for scientific breakthroughs.
Bronzini fixed the man with his sad eyes.
"I don't want to be the next anyone," he said firmly. "I'm Bartholomew Bronzini. I'm a superstar. I've made over thirty films. And every one of them made millions."
"Uh-uh, Bart, baby. Don't kid us. You forgot Gemstone."
"That one only broke even. So shoot me. But Ringo grossed over fifty million bucks at a time when nobody went to prizefight films. Ringo II topped that. Even Ringo V outgrossed nine out of any ten films you could name. "
"That's if you include foreign markets," Kornflake pointed out. "Domestically speaking, it was a dud."
"Half the world's population saw it, or will."
"That's wonderful, Bart. But the Filipinos don't give Oscars. Americans do."
"I don't pick my fans. And I don't care who they are or where they live."
"You know, Bart," Kornflake said solicitously, "I think you made a mistake killing off that boxer of yours in that last Ringo. You could have ridden him another five sequels. Extended your film career a little."
"You make me sound dead," Bronzini challenged.
"You've peaked. Variety said so last week."
"I'm sick of Ringo," Bronzini retorted. "And Grundy and Viper and all these other action-film characters. I spent fifteen years doing action films. Now I want to do something different. I want to do a Christmas film. I want to do the next It's a Wonderful Life."
"I never heard of that one," Kornflake said doubtfully. "Did it hit?"
"It was filmed back in the forties," Bronzini told him. "It's a classic. They show it every Christmas week. You could turn on your TV right now, and somewhere, on some channel, they're showing it."
"Back in the forties?" one of the others asked. "Did they have movies then?"
"Yeah. But they were no good. All in black and white. "
"That's not true," a third man said. "I saw a film like that once. Copablanca, or something. It had some gray in it. A couple of different shades of it, too."
"Gray isn't a color. It's a ... What is gray, anyway. A tone?"
"Never mind," Kornflake snapped. "Look Bart, tell you what. I have a better idea. We can do your Christmas story here. What's it called?" He flipped to the cover. It was blank. "No title?" he asked.