Mercury Pictures Presents

Maria recalls her final summer in Rome when her father used to accompany her to the cinema every Sunday instead of to church.

Giuseppe, Maria’s father, one of the most successful defense lawyers in Rome, falls on hard times because the fascist Special Tribunals do not allow the accused to seek defense council. He writes unsolicited appeals and hides them in his desk drawer. He spends more time with his daughter because, due to their poverty, they dismiss their domestic help, and his wife is depressed.

Father and daughter go to the cinema and see The Monster of Frankenstein. The film is in progress when blackshirts storm the cinema. They burn the film reel, and the cinemagoers flee. That night, Maria fears that blackshirts will come for her father next, so she gathers his papers and burns them on the street. Neighborhood informants call the police before she finishes and arrest her father. The sham courts send Guiseppe to the Calabrian internment colony in San Lorenzo.

Annunziata, Maria’s mother, arranges for herself and her daughter to emigrate to Los Angeles. They travel to Calabria, Annunziata’s birthplace, to say goodbye to Giuseppe. Annunziata recalls the 1908 earthquake and tsunami that killed her mother and made her leave Sicily. Giuseppe boards with a lady named Mrs. Picone in exchange for tutoring her son, Nino. The Picones run a photography studio, which takes passport photos for immigrants. Nino shows Maria an album of passport photos that have been torn in half and reassembled. He explains that immigrants take half of these extra prints with them and send them back when they safely arrive. He takes a photo of Maria.

As Annunziata and Giuseppe say their goodbyes, it becomes apparent that they both know about their daughter’s role in his arrest but feign ignorance to protect her feelings.

Annunziata fills a suitcase with earth from the family burial plot she purchased in Rome. She resolves to take it to America with her.

Maria and Annunziata live in a Los Angeles bungalow with Annunziata’s aunts, Mimi, Lala, and Pep Morabito. Mimi becomes romantically involved with an undertaker, Ciccio Scopelliti. As well as funerals, Ciccio sells a selection of thoroughly ineffective and often rather dangerous medicines. He hires Maria as his secretary and sets her to work answering his calls in a public phone booth in the Eastern Columbia building.

Maria and Annunziata feel increasingly estranged from one another as Maria easily settles into the life from which her mother feels alienated. Annunziata spends time in the departures hall of La Grande Station, where she fantasizes about leaving everything behind, as she did in the wake of the earthquake. She always carries her suitcase full of earth with her. One day, Maria sees her there and is baffled. That evening, she tries to confess her role in her father’s arrest, but her mother refuses to listen. She instead recounts how followers of the Germanic king Alaric successfully concealed the location of the looted treasure of Rome by killing all the gravediggers. Her story implies that Maria, instead, “left survivors” who can tell of her actions (46).

Maria becomes a regular at Lincoln Heights cinema. She reflects that the cinema is a kind of classroom for its immigrant patrons, who watch films to gain an idea of the customs of their new home. Rewatching Frankenstein, Maria compares the immigrants who watch America on film to the monster who looks in through the lighted window of the cabin and observes the behavior of the family with the hope that they might love and accept him.

Maria’s aunts plot her marriage and pick out acceptable Italian suitors. Maria decides to escape and, after Ciccio has helped her embellish her curriculum vitae, goes to a job interview with Art Feldman.

Artie explains that the role requires her to perform secretarial work and translate films for the Italian language versions. In addition, as she is a Catholic, he asks for advice in handling Joe Breen. She initially reminds him that she just wants the typist position, but then she sees his disappointment and advises him to write scripts that are as shocking as possible so that Breen expects the worst from him. She figures that Breen will overlook more minor transgressions. Artie is impressed. He sees that she works for Ciccio, whose remedies Artie purchased with disastrous consequences. He hires her immediately. Maria remembers the ancient temple to Mercury, the god of passage, on the Aventine Hill where she grew up in Rome. She leaves a coin as an offering on the sidewalk near the studios.

