OUTTAKE
Electric Babylon Music Author M.M.
OUTTAKE
She always listened patiently to the stories he told, he was a great
actor once now he is eighty four years old.
Raymond used to say this world is like a bad piece of art, movies give
it a poets tongue a dreamers heart.
She came to me in her naked animal beauty with a rainstorm cupped
in the palm of her hands.
I said that in nineteen fifty two in FORTUNES FONDEST FOOL, my
greatest work my exception to the rule, and Joan Vincent she had
eyes that made you feel that line, the camera had to strain to catch
her curves a star so fine.
She married Rich Stafford and the whole world thought they were the
happiest couple since Romeo and Juliet, but we all knew he beat her
up once right on the set, he produced some of her greatest movies
though, VAMPIRES AND LOVERS HEROES DESSERT ANGEL OF WOE.
There is a scene in VAMPIRES AND LOVERS where she finds out her
husband just married her for her money, the camera angle the way
the light prints her face pure honey, so she goes to the bank writes
him out of her will there is no dialogue or music just silence and
thought this sequence can still make me weep, then she comes back
home swallows a white knuckled fist full of pills and lays down to
final sleep.
But thats not all she suddenly jumps up and becomes violently ill,
throws up everything and just sits there later her husband comes
home and says you dont look well dear how do you feel?, then the
camera starts on her feet but from an angle that implies you are
looking thur her eyes then slowly pans up her body and miraculously
flips up to shoot her face and your locked on these eyes that can see,
and then with an unreadable tilt of the lip she answers with a
breakable intensity I believe Ill be ok. Something I didnt eat agreed
with me.
Her last movie at the beginning of filming on her next picture there
was a minor incident, the actor playing her brutish husband was
supposed to slap her but he accidentally hit her and I guess
something just broke that had never bent, she ran off stage
screaming hysterically he wasnt supposed to really hit me over and
over again, the film was going to be called ADAMS REVENGE it never
got made instead they mutilated it into that huge flop THE SAINT OF
SIN.
I went and visited Joan several times but she was never the same,
even years later she would occasionally start muttering he wasnt
supposed to really hit me as if shed just remembered who to blame,
but Rich took care of her to the very end although he had his share of
women while she was put away, Im really getting tired honey could
you take me back to my room I believe Ill set the night to dreaming
up a better day.
Aug.98