(2 of 2)
It was night when we got to the villa.
Tito led me to the dining room and seated me on his right. He helped himself to some pale pinkish wine, which he mixed with soda. "Not strong," he said, and recommended that I drink a potent-looking dark wine instead. We had noodles for our first course, and as we ate, Tito told stories. Once in the Soviet Union, he recalled, the Russians had given him a horse that nobody had ridden. With gestures, he described his mad ride, whipping through a forest, ducking branches that ripped his clothes, but never letting go until the horse was exhausted. Fascinated, the guests stopped eating and General Zezelj kept muttering, "Bogati, bogati" ("O God, O God").
Dictation & Dictators. The second course came up—steaks for all except Tito, who ate stew. "I can write well here," he mused. "I used to write a lot too in Siberia." I asked him if he wrote in longhand. Tito nodded. "You ought to try a dictating machine," I suggested. "You fasten a microphone to your shirt. You can then pace the room, and when you think of those wonderful sentences you simply say them aloud." Tito changed the subject. But later his doctor grabbed me when we were alone. "What is it called, this new machine you fasten to your shirt?" he asked. "The Marshal wants one."
As dinner progressed to Turkish coffee and pears, the conversation switched to the movies. "American film industry is very fine," Tito remarked, "but sometimes we find the films a little foolish." I asked him about his favorite films and he beamed: "Cowboy films and Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy." I asked him if he liked Charlie Chaplin. "Modern Times," said Tito, imitating the scene where Chaplin goes berserk and runs around twitching two wrenches. "He has made several since that one," I said. "In one he imitates Hitler." "You mean The Great Dictator?" inquired Tito blandly.
We moved to the adjoining room to see a 16-mm. American film with German subtitles, called Yours Forever—an export version of Mrs. Parkington. It dealt with millionaires who had squandered their own lives and their ancestor's hard-earned money. The opening shot showed children singing carols in front of a mansion. A blase woman dripping in furs brushes half of them off and asks the butler to sweep the rest away. Then she pours herself a large shot of liquor. Tito nudged me. "Whisky!" he said.
Greer Garson appeared, looking 80, but luckily we soon had a flashback to her youth and she quite literally made Tito sit up.
In the same flashback, Walter Pidgeon careened down a street with horse & buggy This caused Tito to say hopefully, "Cowboys!" But we saw no more horses, and Tito slumped back, disappointed.
As the film ended, Greer had decided to sacrifice her worthless relatives to justice. She explained that this would have been her late empire-building husband's decision. "He wanted power because he knew how to use it," she said. Tito sat up straight again.