It turns out that the young man is really an actor working in a weekly television series. He makes a great deal of money, and he’s very efficient at what he does, which is portraying the owner of a small nightclub in Santa Monica. The weekly series was gone into in great detail because it expressed the contemporary confusion between illusion and reality. As the owner of this nightclub, the hero becomes involved in the lives of everyone who comes into the place, usually helping them to resolve their problems before the hour is over. The irony, of course, is that the man playing the hero of the series is incapable of solving his own real-life problems, whereas he is portraying a level-headed, sensible person in the film within the film.
The television series, too, provides the opportunity for some sex stuff, because naturally there’s a chorus line and some strange, disreputable LSD and surfing types, all part of the film within the film, which shows the actor at work as the hero in some very exciting footage in the dressing room of one of the dancers. Then the director calls “Cut,” and we’re left with the impression that this love-making with the girl was all make-believe. In fact, the actor’s life in that studio out in the Valley someplace is all make-believe, and we begin to wonder where the reality lies, it was very interesting.
In order to make contact in this impersonal world where his days are full of phony fistfights and love scenes with the director calling “Cut,” the actor belongs to a legitimate theater group at night, and he goes there to try acting seriously. But even there (in his real life now and not in the weekly television phony life) he finds himself surrounded by people who are more interested in the plays they’re doing than their own very real and personal problems. Also, in addition to the hero’s fake television work and his even phonier nighttime acting, he’s involved in some very suspicious comings and goings to San Diego and the naval base there — in short, he’s a spy. This was not as far out as it sounds because the spying was made to seem like an extension of this man’s estrangement, spying being a job without a product, a detached sort of work in which even the old slogans like patriotism and freedom become lost in all the double-crossing done by both sides, boy what a picture.
Then, at rehearsal of the theater group one night, after the hero has taken detailed pictures of a nuclear submarine in San Diego, something happens that causes him to reconsider his entire way of life.
He finds a baby in his T-bird.
He goes inside to where everyone is rehearsing a scene from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and he asks if anyone left a baby in his car. Nobody seems to know anything about the baby, and besides they’re more interested in exploring the intense reality of Martha and George. So he goes out to the car again and, instead of calling the police (on the ferry ride home, we tried to figure out why he didn’t call the police — probably because he was a spy), he takes the baby home with him. This is the first time there’s been anything real in his life, you see, an innocent baby, who incidentally symbolizes hope for the new generation.
Well, to make a long story short, he doesn’t know anything about child care, and when the baby gets sick one night, he fails to call the doctor in time because he’s making out with two Chinese starlets in the bedroom upstairs, and the baby dies, which symbolizes the death of all hope for even the new generation, pretty grim. I know it sounds rather confusing in synopsis, but it was really crystal clear when you watched it.
The end of the film was a masterpiece. Even the New York critics said it wrapped up the entire story and gave added meaning and dimension to everything that had preceded it. You have to remember that the film was about illusion and reality and alienation, and you have to remember that everything in this man’s life was false, except the spying. The spying was illusory and unreal, yes, but it was not false. That is to say, he was really taking pictures of submarines, and he was really passing these pictures on to the enemy, and he was really receiving money for this undercover activity, even though the money was nowhere near what he earned as a television actor. There was a sense throughout, right up to the end, of a basic truthfulness to this dirty work: however filthy and horrible and double-crossing it may have been, it was at least down to earth and honest. And then came the zinger, wow, it zipped in there like a lightning bolt, it actually sent chills up my spine. This man — now hold onto your hats — this man didn’t even know he was a spy! That’s right! He’d been brainwashed to believe his cover occupation, and he didn’t have the faintest inkling that he was passing secrets to the enemy! Why, if you had tortured him and hung him by his thumbs he would not have been able to tell you he was a spy, because all he knew was that he was a television actor. So the point was triumphantly made that even in this very dirty business of spying, there was no involvement. In short, there was no involvement anywhere. That was the end of the picture, and it was a very exciting picture. Sandy let us feel her up all the way through it.
It started during the scene at the movie studio out in the Valley, where the actor who is a spy is portraying the nightclub owner and is in the dancer’s dressing room, where she is wearing only a robe. Sandy was sitting between us, her right hand in David’s, her left hand in mine. She suddenly gave a slight startled gasp and tightened her hand on mine. I thought she was responding to what was happening on the screen, because the actor portraying the nightclub owner was at that moment lowering the dancer’s robe to her waist, her back to the audience, of course. I squeezed Sandy’s hand and glanced at her and saw that she had turned to whisper something to David, who now shook his head. Sandy giggled. I looked back at the screen and was startled to discover that the actress playing the dancer had turned to face the camera with her breasts fully exposed. I wondered for a moment why an actress would allow this, and then I remembered that Sandy had done exactly the same thing for me in the forest, and then, suddenly, she squeezed my hand again and brought it swiftly to her breast.
On the screen, the actor and the dancer were kissing, he was brushing her hair away from her ear, his hand came up to fondle her breast, the camera showed him caressing her. Sandy clasped her hands in her lap, sitting very still, watching the screen, the dancer’s lips parting, filling the screen now, the actor’s mouth joining hers, and it was then that I realized David’s hand was under her sweater. I dropped my own hand to her waist, remembering she had not allowed me to do this to her when we were alone together in the forest, found the bottom edge of her sweater, and eased my hand under it and up over her ribs to her bra. On the screen, the director yelled “Cut!” to illustrate the alienation. Sandy crossed her legs, and I looked down at the short skirt and wanted to put my hand on her thigh, but was afraid to. I glanced sidewards at David, hoping he would do it first. The actor walked off the set and took a Coke handed to him by one of the grips or somebody, and then went straight off the sound stage and out onto the studio lot where the sunshine was bright and cowboy extras smoked against the sides of buildings painted gray. A tall blond girl carrying a clipboard came out of one of the studio cottages and smiled at the actor, who waved at her as he got into his red T-bird. He looked up at the sky, a white California sky, squinting, and then revved the engine. Sandy uncrossed her legs, and leaned toward David, and then leaned back toward me. She did not look at either of us. Her eyes were on the motion picture screen.