Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (Volume Two) (35 page)

Try to contact Richard in New York, eventually get a rather fraught line from Strathblane to the Algonquin. Shout my instructions to some American receptionist and feel very abstracted from it all until I leave my name and the receptionist quickly returns ‘As in
Ripping Yarns
… ?’ The Atlantic shrinks suddenly. But I never get to talk to Richard.

Back to the Albany. The bar is jostling with film technicians demanding of the hard-pressed barladies things like ‘Two vodka tonics, two Guinness,
two dry martinis, a soda water and take your knickers off.’ An extra day’s shooting tomorrow.

To Bradford, where we eventually find the Norfolk Gardens Hotel – part of the atrocities which replaced a lot of Bradford’s sturdy stone town centre with stained pre-stressed concrete. 110 of the 118 rooms are taken by our crew.

To bed 11.30. Walls wafer thin and I can hear every word from a TV blaring next door. Read half a page of Nabokov then drop off.

Woken at 2.30 by a call from RL to say that the New York preview went very well indeed with over 80% of the cards putting the film in the top three categories.

Sixth week of Python filming – 17th week of filming since the end of March – begins with the pips from my calculator alarm slicing gently into my semi-consciousness at 6.45 a.m. It looks wet and uninviting outside.

Drive out to the location with Simon Jones, who points out to me the theatre in Bradford where Henry Irving [the great actor] collapsed, and the Midland Hotel, in whose foyer he died shortly afterwards, neglected by the hall porter who thought him a passing drunk. Sad end.

An hour and a half’s drive into fine, rugged scenery up on Malham Moors.

Eric, Simon Jones and I wrap ourselves in blankets and wait in an upper room at the hostel. It’s an old hunting lodge, which is now a centre for school sixth forms to come for field studies. A lot of walkers tramping around downstairs. They irritate me for some reason. Maybe it’s their smug, self-satisfied preparation for all weathers.

Eric and I get into our make-up base for our Cocktail Party Ladies; outside the wind howls and the rain lashes at the windows. God knows what it must be like for Cleese, out on the moors as the Grim Reaper. Amazingly enough, in the midst of the tempest, we find that the TV set gives an excellently clear picture of a tranquil scene at Lord’s, where England are fighting to save the Second Test Match v Pakistan.

JC arrives back at midday, absolutely soaked through, but in surprisingly high spirits. He takes great heart from the fact that TJ thought
the shot they’d just done was second only to a day of seasickness in the Newhaven lifeboat as the most uncomfortable filming of his life.

Our appearance on the moor is put off well into the afternoon. I organise a subversive but, I feel, necessary, trip to the pub in Malham at lunchtime. As I buy pints of Theakston’s, I feel I have to explain to the lady at the bar why I’m in false eye-lashes and full ladies’ make-up. I tell her I’m in a film. She says apologetically, ‘Oh, I never see films, I’m afraid. If anyone comes in here hoping to be recognised I’m afraid I can’t help.’ Eric, Tania [Eric’s wife], Simon J and Graham C (with young friend) laugh a lot at this.

At a quarter to six I’m officially wrapped for the day, and England lose the Test Match by ten wickets. Back down to Malham Tarn Centre to frighten (or excite) the first batch of hearty walkers who’ve just filled the hallway after a 17-mile hike.

At Twickenham I at last see the cut of
The Missionary
which they viewed in New York last weekend. It looks very beautiful. The relationship between Maggie and myself seems to come over well and is just as much what the film is about as the comedy.

Arrive at 8.55 at Leeds/Bradford Airport after leaving Twickenham at 7.15. Eat in my room and settle down to a long phone call with Denis O’B in Fisher’s Island.

DO’B says Columbia are rapidly losing confidence in the movie, mainly because there weren’t enough ‘excellents’ on the movie cards. He says they wanted to put it off till January and release it only in a couple of cities even then. He says he has pulled them back from this, what he considers suicidal, course, and reminded them that they are legally obligated to open the picture on the 22nd of October. But they’ve reduced the print now to between 400 and 600.

