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Title: Double take
Author: Ken Winney
Illustrator: Alex Schomburg
Release date: October 24, 2026 [eBook #79857]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Future Publications, Inc., 1953
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79857
Credits: Tom Trussel - Stories of Futures Past (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOUBLE TAKE ***
Double Take
by Ken Winney
[Pseudonym of Winston K. Marks]
They were called the _double-takes_ and the _horrid-torrids_, the
whole country went mad for them. They were more than plain motion
pictures--they were a new way of looking at things.
Paul made good in Hollywood, all right, but not the way many people
predicted. I wish the bastard _had_ turned actor. He could have easily
enough. The 1957 trend to picture heroes was back on the pale, frail,
mother-me-baby cycle, and Paul Conrad’s tall slenderness fit the
casting specifications to the droop of a pathetic shoulder.
His deep eyes and pallid brow had every female on the set quivering for
one of the rare glimpses of him. Glimpses were rare, because when he
came to me out of Cal-Tech as a stereo-physicist he buried himself in
the camera-sound lab and wouldn’t even come out for lunch.
We men were interested in Paul, too. I was technical director at
Medoc Studios, and I hired him because he claimed to have a patent on
a special lens that solved the only remaining problem we had before
launching a colossal new projection technique. The industry needed
something to drag itself out of its latest slump. The novelty was worn
off the tri-di and stereo projections that hit so hard in 1953, and now
television was pulling theater box-office out by its screaming roots
again.
Paul was such a shy guy, I thought, that I had to coddle him and
make much over him just to be safe. I passed the word on to all the
important people on the lot to do likewise. We didn’t want this cookie
leaving us for _any_ reason.
He didn’t take to the assortment of glamor girls that I introduced to
him, and this worried me. If some other studio got to him with the
right babe--well, it was a chance I couldn’t take. So I went all out. I
persuaded Gloria Breen to befriend Paul. This was a rough decision for
me, because I was crazy about her.
She was a starlet who was graduating fast. She was so beautiful and
talented that she didn’t have to accept dates from producers to get
parts, which is real talent even in Hollywood. In fact so far I was the
only guy in the studio she’d even had lunch with, and I figured I was
on the way in with her at the time I got this damned fool notion of
hanging her on Paul as a company anchor.
I introduced them at the cafeteria, and that was the last time I had
her with me. From then on they went out together almost every night. At
the spots she would fend off the agents, predatory females and rival
casting directors who stared at Paul hungrily from every corner. And
Paul would sit there and talk with her.
Talk, talk, talk. That’s all they did. Never even held hands. Hopper
couldn’t make much out of it, but she said whatever was going on it
couldn’t happen to a couple of nicer people.
Soon everyone wondered why they didn’t get married. Oh, everybody was
so happy for them, the shy inventor and the ambitious young actress.
And I couldn’t complain, because Gloria was only doing the job I asked
her to.
Then I started getting uneasy about Paul on another score. His
invention was the McCoy, and soon I didn’t have to go around getting
people to be nice to him. Our new secret process was mostly my idea,
but it was beginning to appear that it was all Paul’s baby. I had
planned to make Paul my first assistant when I thought the front office
would hold still for it, so it was a little shock when _they_ told _me_
to promote him. They intimated I was trying to hide his light under a
bushel.
* * * * *
Well, we shot that first picture under tight wraps, and by the time the
preview was ready, tension was so great around town that nobody lesser
than a director, first vice-president or an arrived star could get a
ticket to Grauman’s for that night.
It was a flesh-potty little picture done on a B budget which we spent
mainly on exotic lounging pajamas and interestingly designed chaise
lounges. The critics shook their heads on the way in when we handed
them spectacles in the foyer. I stood by and listened to their remarks.
“I thought Polaroids went out two years ago.”
“This is new? Nuts, I knew Medoc was bluffing!”
“Like I was saying at Rotary this noon, pictures gotta go forward or
they go backwards. Medoc’s slipping.”
But Alf Moccho, president of Medoc, stood at the door and beamed,
insisting that each couple get the right glasses. “Pink rims for the
little girls, blue for the little boys,” he repeated over and over with
a smugness that stank of confidence.
We had the ushers double-check as they seated the patrons to be sure
the men and women had the right color goggles.
Two hours later I wiped the sweat off my face and watched our
distinguished audience do the same. They were bright-eyed and
enthusiastic, but none stopped to fill out the audience-reaction cards.
A few ducked their heads together to exchange remarks. I managed to
catch a few of the whispers.
“Not much plot, but my God, what characterization!”
“Well, that _was_ something!”
“Incredible! I had her on my lap!”
“Why, darling, when he leaned over me I thought I’d faint!”
Gloria came out on Paul’s arm. I stuck out my hand to him expecting
to exchange congratulations. They brushed by me with little nods like
I was the doorman. I almost clobbered the sob right there and then.
If I had I would have been better off. At least I would have made the
morning editions.
As it happened, our little bomb exploded the headlines, all right, but
whose picture and whose name got the credit?
A dozen columnists ran interviews under Paul’s quotes. They were his
usual stuffy, reserved line of guff. So reserved that he forgot to
mention me.
Then it came to big stupid me. He wasn’t shy at all. I had been trying
to build up the most egotistical slob in the colony. And all the time
he was slipping the knife to me so gently I never felt it.
His steel got into my guts but good that same day. When I showed up for
a scheduled victory conference after lunch he hailed me with a small,
generous smile and turned to the gathered officials. “I want you to
know, gentlemen, that I am grateful for this appointment, but I accept
only on the stipulation that you allow me to keep Jake, here, as my
assistant.”
That’s right. He had my girl. Now he had my job. And he was insisting
that I take his old job. I’ve done a little acting in my time, and I
managed to paste a big, wet smile on my face and make like the honor
was overwhelming.
It wasn’t easy to get to a guy whose success depended upon an
invention. Not only did he have a top salary--my salary--but within six
months every studio in town was paying him a licensing fee to use his
special lens. It’s hard to undermine a man with a million dollars in
the bank. I needed a break, and I finally got it.
Paul and Gloria were still inseparable. They were addicts for the
“double-takes.” They were called this because our new technique
consisted of filming our pictures twice: once from the point of view of
the heroine, through whose eyes the lady customers enjoyed the picture,
and then again through the hero’s eyes. The men never saw the hero,
just the heroine as he leaned over to kiss her, etc. Likewise, the
ladies _lived_ the part of the female lead. The two pictures, projected
simultaneously, were separated for customers of the proper sex by the
pink and blue-rimmed, polarized spectacles.
Without the restriction of having to satisfy both sexes with the same
point of view, our producers went wild with their scenarios. As Fiddler
put it, they leaned over forward on the love scenes. Another critic put
it, “Why get married?”
Everybody liked them.
Well, as I said, Paul and Gloria were two of the best customers in town
for the “horrid-torrids.” So I wasn’t too amazed to see them sit down
in front of me one night for a repeat showing of “Come With Me.” It was
dark, and I leaned forward to make sure it was them, but they didn’t
notice me. I leaned forward just in time to catch them--
--holding hands? Playing footsie or something? Sniffing heroin? No,
Hedda. _They were trading spectacles._
Transcriber’s Note:
This etext was produced from Science Fiction Adventures, December
1953 (Vol. 2, No. 1). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but
minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOUBLE TAKE ***
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