Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [109]
Wednesday, May 8th
The first of two and a half days on the Castle Anthrax scene.
Spent the morning being drenched by the Perth and Kinross Fire Brigade. Next time I shall think twice about writing a scene in a raging storm. I start behind camera, and before ‘Action!’ I am solemnly wetted down by Tommy Raeburn of Props, with a little greenhouse watering can. I then rush up through rain provided by a fireman from behind a bush, to a castle made of cardboard.
Thursday, May 9th
Amazing how much eating one does on filming. If you get up at 7.15 it is nice to have a cup of coffee at least before going over to the Doune Rural Hall (headquarters of the WI) and, with a full breakfast menu available, I am quite often tempted to a kipper or even a piece of toast. Then, at 10.30 on set, there is more coffee and soft, delicious bap rolls with sausages and scrambled egg. Ron Hellard supplies a gargantuan lunch with much pastry and potato, which is also hard to resist. At around 4.00 tea/coffee and cakes (v. good home-made currant buns) and, after a drink back at the hall at the end of the day, and a look at rushes (shown, extraordinarily enough, in the Silver Chalice Bar!), there is a four-course set meal at the hotel. Consumption is about double what one eats at home.
This was the second day on Castle Anthrax. Doune Castle’s severe granite halls are now filled with about twenty girls in diaphanous white gowns, shivering against the cold. John C, Eric and I are sitting with Neil on an old bench in the Great Hall, singing old Adam Faith/Cliff Richard hits, in a desperate attempt to combat boredom. The bathing scene takes two hours to set up – the girls giggle a lot, and generally it’s about as sexy as a British Legion parade.
We shoot on late – until 7.30 or so – utterly shattered – but Carol C stood up to it remarkably well and was v. funny. Like Neil, she is an honorary Python, and has very little trouble in clicking into our way of doing things.
Friday, May 10th
9.30: In Anthrax Castle again, with Tommy poised with watering can.
‘Michael, can you fall about six inches to your left?’ after I have crashed onto the stone floor for three rehearsals already.
11.00: Still waiting for the shot. Terry J, who tends to become very Ian MacN-like sometimes – ‘Come on, now quick, we must get this shot in before 11.25, we really must!’ Terry G is working away more quietly with the camera crew, checking the shot, putting a candle in foreground here and there. Gerry Harrison, the first assistant director, for all his sometimes alienating head prefect manner, is always very accessible and can get a cup of coffee for shivering actors.
Out in the main courtyard of the castle, a BBC crew from Film Night are interviewing Graham C. Quite glad to avoid that sort of thing, really
‘Alright, the generator’s been refilled with petrol!’
‘Let’s go.’
‘Come on, we must get this shot in by 12.25!’
We finish Anthrax with a last v. good take, especially from Carol, and that sequence is now finished, and we go out to the front of the castle.
The BBC doggedly film the filming. Cardboard battlements have to be added on to the castle before John does his taunting. ‘John! Don’t lean too heavily on the battlements, you can see them bending.’
At about 4.30 there are a few distant claps of thunder, the sky turns a fine deep grey – which Terry Bedford is very pleased about – and we get one shot in with this background before an enormous cloudburst empties the field in front of the castle.
The cry of’It’s a wrap!’ goes up, and Tommy Props leaps out into the still pouring rain with a look of great exultation and starts to clear up. He particularly has had a fiercely busy week, and no-one wants to work late tonight.
Back to the Women’s