The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy [95]
El Wheero works in the afternoon in the Studio along with Bax and the other principals, and when they do come down to the waterfront they stay on the boat—except for Bax, who keeps diving in. We work mornings only, from seven till one, because the film is in technicolor and the sun registers differently on celluloid in the morning and in the afternoon. Or something.
The fact is, we don’t see much of anything any more, dammit.
That includes the cameras. They’re too far away.
We stagger blindly out of bed every morning, go down to one of the warehouses, and put on our moldy old costumes.
I seem to be some kind of tart, judging by my Hogarthian tatters. I needn’t have worried about my hair, either. It’s all hidden under a hideous cap. But the French girls working on the picture kill me. It’s never too early for them to begin flirting. From the minute they get into a chair to be made up by the make-up men, the eyes start flashing, the hips rolling, the lips inviting, and you suddenly realize that whereas before you always thought of a film set as peopled with people, it is, in fact, peopled with men.
As I say, we can’t see the cameras and I’m beginning to think the cameras can’t see us. Not us, personally. At least the American Director, a tough old monster, can’t. He picks up his megaphone and shouts at Stefan “O.K., get those bastards moving, will ya!” and Stefan, way down amongst us, all tricked out in his directing outfit, beret, red shirt and scarf, picks up his megaphone and calls out “Allez, allez, avancez mes enfants! Mais allez-y! Soyez gentils.…”
What we are doing is, we are in the market place, see? Among a lot of stalls, see? We are supposed to be buying—or selling— they haven’t told us which—and just generally fouleing around. The second morning we arrived starving to death and realized there was nothing actually edible on all those stalls. Not an orange. Just a lot of stinking fish and a gigantic octopus some real fishermen had caught the night before.
In the beginning, while I, eager beaver that I am, was practically buying and selling in the water in an effort to get near the fishing vessel (that’s where the cameras are) Missy was backing away from it as fast as possible. She eventually found herself on one of the balconies of a row of houses facing the waterfront. There she struck up an acquaintance with a very nice woman, a painter, who owns the house to which the balcony is attached and who happened to be looking out the window at the time. She invited Missy in for croissants and coffee. When I heard about this I promptly lost my ambition, and now I join Missy in her coffee break. This lasts quite a long time each day (the woman likes to show us her work), so I shouldn’t be at all surprised if we’ve missed several shots altogether.
It all goes at such a snail’s pace. A maximum of two shots a morning, with a minmum of three takes to each. Poor Larry is exhausted. He is in the foreground, tying up the boat.
We are luckier than most, having our balcony hideout. All the other Extras, local French and mostly old men, have taken to wandering into the bistros that dot the waterfront as soon as they’re opened. By eleven o’clock yesterday the foule had thinned out so much, they had to comb all the bars and rout them out. Now there is talk of posting spies at strategic points.
Bax has started working in earnest. Not just in and out of the water, but around the Studio too. I promised to help him with his lines, but there’s no need to. He never has more than one, or at the most, three a day.
It’s a funny thing about Bax. At first I felt terrifically guilty about him.