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“There was no March of Time in 1930,” I said

“Bull’s-eye! The boy’s an expert!”

“Those are not Time reels,” I added “It’s a cover For what?”

“My own hoht-millimeter camera, blown up to thirty-five millimeters, and hid behind March of Time titles”

I tried not to lean forward too quickly “You got a whole film history of this studio then?”

“In 1923, 1927, 1930, naerald, drunk in the commissary G B Shaw the day he co the night he showed the Weste faces! Dead a month later Wonderful warm man William Faulkner, a drunk but polite sad screenwriter, poor sob Old films Old history Pick!”

My eyes roved and stopped I heard the air jet from my nostrils

October 15, 1934 Teeks before Arbuthnot, the head of the studio, was killed

“That”

Maggie hesitated, pulled it out, shoved the film i

nto the Moviola, and cranked the machine

We were looking at the front entrance of Maximus Films on an October afternoon in 1934 The doors were shut, but you could see shadows inside the glass And then the doors opened and two or three people stepped out In the , eyes shut, head back to the sky, shoulders quivering with hisa deep breath, almost his last, of life

“You know hiie

I peered down into this small half-dark, half-lit cave in the earth

“Arbuthnot”