Chapter 2
Hi guys and girls. Sorry for the wait. I have been busy lately and have had little time to write on any of my three stories. I may put one on hold for a while. Not this one, however, so no worries there.
D_eta015 that is right. The year currently is 1939, and she is 18. So that means she was born in 1921. I don't know many businesses that came out back then. So if you have any ideas, please share them. I am not sure how long she will live, but she will look good as she ages. She doesn't remember everything from her past life, but things like her heart, diet, and other aspects she remembers well. Now the question is the three boys who are working with her. One of them lives a long time, but I am unsure about the other two.
I have one question at the bottom that I need help with.
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"Alright, let us just get you hooked in here, sir." A young man says as he helps mic up the man, the myth, the legend, Raimondo Carlin, producer, writer, and former CEO of Lucky Luciano Pictures.
One of the most influential men in the history of Hollywood, Raimondo's story career as the behind-the-scenes man for Lucky Luciano Pictures was one of the greatest stories in Hollywood. From their very first movie, he had been instrumental in the rise of Ruth "Lucky" Luciano, helping her cut a path into American history and popular culture. And here he was, at 98 years old, giving a very rare interview to a couple of college kids for their final school project.
"Okay, I think we are all set up, Mr. Carlin. If you don't mind, we'd like to start with this." The young man says while handing him an iPad.
Taking the iPad, Raimondo pressed play and watched as it showed a moment in time that he would never forget. It was a time when they were still all together: his sister, his brothers, and he.
"God, we were so young back then." He says while choking back a tear. Even now, with these Gen Z children in front of him, he could not bring himself to break nearly 80 years of habit and cry so openly.
The young men and women in the room, of course, say nothing as the old man watches the tablet play out a scene from the past. A behind-the-scenes look at one of the greatest westerns ever filmed.
"Ruth, will you stop fooling around and wasting film already?" A younger Raimondo says to Ruth as she uses one of the cameras she used to film her very first movie.
"Don't be such a killjoy. We are about to make movie history here. We have to film everything." Ruth says in a childish voice.
"No, we are about to go bankrupt, so will you stop already?" His younger self says in agitation, and Raimondo can't help but laugh at his past self. If only he knew.
"So serious," Ruth says before swinging the camera around. Pointing it at a very young Alan Ladd, "Alan, you're the hero of this story, help me out here. Come to a woman's defense."
Alan, who was reading a newspaper at the time, pulls it down so he is looking right at her and rolls his eyes before flipping the page and covering his face, saying, "Why did I agree to do this?"
A gasp is heard coming from Ruth, who says, "Chivalry has truly died."
Ruth says right when the immortal Jean Arthur walks past the camera, and Ruth gives a wolf whistle that stops Jean for a moment, before she flips Ruth off and keeps walking.
"So meannnnn," Ruth cries like a child in the background, and the current Raimondo can't help but laugh and feel choked up at the same time.
When the clip ends, Raimondo places the tablet down and says, "This was our first movie….. It was the summer of 1939, and we were on the set of Shane. We were so young, so stupid."
"How old were you?" The young man interviewing him asks.
"Younger than you, young man. I was 20 years old, and I was in charge of production." Raimondo says this, then starts laughing hard. "And I had no fucking clue what I was doing. None of us did."
-1939-
-Raimondo POV-
I have always loved the movies. The first one I had ever watched was The Great Train Robbery. My father took me to a special showing when I was nine, and it was a masterpiece. True, it was only 11 minutes long, but it was the most significant moment of my life. Well, till I had sex with Jolene Daugherty at 16. Though unlike Jolene Daugherty, I could always go back and watch it again. Unlike Jolene, who wouldn't have anything to do with me after that night.
That was why I was so happy that our first movie was going to be a western. After watching The Great Train Robbery, I fell in love with the Western Genre. What little boy didn't love a good western? The dream of the vast open plains, cowboys, and Indians. It was the stuff of dreams. No matter what Ruth said about the real history of the Wild West.
Yes, he knew the actual history of the Wild West. It was hard not to when you were friends with Ruth, who was a history buff, among other things. He had read the books she had given him, and while they were a bit of a wake-up call, they didn't change his passion for the Wild West. Nor did it change Ruth's love for it either.
