Evening party in Hollywood

PAUL CALLICO

■ The one party which I attended in Hollywood, during my most recent visit to that roaring center of culture, was innocent enough, but I came away from it with two distinct acquisitions—first, an acquaintance with Gordon and Revel, the sensational song-writing team, and second, the terrific shades of meaning in the word "terrific." It's simply terrific how difficult it is to get on without the word in Hollywood. I should like to describe both of the boons which resulted from that party.

It was a "drift-in" party, and began right after some fights at the Hollywood Legion stadium where I had watched two pugilists punch one another on the chin and Johnny Weissmuller and Lupe Velez playfully punch one another on the torso. I knew why the fighters were fighting, but I never knew exactly why John and Lupe so often turned to one another and let one

The mise-en-scene was a suite in a smart Hollywood hotel—the best and most popular of the local caravanserai. The place was alive with likker, celebrities, blonde ladies, quaint characters, a lay figure stolen from a clothing store and tucked into one of the beds—one of the oldest of the Hollywood gags—a Broadway columnist, a sports writer, a dance director, actresses, a movie critic, a couple of agents (they crawl out of the bed ticking and from behind old sofas in Hollywood), a radio announcer, an actor, a doll, a drunk, some guys named Cohn, who came and went through the long evening, and Gordon and Revel.

The blonde wax figure lay in a rumpled bed in an adjoining and darkened room, staring horribly and looking as though her throat had been cut. Visiting drunks were shushed, led to the door, and permitted to peer into the Venusberg. They were told—

"Shh. Shut up. She's drunk. Let her sleep it off. We'll fix you up after. She's terrific. . . . No, no, not now. . . ."

In the main sitting room the table was littered with ginger ale and White Rock and bowls of ice and glasses and quarts of brandy, scotch, rye, and gin. There were sofas and tables and stuffed chairs—period stuff from Finkenberg. In the center of the room stood a little piano on rollers, the type employed by the three insufferable asses in night clubs who roll it up to your table and breathe on your food if you are weak enough to request a song.

On top of the piano stood a lifesize cardboard cutout of Lou Brown and a small porcelain vessel no longer found under beds. At the piano sat Revel? In a stuffed chair from which he billowed like a sausage bursting its casing sat Mack Gordon. You know, Gordon and Revel, the song writers. . . . Wrote Underneath the Harlem Moon, and Did You Ever See a Dream Walking? They're terri— . . . I've got to break myself of that. The two are the song-writing sensations of Broadway and Hollywood. Revel writes the music. Gordon writes the lyrics.

Mack Gordon is built like Tweedledum. An enormous, black-haired, blue-jowled Levantine, he looks like the cartoonists' drawings of Hollywood film magnates or sweatshop proprietors. He is as round and billowy as a Gordon Bennett racer, has the jowls and dewlaps of a bloodhound, and five little Deerfoot sausages fastened to the end of each wrist, in lieu of hands and fingers. His eyes are small and twinkling, his hair curly, jet-black and oily. The halfburned black stump of a cigar is usually stuck at an angle from his face, like the broken mast of a wrecked ship.

Mack Gordon said—"It's a song about a sailor, see? I gotta know the names of some ports. What are some ports? You know, like Java, or Rangoon, you know, places where sailors go to."

The Broadway columnist poured a slug of brandy for somebody not named Cohn who had just arrived and said—"Have a drink. . . . Java. . . . Java. . . . Let me be your lava in Java."

The radio announcer screamed hysterically—"Lava in Java! That's terrific!"

"Sure," said the elephantine Gordon— "Anything like Rangoon, Saskatoon, only they gotta be ports, on account the feller is a sailor. I can rhyme anything but I gotta get the name of some seaports."

■ The Broadway columnist addressed his remarks first to the dance director and then to Gordon. "What's the matter? You're not drinking anything. Let me fix you a drink. Why don't you call up Joe Conrad? He used to do all that sea stuff. He ought to know a lot of places."

"Joe Conrad?" repeated Gordon. "Where can I get in touch with him? I gotta get the names of some ports where sailors go. See, Bing is a common sailor in his next picture and. . . ."

The radio announcer went over and whispered his scream into the ear of the movie critic. "Get it? Joseph Conrad? Where can he get in touch with Joseph Conrad? Is that terrific or is it?"

The movie critic said—"Is there any more brandy?"

"Look him up in the phone book," said the Broadway columnist, "Joe Conrad."

Gordon looked over to where the telephone book nestled beneath the telephone stand, but it was too far away.

"You know, places like Tokio or Zanzibar, Zanzibar-no-matter-where-you-are, or Bombay, only they gotta be seaports," he said.

An agent came out of the next room and said—"Hey, there's a dame in bed there." Nobody paid any attention to him. The Broadway columnist poured him a drink.

The dance director said—"Sing May I? Mack. It's terrific!"

The radio announcer immediately chimed in. "Oh yes, Mack, sing May I? That's terrific."

The actor said—"I heard it. It's terrific."

The movie critic said—"It's colossal."

Gordon ascended. It was all you could call the motion by which the balloon rose out of the chair.