Maria steals away from the reception after Mimi’s wedding to Ciccio. When Annunziata sees that Maria is missing, she hurries home after her. Mother and daughter share a drink of bourbon, which Annunziata keeps hidden in her shed, and Maria tries and fails to better understand her mother. Annunziata empties the earth out of her suitcase onto her vegetable patch and gives the bag to her daughter to pack her things in. Maria tells her mother that she has done a good job, and Annunziata retorts that Maria is “full of shit” (60).

Maria takes her mother and aunts to Italian-language screenings of Mercury films in the projection room of the studios every Sunday. She reflects that the America represented in these films, where Italian immigrants play lawyers, doctors, and detectives in leading roles, without any barriers of prejudice, culture, or language, is the only place where she feels she truly belongs. The production of these Italian-language versions ceases abruptly when Mussolini bans imported American films.

Maria receives a letter from her father that says, “I’ll see you soon” (61). The letter is his last.

Artie drives to Beverly Hills to meet his twin brother, Ned, for a business lunch. They meet at Romanoff’s restaurant, which is run by “Prince Michael,” who fraudulently claims to be a relative of the deposed Russian royal family. Artie reflects that even though everybody knows Michael is a fraud, he is treated and respected as if his outrageous claims were true. This is typical in Beverly Hills. He observes that immigrants in Hollywood falsify their identity in one way or another and that perhaps they respect Michael even more because he concocted a blatant and extravagant cover. Artie also considers the mandate for “realism,” which he concludes is “over-rated” (66).

Their sister, Ada, raised the money to send the twins to America in 1901, in part to escape the rampant antisemitism in their native Silesia. The brothers first opened a cinema and then set up Mercury Studios. Their venture was initially hugely successful but fell on hard times in the late 1920s, with the Great Depression and the rise of sound films. Ned is more affluent and better preserved than his brother. He lives in New York and cultivates a genteel appearance and manner.

Ned asks about Artie’s son, Billy, who urinates into his father’s laundry hamper. Billy and Artie’s wife, Mildred, claim that he sleepwalks, but Artie doubts this explanation. Children at Billy’s school bully him due to his father’s hearings in Washington.

Ned tells Artie that both his son, who studies at Dartmouth, and his son-in-law wish to work at Mercury. This fact disappoints Ned. He reflects that he and Artie worked hard to provide opportunities for their children only to create a new generation who does not understand them and will not survive in the world in which they live.

Ned asks Artie about his recent trip. Artie recently returned from a cruise that he undertook in an attempt to save his marriage. Immigration rejected their sister Ada’s visa application. This event plunged Artie into a depression that took a toll on his relationship with his wife, Mildred. He had an affair with a young bookkeeper named Betty and invited her when he booked the cruise as “emotional support” (75). On the third evening, he made his way to Betty’s cabin, dressed in a suit and the top hat that Marlene Dietrich wore in Morocco, only to find Betty in bed with another man. The man introduced himself as Ralph Ludlow, Betty’s husband. Ralph covered his arousal with Artie’s top hat while they conversed. Artie tells Ned none of this and simply comments that “Acapulco is lovely this time of year” (77).

Ernst Rosner, head of accounting at Eastern National, joins them. He offers them a credit line if they give up roughly half of their stocks in the company and if Ned relocates to LA. Ned and Ernst encourage Artie to take the deal. Ned blames the upcoming hearing for the company’s woes. He says that he knows Artie is in debt and that he is in a poor physical and emotional state. Art admits that he has been trying to send money to Ada. Artie agrees to the deal but states that if he is successful in circumventing the censors, he must be given free rein with Devil’s Bargain. The narrative looks forward to Artie’s perspective one year later as he reflects that he could not have known the momentous effects that the bargain would have and that, even at this point, Ned was already “playing the longer game” (85).

Artie gives Ned the top hat, which he gift-wrapped as a belated birthday present. He says, “You’ll never guess who’s worn it” (85).

Maria’s secretary, Vedette, hears rumors that the twins plan to sell the studio. Maria denies the rumor and asks her to book a place for her on Artie’s flight to Washington. A man named Vincent Cortese arrives to see Maria. She immediately notices that he resembles Nino Picone.