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Isaac Bell was raising a glass of champagne to the resounding success of the premiere of Marion’s new film, the screwball comedy Listen Here, New York, when he overheard a critic dictating his review from a coin telephone in the lobby:
“Marion Bell’s Listen Here, New York, is a lulu about speakeasies, chorus girls, and gangsters. But while the first electrically recorded sound-on-film high-fidelity talking picture vastly improves The Jazz Singer with actual audible talk, a viewer still observes that the director ordered James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson to park themselves under a microphone before they delivered their snappy lines.”
Isaac Bell put down his glass.
Marion laid a restraining hand on his arm. “Isaac, where are you going?”
“I’m going to punch that man in the nose.”
“Instead of punching a critic in the nose, which might influence reviews of my next movie, let’s toast Clyde, whose plans made my picture possible — even though Talking Pictures was always more complicated than Clyde hoped it would be.”
Marion defused Bell with a smile and a moment later the critic redeemed himself, saying, “Everyone agrees the talking pictures system will improve quickly, which in this critic’s opinion cannot happen soon enough, at least when it comes to showing the bright, witty direction by Marion Bell. One hopes the studio will team her up again with Irene Vox, the Shanghai-based silent-film scenarist. Mrs. Bell’s direction made possible what this critic predicts will be the rarely successful leap from ‘silent’ to ‘talkie.’”
Bell was watching Vox across the lobby. The blond screenwriter was swathed in sable, dripping in jewels, and equipped with a dashing silver-haired escort. The rumors Bell had gathered so far claimed he was her cousin or her husband and either fabulously wealthy or a penniless refugee. To Bell’s chief investigator’s eye, he looked like a fellow who had spent time in jail. He said, “I now know who that woman reminds me of.”
“Who?”
“She wasn’t a blonde back then.”
“Who?’ asked Marion. She had never met her writer until tonight, having communicated with the famously reticent scenarist by mail, cable, and telephone.
Bell said, “I offered her a ride to their hotel. Take a good look at her in the car. Then you tell me.”
Vox and her escort were staying at the Plaza. Bell and Marion had come in their J-198 torpedo-body Duesenberg, which sat only two, so he telephoned the garage to send the J-140 town car instead. Bell drove, with the silver-haired gent seated in front beside him, and learned nothing, as the man spoke no English.
“Well?” he asked Marion as they pulled away from the Plaza. “I saw you talking quite intimately in the mirror. What did she say?”
“We had a lot to discuss, having made an entire picture without ever meeting.”
“What did she say?”
Marion laid her hand on his as he shifted gears. “She said that it’s a custom in Shanghai for a woman writer to kiss a woman director’s handsome husband firmly on the lips.”
“What did you say?”
“I said we were not in Shanghai.”
