The house in Beverly Hills was a perfect specimen of suburban blandness, which made it the ideal set for The Graduate.
Connor "Duke" Hauser stood just inside the doorway, his mahogany cane a stark contrast to the plush, beige carpet.
The air was thick with the scent of sawdust, fresh paint, and the low-voltage hum of creative tension. He weirdly felt like an anomaly here on set, the novelist-producer, a silent observer in a world of controlled chaos.
He took a deep breath before entering, he was dressed with a white shirt, black jeans and a casual jacket.
He saw Mike Nichols across the living room, huddled with his cinematographer. A few feet away, a man in an italian suit, a studio executive named Paul Meyers was waving a copy of the day's shot list like a menu from a restaurant.
"Mike, I'm just saying, the dailies from the party scene will be… disorienting," Meyers said, his voice a nasal whine. "That shot where the camera gets right in Hoffman's face, cornering him against the wall? It's too weird. The audience will get seasick. We need a cleaner, wider master shot. Let people see the party and the beautiful house."
Nichols pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Paul, the point is that he can't see the party. He's drowning in it. The camera isn't observing; it's showing his discomfort."
"It's experimental," Meyers countered, spitting the word out like it gave him a bad taste. "And experiments are for film school, not for a studio picture. Specially a small studio backing a script like yours."
Duke moved then, his cane making a soft, deliberate tap on the floor. The sound cut through the argument. Both men turned.
"Paul," Duke said, his voice calm, his voice cutting the surface chatter on set. "A question. Do you trust Nichols?"
Meyers blinked. "Of course I trust him. But i also trust the audience to buy tickets, not trust them to understand a camera what is basically a nervous breakdown."
"It's not a breakdown. It's a perspective," Duke said, not taking his eyes off the executive.
"You hired Mike because he sees things differently. You're paying for that vision. My company invested in it. The shot stays." He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The simple, declarative statement, backed by the unspoken weight of his hundred-thousand-dollar investment, landed with the force of a gavel.
Meyers opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked from Duke's impassive face to Nichols' defiant one. Muttering something about budget overages, he turned and walked away.
Nichols let out a long breath. "I was about to tell him to go fuck himself."
"You don't have to," Duke replied, his gaze scanning the set, ensuring the disruption was over. "That's what I'm here for."
He felt the crew's eyes on him, their assessment shifting from curiosity to a newfound respect to this unknown Producer. He wasn't the banker. He was the shield for Mike.
---
Back in his Hollywood Hills home, the silence was a precious commodity, constantly under siege by the ringing telephone. Jaws was still perched at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, a leviathan refusing to be dislodged.
The buzz for Cujo was building to a fever pitch, fueled by the controversial decision Duke had finally made of letting the boy live.
The decision would help keep the book in the mainstream, not relegated to the niche of unbearable tragedy. It was a chess decision, sacrificing a small piece of ground to win the wider war for the public's attention.
The success was a double-edged sword. The calls now were not from hungry young directors like Carpenter or De Palma, but from established names with bloated projects.
A famous director of musicals pitched a historical epic he was utterly wrong for. A legendary producer, his best years behind him, called about a bloated spy thriller.
Duke listened politely to each, his mind calculating. He had no money to spare—the Graduate investment had been a massive outlay, and the royalties, while substantial, were being carefully preserved.
More than that, these projects didn't fit. Saying 'no' was a new muscle he had to flex, and with each refusal, the identity of Ithaca Productions sharpened.
He wanted to create a mark of curated quality, not a dumping ground for faded glory.
---
The most significant summons came via a power lunch at The Brown Derby. The studio head, a man named Thornton whose tan looked sprayed on, laid out the offer over steak tartare.
"The word on The Graduate is electric, Hauser. And Jaws… my God, the country is obsessed," Thornton said, leaning forward. "Let's stop playing games. We want to make the movie. We'll write the check. Full budget. No limits. But we need to move fast. We've got a director that knows action, knows boats. And we see Robert Redford as Brody. Handsome, dependable. The audience will trust him."
Duke took a sip of water, his mind a cold, clear engine.
"Redford's a movie star," Duke said. "Brody's an everyman. He's afraid of the water. The audience needs to feel his fear, not his jawline. And a director who 'knows boats' will give me an adventure film. This is a horror film."
Thornton's smile tightened. "Semantics. The point is, we're ready to go. But we need some control. You can have the cut, I get full casting approval, the works. You know the standard."
Duke placed his napkin on the table. "Then I'm afraid we're at an impasse, Mr. Thornton. Ithaca Productions will produce Jaws. I will have final script and casting approval. And we will wait for the right director one who understands that the horror isn't the shark."
"You know my studio has a distribution contract with Columbia, maybe we could colaborate in other projects first."
Duke politely spoke with Thornton for some time and even recomended him a movie by a new director named Mel Brooks to distribute.
The lunch ended with a frigid handshake. Duke walked out into the California sun, feeling the weight of the millions he had just left on the table.
That evening, the silence in his home was no longer precious; it was oppressive. He was surrounded by the artifacts of his burgeoning empire the budgets for The Graduate, the towering manuscript for Eragon but the empire was empty. He thought of the men from his platoon, their faces clear in his memory. Where were they now?
He thought of his family in Texas, their lives a distant, simple melody he could no longer hear.
The ghost of the lieutenant he had been once haunted the mogul he was trying to become. This pressure, this isolation, was a different kind of enemy. He couldn't outflank it with a business deal or stare it down with icy resolve. It just was.
---
A few weeks later, Duke was in the cool, dark womb of a private screening room. It wasn't The Graduate, but the rough cut of "Pretty Poison," a dark, off-kilter psychological thriller starring Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld.
The film, a biting critique of suburban conformity wrapped in a twisted love story, had been struggling to find its final form and a distributor.
As the final, devastatingly ironic shot of Tuesday Weld cheerfully leading a parade faded to black, the studio executives in the room shifted uncomfortably.
"It's a little… cynical," one murmured, breaking the silence.
"Perkins is playing another psycho? Typecasting. And the girl gets away with it? Audiences won't like it" said another.
The director, Noel Black, young and looking utterly drained, seemed to shrink in his seat. Nichols, who had come for moral support, watched Duke, waiting.
Duke stood up, turning to face the room, his figure cutting a silhouette against the glowing white screen.
"They're not supposed to know what to feel. They're supposed to be unsettled," he said, his voice cutting through the nervous chatter.
"The cynicism is the point. It's the truth. This isn't a comfortable story, and trying to make it one will kill it. It's brilliant precisely because it doesn't play by the rules."
He looked directly at the most vocal executive. "You have a good film here. A sharp, and perfect film. Don't try to polish it into a piece of nothingness." His voice carried the same absolute certainty he'd used on the set of The Graduate.
He wasn't protecting his investment since he had no horse in this race, but Mike had asked if he could say a few words to help Noel's film.
He could still notice the doubt in the executives eyes.
Leaving the screening room, the Los Angeles night air felt different. A courier was waiting for him, holding a flat, heavy package.
He opened it there under the streetlamp. It was the first hardcover copy of Cujo. The cover was stark, the title in brutal, blood-red letters.
He held the book in one hand, and in his mind, he held the film canister for Pretty Poison. One, a completed victory, a terrifying story sent out into the world, its ending altered by his hand.
The other, a dangerous vision defended from the forces of conventionality.
In this place stood Connor "Duke" Hauser burdened by so many executives disbelief in films. "I need to get my own way of doing distribution at least nationally."
/////////
Author: Taxes in 1967 were crazy, madness. HOLY SHMOLY