“It wasn’t the music that was the problem, it was the dialogue. Ewers wanted the film dubbed. It would be post-synchronized.”
“Like in Italy? Fellini sometimes didn’t write dialogue until a scene had been shot,” Montserrat said. “Was it an artistic statement? Or was he hoping to sell this to a foreign market and dub into another language?”
“No, it was driven by Ewers’s ideas about magic systems, some bits from Crowley, some bits from God knows where. He thought when the image and sound are shot separately and then brought together, it’s like closing a circuit.”
“Then when you say he stole knowledge…he stole Crowley’s ideas and spliced them with his own?”
“Yes, Crowley. I believe Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty inspired Ewers, too,” Urueta said, looking thoughtful. “Artaud thought theater was the only medium that could create a ‘communion’ with the audience that was akin to a ‘magic exorcism.’ Artaud went to Mexico, by the way. He lived with the Tarahumara, consumed peyote, and participated in a shamanic ritual. Ewers obviously found Artaud’s ideas delicious, but he loved film, not theater.”
“And those two things you mentioned…the Vril…”
“The Vril Society,” Abel said. “An occultist society based on the ideas of a British writer called Edward Bulwer-Lytton. They thought there was a life force called vril, which, when controlled, could grant someone immense power. Of course, they also thought it was ancient Aryans who harnessed these powers. Ewers said he fraternized with them. There seemed to be a very active occultist scene in Munich when he lived there.”
It sounded like something out of The Devil Rides Out or another Hammer film, but rather than feeling put off Montserrat was intrigued. The post-synchronization, the silver nitrate film stock, they both contributed to make this more charming than macabre, although she appreciated the disturbing vein of darkness to the whole tale. Abel seemed to relish telling the story, too: he was a kid narrating ghost stories late at night. Tristán seemed less impressed. Ghouls and monsters were not his favorite dish. He watched them for Montserrat’s sake, stood in line for Freddy Krueger and Pinhead because she wanted to attend the late show.
“He sounds like a weirdo. A maybe-I-was-a-Nazi-weirdo, to boot,” Tristán said, his voice languid as he nursed his glass and threw his head back. “It’s hard to imagine anyone taking him seriously.”
“There once was a lovely lady called Marjorie Cameron. She became popular among certain socialites and the avant-garde set in 1950s California. She even obtained a couple of bit parts in movies. What is less known is that Marjorie was the wife of Jack Parsons, an occultist and rocket engineer.”
“That’s a résumé,” Tristán said.
“Well, yes, and Marjorie’s résumé was equally interesting. Marjorie was the founder of a group called The Children, which practiced sex magic rituals hoping to create a third race of ‘Moonchildren.’？”
“It’s starting to sound like eugenics,” Tristán said, cringing.
“Of a more benign nature, I suppose. Marjorie believed it was the mixing of different races that would create these special children.”
“It still sounds awful. So, what you’re saying is there were a lot of nutjobs hanging around thirty years ago,” Tristán concluded as he lit his cigarette.
Montserrat gave him an irritated look. She didn’t want Abel to stop talking about this, and Tristán had that mildly hostile tone he bandied around when he was growing bored.
“I know it sounds silly now, but people like Marjorie or Ewers could easily find their place among a certain social set.”
“So could Charles Manson,” Tristán said dryly.
Urueta opened his mouth to protest, but Montserrat spoke before he could. “Who was Ewers’s patron?” she asked.
Urueta again looked uncomfortable. The glass he had been idly toying with was placed aside. He looked at her as if trying to figure out what her line of thought was.
“It was Alma Montero. You wouldn’t know her, but she used to be—”
“A silent film star,” Montserrat said immediately.
“I should have guessed you would know after all,” Urueta said.
Montero had made the jump to Hollywood, along with Gilbert Roland and Ramón Novarro, but couldn’t cut it in talkies. Neither could Norma Talmadge or John Gilbert. For every Joan Crawford there was a Vilma Banky, whose career was snuffed out with the advent of microphones. Accents, squeaky voices, stiff performances spelled doom for dozens of performers.
“Alma Montero was bankrolling a German occultist,” Montserrat said. She couldn’t suppress a snort. It was like hearing that María Félix regularly attended Ouija board séances with Zabludovsky. Oh, it was better than the plot of any Hammer film she knew.
“I’ve told enough stories for a day and have errands to run,” Urueta said, standing up quickly. There must have been something about Montero that bothered the old man. He’d been chatty as hell so far.
“You’re kicking us out so soon?” Tristán asked. “What are we supposed to do with our evening now?”
“Would you mind if I came back with a tape recorder and asked you a bit more about Ewers? I’m thinking of doing a piece on Beyond the Yellow Door,” she said quickly, perhaps too eagerly. Abel, who had been about to reply to Tristán, likely with a joke, froze and looked at her with suspicion.
“A piece?” Urueta asked. “What kind of piece?”
“Montserrat has contacts at Enigma. They do a weekly show. It has a lot of viewers. It could be good for you,” Tristán said, dropping his cigarette in an ashtray. “It would be very classy.”
It wasn’t the way Montserrat had hoped to introduce the topic, and she wanted to slap Tristán on the back of the head.
Urueta shook his head firmly. “I know what show you mean, and there’s nothing classy about it.”
“If we could talk it over a little,” Montserrat said. “If we could work out an angle.”
“Not now,” Urueta said.
Quickly, stiffly, Urueta bid them goodbye, and Montserrat and Tristán ended up standing in the hallway, looking at each other.
“Why did you have to mention Enigma?” she asked, stomping toward the stairs.
Tristán shrugged and raised his hands helplessly in the air. “How was I supposed to know he’d take it so badly? He was willing to tell us Ewers’s life story until that.”
“And until he mentioned Montero.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning there’s more to that there. We’ll have to find what. I need to pay a visit to the Cineteca.”
“Does this mean Cornelia got you a job at Enigma or what?”
“Nothing solid. Freelance assignment, if that. But Ewers is what I pitched her, so that’s what I should be working on. I have to do more research.”
Tristán patted his clothes looking for his keys. “Do you need to do research? I thought these were the kind of folks that broadcast stories about how Pedro Infante is alive and living in Mazatlán because he was horribly disfigured à la Phantom of the Opera after his plane crashed.”