That was one of the many strange things about Ruth. She was like no girl he had ever met before. She loved baseball, cars, boxing, and stories of the West. Yes, she still liked typical girl things like dolls and dresses, but given the choice, she would always pick watching him and the other boys play ball over playing with dolls. She also loved telling stories. Deeply detailed stories that she would make up on the spot, and the way she told them often had him and other boys sitting on the edge of their seats.
My personal favorites were, of course, her Western stories. The characters she created, such as The Man With No Name, Angel Eyes, Django Freeman, Harmonica, John Ruth, and, of course, Shane, were his favorites, besides the great western heroes of the past. Though many of the boys didn't like the fact that Django Freeman was a negro in her stories, and I had to admit he had some problems with it too. Ruth, however, had this way of telling a story that just captured your attention. Race quickly lost all meaning as she told her stories.
In them, Django wasn't just some negro ex-slave. He was a loyal friend to King Schultz, a German bounty hunter, a good husband to his wife, and was always seeking that better life every man craved. Growing up in the lower side of LA, most of the boys could relate to him despite his color. As their path in life seemed so set. To live and die as nothing more than what they were born to. I won't lie, it was due to her stories that I started to see negros in a different light, despite what my father taught me. Most of the other boys did too, though they would never admit to it and swore to God that The Man With No Name was their favorite.
Regardless of my feelings on the subject of race, I was over the moon that their first movie was going to be about Shane, his personal favorite in all her stories. The self-sacrificing, mysterious gunslinger called to him more than the others. The others wanted the Man With No Name to be their first movie character, but Ruth put that down hard. Shane had been her passion project since she was 14 years old. Often, she would come to him and the other boys at the sandlot to read them this page or that from the story she was writing. She had invested so much time in the script that it had to be Shane when it came to making their first movie.
That is why I was running around Hollywood and the outskirts of LA, looking for costumes, props, and of course, locations to film at. As the producer, it was all up to me to find everything they needed for the movie. And while I was able to hire a lot of their friends from the neighborhood for less demanding jobs at reasonable rates, the specialists proved much harder to find. Mob connections or not, they were a new filming company with zero credibility to their names. No one really wanted to work for them, at least not without a good payoff.
To the rest of Hollywood, they were just stupid kids who knew nothing about the business world. Forget the fact that they had been planning this adventure since they were 12. Every detail may have been taken into account, and every penny was carefully considered, but that meant shit to everyone else. That is why he was having so much trouble finding things. A million-dollar budget didn't actually go very far once you factored in everything down to the last detail, such as marketing and the movie theater rentals, which was honestly one of their biggest worries.
Everyone knew that the major studios controlled the majority of the theaters. Even if they were able to film their movie, that was only half the battle. Fortunately, like in everything else, the mob was everywhere, and with Ruth's connections, they would get their theaters one way or the other. However, I, along with everyone else, would have preferred a more peaceful way if it could have been helped. Having mob connections was all well and good, but the mob was already funding them. They did not need to get any deeper with them than they already were. Even Ruth, their mob princess, was more inclined toward legitimate business than muscling into Hollywood.
A nice, rounded estimate, however, did put them just over 90,000 for 5,000 theaters to show Shane for the first week. Now, most theaters only have one to two screens. So, at most, they would get one screen per theater, which could hold, on average, about 1,250 people. Here was the problem: they needed to turn a profit on this wild adventure, and not just a million dollars, which was the movie's budget, but at least $ 4 million to pay back the mob fully. At 23 cents a ticket, that meant they needed 17 million people to see their movie. That was a lot of fucking people they needed to see their film.
It was an ungodly amount, if I was being honest with myself. Even Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the highest-grossing movie of 1938, only made $3.9 million. Perhaps I was being too greedy. So long as we turned even a small profit, Mr. Lansky would consider it a win. Sure, they wouldn't be out from under the mob, but they would get another chance, and that was the important thing. Ruth may not have been scared of doing business with these guys, but that didn't go for the rest of them. However, they would never admit to that.
