The last shot of Annie Hall was not the best shot in the film. Duke knew that, and he was fine with it.
The camera car was already packed up, its equipment secured under canvas tarps that flapped gently in the cold wind blowing down from the East River. A handful of crew members stood in a loose semicircle near the craft services table, which had been reduced to a selection of lukewarm coffee in paper cups.
Nobody was eating the cookies. Everybody was drinking the coffee, because it was thirty-eight degrees and dropping, and caffeine was the only thing left on a film set at the end of a long production.
Duke stood behind the monitor, watching the playback of the final take. Alvy, alone on the sidewalk, watching the woman he loved walk away.
"That's a wrap," Duke said..
Forty-six days. That was the number. Duke let it sit in his mind for a moment, feeling the weight of it, as the crew celebrated the end of the production.
Not quite the thirty he'd originally targeted but close enough to constitute a minor miracle by Hollywood standards.
Forty-six days for a feature film that, in his past life, had taken the better part of a year.
The budget had held. Three million even, almost to the penny, because Duke had budgeted for contingencies that never materialized, since he'd eliminated the contingencies in pre-production by cutting every scene that didn't serve the central relationship.
Duke walked over to where Gene Wilder and Diane Keaton were standing by the craft services table, both bundled in down jackets over their costumes, both holding paper cups of that terrible coffee as if the warmth was more important than the taste.
Wilder looked exhausted. His face was thinner. His eyes had that look that Duke could only describe as 'used', the kind you only see in eastern european gay corn.
Duke shook his hand. The grip was firm but the fingers trembled slightly, and Duke pretended not to notice.
"You did something great in take four," Duke said. "Do you know what I'm talking about?"
Wilder looked at him with a kind of bewildered recognition.
"You pulled something out of my performance that I didn't know was there," Wilder said quietly. "I don't know if I should thank you or send you a therapy bill."
"Send both. I'll pay the therapy bill and frame the thank-you note."
They laughed. It was a small, private laugh, the kind shared by two people who have been through something together and don't need to explain it to anyone else.
Duke turned to Keaton and shook her hand as well, both hands, actually, wrapping his around hers in a gesture that was less formal than anything he typically allowed himself on a professional set. But this was the last day. Rules loosened on the last day.
"Annie Hall is going to make you a star," Duke told her.
Keaton smiled and squeezed his hands with a smile. "Will you direct me again? Maybe we could go to dinner."
"Sure... I'll call you." Duke lied, he didn't like being around young flat women specially when older women existed.
Duke's car was parked half a block from the set perimeter, a black Lincoln Continental, a man was leaning against the driver's side door, arms folded across his chest.
Stanley Jaffe looked tired. Jaffe was thirty-one years old, which in any other context would have made him absurdly young for his position, except that his boss was twenty-five, which made Jaffe feel positively older by comparison.
"You look like hell," Duke said, approaching the car.
"I feel like hell. Heaven is a place where people leave you alone and nobody has left me alone in six weeks."
"That's because things are happening."
"Things are always happening. That's the problem. Things won't stop happening." Jaffe pushed himself off the car door and fell into step beside Duke as they walked toward the vehicle. "I need fifteen minutes."
"You've got the drive to the hotel."
They got in the backseat. Duke didn't like driving anymore, specially in places with a lot of traffic.
"Three things," Jaffe said, pulling a folded sheaf of papers from his coat pocket. "In order of how much they're going to ruin your evening."
"Start with the worst."
"The worst is the video game situation."
Duke's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "What about it."
"City Council. Three members have started making noise about Arcades with a focus on Pong. They're drawing a parallel to pinball."
In any other decade, that sentence would have sounded absurd. But this was 1972, and in 1972, pinball machines were still illegal in New York City.
They had been illegal since 1942, when Mayor Fiorello La Guardia had decided that pinball was a form of gambling, a tool of organized crime, and a corrupting influence on the youth of America.
He had personally sledgehammered confiscated machines for the newsreel cameras, and the ban had stood for three decades, surviving legal challenges, cultural shifts, and the basic common sense of anyone who had ever actually played pinball.
The ban wouldn't be lifted until 1976, when a man named Roger Sharpe would demonstrate to a city council committee that he could call his shots on a pinball machine, proving skill over luck, and the whole absurd prohibition would finally collapse under the weight of its own ridiculousness.
But that was four years from now. In February 1972, pinball was still illegal in New York, and the precedent it set, that a city government could classify a game as a vice and ban it outright was a tool that any ambitious politician could pick up and swing.
"They're saying Pong is gambling-adjacent," Jaffe continued. "The argument is that any electronic game that accepts coins which the arcade version does is functionally equivalent to a slot machine."
"That's insane."
"Of course it's insane. But insane and politically useful aren't mutually exclusive. These council members are looking at the midterms. Anti-vice crusading plays well with parent groups."
