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THE SIGN OF THE BOSS 151 "It's a very great picture/' he said. If lie had stopped then, all might have been well. His next comment drained the blood from every person in the room, with the possible exception of DeMille. "But there is one thing, Mr. DeMille. I don't like the ending. I think it's all wrong. It makes a fool out of the villain.* DeMille nodded, without expression. The newcomer continued. "There's Gary Cooper with his gun drawn, pointed at the villain's back. Now the villain is a pretty shrewd guy. He's a powerful villain all through the picture, but what he does next makes him look like a fool, maybe even an idiot. He tries to grab his gun out of the holster on the horse saddle, swing around and try to shoot down a man who's already got the draw on him. It doesn't make sense." The awful truth was that it didn't make sense. Why it had not been detected in the script or before shooting will remain a mystery. Gary Cooper had gone away, his contract finished; the crew was dispersed, the sets dismantled—it was too late now to make a point of the ending— There was not a sound when the new man finished. Mr. DeMille continued to pace to and fro, his eyes cast to the floor. Then he turned and glared at the writers. "If what this man says is true we might just as well throw this picture into the ashcan." The writers promptly disagreed with the newcomer's esti- mate. Reason after reason poured forth in the next half-hour, in a do-or-die effort to overturn his logic and justify the villain's last desperate act. The scene was not reshot. It was, however, tightened by the removal of a number of frames from the footage in order to speed up the villain's movements as he reached for his gun. It had been a terrifying experience, a monumental disregard for one of the bungalow's most sacred rules—Don'* try to out-