Scared or not, however, it was exciting work. It may not seem like it, but I was in my element—bargaining for this or that better deal. Being told 'no' or being kicked out of a store or studio was fun for me. Hell, just dealing with the number of unions in Hollywood was fun—a headache, but fun in its own way.
My father once told me that it was rare for a man to find a job he truly enjoyed. For those few who did, however, they never worked a day in their lives. I had found that job, and while I was running myself ragged, I loved it.
Entering Lucky Studios, I make a beeline for the props department. Well, what we called a props department, but was little more than a small room filled with junk and scattered clothing that was ripped apart. Inside the room, Ruth and a handful of girls from the neighborhood were working on the costumes for the movie. If I had thought I was taking on a lot of responsibility for this project, then she was taking on a massive load several times larger than my own.
Director, cinematographer, camera operator, head of lighting, sound production, production designer, costume designer, and so on and on. Ruth was in charge of it all and was working double time to keep up, despite filming not having even started yet. Hell, they hadn't even picked out their stars yet, but that was the thing. More went into making a movie than most realized.
How that didn't mean Ruth was doing it all herself. Of course, she couldn't; that would be impossible. She just gave directions and hired those who were running those departments. She told them what she wanted and what they needed to make happen. Think God; she knew how to talk to people. After all, what Ruth was looking for was near perfection. Just take her camera crew. These guys were no amateurs. In fact, many of them had been working on films for years and were also part of the failed studio that Mr. Lansky bought for Ruth.
Sure, the studio went out of business, but that wasn't their fault. I had seen some of their films that had never seen the light of day. For the shit equipment they were using, they did pretty well. Fuck most of it was pre-1930s stuff and in poor condition. So they knew what they were doing. But now they were using state-of-the-art equipment, and Ruth wanted to get the best out of it.
It went without saying that they were starting from the ground floor, but good luck telling them that. No one likes to be told that they didn't know what they were doing after doing it for years. That was where Ruth's charm came in. Seeing as they were not yet filming, she had asked them to start practicing on the angles of shots they would be taking. Now, most men wouldn't take it well if a woman told them they needed to practice before they did any actual work, but Ruth was able to get them to do so by playing on their emotions. All it took was some makeup, sleepless nights, and letting them see the gradual decline in her overall appearance to get them moving.
Say what you want, but most men have a natural protective instinct towards women. Watching a young girl like Ruth transform from a bright and chipper young woman to a tried and stressed one rubbed them the wrong way. Especially since they thought it was for them that she was stressing herself out. They all knew who her father was. She didn't hide that. So they knew she was rich in her own way. At least she would never have to worry about money in her life. But they did, and most of them had been out of work for months after the studio closed. When it reopened, it was like a Godsend for them. It didn't matter at all that a little girl was running the show so long as they got paid. But it mattered when that little girl wasn't sleeping and stressing about their next paycheck.
Now they weren't just worried about their paycheck but also about her health, and if anything, they were the ones who were going to fuck up, not her. So they got to practicing and relearning what they already knew—getting familiar with the new equipment and learning the best way to use it. They were taking no chances. At least the majority were for those few who still refused to practice. Well, they were run off by the others. That was how effective Ruth's little act was.
And it was an act, no matter what anyone believed. It was all bull shit. Ruth wasn't the least bit stressed. If anything, she was overconfident. Fake it till you make it she called it. Be so delusional that the thought of failure never even enters your mind. That is what she was right now. Completely delusional and full of confidence that didn't match the situation. So why the act?
Again, it came down to simple manipulation and her desire to get the best out of those around her. To get them to give their best, she had to look like a little girl who was holding the world on her shoulders and needed strong, brave men to pick up the weight. It worked like a charm, and in a way, I found it amusing. I also thought Ruth was a complete bitch for it because I knew she had done the same thing to me and the others on more than one occasion. Though, to be fair, she mostly did it for their benefit.
Just ask Little Jory Smalls. A local kid from the neighborhood who was about to get his start with the Detroit Tigers: he wouldn't have gotten as far as he had if it weren't for Ruth encouraging him. You'll be amazed at how much harder a boy will try when he thinks a girl is watching him, and to be honest, Ruth was quite the girl. Long-legged with long flowing red hair and full lips, she was your classic Irish beauty. All the boys back then had a thing for her. Most still do.