"They don't need to actually ban anything, they just need to generate enough noise to make retailers nervous. And if retailers get nervous, Sears might start asking themselves questions about their commitment."
The Sears deal was the cornerstone of the Pong launch, one hundred thousand units, placement in every store, a holiday rollout that would put the console in front of every middle-class family in America.
If Sears wobbled, if some city council grandstanding campaign made the buyer at Sears decide that electronic games were too controversial to champion, the entire launch strategy could collapse.
Not permanently, the demand was real, the product was good, the market would eventually assert itself but a delay of even one quarter could cost millions.
"Who do we talk to?" Duke asked.
"I'd recommend Steve Ross."
Duke glanced at Jaffe. He and Ross didn't got along personally.
"Ross will want something in return," Duke said.
"Ross has his own interest in Arcades, and Gambling arcades too. We just need to test his tone."
Duke filed this away. He'd reach out to Ross through back channels, to test his position.
"Second thing," Jaffe said. "Barry Diller. He's been calling my office three times a day. The RCA Satcom transponder window is closing."
RCA had launched its Satcom satellite series, and the transponder leases, the individual channels on the satellite that could carry television signals from a single uplink to every cable system in America, were being sold to the companies that were smart enough to claim them.
The technology was new, the infrastructure was nascent, and most of the entertainment industry was still thinking about distribution in terms of physical film prints, broadcast antennas, and the three-network monopoly that had dominated American television since the 1950s.
"How much?" Duke asked.
"Two million for the lease commitment. That locks us in for five years."
"Two million for the highways in the sky," Duke murmured, half to himself.
"That's what Barry calls them. He's very poetic for a man who scares the hell out of everyone who works for him."
Duke nodded. "Sign it. I'll countersign tonight. Tell Barry."
Two million dollars was not nothing, but in the context of what satellite distribution would eventually mean, what it would become, what it would make possible, it was the equivalent of buying bitcoin in 2010.
The cable television revolution was coming. It was coming whether the networks wanted it to or not, whether the FCC was ready or not.
"Third thing," Jaffe said. "Marvel."
"What about Marvel."
"Their legal team has sent a cease-and-desist regarding the Excalibur Crew. Trade dress infringement. Copyright infringement. They're claiming the characters are unlicensed pastiches of the Fantastic Four."
Duke actually laughed at this. "Marvel is suing us for pastiche. Marvel. The company that created Hyperion, a Superman clone so blatant that he might as well be wearing a name tag."
"Apparently irony isn't actionable."
"Fight it. Don't settle. Don't negotiate. Fight it. Let their lawyers bill hours. Let them spend money on depositions. Let them explain to a judge, under oath, how their Squadron Supreme isn't a clone of the Justice League while simultaneously arguing that our Excalibur Crew is a clone of the Fantastic Four."
Jaffe scribbled notes on his sheaf of papers. "You realize this could drag on for years."
"Good. Dragging is fine. Dragging costs them money and generates publicity for us. Every time a trade paper runs a story about the lawsuit, they have to describe the Excalibur Crew to their readers, and every description is free advertising."
The Lincoln crawled through Midtown traffic.
"Now," Jaffe said, his voice shifting into a different register. Something lighter, more personal, "Can I ask you something that isn't about satellites or comic books?"
"You can ask."
"When was the last time you went on a date?"
Duke looked at him. "I have a girlfriend, Stanley."
"You have Barbara who is in your suite right now. What I'm asking is different. I'm asking about your public life. Your image. The way the world sees you."
"I don't care how the world sees me."
"You should. Because right now, the world sees a twenty-five-year-old man who runs a major studio, directs films, buys companies, launches comic book divisions, and has the social life of a monk. People are talking, Duke."
"People are always talking."
"They're talking specifically. They're saying you don't- well you don't... date women. Some saying you're not interested in women."
The car was silent for a moment.
Duke understood what Jaffe was saying, and he understood why it mattered in 1972. This was not a decade that was kind to ambiguity. The sexual revolution had opened certain doors, but it had also sharpened certain questions.
A young, powerful, unmarried man who didn't conspicuously pursue women was, in the calculus of the era, a subject of speculation.
"I have Barbara Bouchet," Duke repeated, more firmly this time. "One of the most beautiful women in Europe. She's literally upstairs."
"And nobody knows it. You don't get photographed together. You don't attend premieres together. You don't go around the town. For all the public knows, you come home every night, eat a steak alone, and read production reports until you fall asleep."
"That's not entirely inaccurate."
"Duke. Listen to me. I'm not telling you to change who you are. I'm telling you to let people see who you are. Confidential Magazine published a piece calling you Bachelor Boy, Theatrical and lonely, all thinly veiled accusiations."
