Two-other studios were rushing out films with world government themes, and Harry Von Brann was no man to trail anybody. Thus, weekends were abandoned for the entire summer by everybody with what Von Brann now called “a civilized employment contract,” and even the Fourth of July was no official holiday for Hy Bernstein, Dick Morosky, or himself. Instead of “in the cans by October and on Broadway by Christmas,” the new schedule called for “sneaks by Labor Day, and goddam it Broadway right after that.” The news of the early release date reached Gregory Johns and his family a few days after their arrival at the H Bar C Ranch, the official name for the large, untidy, prosperous Chisholm place, and, immediately, Gregory’s inner seismograph began again to register his old tremulous fear about the movie. Hy’s last letter had said nothing of this speedup, but that was back in June, and it would have been in character for Hy not to mention it even if he had known it at that time.
