PHYSICIAN STEEL THYSELF

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 369, 19 July 1946, Page 10

PHYSICIAN STEEL THYSELF

ISCUSSING the current trend in the cinema to use stories with a pseudo-psycholo§gical basis, the following comment was recently made by "Time": "Even the highest-minded cinepsychiatrists ate never very believable, despite the fact that they are getting to be almost as common as the old Keystone Kops. In the last year or so

it has been

Dr

George

Sanders

Dr

Sydney

Greenstreet

Dr

Ingrid

Bergman

etc., while assorted neurotics and atmnesiacs have roved

the screen, in a veritable lunatics’ picnic. In an unsettled world, nothing apparently so fascinates Hollywood as the wonders of arr unsettled mind, especially when it inhabits a beautiful body. What it all means, in terms of U.S. culture and Hollywood's secret soul, should make a good study for a real psychiatrist." So far as we know that last suggestion has not yet been followed, but Hollywood's new

obsession is the basis for this humorous short story

by

S. J.

PEREL

MAN

which we print from "The New Yorker."

O you happen to know how many tassels a Restoration coxcomb wore at the knee? Or the kind of chafing-dish a bunch of Skidmore girls would have used in a dormitory revel in 1911? Or the exact method of quarrying peat out of a bog at the time of the Irish Corn Laws? In fact, do you know «unything at ail that nobody else knows or, for that matter, gives a damn about? If you do, then sit tight, because one of these days you’re going to Hollywood as a technical supervisor on a million-dollar movie. You may be a bore to your own family, but you’re worth your weight in piastres to the picture business. Yes, Hollywood dearly loves a technical expert, however recondite or esoteric his ‘field, It is a pretty picayune film that cannot afford at least one of them; sometimes they well-nigh outnumber the actors. The Sherlock: Holmes series, for instance, employs three savants on a full-time basis-one who has made a lifelong study of the decor at 221-B Baker Street, a second deeply versed in the great detective’s psychology and mannerisms, and a third who spots anachronisms in the script which may distress Holmesians, like penicillin and the atomic bomb. An ideal existence, you might think, and yet there have been exceptions. I knew a White Russian artillery officer at M.G.M., imported at bloodcurdling expense from Algeria as adviser on a romance of the Foreign Legion, who languished for two years in an oubliette under the Music Department. Over the noon. yoghurt, his voice trembled as he spoke of his yearning to return to Russia, where they were waiting to shoot him, but the director of Blistered Bugles felt him indispensable. At last he departed, with close to forty thousand rutabagas in his money belt, a. broken man. His sole contribution was that he had succeeded in having "pouf" altered to "sacre bloo." Another expert I met during the same

epoch was a jovial, gnarled little party named Settembrini, conceded to be the foremost wrought-iron craftsman in the country., He had been flown three thousand miles to authenticate several flambeaux shown briefly in a night shot at Versailles. We subsequently chanced to be on the same train going East, and except for the fact that he wore a gold derby and was lighting his cigar with a first-mortgage bond, he seemed untouched. "Fine place," he commented, flicking ashes into the corsage of a blonde he had brought along for the purpose. "Sunshine, pretty girls, grapefruit ten for 4& qyarter." I asked him whether the flambeaux had met the test. | "One hundred per cent.," he replied, "but they threw ‘em out. In the scene where Marie Antoinette comes down the steps, a lackey holds a flashlight so she don’t trip over her feet." The latest group of specialists to be smiled upon by the cinema industry, it would appear, are the psychoanalysts. The vogue of psychological films started by Lady in the Dark has resulted in flush times for the profession, and anyone who can tell a frazzled id from a father fixation had better be booted and spurred for an impending summons to the Coast. The credit title of Spellbound, Alfred Hitchcock’s current thriller, for example, carries the acknowledgment "Psychiatric sequences supervised by Dr. May Romm," and Sidney Skolsky, reporting on a picture called Obsessed (formerly One Man’s Secret and before that One Woman’s Secret) states, "Joan Crawford is huddling with an eminent psychiatrist who will psych her forthcoming role in The Secret for her." A psychiatrist suddenly pitchforked into Hollywood, the ultimate nightmare, must feel rather like a small boy let loose in a toy store, but I wonder how long he can maintain a spirit of strict scientific objectivity. The ensuing vignette, a hasty attempt to adumbrate this new trend, is purely fanciful. There are, naturally, no such place as the Brown