"You're twenty-five years old. You're a war veteran. You're an orphan who built himself from nothing. That's the American Dream, Duke. That's the story people want to believe in."
"But right now, your story has no... romance. No plot. No human element. You're all business all the time, and it makes people suspicious. Americans don't trust men who don't seem to want anything for themselves."
Duke was quiet for several blocks.
"You're saying I should be a playboy," Duke said flatly. "Sue the Confidential Magazine."
"I'm saying you should be seen. Take Barbara around. Show up at a premiere with her on your arm. Let the photographers do their job. The orphan turned veteran turned director turned mogul with a gorgeous Italian actress by his side? The public will eat that up."
"Barbara grew up in a culture of Latin Lovers," Duke said, and there was a faint, reluctant amusement in his voice now. "She'd probably enjoy it. She's been saying I don't take her out enough."
"Italian women are built for that kind of life. They don't mind a little spectacle. Public romance is in their culture."
"What about you, Stanley? What's your love life look like these days? You're giving me relationship advice, but I notice you're sitting in my car on a Friday night."
Jaffe smirked. "I'm a ladies man, Duke. Never doubt it."
Duke shook his head, almost smiling. The Lincoln pulled up in front of the hotel.
But Jaffe didn't get out. "There's one more thing," Jaffe said.
Duke looked at him.
"I'm stepping down."
The sentence hung in the air between them like smoke.
"As CEO and Vice-Chairman," Jaffe continued, because the silence demanded specificity. "I'm leaving Paramount."
Duke didn't react. "When," Duke said.
"I'll stay through October. That get us through the Godfather and the rest of the slate release, through the Pong launch. I won't leave you in the mud. I'm not that kind of man, and you're not the kind of boss who deserves that."
"Why."
Jaffe took a breath. "My father."
Leo Jaffe. Duke knew the name, and knew the man.
Leo Jaffe had just ascended to the chairmanship of Columbia Pictures, one of the old-line Hollywood studios that was currently struggling through financial difficulties.
Columbia needed restructuring. It needed new leadership. It needed someone with the financial acumen and industry knowledge to modernize its operations without destroying its identity. It needed, in other words, a Jaffe.
"He wants you at Columbia," Duke said. It wasn't a question.
"Not immediately. He wants me to start with an independent production company with my own projects, under the Columbia umbrella. Build something that's mine to be acquired later. And then, eventually, the chairmanship."
Duke understood this. "I'm not angry," Duke said.
"I know you're not. That's why I'm telling you in a car instead of sending a letter."
"You've been good, Stanley. You've handled things while I was off directing movies and buying companies and generally making your life impossible. I want you to know that I see that. I don't say it enough, but I see it."
Jaffe nodded. "Thank you, Duke."
"Don't thank me yet. We've got ten months to get through first. The Godfather, the Pong launch, and God knows what else is going to land on our desks between now and then. You leave when the work is done, not before."
"Agreed."
"And Stanley? Columbia's lucky to get you. Your father should be proud."
Jaffe opened the car door. He stepped out, turned back, and leaned down to look at Duke through the open door.
"So who takes the chair?"
Duke had already been thinking about this. He'd been thinking about it since the first sentence of stepping down has been spoken.
"Diller," Duke said.
Jaffe raised his eyebrows slightly. "Barry."
"Barry is young. Barry is aggressive. I need someone like that while i keep charge of the theatrical releases."
"He also terrifies the staff."
"Good. I don't need the next president of Paramount to be beloved. I need them to be effective. Barry will push the organization harder than you pushed it, and he'll do it without apologizing."
Jaffe considered this for a moment, then nodded slowly. "He's the right choice. I wouldn't have picked him but you're right."
Jaffe extended his hand through the car door. Duke shook it.
"One more thing," Duke said, as Jaffe straightened up. "Before October. I need a vacation."
Jaffe actually blinked. In two years of working for Duke, he had never once heard the man use the word "vacation" in reference to himself.
He'd heard Duke use it in reference to other people, usually in the context of denying their requests for one but never as something Duke himself might want or need.
"A vacation," Jaffe repeated, as if tasting a foreign word.
"I need to travel. Clear my head before the second half of the year. London first, I want to check in on a comedy group that Marty Feldman keeps telling me about. Monty Python. He says they're the future of British comedy and that I need to meet them before someone else signs them."
"Monty Python's Flying Circus. They're on BBC. They're absolutely geniuses."
"Then West Germany. The Munich Olympics are in august. I want to be there. Paramount is the lead investor on Werner Herzog's film. Aguirre, the Wrath of God and I want to meet Herzog."
"After Munich, I'm going to Peru. I want to check the food."
"And then?"
"Either Aspen or the Alps. I haven't decided. Somewhere i can ski."
"Go," Jaffe said. "Take your vacation and then I'll leave, and you'll put Barry Diller in my chair, and the next chapter starts."