Upon spotting me, I made a gesture that we needed to talk once she was done with what she was doing. Nodding her head, she says something to one of the girls in the room and heads over towards me. Making our way over to a private room—one of the offices we had yet to decide what to do with. I close the door.
Letting out a yawn, Ruth says, "Good morning, Raimondo, or is it evening. It's so hard to tell."
Rolling my eyes, I say, "Cut the crap, Ruth. We both know you're not tired."
Looking at me and letting out a small huff, Ruth says in a childish voice while pointing at one of her eyes, "Am to am to. Don't you see the bags under my eyes?"
"Ah, huh, your mascara running by the way." I point out.
"What?" Ruth says in alarm and pulls out a compact mirror and looks at her eyes, "Oh, son of a bitch, God damn this summer heat is. We really need to think about AC when this movie is a hit."
"Yes, because we really need to help you manipulate people better," I say in an annoyed voice.
"Hey, I didn't hear you complaining when I guilt-tripped Patty's brothers into not caving in your head," Ruth says, reminding him that she had, on occasion, used her manipulations to help him out.
"Are you ever going to let that go?" I ask, annoyed that she brought that up again.
Patty was one of the neighborhood's sluts. A real loose girl who had fucked perhaps half the guys in the neighborhood, but to her brothers, she was an angel. They were so stupid and blind to what she was; they still thought she was a virgin. Well, that snow had been plowed long before I got my turn with her, but good luck telling them that. All they knew or cared about was that I was the one they caught fucking her behind a shed one night. So they were out for my blood, not the 20 or so boys who fucked her before me.
I came this close to an extensive hospital stay till Ruth stepped in. While they were looking for me, she had found them first and talked them down. Spinning some yawn about bad booze and someone putting something in Patty's and my drinks at a local speakeasy. It was the tallest tale I had ever heard, but luckily again, Patty's brothers were never that smart. And they, like all the other boys, were smitten with her. She could tell them the sky was green, and they would believe her just to believe her. So instead of getting my head caved in, they had taken me to the side and given me what counted as love taps to the stomach—then proceeded to put the owner of the speakeasy in the hospital instead.
Patty's brothers were now spending the next five years in slammer. So things ended well for me, but the thing is that there had been rumors that Mr. Siegel had a beef with the owner of that speakeasy. I got in trouble, only for Ruth to step in and help me out of a jam by having a target ready for Patty's brothers to take their wrath out on already. It all seemed very convenient to me.
I mean, I don't think Ruth set me up or anything, but taking advantage of the situation? That I could see her doing. Especially since, a few days later, some flowers were sent to her from her uncle Bugsy, along with some high-end cosmetics. A late birthday gift, she called it. Only her Uncle Bugsy had given her a pair of diamond earrings for her birthday. I remembered that because she was gushing over them all day.
"Not so long as it works in guilt tripping you," Ruth says matter-of-factly.
"You're horrible. You know that?" I tell her.
"And yet you still love me." She smiles as she takes a seat. "So what's the lowdown? Are we all set?"
Taking a seat myself, I say, "Almost, I am going to talk to a few other unions. See if we can cut a deal on building the sets without having to rely on your connections."
"You try talking to your father? He is part of a construction union. Won't he help us?" Ruth asks while she picks up a glass of water that was on the table next to her.
Letting out a sigh, I say, "No, I didn't see a point in talking to him. You know how much he dislikes you."
"Ah, is he still upset about my Django Freeman stories. The little boy really needs to get over that." Ruth says in half-amusement and condescension.
Which I too found amusing. Honestly, my way of thinking wasn't that much different from my father's when I was a kid, but as I got older, I did that one thing all fathers hate: I became independent. I formed my own opinions about race and the place of the black man in the world. This, of course, inevitably led to conflict between the two of us. Something his father blamed Ruth for. Not that she cared. She never liked him anyway.
"You know how he is. There is no talking to that man." I say to Ruth.
"Is he still calling me the Whore of Babylon in private?" Ruth asks in amusement.
"To be fair, you do have a lot of male friends, Ruth," I say, and she just laughs.
