Last Man Standing: Tales from Tinseltown (25 page)

Bryan Forbes green-lit
The Man Who Haunted Himself
(
ABOVE
), which I consider to be my best film (seen here with Hildegarde Neil); and directed
Sunday Lovers
(seen here with Lynn Redgrave and Priscilla Barnes). The tagline on the poster for
Sunday Lovers
was ‘NEVER has turned to ALWAYS on a Sunday’. Fun to make? Yes, I think that’s a fair assumption …

Bryan was drafted in to work on the script as, early on in his writing career, he was a contract script doctor, called in to perform emergency surgery on terminal cases. Bryan described
The Black Knight
as ‘the brainchild of half a dozen parents’.

One Saturday afternoon the producers rang him to say that they had reached an impasse. ‘We’ve run out of pages,’ they told him. ‘Could you come up with something by Monday morning?’

Bryan was young and hungry, and with the misguided confidence that often goes with these two factors, he agreed and was shown footage of what had already been shot and what needed to be bridged.

The one big problem, he discovered, was that Sue Ladd – Alan’s wife – had script approval. Sue, who had been an actress herself and was Ladd’s agent, was quite a force to be reckoned with, and every word uttered by Ladd had to first be approved by her. Bryan came up with a few pages in which Ladd dodged arrows, vaulted from the castle battlements into a cart of hay, sliced a few of the villains in two with his sword, seized a horse and galloped across the rising drawbridge just in time.

What was Mrs Ladd’s verdict?

‘Alan Ladd does not steal horses.’

She went on to explain that if he did, they would lose the Boy Scouts Association, the Daughters of the American Revolution and probably half his fan club. Everyone was dumbfounded. However, Cubby’s partner, Irving Allen said, ‘Sue, he’s not
stealing
a horse, he’s
borrowing
one.’

She was not convinced. So Bryan came up with a
solution. After Ladd had done all his vaulting and slicing he strode towards a sentry and uttered the immortal words: ‘Is this the horse I ordered?’ He then jumps onto it and gallops off. Sue agreed it! And that’s what they shot.

You quite honestly could not make these stories up! It’s almost as bad as dear Tony Curtis saying: ‘Yonder lies da castle of my foddah,’ in (reportedly)
The Black Shield of Falworth.

As much fun as that sounds, dear reader, it is a somewhat apocryphal story perpetuated by Debbie Reynolds. Tony actually delivered the line: ‘Yonder in the valley of the sun is my father’s castle’ in a film called
Son of Ali Baba
. Debbie, in a TV interview, misquoted it (and the film) and somehow the story stuck in the minds of the public.

Years later, Tony was at Hugh Hefner’s house at a party and Hef greeted him with, ‘Yonder likes da castle of my foddah’.

‘I never said that,’ Tony replied coolly.

‘Then don’t tell anybody,’ Hef said. ‘It makes a great movie story!’

Bryan was never averse to sharing his movie stories with a wider audience, and many years ago he volunteered as a prison visitor to do just that. One time, he gave a lecture of some pith and moment (or so he believed) about the film industry and then asked for questions. A hand went up immediately: ‘Is Lana Turner a good fuck?’

Bryan saw then that his erudition had fallen on stony ground!

Tom Mankiewicz, who had written a couple of my Bond
scripts, was the son of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who wrote and directed
Cleopatra
, and consequently he had many a tale to regale us with on set. One of my favourites was how, in 1961, young Tom landed himself the job of production assistant on
The Comancheros
, a Western starring John Wayne, Stuart Whitman and Lee Marvin. It was directed by the renowned Hungarian director Michael Curtiz, though John Wayne also took a co-director credit.

They were on location in Moab, Utah and were setting up a scene where 200 head of cattle were being driven towards a canyon. Seeing the twenty-foot sheer drop ahead of them, Mankiewicz asked Curtiz what would happen to the cattle.

‘They’ll go over the edge. Those that die we’ll sell for carpets,’ he was told.

‘You can’t kill the poor animals!’ exclaimed Tom, amazed at the director’s total lack of regard for life.

‘You’re fired!’ snapped Curtiz. ‘Get off my set!’

Tom headed back to his motel and had started packing when the phone rang. It was ‘Duke’ Wayne.

‘What are you doing, kid?’ he asked.

‘I’m packing, Mr Wayne. I’ve been fired.’

