First Paragraph

The scene is the early 1930s, the place a nocturnal harbor in Hoboken, across the Hudson River from Manhattan, where a docked ship christened the Venture is ready to sail at dawn. Out of the darkness a tall, impeccably dressed man appears and asks a grizzled night watchman, "Say, is this the moving-picture ship?"

- From Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper by Mark Cotta Vaz