Dream Repairman. Jim BSL Clark
on board, who wouldn’t edit, but would act as my assistant. I was not against this, but I stipulated that a man who spoke tolerable English would be preferable to a woman, having recently had problems with Mary Kessel on The Innocents. Mary, who was a good few years older than I, was always attempting to mother me, which was extremely trying. It seemed as if I could do nothing unless she approved. She also hero worshipped both Stanley and Jack, which upset me, and one day I said something to her which was, perhaps, a bit rough. The next I knew, she was out the door, saying she’d arranged for a replacement. Shortly afterward Jack Clayton called and asked where she was so I told him the story. He then contacted her and persuaded her back, though it was hardly his business. She returned and Jack sent bouquets of flowers to the cutting room. I was mortified and our relationship, which had lasted for years, was now completely over. I decided a change would be necessary on the next film.
After a few attempts, the French production office failed to secure a male editor, but finally came up with a female, who they said spoke good English and would on no account try to mother me or take over the editing. So, without meeting her, I reluctantly told the office to offer her the job, figuring it would only be for the three-month shooting period.
I settled into the hotel over a weekend. It had been arranged that the French lady editor would pick me up and drive me out to the Studio de Boulogne, since I had no car and was unfamiliar with public transportation in Paris. I also spoke very little French. So on the Monday morning the editor was there waiting for me. I recognised her at once as the same girl who had stood me up some years before on Once More with Feeling. It was Laurence Méry. Of course she claimed not to remember the incident, but I was certain it was her. In fact Laurence says that when she first saw me descending the staircase of the Lennox she said to herself, “Thank heaven he’s young!”
I started on the first day of photography, along with my crew. I had a Moviola shipped over from England since I did not want to edit on the French machine, the Mauritone, though it did have a great screen and we often used it for viewing rushes and cut scenes.
There was a sense of fun pervading the enterprise that made us all feel good. The hours were long for the editing staff because the picture was being shot according to French union rules. Shooting began at noon and continued without a break until eight in the evening, when the rushes were shown. The cutting room, however, would open up around ten in the morning, so that we were on hand should Stanley want to run material on the Mauritone. By the time our rushes had ended in the evening, it was around nine and we had just worked another eleven-hour day. But in Paris you can eat late and we were all younger then.
I soon became great friends with my French assistant, Laurence Méry, who had cut more films than I had. The editing routine in Paris meant many late evening meals in restaurants, and eventually we began a relationship, much to the growing curiosity of the unit who were dying to know whether we were an item or not. They half guessed it but never figured it out satisfactorily since we were quite distant with one another during working hours. In this case, my need not to be mothered hadn’t quite worked. It was soon clear to me, however, that the long gap since losing Jessie was about to be filled.
The picture did not start shooting in the studio, but on location in the French Alps at Megève, where the unit, mainly French, were quartered in a newly built luxury ski hotel. The first day’s shooting was achieved and everyone was happy but then fog descended making filming impossible for several days. The long-range forecast was poor. Not knowing when the weather would break forced the decision to pack-strike a set in Paris and load it onto camions for transport to Megève, a long and expensive haul.
Stanley also had me along with a Steenbeck flatbed editing table sent to location so that he could look at rushes. He rarely wanted to do this so I found myself walking about the slopes, in the fog, wondering what I was doing up there.
James Coburn was sent for, and they shot a scene in a garage with him. Stanley then thought we might also do the nightclub scene in Megève, but that required more parts of the set, which were in Paris. At great expense these were duly trucked up, but as the lorries arrived, the sun emerged from behind the clouds. The sets went directly back to Paris and we were back outside shooting the scene in which Cary first meets Audrey. Eagle-eyed viewers will see that all the closeups of the principals were done much later in the studio against plates that were shot in Megève.
Due to this week of hiatus, we all had a little holiday, walking, swimming, and relaxing. Just as well, since, after that, we hardly drew a breath for six months.
When the unit returned to Paris, Laurence and I took Walter Matthau out to dinner at La Coupole. He ordered some form of curry and they brought to the table, in advance of his meal, a dish of chili peppers that were extremely hot. Not seeming to care, Walter chomped his way greedily through the pile, talking about himself the while, and as he talked and chomped we watched his face grow redder and redder. He stopped talking, clutched his throat, and croaked “I’m dying!” He made a dive for the Gents. I followed him. Everyone around us realised something was up. In the toilet he vomited noisily into a basin, doused himself with water, drank some, vomited again, as the attendants watched, “Quel horreur” being the general tone. After a decent interval, Matthau, who was, at this point in his career, unknown to all the French who considered him just another crazy American, calmed down, bowed to all those who were still watching and making remarks that neither of us could understand, and together we marched back into the restaurant where Laurence was patiently waiting for us. By now he was well recovered. Walter sat down, a little puffed, but not phased, and proceeded to eat his curry.
James Coburn was a different sort of guy. With his wife, Beverly, in tow,Laurence entertained them in her bijou flat one evening, which was a tight squeeze. James was into a number of Californian fads at the time but had not, so far as I know, gone in for LSD, which Cary Grant had described to me one day on the set between takes. It was no secret that Grant had tried this drug under his psychiatrist’s supervision. He had often floated away from his body, which he could see vanishing beneath him as he buzzed around above himself. His one fear was that he might lose sight of his body. He did not suggest that I should try this drug.
After the shoot, the editing continued at Shepperton. Stanley took a much closer interest in the cutting than he ever had before in my experience. He probably sensed that he had a popular picture that he should nurture. The construction of the script was very tight. There was little slack in it. We did not have the nasty length problem that had plagued a number of pictures recently. Stanley was his own producer, as was Jack Clayton, and it was in his best interest to watch the money and not waste it.
He shot Charade in a perfectly straightforward manner. The rushes were actually quite boring to sit through, especially the dialogue sequences since he covered entire scenes in long shot, medium shot, and closeup without moving the camera. These dialogue scenes were entirely made in the cutting room. It was simply a matter of looking at each take several times, picking line readings from the best, putting them together and then adjusting. We also line cut a good deal to reduce the scenes and make them sharper. I had, by now, developed some little tricks of my own. For example, I would never let a character shut a door, allowing them to start to move the door but having the sound of the closing off screen. Later on I developed this more, so that actions, once begun, were very rarely completed. Of course films were cut far slower in those days and scenes had time to breath. I am still averse to overcutting and deplore the pernicious influence of commercials and pop videos on feature films. There are exceptions, certainly in scenes of action, but when dialogue scenes are cut up into mini cuts, the rhythms go to hell and the acting stops, as does my interest. Stanley would never have been that crass. He always had the most elegant sense of balance within a scene, as befits a master of the musical. And,when it came to comic timing, Cary Grant was another master. His throwaway bits of shtick were always worth watching. We don’t make them like that anymore. Today we don’t have many actors who can create those seemingly effortless performances that make the editor’s life easier.
Stanley Donen was much more relaxed during the whole of Charade, which had a lot to do with his home life. He had married the former Lady Beatty around the time of Surprise Package and was living the society life in London and in his country house in Buckinghamshire. He had a chauffeur and every other appurtenance of wealth and success.