At last I feel we have some genuine response from Columbia – even if it is panic. My adrenaline is already flowing and I’m ready to fight for the film – to prove to Columbia not just what a good thing they’ve got, but why it’s a good thing (because it’s
different from
, not the
same as Porky’s
and
Stripes
and
Arthur
), and to prove to Denis that I know better than he what works in a comedy film. It’s difficult to do all this from a hotel room in Bradford, but I suddenly feel determined. This next week is crucial.

I’m driven out to Skipton at 7.30. A cold wind, occasional rain.

Terry has to ask some householders with strange, lop-sided faces if he could throw mud on the walls of their house. ‘So long as you don’t come
in
side,’ they reply fiercely.

My shots are completed by midday. Buy a superb pork pie – North of England pies are a much underrated local delicacy. Am driven back to the Norfolk Gardens Hotel in Bradford, where I consume the pie with the remains of last night’s bottle of Mercurey, then turn my room overlooking the bus station into an office for the afternoon.

Ring Marvin Antonowsky at Columbia – decide to put my head in the lion’s mouth. He’s brisk but amiable. Wants to have dinner with me in London on September 5th, will test our poster alongside their own and, in response to my queries about his reactions to the film, he says whilst not being ‘ecstatic’ about the results of the viewing, they are still behind the film nationwide on October 22nd. How many prints, I ask? 300-400, says Antonowsky. Going down!

Because of poor weather this week, the ‘Tiger Skin’ scene has been postponed and we are doing the ‘Hospital’ today. Nice to see little Valerie Whittington and Judy Loe again. Valerie has all day with her legs apart as the Mother, Judy is the Nurse. I’m the Hospital Administrator. Suddenly occurs to me as I see them there that I’ve been to bed with both of them, on screen.
⁷²

A tedious day as I have a part which is not involved in the whole scene, but just important enough to keep me there all day.

I don’t finish doing very little until after six and only just get down to the Preview One viewing theatre in time for the seven o’clock
Missionary
viewing.

DO’B has been on the whole quite long-suffering on
The Missionary
– has supplied the money when it’s really come to the crunch and not interfered too much with the script. Tonight he sounds defensive and says things like ‘Even if it’s not commercial, I’m glad I’ve done it.’

Taxi home – back by midnight. Cab driven by a ‘Silly Walks’ fan. He calls it ‘Crazy Walks’. Very weary.

We attempt the ‘Jungle’ scene, so I have two parts to play – Pakenham-Walsh and the Rear End of the Tiger.

JC complains about performing against bright lights – quite rightly. It does reduce facial mobility by about fifty percent. JC mutters bitterly, and not for the first time, about pretty pictures at the expense of performances.

TG, who desperately wants to get this over with, so he can get back to his ‘Pirate/Business’ epic on Stage 4, is laboriously encased in a complete latex mould of a Zulu. Then the sun goes in, and does not reappear, except for a brief glimpse, when we try the shot. But TG, who’s been inside the costume for an hour, has sweated so much that one side of the Zulu sticks to him.

The ‘Tiger’ is eventually abandoned and instead we shoot the tracking shot of the approach through the forest. Endless takes. Constant calls over the walkie-talkie for the Test Match score.

Today is perhaps the most crucial in the whole history of
The Missionary
so far. We will have two showings of 60 people each – one a general audience, the other my friends and sternest critics. There can be no excuses. If the response tonight is half-hearted there really isn’t much we can do.

TJ and Simon are both there and I take them round to the Ship to talk about it. Both of them thought it had worked very well, but equally both felt that the reason for my journey to Scotland was not well enough explained. After a quick Pils, I’m back to Film House.

Cleese and Gilliam and Chapman have all come along. A full house. JC asks me to sit next to him and Barbara.

Good response to the painting-out of the name pre-title sequence (which DO’B would prefer to cut) and plenty of laughter from then on. Feel more comfortable with larger numbers and there are fewer embarrassing moments. Applause at the end. Close friends all seem to have enjoyed it. John Goldstone especially happy. Cleese, surprisingly, liked it a lot.

