Dream Repairman. Jim BSL Clark
war. They stood under the broad arms of three massive oak trees. Stumbling sleepily down the stony path, I lost one slipper and stubbed my toe. This woke me up. I reached the shelter and sat on the bench. Inside, the masters had lit oil lamps that gave off the sickly smell of paraffin. Not enjoying enclosed spaces, I began to feel ill. The Matron took pity on me and bound up my bleeding toe. The Headmaster urged us into a singsong, and soon the round “London’s Burning” was going strong, an appropriate number for the occasion. Cocoa and biscuits were served. This was quite a party, a sort of midnight feast.
Presently, as we began to doze in our uncomfortable positions, the drone of engines was heard. It was the enemy. We all looked up and held our breath. Even the staff was quiet. It must have been quite a big raid. The engine drone coming through our ventilation shaft, pulsing, with an off-beat built into the tempo of the engine. The sound increased and some of us looked alarmed and pale under the weak lamplight. Nearer they came. Some of us prayed. I held my toe. I looked around at familiar faces. No laughing or singing now. The bombs had not yet started to fall. I glanced at the Headmaster, looking different in his dressing gown. He was nervously pacing in the centre of the shelter, moving his lips as if rehearsing a speech for Parents Day. Then came the dull thudding sounds that we’d been expecting. Corby was getting it tonight. We thought of the poor people on the other side of the valley. I think many of us were aware of our mortality for the first time. Some idiot master mentioned the fact that the bombers very often dropped the remains of their load as they turned to leave for Germany. That meant us. Or could. We’d be a nice little civilian target with our big old house and church high on a hill. The very thought of knocking off a church spire might seem fair game to a Nazi. For us, the worst part of the long night occurred when those planes turned for home, Matron busied herself with more cocoa. Another master led us in many choruses of “Ten Green Bottles,” and eventually the threat died away. The engine sounds receded. We heard the all clear from the village and, relieved, wandered back to our beds through the damp dawn.
In the morning, we saw that the land was covered in thin strips of metal, dropped by the enemy planes to confuse our radar. Collecting these strips became a new hobby.
It was with some shock that I saw bombed buildings in Peterborough from the train that took me back home for the holidays. There were signs of prosperity at home. This seemed strange with a war going on, but the War Office had sent battalions of troops and squadrons of the RAF into the area. They spent much time marching the streets by day and drinking at night. Many men were billeted locally. At our house, the front room, which was normally unused, except at Christmas, had been turned over to two RAF sergeants. My father was always inviting strangers home for a drink so the house was never empty.
I went to the usual summer fetes, had tea on the lawn, played with friends, went for bike rides, and read my books. My chief interest, however, was in the cinema. The New Theatre was in effect, my real school. It’s a Marks & Spencer now. The box office would have been just around where they place the knitwear at the front of the store. Mr. Howden’s sister, with knitting in hand, presided. She knew me well, as I regularly arrived with my pass which read, “Please admit my grandson and friend.” I used my pass regularly, twice a week at least, for years. Certainly between 1942 and 1951, when I finally left Boston, that little scrap of card was my passport to a world that existed solely between the solid walls of that theatre, which became my second home. When they pulled the theatre down and built a store over it, my childhood ceased. The Regal was newer and did not have the allure of The New.
There was a foyer with cane furniture and a potted palm, with framed portraits of the stars. Walking toward the stalls or up the stairs to the circle, you could usually hear a Victor Sylvester record, though sometimes it was Charlie Kunz, whom I hated. The auditorium is now the Food Hall. Before the place finally closed, I went backstage. It had been built as a theatre before cinema was invented, so the stage was deep enough to allow for pantomimes and travelling theatricals. Under the stage there were the very dusty relics of many productions and trapdoors for the demon kings. The two big Western Electric speakers straddled the stage behind the screen. It was said that the sound system was the finest in the county. When the lion roared, you were in for a good time at The New.
The projectors were first installed in the early days, when gramophone records reproduced the sound. We used to debate hotly whether the RCA or the Western Electric systems were best. Because MGM employed the Western Electric system and I thought of them as the last word in quality, there was little doubt in my mind. In any case I’d met the Western Electric district engineer, who regularly serviced the equipment, and I’d never seen anyone from RCA.
Under the stage, covered in many years of dust, stood three wooden packing cases. I’d been told about them by the projectionist, who often allowed me into his booth. He reckoned there might be some old films in those crates. I had no permission to trespass onto the stage, not from the owner and manager, Mr. Howden, who might not have been too happy with the idea of a filmstruck teenager wandering around under there. I was fairly nervous as I edged toward the packing cases. There was no light other than the flashlamp I carried. It was spooky, the place being empty and me trespassing, but once I saw the big boxes, I sensed that I might be onto something. Perhaps it was the sweetish smell that came from them. Or maybe it was the smell of the acetone we used in the factory. I saw the name “Howden” written on the boxes and realised that they had no lids. When I reached them and flashed the light inside, I was not too surprised to find them full of old rolls of 35 mm film, all highly combustible. Nitrate film stock had been the cause of many cinema fires and I had stumbled on the equivalent of a giant bomb that might as well have been a box full of nitroglycerine, though I didn’t realise it then. Just as well I hadn’t struck matches to light my way. The heat generated by torchlight might have been sufficient to set it off. I extinguished my lamp and stood in darkness, savouring the sweet, deadly smell. I suppose glue sniffers experience that kind of high. I made my way back to the stage door, knowing that I had to return with some help to retrieve the boxes. Having reported back to the projectionist, who was rumoured to increase the speed of his projectors on Saturday night in order to hit the pub before it closed, I gathered some chums and we lifted the boxes out of the theatre and into my car. Then, in the factory, I opened them very carefully and discarded all those films that had turned to jelly, keeping only those which that appeared not to be too far gone. Eventually I had several priceless reels that dated from the early 1900s and, after contacting the National Film Archive, I drove the films to their vaults for safekeeping. I guess they are still there, safe and sound.
CHAPTER TWO: YUL BRYNNER OPENS A DOOR
The Prince and the Showgirl
The Prince and the Showgirl was made at Pinewood in 1956. Jack Harris had rooms in the old editing block where, years later, I would cut The World Is Not Enough. I shared it with him and Des Saunders.
I had a bench and a Robot joiner. This small device, unlike the Bell & Howell foot joiner, which I’d mastered at Ealing, could be placed almost anywhere. It scraped the emulsion from one side of the film and applied the film cement as the second part of the device was clamped to the first. Thus the film was scraped and joined. Not exactly a daunting task.
The Robot was the last of the cement, or hot, joiners. Soon it was replaced by the Italian tape joiner, which is still in use. It required no scraping, no cement, and lasted for years. The Italian joiner also avoided losing a frame when an edit was made, so it was goodbye to the “black buildup.”
Working on this movie was fascinating from many points of view and has been well documented elsewhere, but being a junior member of the team, I could watch the egos at work.
In the beginning, Olivier and Monroe were great chums, but, going into the project, he must have been unaware of the influence that Marilyn’s drama coach, Paula Strasberg, had on her. This lady, the wife of Lee Strasberg of the Actors Studio, would sit on the set and watch every take with great attention. She was a formidable size and always dressed in black. When Olivier would call “cut,” Marilyn would ask Paula for her comments, never the director.
After a couple of weeks of this, Olivier was beside himself with rage, but the Strasberg presence, would not be moved.
So, gradually, the wheels