Love of the Last Tycoon: The Authorized Text (No Series) by F. Scott Fitzgerald

silver belt who—–?
    With another picture the scene shifted to New York, a gangster story, and suddenly Stahr became restive.
    “That scene’s trash,” he called suddenly in the darkness. “It’s badly written, it’s miscast, it accomplishes nothing. Those types aren’t tough. They look like a lot of dressed up lollipops—what the hell is the matter, Lee?”
    “The scene was written on the set this morning,” said Lee Kapper. “Burton wanted to get all the stuff on Stage 6.”
    “Well—it’s trash. And so is this one. There’s no use printing stuff like that. She doesn’t believe what she’s saying—neither does Cary. ‘I love you’ in a close up—they’ll cluck you out of the house! And the girl’s overdressed.”
    In the darkness a signal was given, the projector stopped, the lights went on. The room waited in utter silence. Stahr’s face was expressionless.
    “Who wrote the scene?” he asked after a minute.
    “Wylie White.”
    “Is he sober?”
    “Sure he is.”
    Stahr considered.
    “Put about four writers on that scene tonight,” he said. “See who we’ve got. Is Sidney Howard here yet?”
    “He got in this morning.”
    “Talk to him about it. Explain to him what I want there. The girl is in deadly terror—she’s stalling. It’s as simple as that. People don’t have three emotions at once. And Kapper—–”
    The art director leaned forward out of the second row.
    “Yeah.”
    “There’s something the matter with that set.”
    There were little glances exchanged all over the room.
    “What is it, Monroe?”
    “You tell me, ” said Stahr. “It’s crowded. It doesn’t carry your eye out. It looks cheap.”
    “It wasn’t.”
    “I know it wasn’t. There’s not much the matter, but there’s something. Go over and take a look tonight. It may be too much furniture—or the wrong kind. Perhaps a window would help. Couldn’t you force the perspective in that hall a little more?”
    “I’ll see what I can do.” Kapper edged his way out of the row, looking at his watch.
    “I’ll have to get at it right away,” he said. “I’ll work tonight and we’ll put it up in the morning.”
    “All right. Lee, you can shoot around those scenes, can’t you?”
    “I think so, Monroe.”
    “I take the blame for this. Have you got the fight stuff?”
    “Coming up now.”
    Stahr nodded. Kapper hurried out, and the room went dark again. On the screen four men staged a terrific socking match in a cellar. Stahr laughed.
    “Look at Tracy,” he said. “Look at him go down after that guy. I bet he’s been in a few.”
    The men fought over and over. Always the same fight. Always at the end they faced each other smiling, sometimes touching the opponent in a friendly gesture on the shoulder. The only one in danger was the stunt man, a pug who could have murdered the other three. He was in danger only if they swung wild and didn’t follow the blows he had taught them. Even so, the youngest actor was afraid for his face and the director had covered his flinches with ingenious angles and inter-positions.
    And then two men met endlessly in a door, recognized each other and went on. They met, they started, they went on.
    Then a little girl read underneath a tree with a boy reading on a limb of the tree above. The little girl was bored and wanted to talk to the boy. He would pay no attention. The core of the apple he was eating fell on the little girl’s head.
    A voice spoke up out of the darkness:
    “It’s pretty long, isn’t it, Monroe?”
    “Not a bit,” said Stahr. “It’s nice. It has nice feeling.”
    “I just thought it was long.”
    “Sometimes ten feet can be too long—sometimes a scene two hundred feet long can be too short. I want to speak to the cutter before he touches this scene—this is something that’ll be remembered in the picture.”
    The oracle had spoken. There was nothing to question or argue. Stahr must be right always, not most of the time, but