Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [332]
I think these two weeks will help Al’s rehabilitation no end. He has a naturally warm and sunny side and this warm and sunny Easter is bringing him out of a dark and gloomy winter shell.
Anyway, we left Leith’s in high spirits. Would say Helen and I are as together as we’ve ever been. (This could be the beginning of the end – ed.)
Friday, April 20th
After some early work on letters, etc, I took Thomas and Louise over to Shepperton Studios.
Alexander Korda1 would turn in his grave if he could see the first sight that greeted me as I turned into the front gate of the studio – half the lawn outside the big house has been torn up and the cedar tree – symbol of the comfort, space and style of Shepperton – now ringed by a preserving fence and standing forlornly marooned as the builders hustle around it.
Inside the studios, on the other hand, Korda would feel quite at home. Every available piece of space is being utilised.
We watched the Titanic being sunk on H Stage, which had been flooded all over to a depth of five feet with one and a quarter million gallons of water – direct from the nearby reservoir. Polystyrene ice floated on freshwater sea, ruffled occasionally by wave machines. Props boys and chippies in rubber diving suits busied around in the water, and dozens of extras looked convincingly tired and cold as they waited in the lifeboats for something to happen.
Then we were shown a wonderfully elaborate space set for Saturn Three, and Louise sat in Farrah Fawcett Major’s chair.
The movies being made here are now American or Lew Grade2-financed blockbusters – there’s nothing small about them – and the telegrams pinned to the SOS Titanic noticeboard in the production office chilled me to the marrow. They were from Hollywood and ran on the lines of: ‘Have just seen the 15-minute assembly. I was moved, awed and excited by the tremendous brilliance of the material. You are creating a true masterpiece …’ etc, etc. The schmaltz and sincerity dripped onto the floor like cream from an over-filled cake.3
Saturday, April 21st
Talk with TJ on the phone. Last Wednesday night he was attacked by an old gent in Soho who asked him where Charing Cross Station was. When he told him, the old man called our director ‘a lying bastard’ and belaboured him with his stick. TJ’s head was cut and bleeding. A ‘passer-by’, who TJ thinks may have been a plainclothes man from the Metropolitan force, leapt on the old bloke and hauled him off to the nick. Apparently he had just attacked someone else further up the street.
Sunday, April 22nd
Long sleep. Rise just before ten. But a long recuperative day is not on the cards. TJ rings to ask me if I could spare time today to have another look at the ‘Ben’s Cell’ scene. Although I bridle at the idea of endless re-editing, I think this is useful. There is something about ‘Ben’ which seems to hold it back from being as funny as it should and could be.
Collect Al L from Jack Cooper’s house in Hampstead.1 Jack, as I am discovering rapidly, is the Very Life Force itself. Last night he was grinding Al through a guided tour of six or seven malt whiskies. By Al’s account Jack went to bed quite blotto, but was up at seven for three hours’ birdwatching on the Heath. He spotted a Greater Crested Grebe and was delighted. This afternoon he’s taking us to Lord’s – he’s a member of the MCC, of course.
I take Al home to unload, then we go on to Covent Garden. It’s lovely and quiet around the Garden this Sunday morning – a good time to show it off. Al is impressed. We choose new takes of’Ben’, which improve the scene, I think.
Monday, April 23rd
Builders, phone calls, electrician. One of those all too frequently frenetic days at No. 4. I race around the house like a mad scientist trying to prevent the destruction of the world. Al, over in No. 2, gets some writing done. Unblocks that creative side