The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen Read Online Free PDF Page B

smoke and flame. . . .
    It went on and on and on, everything you never wanted to know. Peccadilloes, idiosyncrasies; in other words, crap.
    Then Denise told me a story about the man who hanged himself during filming—and she claimed the final print showed the incident.
    “What? You’re kidding me. I’ve never seen a dead guy.”
    Denise licked her lips, imitating a poorly belled cat. “Not everybody does. It’s like those 3-D pictures where you cross your eyes.”
    “Prove it.”
    Denise paused the video. On screen, Dorothy and the Scarecrow were in the midst of tricking the trees into giving up their apples, frozen seconds before stumbling across the Tin Man.
    “It’s at the end of this section. I’ll run it through once at regular speed. Let me know if you catch it.”
    She hit PLAY. Dorothy and the Scarecrow freed the Tin Man, did a little song-and-dance, fought off the Wicked Witch, and continued their trek. I didn’t see anything strange and shrugged when Denise paused it.
    “Nothing, right?” She rewound the tape to a point immediately after the witch disappeared in a cloud of red-orange smoke (this time minus the hungry flames), then advanced the video frame by frame.
    Our date had progressed from strange to surreal, and I couldn’t wait for an excuse to leave.
    Then I saw him —the hanged man.
    Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Man skipped down the road. Before the scene cut away to the Cowardly Lion’s forest, the jerky movement of the advancing frames highlighted activity inside the forest edge.
    A half-shadowed figure moved in the crook of a tree about ten feet off the ground. I thought it might be one of the many birds spread throughout the clearing and around the cabin, but its shape looked too much like a man. The next frame showed him jumping from his perch. His legs were stiff, as if bound. Or maybe determination wouldn’t let him go all loose and disjointed at this defining moment. Before his feet touched the ground, they wrenched to the right. Whatever held him to the upper branches swung his ill-lit body back into the shadows. I think I heard his neck snap, although with the tape playing at this speed there wasn’t any sound. Even at regular speed I knew the only sound would come from the three actors, voicing in song their desire to see the Wizard.
    My heart raced and for a minute I worried that its syncopated thrum might attract the Tin Man, prompting him to step into the apartment and take it for his own.
    “I can’t believe it,” I said. “It’s a snuff film.”
    “Awesome, isn’t it?” Denise restarted the film. I couldn’t picture her smile as kind; it seemed too satisfied. “I stay awake some nights,” she said, “letting my mind experience what it was like. The studio buried the whole thing. Can you imagine the bad press? I even think Garland started drinking because of it.”
    On the television screen, Bert Lahr made his appearance. His growls matched the rough nature of Denise’s monologue. As the film continued I offered small talk, made Denise vague promises that I would see her in the morning, and left as the credits rolled.
    “I feel as if I’ve known you all the time, but I couldn’t have, could I?”
    “I don’t see how. You weren’t around when I was stuffed and sewn together, were you?”
    “And I was standing over there rusting for the longest time. . . .”
    I knew I was asleep, sprawled on my couch. The past five days had stretched me to the limit. I always had a headache. Aspirin and whiskey didn’t kill the pain. My conversations with Denise were forced; she mentioned the movie at every opportunity.
    We’d had a second date. I agreed because Denise invited two friends from her work. Stan and Lora were smokers, rail-thin and shrouded in a pall of smoke. I think Denise brought them along (one) so she could look good in contrast and (two) so she had some place to hide if things went sour. We hit a club and during a busy night on the dance floor I