Go to eat at Bianchi’s with John and Barbara, Terry G, Helen and Ray Cooper. Over the meal JC surprisingly candid about things. He says he regards
Yellowbeard
as ‘a dreadful script’, but is doing it mainly because GC came to him ‘and actually used the word “plead”’ to try and persuade JC to come in.

JC repeats what he once told Humphrey Barclay
⁷³
about his writing relationship with GC. ‘Some days I write as much as 75%. But most days it’s 95%.’

Barbara very nice. She reckons
The Missionary
could have more success in the US than
Privates on Parade
as it’s a more general, less specifically British theme and it’s optimistic and leaves a warm feeling in the audience.

No-one, however, felt it would be a blockbuster. A nice, likeable, gentle film.

Fakenham Press Ltd, who, to my pleasure, were responsible for
Small Harry
, have been closed down by their parent company. Three hundred out of work. Very sad. Fakenham being Father’s childhood home, it seemed neat and appropriate that my first children’s book should be made there.

The joy of not having to get up and go filming soon evaporated by the awareness that the last days of
The Missionary
are running out. It must be in final form by the end of the weekend.

Spend a couple of hours this morning agonising over how to alter the narration to accommodate various people’s criticisms of plot and story confusion. Sort out the end quite satisfactorily, but it’s in the middle of the last half, where TJ – backed up by Simon Albury – was vehement about making it clear that ‘some inexplicable force’ drew Fortescue to Scotland, that I have the trouble. Cleese, normally a great hunter and destroyer of woolly plots, had no trouble following the story or understanding why he went to Scotland as he did. Lynsey de Paul
⁷⁴
went further and asked if those who couldn’t follow the plot were mentally deficient.

See from
Variety
that
Monsignor
, a film starring Chris Reeve as a priest, is opening on the same day as
Missonary
in the US. Seeing the advertising reminds me painfully of the area we haven’t yet sorted out – posters, etc. The image of
The Missionary
.

Take Willy and his friend Nicky to the Valley to see Sheffield Wednesday’s second game of the season – against Charlton. Perfect afternoon for football. Sun, not a breath of wind and the pitch verdant and springy. Wednesday have a glorious and unequivocally deserved 3-0 victory.

Usual police presence outside – motorcycles, Alsatian dogs at the ready. The ever-present tension not relieved by their presence.

Up the main road, off which our car is parked, a crowd suddenly starts to run. There are shouts, ugly faces contorted with rage, bricks and bottles thrown. The police seem to do nothing.

I see a bottle tossed at the window of a house, another hurled from a van full of supporters, which lands and smashes beside a baby in a pram at a corner shop. Quite why the cruelty and hate behind the fighting can be so easily fanned, I don’t know. And the urge to destroy and damage is strong. It’s almost entirely the work of boys from 13-18, with one or two sinister older ones stirring it up.

To Elstree at lunchtime to be Debbie yet again.

Jonathan Benson is the new first assistant and keeps us all cheered with his special Bensonian brand of dry wit, which comes out, just as does the dry ice, at the beginning of each take.

We are eventually free soon after 7.15. A quick transformation from Debbie to a freshly-scrubbed actor, then home and into a suit to become Michael Palin for the
Brimstone and Treacle
opening at the Classic, Haymarket.

Afterwards to a party given by Naim Attallah, described today in
Private Eye
as ‘The Palestinian Millionaire’. He had red shoes, that’s all I remember.

Not a bad party. Pursued Selena Scott, the lovely newsreader, and was about to introduce her to Sting as Selina Sutcliffe, realising only just in time that I was getting muddled up with the Yorkshire Ripper’s wife.

With almost indecent haste, the day has arrived when I complete my second major feature in five and a half months. People tell me I look inordinately well – I blame the sunshine of April and May – and, apart from waking up some nights in cold sweats, or not even sleeping, I have just remained sane and I think I’ve given some good work. I do feel tired, but have been carried along on the energy of elation – occasionally dented by a poor day’s work, or an average viewing. On the whole, I must say, I feel wonderful.