‘Were you the kid who saved my cattle?’

‘Your cattle, sir?’

‘Yes, my cattle!’ said Wayne. ‘Start unpacking again and get back to the set – you’re now my assistant.’

The next day the production team were setting up a sequence in which the Indians charge over the hill towards the heroes. Back then, there were no such luxuries as walkie-talkies or mobile phones and as the cameras were set way back from the hill in order to capture the full panoramic widescreen shot, the director decided he needed someone
up there to signal the Indians when to charge.

‘Can anyone ride a pony?’ he asked.

Being gung-ho, Tom stepped forward. ‘Yes, sir, I can.’

The next thing he knew, Tom was in the make-up chair being blacked-up and, wearing a loincloth and with a full headdress of feathers, headed up to the brow of the distant hill on his mount. There he waited, watching for a white handkerchief being waved by the assistant – his signal to lead the charge downhill. All went swimmingly and Tom came galloping down towards the camera and, now fully into his character, as he drew near to the camera, threw himself off and at one of our cowboy heroes.

After the director called ‘Cut!’, Wayne sidled up to Tom.

‘Was that you on that pony, kid?’

‘Yes, sir!’ said Tom, proudly.

‘Kid, you looked like a monkey fucking a football!’ the Duke offered as he walked away smiling.

Tom wisely gave up stunt work and moved into screenwriting and directing thereafter.

I suppose the one downside to reaching eighty-six years of age is that I’m now losing a lot of my mates. Sadly, in January 2013, Michael Winner joined the cutting-room staff upstairs. (When we were filming
The Persuaders!
, whenever we heard the news of an actor or director dying, Tony Curtis would say, ‘That’s another one gone to the great cutting-room in the sky!’) Despite being friends forever, I only made one film with Michael – called
Bullseye!
– in which Michael Caine starred with me (or did I star with him?). The film wasn’t … how can I put this … it wasn’t the highlight of either of our careers (or Michael Winner’s come to that). In fact, one day Michael Caine leaned across to me and said, ‘’Ere, Rog, this film is going to be our bleeding
Ishtar
,’ likening the experience to the film that was at that point the biggest flop in the history of Columbia Pictures.

Say what you like about
Bullseye!
but working with Michael Caine and Michael Winner was always a joy.

Mr Winner was certainly one of the more animated directors I worked with and one who liked to be heard on set. In fact, that reminds me of a story I heard about when he was shooting his first film at Pinewood in the early 1960s, called
Play It Cool
.

Michael decided he’d like to use a megaphone on set, and called out all of his instructions through it. The poor
cameraman, who was sitting about three feet away from the director, even had his orders barked through the loudhailer. It got to a point where, during a short break, the cameraman in question excused himself from set and disappeared down the corridor. Ten minutes later, and ready to continue, Mr Winner was furious to see the camera devoid of an operator, and screamed, ‘Where is he?’

I’ve known Michael Caine for over fifty years now. Not a lot of people know that.

‘Gone to the toilet,’ replied some helpful spark.

With that, dear Michael marched down the corridor, flung open the lavatory door and saw that the middle cubicle was occupied. ‘Are you in there?’ he shouted.

‘Yes,’ came the reply. ‘But, Michael, please go away. I can only deal with one shit at a time!’

As well as directing, Michael often produced, wrote, cast and edited his films, though usually under the pseudonym Arnold Crust. Many of the credits for photographs that later appeared in his newspaper column were also credited to Arnold Crust or Arnold Crust Jr. Being modest, Michael didn’t want to take all the credit himself.

On set, we noticed Winner would develop a small red blush on each cheek which, as it grew larger, gave us prior warning of him about to explode. It was a nuance we used to our advantage as whenever Michael Caine and I saw his cheeks reddening we’d say, ‘Here it comes!’ and warn any new actor on set, just as our beloved director gave ‘what for’ to some poor unsuspecting person. Never before had I known a director who would fire people instantly on set, though once the shouting was over, Winner would turn to
us and say, ‘Oh, how lovely! We’ve got rid of him. Right, let’s continue, dears!’

I have to say, his bark was far worse than his bite, and he really was a very kind and caring man. When a rather famous production secretary confided in him that she was about to undergo treatment for cancer and would be unable to start his next film, he immediately arranged for her to go private, and in the best hospital too.