Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [345]
Terry J rang from New York to say that there was a queue of one at the Cinema One at first light this morning – and he had a copy of the Ripping Yarns book.
But Canby’s review in the New York Times was a rave and that the ‘Post’ and ‘News’ too were good. So far a clean sweep of reviews.
Saturday, August 18th
At lunchtime I cycle up to the Freemasons for a drink with GC, John Tomiczek and Bernard McKenna.
They all came down to inspect No. 2. Graham quietly pottering and muttering about all the bills he still has to face from Odd Job. Still, he’s driving a hired Mercedes, which Euro Atlantic found for him, and seems well, though a little quiet since he gave up the booze. Bernard as big and warm as ever. A lovely man. Rachel takes to him immediately.
I take the boys to St Martin’s Lane Odeon to see The Spaceman and King Arthur – jolly tiring Disney wholesomeness sticks in the gut of a true cynic, but by the end its sort of charm won even me over. John Le Mesurier playing an exact replica of his Jabberwocky role – standing just behind the king and getting wonderful laughs from beautifully thrown asides.
Sunday, August 19th
A call from Denis on Fisher’s Island to tell me that the audiences are rolling into Brian. Warner’s hoped for an $8,000 take at Cinema One on opening day and took $13,000. In Los Angeles all the movie houses showing Brian are good. In the Python stronghold of Orange County, one movie theatre took as much on opening day as it did in a week of Grail.
Wednesday, August 22nd
I have endeavoured, to help Anne and everyone else, to try and bring the five Pythons present in the UK together for a chat. After many time-consuming phone calls, a meal is arranged for tonight.
At L’Etoile by 8.30. When I arrive Cleese is waiting.
JC and I talked of future plans. Once again, as so often in the last few months, I caught the feeling that Python had come full circle. After ten years, climaxed by what sounds to be a successful opening of Brian in the US, John is telling me how he would like to work together on something. A real April ’69 conversation between us. It’s nice to feel, as John says, that we do work well off each other. No conclusions were reached when Graham, then Eric and TG finally arrived.
JC made the point that in the next Python film we should perhaps stick less to our rigid writing combinations and write with more fluidity. He thought this would help Eric, who always wrote by himself. ‘I like writing by myself,’ Eric countered, rather defensively.
I said I would rather not work on a new Python script for a full year, JC having proposed that we should all ‘go somewhere very nice and just talk for two or three weeks about the subject.’ I was called selfish by Eric. JC accused him of bullying. TG came in, as he said, to ‘bale me out’, by stating that he was not interested in working on another Python movie until he had completed something of his own. Graham said nothing.
But there is remarkable agreement thus far on the main points – that we should do another movie, that it should be completed within three to three and a half years from now, and that World War II is a good area to start thinking in.
Thursday, August 23rd
Drive out to Shepperton for a board meeting.
An efficient meeting, followed by a walk around the site. There have been radical improvements in almost every area which so depressed me six weeks ago. The canteen is cleaner and better equipped, the toilets cleaned, the on-site mess has been drastically reduced and, with the smart new gatehouse and opening of ‘Studios Road’ as a symbol of this regeneration, the place is suddenly well on the way to looking an attractive and exciting place to work.
Great news that we will probably be able to rent ‘H’ Stage back, for a very reasonable fee of £92,000 for five years, from the council – impoverished by Thatcher’s local spending cuts. At present a Flash Gordon forest set, full of swirling tendrils