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its whimsical, yet powerful premise: a once-promising, cultivated scholar, now a widower with two small children, lives and works as a night watchman in a forgotten precinct in lower Manhattan. Gerrymandering has reduced the voting population of this precinct to one and that one is the night watchman, Gregory Vance. In a hotly fought mayoralty election, the outcome depends upon this particular precinct and thus on this man. Life has kickedhim into obscurity, but he is all at once being wooed by both parties and is elevated to momentary greatness but then—a surprise ending.
    One way to judge a script is to see if it comes to life as one reads. A script, after all, is not a play, nor is it a film, which, in time, will take place on the stage or a screen, or, more accurately, in the collective mind of the audience.
    As I read The Great Man Votes , shots came into focus, sights and sounds, and shortly, visualizations of the various characters. To my eye, Gregory Vance was John Barrymore and John Barrymore was Gregory Vance. It was a piece of casting so obvious and yet so inspired that there was no second choice.
    Taking Berman at his word, I went to him with the suggestion that he let me make The Great Man Votes . Of course, he refused, attempting to warn me off the subject, but I reminded him of his promise, and after a time he agreed, saying, “Okay. If—and it’s a big ‘if’—if you can cast it.”
    “It’s all cast,” I said.
    “Go ahead.”
    “John Barrymore.”
    “Nothing doing,” said Pan, in a way that made me fear it was final.
    “Why not?” I asked.
    “We don’t want him here.”
    “You don’t want him here,” I repeated. “The greatest actor in America?”
    “Was.”
    “Could be again. In this part.”
    “He’s not going to work on this lot,” said Pan. “He’s unreliable and irresponsible and impossible.”
    “That’s all changed.”
    “What makes you think so?”
    “That’s all over, Pan. This new marriage of his. He’s all settled down. He wants to work. Let me do it, Pan. Trust me.”
    “I couldn’t let you take the chance, kid. You’d be sticking your neck out. You might start it but you’d never finish it. Not with him.”
    “I would, Pan. I’ll take the responsibility.”
    “ You’ll take the responsibility! Who the hell are you to take the responsibility? This picture could cost three, four hundred thousand dollars!” (A sizeable budget for those days.) “What if it goes down the drain? Will you send me your check for the amount?”
    “I’ll send you my check,” I said, deflated and miserable. “Just don’t try to cash it.”
    I had lost Round One.
    I conferred with Cliff Reid and John Twist, who were on my side. I talked to Barrymore’s agent who seemed eager yet hesitant. I tried to gain support from the production department but got nowhere.
    Another shot at Pandro Berman. He listened to my marshaled arguments courteously, then said, “Listen. The last time we let that bastard on the lot—we didn’t want him then but this big director from New York had come out, Worthington Miner, and he had the same bee in his bonnet you’ve got. Naturally, being from the theatre he would have. Barrymore in the theatre. Nobody ever greater. I know that. But we’d had bad experiences with Barrymore around here.”
    “Good ones, too,” I said. “He was great in A Bill of Divorcement —and what about Topaz ? And Long Lost Father ? All terrific and all right here at RKO.”
    “Let me finish about Worthington Miner,” said Berman, impatiently. “What was the name of the picture? Oh, yeah. Hat, Coat, and Glove . That was the name of it, I remember. I wish I could forget it. So Miner insisted on Barrymore, just like you, and when I tried to warn him, he kept giving me the same kind of malarkey you’re giving me. ‘Leave him to me,’ he kept saying. ‘I can handle him.’ So one thing and another we got talked into it. And they started shooting. And he was handling