Sidney’s face darkens. ‘ “Should”!? I thought they were supposed to be cast-iron certainties.’
Justin shrugs and waves his head about in a gesture of non-committal agreement. ‘The picture is rather black in the middle of Africa at the moment. They’re getting very puritanical. No mini-skirts or bikinis. All tits under tarpaulin and no afro haircuts. They’re trying to stamp out Western decadence.’
‘What about Scandinavia?’ I ask.
‘The market seems to be approaching saturation. They’re onto pigs at the moment, or perhaps I should say –’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ says Sid hurriedly. ‘I don’t recall any porkers in our masterpiece?’
‘Tastes change so quickly,’ explains Justin. ‘It’s terribly difficult to keep abreast in this business.’
“I’d have thought it would have been very easy,’ I say. ‘ “Keep a breast” – get it?’
‘Shut up! says Sidney. ‘I don’t need any of your lousy jokes at a moment like this.’ He turns on Justin. ‘So, reading between the lines, what you’re saying is that I’m going to be cleaned out?’
‘Nothing of the sort, dear boy,’ purrs Justin. ‘I’m only counselling caution, that’s all. In this business the stakes are high but the rewards are immense.’
‘I seem to be tied to one of the high stakes,’ moans Sidney, ‘but I don’t see any sign of the rewards.’
‘As I said, you must have patience. I’m certain that if you back our next idea you’ll make a fortune.’
‘You told me I was going to make a fortune with this idea. Didn’t he, Timmo?’
This puts me in a difficult position because Justin is the only film producer I know and I want to keep in his good books – his good films as well, should he ever make one. However, I do recall him making it very clear to Sidney that the skin-flick side of the business was likely to pull in a few swift bob.
Luckily at that moment the tellyphone rings and I have a couple of minutes to think of an answer I never need.
‘Good heavens!’ says Justin. ‘How many? Mounted police? Are you sure you’ve got the right cinema? B-I-O-S-C-O-P-E? Yes. That’s right. Goodness me. Very well, we’ll be right over.’ He put the receiver down. ‘Amazing!’
‘What is?’
‘Apparently, there are queues all round the Bioscope. People are fighting to get in.’
‘Blimey! And it’s only half-past eleven. Get your skates on. This I’ve got to see.’
By the time we get there we have convinced ourselves that a cache of banknotes has been found in one of the seats or the place converted into a knocking shop, but there is no doubt about it. The sign outside the cinema states quite clearly: ‘Oliver Twist – a Tymely Loser Production. Vicious! Degrading! Disgusting!’ The queue that starts in Kensington High Street is filing past posters quoting the critics as saying, ‘Pornographic twaddle’, ‘The violence appalled me’, ‘The sex sickened me’, ‘Insults the intelligence of a retarded ten-year-old’, ‘Makes Crossroads seem like War and Peace’, ‘No thinking person should see it’.
‘Brilliant, eh?’ We turn round and there is Mac standing beside us, practically wagging his tail.
‘Did you do this?’ asks Sidney.
‘It’s the only thing I could do. I read through every single review and the only favourable comment in any of them was that the credits were well handled.’
‘Ken sent them out to be done,’ says Justin.
‘I’m not surprised,’ continues Mac. ‘They were quite nice. Completely out of character with the rest of the movie. Anyway, when I read that lot I thought: I can’t build a publicity campaign round the credits. I mean, they’re over in twenty-five seconds and if we put them at the end nobody is going to wait that long to see who was responsible for what they were watching.’
‘Good thinking, MacDonald,’ nods Justin.
‘Then it occurred to me that we had so many anti-superlatives –’
‘Yer what?’ says Sidney.
‘People saying it was the worst instead of the best. I thought: there’s a kind of distinction for you. People might like to tell their friends they’d seen what is supposed to be the worst film ever made. I mean, I bet you’d be interested in seeing the ugliest woman in the world?’
‘Not very,’ says Sid. ‘I’m married to her.’
‘Very satirical,’ says Justin. ‘Yes, I see what you mean. And that, harnessed to the sex and violence – or social realism, as we call it – has done the trick?’
‘I remember you saying that people were fed up with sex and violence,’ I say.
‘It depends how you handle it. If it’s done badly enough then it seems to be all right.’
‘I think there’s another reason for the success of the film,’ says Mac. ‘People distrust critics as a lot of phoney highbrows, so that if they say a film is a load of rubbish then the average man in the street reckons it must be just his cup of tea.’
‘Mac, I don’t know how I’m ever going to thank you for this,’ gushes Justin. ‘When I look at that queue of lugubrious, long-haired layabouts, idly flicking the flies away from the ends of their noses with their bicycle chains, a lump comes to my wallet.’
‘It’s nothing, J.T.,’ says Mac modestly. ‘Nothing that a couple of thousand greenbacks couldn’t more than adequately repay.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of sullying an act that so embodies the very essence of true friendship with anything so sordid as money,’ says Justin, squeezing Mac’s eager hand in both of his. ‘Some deeds are beyond price.’
Mac looks as if he would like to discuss the matter further but he does not get the chance. A whiff of sheep-dip indicates that Ken Loser is standing by our side. His mood is exultant. He waves an expansive hand at the queue and spits down the front of Justin’s raccoon reefer jacket. He does not mean anything by it, it is just the way he speaks when he is excited.
‘Huh!’ he snorts. ‘One in the eye for the lackeys of the capitalist press who dared to sneer at my genius.’
‘Yes,’ says Sid, ‘but –’
‘Exactly,’ Justin moves in fast to prevent damage. ‘A wonderful achievement, Ken, brilliantly capitalised on by Mac here. Congratulations both of you. I think we may have tapped a gold-mine. Of course it’s going to need careful handling. Something rather unusual in fact. Mac has had one or two very original ideas, which we must discuss when you have more time.’
‘Certainly, certainly,’ says Loser. ‘Anything must be better than that attempt at cultural assassination,’ he indicates the posters. ‘It’s almost touching, isn’t it? Despite the heinous slanders of the fascist hyenas, they still come.’
‘Long may it continue, Ken,’ humours Justin. ‘Now, may I suggest we repair to the local hostelry and imbibe a few swift jars to celebrate this latest assault on our bank manager’s credulity? I’m afraid I seem to have left my wallet at home, but I’m certain that Mac –’
As it turns out the boozer selected by Justin is dead opposite the cinema queue and I can see Sidney’s beady eyes clicking like cash registers as he keeps an accountant’s eye on the suckers trudging past.
‘Multiply that by thousands and you have the scene all over the country in a couple of weeks,’ beams Justin. ‘It’s very fortunate that we have the whole of our talented team here today because it gives me a chance to raise another outstanding project that has been taxing our perfervid imaginations of late, eh,