Stars Over Sunset Boulevard by Meissner Susan

Author:Meissner, Susan [Meissner, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-12-04T08:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

September 1939

Violet’s waking thought on the morning of the tenth of September was the kiss Bert had given her the night before. A smile broke across her lips and she giggled. She felt a little like Scarlett on the morning after an inebriated Rhett carries her up the stairs in a rage fueled more by hurt than alcohol. And in the morning, Scarlett had been giddy with the thought of Rhett having needed her so.

Hours earlier, Bert had taken her in his arms as they said good night on the porch. “Want to go with me to Santa Barbara tomorrow?” he’d whispered into her hair. “I’d like you to meet my mother and sisters. I want them to meet you.”

Her heart had felt primed to burst. “Of course!” she’d murmured. Yes, yes, yes!

The kiss had been the perfect ending to a perfect evening, which had begun with them going incognito to a theater in Riverside an hour away for a secret screening of Gone With the Wind. Stealing away for it had been deliciously deceptive and pleasurable.

Violet had learned via a collection of memos she had typed that the movie was going to be shown at a theater full of unsuspecting patrons who thought they were going to be seeing Beau Geste. Selznick wanted a test audience for the film, even though the premiere was many weeks away yet. Violet had whispered the news to Bert at lunch and suggested they take his truck and sneak over to Riverside to be a part of the test audience, fairly certain he would think she was joking, but Bert had surprised her by agreeing they should do it. It was almost as if, like Audrey, he was shaking off an old life. They hadn’t told anyone what they were doing, and they’d timed their arrival at the Fox Theater to just mere minutes remained before the newsreel was to start, so that they could slip in without any studio people, including Selznick himself, recognizing them. They sat in the back row in the farthest corner so they could stick to the shadows and be the first to leave when the screening was over.

The moment the announcement was made that instead of Beau Geste the seated audience was going to see a three-and-a-half-hour, soon-to-be-released film, the air inside the room became electric. The audience was told there would be only one intermission. No one would be allowed to use the telephone. No one would be allowed to leave the theater once it started. And if someone did leave, they would not be allowed to come back inside. Policemen had been stationed at the doors. When the lights dimmed and the Gone With the Wind title began moving across the screen, the crowd roared with delight, and when they saw Clark Gable in his first scene, they cheered for five whole minutes. Nobody left early, even though the movie wasn’t over until just before midnight.

Afterward, Violet and Bert were given reaction questionnaires that they were supposed to take home and send back to the studio.

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