The Vampire Sextette Read online

  he had always wanted to make Dracula. Now, it seemed, he was acting on the

  impulse. It shouldn't have, but it frightened her a little. She was in two minds about

  how often that story should be told.

  Orson Welles arrived in Hollywood in 1939, having negotiated a

  two-picture deal as producer-director-writer-actor with George

  Schaefer of RKO Pictures. Drawing on an entourage of colleagues

  from the New York theatre and radio, he established Mercury

  Productions as a filmmaking entity. Before embarking on Citizen Kane

  (1941) and

  The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Welles developed

  other properties: Nicholas Blake's just-published anti-Fascist thriller The

  Smiler with a Knife (1939), Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902) and

  Stoker's Dracula (1897). Like the Conrad, Dracula was a novel Welles

  had already done for the Mercury Theatre on the Air radio series (July

  11,1938). A script was prepared (by Welles, Herman Mankiewicz and,

  uncredited, John Houseman), sets were designed, the film cast, and

  "tests"—the extent of which have never been revealed—shot, but the

  project was dropped.

  The reasons for the abandonment of

  Count Dracula remain

  obscure. It has been speculated that RKO was nervous about Welles's

  stated intention to film most of the story with a first-person camera,

  adopting the viewpoints of the various characters as Stoker does in his

  might-have-been fictional history. Houseman, in his memoir Run-

  Through (1972), alleges that Welles's enthusiasm for this device was at

  least partly due to the fact that it would keep the fearless vampire

  slayers—Harker, Van Helsing, Quincey, Holmwood—mostly off

  screen, while Dracula, object of their attention, would always be in

  view. Houseman, long estranged from Welles at the time of writing,

  needlessly adds that Welles would have played Dracula. He toyed with

  the idea of playing Harker as well, before deciding William Alland could

  do it if kept to the shadows and occasionally dubbed by Welles. The

  rapidly changing political situation in Europe, already forcing the

  Roosevelt administration to reassess its policies about vampirism and

  the very real Count Dracula, may have prompted certain factions to

  bring pressure to bear on RKO that such a film was "inadvisable" for

  1940.

  In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, published in This Is Orson

  Welles (1992) but held well before Francis Ford Coppola's

  controversial Dracula (1979), Welles said: "Dracula would make a

  marvellous movie. In fact, nobody has ever made it; they've never paid

  any attention to the book, which is the most hair-raising, marvellous

  book in the world. It's told by four people, and must be done with four

  narrations, as we did on the radio. There's one scene in London where

  he throws a heavy bag into the corner of a cellar and it's full of

  screaming babies! They can go that far out now."

  Jonathan Gates, "Welles's Lost Draculas."

  Video Watchdog No. 23 May-July 1994

  Welles did not so much live in the bungalow as occupy it. She recognised the

  signs of high-end, temporary tenancy. Pieces of extremely valuable antique

  furniture, imported from Spain, stood among ugly, functional, modern sticks that

  had come with the let. The den, largest space in the building, was made

  aesthetically bearable by a hanging she put at sixteenth century, nailed up over the

  open fireplace like a curtain. The tapestry depicted a knight trotting in full armour

  through forest greenery, with black-faced, red-eyed-and-tongued devils peeping

  from behind tall, straight trees. The piece was marred by a bad burn that had

  caught at one corner and spread evil fingers upwards. All around were stacks of

  books, square-bound antique volumes and bright modern paperbacks, and rickety

  towers of film cans.

  Geneviève wondered why Welles would have cases of good sherry and boxes

  of potato chips stacked together in a corner, then realised he must have been

  partly paid in goods for his commercial work. He offered her sherry, and she

  surprised him by accepting.

  "I do sometimes drink wine, Orson. Dracula wasn't speaking for us all."

  He arched an eyebrow and made a flourish of pouring sherry into a paper cup.

  "My glassware hasn't arrived from Madrid," he apologised.

  She sipped the stuff, which she couldn't really taste, and sat on a straightbacked gothic chair. It gave her a memory flash, of hours spent in churches when

  she was a warm girl. She wanted to fidget.

  Welles plopped himself down with a Falstaffian rumble and strain on a low

  couch that had a velvet curtain draped over it. He was broad enough in the beam

  to make it seem like a throne.

  Oja joined them and silently hovered. Her hair was covered by a bright head

  scarf.

  A pause.

  Welles grinned expansively. Geneviève realised he was protracting the moment,

  relishing a role. She even knew who he was doing, Sydney Greenstreet in The

  Maltese Falcon. The ambiguous mastermind enjoying himself by matching wits

  with the perplexed private eye. If Hollywood ever remade Falcon, which would be

  a sacrilege, Welles would be in the ring for Gutman. Too many of his acting jobs

  were like that, replacing another big personality in an inferior retread of something

  already got right.

  "I'll be wondering why you asked me here tonight," she prompted.

  "Yes," he said, amused.

  "It'll be a long story."

  "I'm rather afraid so."

  "There are hours before dawn."

  "Indeed."

