The celebration by Angelo Ivan 1936-

Author:Angelo, Ivan, 1936-
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Brazilian fiction
Publisher: New York, N.Y. : Avon Books
Published: 1982-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

(Author's note:

What do I do with all this: a novel? a story? a pastiche? nothing?

A silent film in the science-fiction genre, vintage 1931, is being kept under lock and key in Washington by the FBI. At the same time, investigators are trying to discover anyone possibly connected with the making of the film: actors, cameramen, producers, director, screenwriter, set designer, etc. The reels, found in the basement of some North American theater that had been forced to close down — for lack of a public — in the town of El Dorado, Arkansas, have turned out to be one of the more disturbing legacies of the Johnson administration to his successor, Richard Nixon. An odd coincidence: El Dorado is just two hundred sixty-five miles from Dallas, Texas.

The title of the film was probably The Assassination of the President, a conclusion drawn by investigators from the notation — "Assas. of the Pres." — on the outside of the top canister among the lot (the first reel, which would have contained the complete title of the film, and probably the names of those who actually participated in the production, was unfortunately never recovered). The present owner of the theater, who had himself only recently acquired the premises, knew nothing about the film and simply informed the authorities of his rather odd discovery. The previous owner — an old, blind Texan by the name of Jerome Prescott — vaguely remembers having put aside a couple of reels of film shot by a group of independent producers who likewise handled their own distribution. It was a motley enterprise, badly organized, and not infrequently occasional reels and sometimes entire films would be left rotting in the basement of a theater for months on end, awaiting collection by some representative of the company. That particular film — this much he clearly recollected — had been "one of the biggest flops in the history of that old theater. Let me see, it was back in 1931, or maybe '32. 'Course, any film without a Valentino or some pretty gal like Lillian Gish or Jean Harlow — just a lot of political WOgwash, with a unpatriotic plot like that, and the dang thing takes place in the future, to boot — why it's hound to be a flop!"

I he plot of the film relates, in such minute detail as to make it impossible to speak of coincidence, the assassina-

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