Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [290]
Wednesday, July 12th, The Brecknock Arms, Bells Yew Green, East Sussex
I’m sitting alone in the small back garden of this unassuming little pub. There is no muzak, there are no coloured lights, or chairs and tables crafted crudely to the shape of bent tree bark. Just an iron table and comfortable but inelegant iron chairs, slatted with wood. And a pint of Harvey’s best Sussex bitter, brewed in Lewes and looking very friendly with the sun shining through it. A blackbird or a song thrush, something very melodious, trills in the tree above me. Peace and solitude.
Last night’s filming was hard work. Neighbours complained about rifle fire in the middle of the night and threatened us with an injunction (they know their rights down here) and this was even before Joan Sanderson opened up with her 1914 Lewis machine gun – the crack echoing around the whole of Kent, so it seemed, to such an extent that after the third or fourth round there was an impassioned cry from the black depths of the woodland – ‘Shut up!’ We finished at ten past four this morning.
Friday, July 14th
The final day of shooting on ‘Roger’.
Back to Harbourne Hall for the last time. The Major and his wife appeared every now and then – the Major ruddy-faced, obviously enjoys a drink. I became aware, talking to him, of the pathos of their situation – both married for the second time – the children belong to Mrs F, not him – ‘So we don’t always see eye to eye.’ He was in tanks at Alamein, the kids are on motorbikes in Tenterden. He looks blearily round at the huge, red bulk of the unattractive house behind him – ‘It’s always been a happy home.’ He repeats this sadly, shaking his head. It’s very moving.
At dawn we’re gone, packed up, the cables stowed away and the house returns to normal. On Wednesday this ‘happy home’ is up for sale by auction. Major F talks of a bungalow in Bethersden they’ve got an eye on.
Wednesday, July 19th
Python medical today. More thorough than usual. Begins with a chest X-ray, then a visit to Dr Ronald Wilkinson, who holds my testicles and asks me to leave my urine in his bathroom. A girl takes a sample of my blood and a man sticks electrodes all over me for an electro-cardiograph test. Wilkinson reassures me that this all means I’m a much bigger property than when he last held my testicles.
The ECG man purred happily as he unravelled my reading. ‘A very nice heart,’ he pronounced.
Thursday, July 27th
Off to Ealing full of anticipation. My first look at the two weeks of pictures from ‘Roger’. Instant disappointment on almost every front, except the look of it – costumes, colour, design, the house, etc. The performances of Lord and Lady B only adequate, the whole tale seems flatly paced and humourlessly edited. My role as Roger is another of those irritating, ingenuous younger sons which are in danger of becoming a real bore.
Even the regimental scene, a sure-fire winner, seems to be misfiring. There’s a great deal of re-editing to do, and the first task is to establish a rapport with Dan Rae, the editor. He’s tall and taciturn and rather likeable, but he begins by appearing to resent my suggestions.
This turns out to be defensiveness on both our parts. As we go systematically through the film (Jim F is away on holiday, so I have a free hand), both of us ease up. I realise that it was a shock to all my carefully-nurtured pre-conceptions of the piece to see it for the first time through [cameraman] Reg Pope’s and Jim Franklin’s eyes, and Dan Rae has realised I am neither an unnaturally lugubrious old bugger, nor a stroppy writer who can’t stand to see any editor touch his work. We carry on after lunch and when I leave at four Dan reckons he has four more days to do on tightens,