Derby, Vine Street, and Hollywood Boulevard, and if there should turn out to be, I couldn’t be sorrier. a * * SHERMAN WORMSER, M.D., Ph.D., came. out of the Hollywood Plaza Hotel, somewhat lethargic after a heavy Sunday brunch, and paused indecisively on the sidewalk. The idea of taking a walk, which had seemed so inspired ea moment ago in his room, now depressed him immeasurably. To the south, Vine Street stretched away interminably-un-ending blocks of bankrupt night clubs, used-car " lots, open-air markets; and bazaars full of unpainted furniture and garden pottery. To. the north, it’ rose abruptly in a steep hill crowned by a cluster of funeral homes and massage parlours in tan stucco. Over all of it .hung a warm miasma vaguely suggestive of a steam laundry. Sherman moved aimlessly toward the boulevard and paused for a brief self-inventory in the window of the Broadway-Hollywood department store, Most of Dr. Wormser’s patients in New York, accustomed to his neat morning coat and pencil-striped trousers, would have had some difficulty in recog. nising their father confessor at the moment. He wore a pea-green playsuit with deep, flaring lapels, tailored of rough, towel-like material, arbitrarily checked and striated in front but mysteriously turned to suede in back. Over a gauzy, salmon-coloured polo shirt he had knotted a yellow foulard handkerchief in. a bow reminiscent of George Primrose’s Minstrels, and on his head was sportily perched an Alpinist’s hat modelled after those worn by the tyrant Gessler. Eight weeks before, when he had arrived to check on the dream sequences of R.K.O.’s Befuddled, he would not have been caught, dead in these vestments, but his sack suits had seemed so conspicuous that, chameleonlike, he soon developed a sense of protective coloration. E had settled his hat at a jauntier angle and was turning away from the window when he became aware that a passerby was staring fixedly at him. The man wore an off-white polo coat

which hung open, its belt trailing on the pavement. Underneath were visible pleated lavender slacks and a monogrammed yachting jacket trimmed with brass buttons. The face under the scarlet beret was oddly familiar. "I beg pardon," hesitated the stranger, "TI think we-vyou're not Sherman Wormser, are you?" At the sound of his voice, Sherman’s mouth opened in delight. He flung his arm about the man’s shoulders. "Why, Randy Kalbfus, you old son of a gun!" he crowed. "Two years ago! The Mental Hygiene Convention in Cleveland." "Bull’s eye!" chuckled Kalbfus. "TI thought it was you, but-well, you look different, somehow." "Why — er — I used to Rave a Vandyke." Wormser felt his cheeks growing pink. "I shaved it off out here. The studio, you know. Say, you had one, too, for that matter. What became of yours?" éSame thing," Kalbfus admitted sheepishly. "My producer said it was corny. He’s got a block about psychiatrists wearing goatees." "Yes, involuntary goatee rejection," nodded Wormser. "Stekel speaks of it. Well, well. I heard you were in town, Where you working?" "Over at Twentieth. I’m straightening out a couple of traumas in Delirious." "You don’t say!" Despite himself, Sherman’s tone was faintly patronising. "I turned down that assignment, you know. Didn’t feel I could justify the symbolism of the scene where Don Ameche disembowels the horse." "Oh, that’s all out now," said Kalbfus amiably. "That was the early version." "Well," said Sherman quickly, eager to retrieve himself, "it’s the early version that catches the Wormser, what?" Kalbfus laughed uproariously, less at the witticism than because this was the first time anyone had addressed him in three days. "Look," he suggested, linking arms with Sherman, "let’s hop over to the Bamboo Room and have a couple of Zombolas." On their way to the Brown Derby, he explained the nature of the (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) drink to Wormser, who- was still a bit staid and Eastern in his choice of beverages. "It’s just a tall glass of rum mixed with\a jigger of gin, some camphor ice, and a twist of avocado," he said reassuringly. "Isn’t that a little potent?" asked Wormser dubiously. "You're cooking with grass _ it’s potent," returned his companion, pertly if inaccurately. "That’s why they won't serve more than six to a customer." Seated in the cool darkness of the bar, with three Zombolas coursing through their vitals, the colleagues felt drawn to each other. No trace of professional hostility or envy lingered by the timie they had finished reviewing the Cleveland convention, the rapacity of their fellowpractitioners, and their own staunch integrity. "H OW do you like it out here, Randy?" Wormser inquired. "I get a slight sense of confusion. Perhaps I’m not adjusted yet." "You're inhibited," said Kalbfus, signalling the waiter to-repeat. "You won't let yourself go. Infantile denial of your environment." "I know," said Wormser plaintively, "but a few weeks ago I saw Jack Benny in a sleigh on Sunset Boulevard-with real reindeer. And last night an old hermit in a pillowcase stopped me and claimed the world was coming to an end. When I objected he sold me a box of figs." "You'll get used to it," the other replied. "I’ve been here five months, and to me it’s God’s country. I never eat oranges but hell, can you imagine three dozen for a quarter?" "I guess you're right," admitted Wormser. "Where are you staying?" "At the Sunburst Auto Motel on Cahuenga," said Kalbfus, draining his glass. "I’m sharing a room with two extra girls from Paramount." "Oh, I’m sorry. I — I didn’t know you and Mrs. Kalbfus were separated." "Don’t be archaic. She’s living there, too." Kalbfus snapped his fingers at the waiter. "Once in a while I fall into the wrong bed, but Beryl’s made her emotional readjustment; she’s carrying on with a Greek in Malibu, Interesting sublimation of libido under stress, isn’t it? I’m doing a paper on it." \V ORMSER raised his hand ineffectu‘ally to ward off the fifth Zombola, but Kaibfus would not be overborne. "None of that," he said sharply. "Come on, drink up. Yes, sir, it’s a great town, but I'll tell you something, Sherm. We're in the wrong end of this business. Original stories-that’s the caper." He looked around and lowered his voice. "T’ll let you in on a secret, if you Promise not sto blab. I’ve been collaborating with the head barber’ over at Fox, | and we've got a ten-strike. It’s about a simple, unaffected manicurist who inherits fifty million smackers." "A fantasy, eh?" Wormser pondered. "That’s a good idea." "What the hell do you mean, fantasy?" demanded Kalbfus heatedly. "Jt happens every day. Wait till you hear the twisteroo, though. This babe, who