Yes, she had a lot of male friends, but Ruth was anything but a whore. In fact, He only knew of maybe two guys she had been on dates with. None of whom got a second date.
"That is too bad. We are offering a good salary for relatively easy work." Ruth says in a disappointed voice. Then continues, "Well, there is nothing to be done about it if he doesn't want the work for himself or his men. We still have time to find a good deal. Toby is still putting the cast together after all."
"How is that going by the way?" I ask with a bit of worry in my voice that I try to hide.
"Are you worried about him doing his job?" Ruth asks.
"Maybe a bit," I answer honestly.
Toby was a dog. We all knew it. He liked women, especially those who were fast and loose. Now that he was in charge of casting, we all knew he would use it to flirt with some of the actresses. Not that I had a problem with that; it was just that this movie depended heavily on having good actors. We couldn't risk him hiring someone we would have to fire shortly after filming started, because he had promised a starring role to some talentless woman with a tight cunt.
Knowing this herself, Ruth says, "Don't worry too much. Believe it or not, he is taking his job very seriously. Yes, he is flirting with several wannabe actresses, but he is not about to give the female lead to someone he shouldn't. At most, he will give a few scenery roles to the women he is fucking, but that is all."
"And you don't mind him doing that?" I ask a bit surprised, but perhaps I shouldn't be. Ruth never seemed to care much about things like that.
"So long as it doesn't get in the way of work, I don't care who he slips his dick into. Besides, he is doing a good job. He already narrowed down the list of actors we want for the starring roles." Ruth says and hands me some folders.
"These are the two I am thinking of casting in our leading roles," Ruth says to me, and I open the folders.
Taking a moment to read over their profiles, I finally say, "Alan Ladd? Never heard of him, but Jean Arthur isn't a bad pick. Though, isn't she signed with Columbia right now?" I ask her.
"She was, but her contract came up due, and they are renegotiating. In the meantime, I sent an invitation to her by way of her agent." Ruth says.
"How the hell do you pull that off?" I ask, but Ruth looks at me with a smile, "Right, never mind, I don't want to know."
"I did, however, have to promise her 2 percent of the box office if she got the role," Ruth says, just as I take a drink of water, making me spit it out.
"Ruth! What the fuck." I say to her. Not believing what I am hearing
Holding up her hand, Ruth says, "I know, I know, but the fact is, having a bit of star power can only help us right now. This movie needs to be a hit. You know it, I know it."
Letting out a sigh, I sit back and think it over for a bit, and calm down. Sure, I wasn't happy that Ruth decided on her own to up and give away 2 percent of the box office. But if they make nothing off this movie, then what does it matter anyway? Two percent of nothing was still nothing after all.
"How much is her base salary? And did Samuel sign off on this?" I ask.
"For one movie, she wants 20 thousand, and yes, he signed off on it, though he is not happy with me right now," Ruth says to me.
I rub the bridge of my nose for a bit and say, "And this Alan Ladd?"
"A lot less. I think we can get away with paying him less than $5,000, maybe $10,000, if we go with him as our leading man. It would be his first starting role after all, and he isn't currently signed with anyone."
"Alright, I guess we really don't have much of a choice, do we?" I ask her.
"Not really. We need to do whatever we can if we want to make it, but trust me, Raimondo. We are going to make history. Next year we will be millionaires if not in cash at least on paper." Ruth tells me.
"I sure hope so, Ruth. I sure hope so." I say while looking out the window at the setting sun. Would it come up for Lucky Pictures tomorrow, or not? He had no clue, but even as worried as he was inside, he couldn't help but feel like they had only just begun.
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So the first movie I am going to have the MC make is Shane. Now it has been a long time since I have seen the movie myself. At least five years, but I recall it being a great movie and enjoying it a lot. It has also often been ranked in the top 20 greatest Westerns of its time. So I felt it was a good pick for her and the group. The only question is how much it makes.
In history, it made $ 9 million at the box office in 1950, but in this world, it's coming out in 1940. Gone with the Wind made over 100 million, but I don't think Shane will make that. So I am split between keeping it nine or going with 4 million. Any thoughts are welcome.