  Welles was comfortable now. She understood he had been switching off from

  the shoot, coming down not only from his on-screen character but from his

  position as backyard God.

  "You know I've been playing with Dracula for years? I wanted to make it at

  RKO in '40, did a script, designed sets, cast everybody. Then it was dropped."

  She nodded.

  "We even shot some scenes. I'd love to steal in some night and rescue the

  footage from the vaults. Maybe for use in the current project. But the studio has

  the rights. Imagine if paintings belonged to whoever mixed the paints and wove the

  canvas. I'll have to abase myself, as usual. The children who inherited RKO after

  Hughes ran it aground barely know who I am, but they'll enjoy the spectacle of my

  contrition, my pleading, my total dejection. I may even get my way in the end."

  "Hasn't Dracula been made? I understand that Francis—"

  "I haven't seen that. It doesn't matter to me or the world. I didn't do the first

  stage productions of Macbeth or Caesar, merely the best. The same goes for the

  Stoker. A marvellous piece, you know."

  "Funnily enough, I have read it," she put in.

  "Of course you have."

  "And I met Dracula."

  Welles raised his eyes, as if that were news to him. Was this all about picking

  her brain? She had spent all of fifteen minutes in the Royal Presence, nearly a

  hundred years ago, but was quizzed about that (admittedly dramatic) occasion

  more than the entire rest of her five hundred and sixty-five years. She'd seen the

  Count again, after his true death—as had Welles, she reme
mbered—and been at

  his last funeral, seen his ashes scattered. She supposed she had wanted to be sure

  he was really finally dead.

  "I've started Dracula several times. It seems like a cursed property. This time,

  maybe, I'll finish it. I believe it has to be done."

  Oja laid hands on his shoulders and squeezed. There was an almost imperial

  quality to Welles, but he was an emperor in exile, booted off his throne and cast

  out, retaining only the most loyal and long-suffering of his attendants.

  "Does the name Alucard mean anything to you?" he asked. "John Alucard?"

  "This may come as a shock to you, Orson, but 'Alucard' is 'Dracula' spelled

  backwards."

  He gave out a good-humoured version of his Shadow laugh.

  "I had noticed. He is a vampire, of course."

  "Central and Eastern European nosferatu love anagrams as much as they love

  changing their names," she explained. "It's a real quirk. My late friend Carmilla

  Karnstein ran through at least a half dozen scramblings of her name before running

  out. Millarca, Marcilla, Allimarc…"

  "My name used to be Olga Palinkas," put in Oja. "Until Orson thought up 'Oja

  Kodar' for me, to sound Hungarian."

  "The promising sculptor 'Vladimir Zagdrov' is my darling Oja, too. You are

  right about the undead predilection for noms de plume, alter egos, secret identities,

  anagrams, and palindromes and acrostics. Just like actors. A holdover from the

  Byzantine mind-set, I believe. It says something about the way the creatures think.

  Tricky but obvious, as it were. The back spelling might also be a compensation: a

  reflection on parchment for those who have none in the glass."

  "This Alucard? Who is he?"

  "That's the exact question I'd like answered," said Welles. "And you, my dear

  Mademoiselle Dieudonné, are the person I should like to provide that answer."

  "Alucard says he's an independent producer," said Oja. "With deals all over

  town."

  "But no credits," said Welles.

  Geneviève could imagine.

  "He has money, though," said Welles. "No credits, but a line of credit. Cold

  cash and the Yankee dollar banish all doubt. That seems unarguable."

  "Seems?"

  "Sharp little word, isn't it? Seems and is, syllables on either side of a chasm of

  meaning. This Mr. Alucard, a nosferatu, wishes to finance my Dracula. He has

  offered me a deal the likes of which I haven't had since RKO and Kane. An

  unlimited budget, major studio facilities, right of final cut, control over everything

  from casting to publicity. The only condition he imposes is that I must make this

  subject. He wants not my Don Quixote or my Around the World in 80 Days, but

  my Dracula only."

  "The Coppola—" a glare from Welles made her rephrase "—that other film,

  with Brando as the Count? That broke even in the end, didn't it? Made back its

  budget. Dracula is a box-office subject. There's probably room for another

  version. Not to mention sequels, a spin-off TV series and imitations. Your Mr.

  Alucard makes sense. Especially if he has deep pockets and no credits. Being

  attached to a good, to a great, film would do him no harm. Perhaps he wants the

  acclaim?"

  Welles rolled the idea around his head.

  "No," he concluded, almost sadly. "Gené, I have never been accused of lack

  of ego. My largeness of spirit, my sense of self-worth, is part of my act, as it

  were. The armour I must needs haul on to do my daily battles. But I am not blind

  to my situation. No producer in his right mind would bankroll me to such an

  extent, would offer me such a deal. Not even these kids, this Spielberg and that

  Lucas, could get such a sweetheart deal. I am as responsible for that as anyone.

  The studios of today may be owned by oil companies and hotel magnates, but

  there's a trace memory of that contract I signed when I was twenty-four and of

  how it all went wrong, for me and for everyone. When I was kicked off the lot in

  1943, RKO took out ads in the trades announcing their new motto: 'Showmanship,

  not genius!' Hollywood doesn't want to have me around. I remind the town of its

  mistakes, its crimes."