has everything-houses, yachts, cars, three men in love with her-suddenly turns around and gives back the dough." "Why?" asked Wormser, sensing that he was expected to, "Well, we haven’t worked that out yet," said Kalbfus confidentially. "Probably a subconscious wealth phobia, Anyway, Zanuck’s offered us a hundred and thirty G’s for it, and it isn’t even on paper." "Holy cow!" breathed Wormser. "What'll you do with all that money?" "I've got my eye on a place in Beverly," Kalbfus confessed. "It’s oniy eighteen rooms, but a jewel box-indoor plunge, indoor rifle range, the whole place is indoors. Even the barbecue." "That can’t be," protested Wormser. "The barbecue’s always outdoors." "Not this one," beamed Kalbfus. "That’s what makes it so unusual. Then of course I'll have to give Beryl her settlement when the divorce comes through," "You-you just said everything was fine between you," faltered Wormser. "Oh sure, but I’ve really outgrown her," shrugged Kalbfus. "Listen, old man, I wouldn’t want this to get into the columns. You see, I’m going to marry Ingrid Bergman." * 22s STRANGE, tingling numbness, like that induced by novacain spread downward from the tips of Wormser’s ears. "I didn’t know you knew her," he murmured, "TI don’t," said Kalbfus, "but I saw her the other night at the Mocambo, and she gave me a look that meant only one thing." He laughed and swallowed his sixth Zombola. "It’s understandable in a way. She must have known instinctively." "Known what?" Wormer’s eyes, trained to withstand the unusual, stood out in high relief. "Oh, just that I happen to be the strongest man in the world," said Kalbfus modestly. He rose, drew a deep breath, and picked up the table. "Watch," he ordered, and flung it crisply across the bar. Two pyramids of bottles dissolved and crashed to the floor, taking with them a Filipino busboy and several hundred cocktail glasses, Before the fixture had ceased quivering, a task force’ of bartenders and waiters was spearing down on Kalbfus. ciate * * HERE was an obscure interval of scuffling, during which Wormser unaccountably found himself creeping about on all fours and being kicked by a fat lady. Then the shouts and recriminations blurred, and suddenly he felt the harsh impact of the pavement. In a parking lot, aeons later, the mist cleared and he was seated on the running board of a sedan, palpating a robin’s egg on his jaw. Kalbfus, his face puffier than he last remembered it, was shakily imploring him to forgive and dine at his hotel. Wormser slowly shook his head. _ "No, thanks." Though his tongue was a bolt of flannel, Sherman strove to give his words dignity. "I like you, Kalbfuth, but you’re a little unthtable." Then he got to his feet, bowed formally, and went into the Pig’n Whistle for an atomburger and a frosted mango.