"You think that one's terrific? I got the topper to it. It's called Straight From the Shoulder, and Right From the Heart. You see, Bing is this common sailor, and he don't know no big words, see?"

"May I? is the topper," interrupted the song writer. "That tops them all. It's terrific."

Gordon went right on. "So he's just a common sailor on a boat and he's gotta tell the girl he loves her, see, and he don't know no big words, so he gives it to her straight from the shoulder and right from the heart."

Continued on page 56b

(Continued from page 34)

While he was talking, Revel, who had been sitting soundless at the piano, began to play softly. He was a little man with a round face and gold-rimmed spectacles. He was the type who needed to play the piano to have you know he was in the room. The radio announcer screamed again. The doll who wasn't drinking and didn't seem to be with anyone asked —"What's the matter?"

"That Revel! That left hand! It slays me. It's terrific."

The actor said—"Shut up! He's going to sing." He had sung earlier— under handicaps.

Revel played the vamp again and Gordon sang Straight From the Shoulder, and Right From the Heart. The man named Cohn turned to the sports writer and said—"What about this Prime-o Cannerio. This Max Baer will beat him, won't he? He's terrific." He said it in a loud voice.

The dance director and the rival song writer said—"Shut up, he's singing."

And you knew well that he was singing. The big, gross, hippo of a man was singing the song of a sailor who did not know big words and therefore was telling the girl straight from the shoulder, right from the heart. He was singing it in the style of Bing Crosby, only better, because it was simpler.

When he had finished, everyone yelled—"It's terrific!"

"You think that's terrific?" said another song writer. "You want to hear one that's terrific? Mack, go on, give 'em May I?"

As though he were electrically hooked up with the speaker, Revel began to vamp for May I? and the radio announcer screeched again—

"My God, that left hand. You're killing me. It's marvellous."

Gordon intertwined his little sausage fingers and held his hands before his barrel breast. He closed his eyes halfway, swayed a little like a beefy concert soprano, and sang a lovely, lilting love melody, gently, rhythmically and with exquisite taste. The Broadway columnist whose ambition it seemed to be to get everybody drunk poured some more drinks. The transformed and transfixed Gordon repeated the chorus. The flesh and the grossness and all the vulgarity of fat seemed to slough off him. His face was no longer porcine but tender. Revel never changed in expression.

■ Some one shouted—"The Mae West songs, Mack!" Revel went right into the vamps without a break. This time the radio announcer just shook his head in speechless admiration of the left hand. Gordon put his cigar back into his mouth and said—

"See, she's down in this Creole dive and she got a Creole lover. You know what Creoles are, don't you?"

"Sure," said the movie critic— "Niggers."

"No, they ain't. They're French and Spanish. There's no nigger in 'em. You couldn't have a picture with niggers. We looked it up in a book. They're French and Spanish, mixed."

"How do you know that some of the French and the Spaniards didn't look up some of the niggers?" asked the Broadway columnist and poured somebody else a drink.

"Hah! That's terrific!" There was no telling who said it.

"All right," said Gordon, "we show a couple of shots of Creole faces in this dive and then fade to Mae, see! Then she does her Creole number."

He sang it, a savage, suggestive, lecherous song. And when the rival song writer hollered—"The topper, Mack, top it!" he went right into her other song from the same picture in production—How Can I Resist You? which contains the immortal couplets passed and blessed by Canon Hays— "When you soothe my feelings,

I want to look at ceilings. . . ." and

"When your dark head is on the pillow . . .

It gives me such a thrill—oh . . . oh, oh, oh."

He then was no longer Mack Gordon, nor Bing Crosby, but Mae West, curvy and hippy, seductive, with that arch smile on his face and roguish twinkle in his eyes, the "invitation-tothe-boudoir" glance, all the motions of La West, and his voice, soft, silky and seductive—"How can I resist you? How can I resist you?" He sang with such incredible softness and unction in his voice that the man who wasn't named Cohn glanced toward the bedroom where^ the wax and blonde lady lay in her bed.

Revel went from song to song. Gordon sang them. One called Rain. "Strictly a production number," said Gordon.—"Couldn't sell a copy." And then one with the tag line—"After the champagne, he passed out—I'm still a good girl, God damn it." And Meandering with Miranda, a catchy thing with a good swing.

■ Then everybody got drunker, thanks to the ceaseless ministrations of the Broadway columnist. The doll didn't take a drink but just sat. Gordon sang one hit after another, lovely songs that hadn't reached Broadway yet but will soon be blaring from every radio. Then the rival song writer began to dance to the music and so did the elephantine Gordon . . . rhymes, rhythm, Levantine, elephantine, elephantine Levantine, I can rhyme anything, spoon in Rangoon, sweetie in Tahiti. Gordon had the airy grace of the dancing fat man; he looked like an overstuffed faun run to seed. Then Revel hit the bass a thump and the white vessel on top of the piano jumped an inch.

The man not named Cohn, or approximately, came out of the bedroom and said—"That ain't no dame in there, that's a wax doll."

The Broadway columnist made a gesture with his hands. "So what? It's a wax doll."

The radio announcer said—"So what? It's a wax doll. IS that terrific?"

. . . And this went on all night.