Flicker by Theodore Roszak Page B

distributors and film libraries. I had the impression he was haunting her, I guessed because she felt irked that she hadn’t been able to recognize his name when it came her way.
    â€œIt isn’t in very good condition,” I remarked, observing the obvious.
    â€œScrap quality. Best I could find. Channel Five was going to show this on the late, late, late show. Decided it was unprojectable. They don’t even want it back. Good thing—because I’ve already burned about ten feet out of it in the machine. We may not make it to the end.”
    And we didn’t. Five minutes farther along and the film caught fire in the midst of its grand, gory climax: an impaling scene of extraordinary vividness, the camera spiraling down upon the doomed vampire lord as if it were the very stake on which his life would expire. It was a dizzying, nauseating effect; I welcomed seeing it vanish from the screen before the blood gushed. With a curse Clare shut the projector down. “Worst thing is: somebody amputated all the credits. They do that on television with garbage like this. Leaves more time for commercials. There’s some striking camera work—like that last shot. I wonder who did it.” She carried the reel to the rewind table. “Damn their eyes for mutilating this!”
    â€œBut it’s crap, isn’t it?”
    â€œOh? Is it? You saw less than ten minutes of it, and you’re so sure.”
    â€œWell, you said so.”
    â€œAnd you just go along with whatever you hear, is that right?”
    â€œBut aren’t vampire movies crap?”
    â€œCarl Dreyer made a pretty good one, as I recall.”
    Dumb mistake. Clare had shown
Vampyr
only last month. “Well, yes, I guess … I mean … ”
    â€œThink for yourself, Jonny.”
    â€œActually, I sort of like horror movies.”
    â€œWhich are, by and large, crap. But this one … there are some interesting bits. Like that final sequence—I wish I could’ve seen the whole thing.”
    â€œThe impaling? Pretty extreme.”
    â€œYes, wasn’t it? But unusually extreme. Something about the twist he gives the camera … makes it seem the shadows are coming up to swallow you. Never saw anything like that before. I don’t know … maybe the man had something.”
    â€œDialogue sounded really clunky.”
    â€œAwful. But that wouldn’t have bothered you if you’d seen the bedroom scenes a little earlier. You know, vampire seductions. Very explicit. I could swear there was actual fornication. Odd about that. When I looked again, I couldn’t find it. Even so, I’d like to know how they snuck that part past the censors back then. Must have been 1937, 1938. Olga Tell was in the film. Would-be Garbo of that period. I didn’t know she appeared in trash like this.”
    â€œI’d like to see those bedroom scenes,” I told her. “Just for scholarly purposes.”
    â€œOut of luck, lover. That’s the part that got burned up.” Clare inspected the film and wagged her head. “This’ll never make it through the machine again. I’m not even going to bother rewinding.” She dropped the reel in its canister and dusted her hands over it. “We’ve got better stuff to watch.”
    As Clare began to load another movie, I asked, “If this is such trash, why do the French think it’s so good?”
    â€œThe
French!”
Clare laughed. “You mean my two visiting friends and maybe a couple of their friends back on the Left Bank? That’s probably the size of Castle’s following. Of course, in France that counts as a ’movement.’ ”
    â€œWell, anyway, why did they say it was important?”
    â€œDefensive pretension. The froggies are like that about Americanmovies. They can’t just enjoy something because it’s funny or exciting or clever—not if it was made by money-hungry philistine