Chapter 25 reconstructs Ilf and Petrov’s brief turn as Hollywood screenwriters. At the suggestion of the director Lewis Milestone (born Leib Milstein in the Russian empire), the pair spent nine days before Christmas 1935 holed up in their hotel writing a treatment of The Twelve Chairs – a story they did not tell in their travelogue. Still, the published work suggested bridges across the vast cultural divide. Extravagantly criticizing Hollywood films as mindless, Ilf and Petrov noted that they found many movie people who shared their perspective. Their unpublished accounts and evidence from the American side bring the central paradox of Ilf and Petrov’s Hollywood venture into sharper focus: Their brief and publicly unacknowledged work in Hollywood solidified both their disdain and their respect for the American dream factory.