  "Alucard is an independent producer, you say. Perhaps he's a fan?"

  "I don't think he's seen any of my pictures."

  "Do you think this is a cruel prank?"

  Welles shrugged, raising huge hands. Oja was more guarded, more worried.

  Geneviève wondered whether she was the one who had insisted on calling in an

  investigator.

  "The first cheques have cleared," said Welles. "The rent is paid on this place."

  "You are familiar with the expression…"

  "The one about equine dentistry? Yes."

  "But it bothers you? The mystery?"

  "The Mystery of Mr. Alucard. That is so. If it blows up in my face, I can stand

  that. I've come to that pass before, and I shall venture there again. But I should

  like some presentiment, either way. I want you to make some discreet inquiries

  about our Mr. Alucard. At the very least, I'd like to know his real name and where

  he comes from. He seems very American at the moment, but I don't think that was

  always the case. Most of all, I want to know what he is up to. Can you help me,

  Mademoiselle Dieudonné?"

  "You know, Gené," said Jack Martin wistfully, contemplating the melting ice in

  his empty glass through the wisps of cigarette smoke that always haloed his head,

  "none of this matters. It's not important. Writing. It's a trivial pursuit, hardly worth

  the effort, inconsequential on any cosmic level. It's just blood and sweat and guts

  and bone hauled out of our bodies and fed through a typewriter to slosh all over

  the platen. It's just the sick soul of America turning sour in the sunshine. Nobody

  really reads what I've written. In this town, they don't know Flannery O'Connor or

  Ray Bradbury, let alone Jack Martin. Nothing will be remembered. We'll all die and

  it'll be over. The sands will close over our civilisation and the sun will turn into a

  huge red fireball and burn even you from the face of the earth."

  He didn't seem convinced. Martin was a writer. In high school, he'd won a

  national competition for an essay entitled "It's Great to Be Alive." Now in his

  grumbling forties, the sensitive but creepy short stories that were his most

  personal work were published in small science-fiction and men's magazines, and

  put out in expensive limited editions by fan publishers who went out of business

  owing him money. He had made a living as a screenwriter for ten years without

  ever seeing anything written under his own name get made. He had a problem with

  happy endings.

  However, he knew what was going on in "the Industry" and was her first port

  of call when a case got her mixed up with the movies. He lived in a tar -paper

  shack on Beverly Glen Boulevard, wedged between multimillion dollar estates, and

  told everybody that at least it was earthquake-proof.

  Martin rattled the ice. She ordered him another Coca-Cola. He stubbed out one

  cigarette and lit another.

  The girl behind the hotel bar, dressed as a magician, sloshed ice into another

  glass and reached for a small chromed hose. She squirted Coke into the glass,

  covering the ice.

  Martin
held up his original glass.

  "Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could slip the girl a buck and have her fill up

  this glass, not go through all the fuss of getting a fresh one and charging you all

  over again. There should be infinite refills. Imagine that, a Utopian dream, Gene.

  It's what America needs. A bottomless Coke!"

  "It's not policy, sir," said the girl. With the Coke came a quilted paper napkin,

  an unhappy edge of lemon, and a plastic stirrer.

  Martin looked at the bar girl's legs. She was wearing black fishnets, high-heeled

  pumps, a tight white waistcoat, a tail coat, and tophat.

  The writer sampled his new, bottomed, Coke. The girl went to cope with other

  morning customers.

  "I'll bet she's an actress," he said. "I think she does porno."

  Geneviève raised an eyebrow.

  "Most X-rated films are better directed than the slop that comes out of the

  majors," Martin insisted. "I could show you a reel of something by Gerard

  Damiano or Jack Horner that you'd swear was Bergman or Don Siegel. Except for

  the screwing."

  Martin wrote "scripts" for adult movies, under well-guarded pseudonyms to

  protect his Writers' Guild membership. The guild didn't have any moral position

  on porno, but members weren't supposed to take jobs which involved turning out

  a full-length feature script in two afternoons for three hundred dollars. Martin

  claimed to have invented Jamie Gillis's catchphrase, "Suck it, bitch!"

  "What can you tell me about John Alucard?"

  "The name is—"

  "Besides that his name is 'Dracula' written backwards."

  "He's from New York. Well, that's where he was last. I heard he ran with that

  art crowd. You know, Warhol and Jack Smith. He's got a first-look deal at United

  Artists, and something cooking with Fox. There's going to be a story in the trades

  that he's set up an independent production company with Griffin Mill, Julia

  Phillips, and Don Simpson."

  "But he's never made a movie?"

  "The word is that he's never seen a movie. That doesn't stop him calling

  himself a producer. Say, are you working for him? If you could mention that I was

  available. Mention my rewrite on Can't Stop the Music. No, don't. Say about that

  TV thing that didn't happen. I can get you sample scripts by sundown."

  Martin was gripping her upper arm.