Dream Repairman. Jim BSL Clark
The rest of the film, at least nine weeks of it, was spent within this dreadful atmosphere.
Marilyn had only recently married Arthur Miller, who was with her more often than not. She had a dressing room on the stage and one of our jobs was to escort her, daily, to the projection room where she saw her rushes, very often with her husband and the film’s producer, Milton Green.
So either Des or I would knock on her door about 5:30 and she’d walk with us down the long corridor at Pinewood, often clutching a copy of the collected poems of Dylan Thomas, which I never saw her open. She was very shortsighted and wore glasses until she was in front of the camera.
On the very last day of filming, Marilyn had reluctantly agreed to shoot some retakes that Olivier demanded. The crew sat around all morning waiting for her to arrive, which was not unusual, and when she did, she distributed champagne to everyone, which was fine, but caused even more delay and more frustration for Olivier, or ‘Sir’ as we called him.
She finally did appear in costume, ready for work, but was, by now, quite pickled. Olivier, out of spite, perhaps, printed everything they shot that afternoon, most of which was useless as Marilyn was bumping into the furniture and unable to act.
In the end, Jack Harris used about 6 feet out of 2,000. I have often pondered the lost opportunity to remove those rushes from the cutting room and secrete them in my garage for future use. Of course none of us knew the star would soon die, nor that she would become a screen idol and that these feeble rushes would have been worth a great deal.
Working on the post-production was good fun and, for me, quite important since Olivier had decided I should not be confined to the Robot joiner and elected to promote me to Footsteps Editor.
He had, I assume, discussed this with Jack. In those days, the recording of footsteps was an arduous task. Every sound of movement in the film had to be reproduced to separate it from the dialogue for foreign dubbed versions. We looped up the film into sections that could be endlessly repeated and a “virgin” magnetic loop of the same length was also cut to match.
In the recording studio, the footstep artist, normally the late Beryl Mortimer, would select a pair of shoes and a surface and then “walk” through the scene in sync with the actor on screen.
If other sounds were involved, such as a kiss or movement of props, they would be done on a second loop and, thus, the effects were built up. Dinner party scenes were dreaded. In America this procedure is called Foley, presumably after an inventor of that name.
When everything was recorded, the assistant would re-assemble the loops into their full-reel length so that the tracks could be used in the dubbing theatre.
This then was my task on the final stages of The Prince and the Showgirl. While Des Saunders concerned himself with finalising the film and dealing with the composer, I would be involved with the sound editors who were fitting all the effects and attending to the dialogue. Nowadays composers have their own music editors.
Olivier played a significant part in my career, though I never knew him well. Having promoted me on The Prince and the Showgirl, he gave me back some of the confidence I lost going from editor to second assistant and I would later edit two films he appeared in: Term of Trial (1961) and Marathon Man (1976).
Jack Harris, one of the most sought after editors of his day, was also a supreme influence. Olivier trusted Jack implicitly to cut his film.
Olivier himself was quite a distant man. He wasn’t seen very much in the cutting room. Jack would run the film for him on a regular basis and they would recut it together. At these screenings, Olivier would give Jack his notes, though I suspect they were very few because Jack would cut the film perfectly well thus lifting a huge burden off the director’s shoulders.
Indiscreet
After that experience, Jack took me on as his permanent first assistant for several years when Des Saunders moved on to direct episodes of Thunderbirds. It was during that period that we found ourselves at Elstree where Stanley Donen was directing Indiscreet. I knew of Donen from his musicals and was excited when Jack told me we’d be doing the picture. I was a huge fan, having sat through On the Town four times in the same day at the Empire, Leicester Square, including the stage show. Although Indiscreet was not a musical, it was a comedy with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman and bound to be stylish. In fact I barely got to know Stanley on that picture, since he rarely came into the cutting room. I only saw him at rushes, though I did sometimes sneak onto the set, but this was not encouraged. I had to wait until post-production before getting at all close to him. We often had lunch with Jack in the Grosevenor restaurant which was adjacent to the studio. Stanley was the first person I ever saw eating yogurt. He had just finished another film with Cary Grant prior to Indiscreet, and the two of them were now in a partnership.
It’s curious now to think that Stanley was not much more than seven years older than I was. Having started directing early his experience was already huge, and he had an unmistakable aura of success hanging over him. Stanley exuded charm, and with his little southern boy accent was a pushover for people like me, always a sucker for a seductive voice. He was also impeccably attired, Savile Row style. In those days, directors didn’t wear jeans and t-shirts. They wore elegant suits and expensive shoes and ties. They looked like businessmen. Stanley was never one to hang about the set. He would describe the next setup and retire to his office until called for rehearsal. He was very much into the business of films and was buying up real estate in Los Angeles. All this made sense in a business where anyone’s future can be shaky.
Before filming began, I was told to call the production manager Al Streeter to make my deal. This was not a call I looked forward to because I was always nervous when discussing my pay. I asked for £25 a week—the top rate for an assistant editor. Jack Harris was a top editor and probably got £60 a week. There was silence on the other end and finally Streeter said, “And what makes you think you are worth that amount?” This rattled me and I stuttered some reply about being Jack’s regular assistant and having a family to feed. After another interminable silence, Streeter said, “What you should have said is ‘I’m worth it.’...” He then agreed to the price.
Indiscreet was shot at the ABPC Studio, and the second assistant editor was Terry Rawlings, who later became an ace sound editor and film editor. He and I waited for Jack to make his decisions which were, as usual, slow. The filming was almost entirely confined to the studio, though one big scene was shot at Greenwich and there were some romantic views of London on the Embankment.
I was appointed music editor and this was the first film to be scored by Richard Rodney Bennett. One evening I was instructed to run the film for him and Muir Mathieson at the old London Films building at Hyde Park.
Muir and I waited awhile and finally a breathless young man appeared, saying his plane from Paris had been delayed. Richard was only about twenty years old and still studying at the Sorbonne.
I have no idea how Stanley came to employ Richard, whose score was recorded at Elstree, but he turned down most of the music Richard had composed, except for one cue that involved a sort of mini piano concerto. When we were mixing the film, Stanley would call out “Jimmy! Bring on the blind pianist,” which meant another reprise of this particular cue. In the end very little of the score was used but that blind pianist cue was perfect.
Because we shared a mutual interest in musicals, Stanley agreed to allow me to interview him for a magazine called Films & Filming, for which I occasionally wrote. I remember he was very gracious about this and, although he asked me to send him a typescript before I submitted it for publication, he didn’t hold much back. He gave me a very detailed account of his early life, his desire to become a dancer, his start on Broadway, and his meeting with Gene Kelly, all of which I faithfully transcribed. The article was published at about the time that Indiscreet was released.
I never thought Indiscreet was a good movie. I found it a rather dull piece and very stagebound, but the public enjoyed it and it did well at the box office. For me, it wasn’t easy to sit through many times without falling asleep.
Once More with Feeling and Surprise Package
After Indiscreet, Jack