however, would open up around ten in the morning, so that we were on hand should Stanley want to run material on the Mauritone. By the time our rushes had ended in the evening, it was around nine and we had just worked another eleven-hour day. But in Paris you can eat late and we were all younger then.
I soon became great friends with my French assistant, Laurence Méry, who had cut more films than I had. The editing routine in Paris meant many late evening meals in restaurants, and eventually we began a relationship, much to the growing curiosity of the unit who were dying to know whether we were an item or not. They half guessed it but never figured it out satisfactorily since we were quite distant with one another during working hours. In this case, my need not to be mothered hadn’t quite worked. It was soon clear to me, however, that the long gap since losing Jessie was about to be filled.
The picture did not start shooting in the studio, but on location in the French Alps at Megève, where the unit, mainly French, were quartered in a newly built luxury ski hotel. The first day’s shooting was achieved and everyone was happy but then fog descended making filming impossible for several days. The long-range forecast was poor. Not knowing when the weather would break forced the decision to pack-strike a set in Paris and load it onto camions for transport to Megève, a long and expensive haul.
Stanley also had me along with a Steenbeck flatbed editing table sent to location so that he could look at rushes. He rarely wanted to do this so I found myself walking about the slopes, in the fog, wondering what I was doing up there.
James Coburn was sent for, and they shot a scene in a garage with him. Stanley then thought we might also do the nightclub scene in Megève, but that required more parts of the set, which were in Paris. At great expense these were duly trucked up, but as the lorries arrived, the sun emerged from behind the clouds. The sets went directly back to Paris and we were back outside shooting the scene in which Cary first meets Audrey. Eagle-eyed viewers will see that all the closeups of the principals were done much later in the studio against plates that were shot in Megève.
Due to this week of hiatus, we all had a little holiday, walking, swimming, and relaxing. Just as well, since, after that, we hardly drew a breath for six months.
When the unit returned to Paris, Laurence and I took Walter Matthau out to dinner at La Coupole. He ordered some form of curry and they brought to the table, in advance of his meal, a dish of chili peppers that were extremely hot. Not seeming to care, Walter chomped his way greedily through the pile, talking about himself the while, and as he talked and chomped we watched his face grow redder and redder. He stopped talking, clutched his throat, and croaked “I’m dying!” He made a dive for the Gents. I followed him. Everyone around us realised something was up. In the toilet he vomited noisily into a basin, doused himself with water, drank some, vomited again, as the attendants watched, “Quel horreur” being the general tone. After a decent interval, Matthau, who was, at this point in his career, unknown to all the French who considered him just another crazy American, calmed down, bowed to all those who were still watching and making remarks that neither of us could understand, and together we marched back into the restaurant where Laurence was patiently waiting for us. By now he was well recovered. Walter sat down, a little puffed, but not phased, and proceeded to eat his curry.
James Coburn was a different sort of guy. With his wife, Beverly, in tow,Laurence entertained them in her bijou flat one evening, which was a tight squeeze. James was into a number of Californian fads at the time but had not, so far as I know, gone in for LSD, which Cary Grant had described to me one day on the set between takes. It was no secret that Grant had tried this drug under his psychiatrist’s supervision. He had often floated away from his body, which he could see vanishing beneath him as he buzzed around above himself. His one fear was that he might lose sight of his body. He did not suggest that I should try this drug.
After the shoot, the editing continued at Shepperton. Stanley took a much closer interest in the cutting than he ever had before in my experience. He probably sensed that he had a popular picture that he should nurture. The construction of the script was very tight. There was little slack in it. We did not have the nasty length problem that had plagued a number of pictures recently. Stanley was his own producer, as was Jack Clayton, and it was in his best interest to watch the money and not waste it.
He shot Charade in a perfectly straightforward manner. The rushes were actually quite boring to sit through, especially the dialogue sequences since he covered entire scenes in long shot, medium shot, and closeup without moving the camera. These dialogue scenes were entirely made in the cutting room. It was simply a matter of looking at each take several times, picking line readings from the best, putting them together and then adjusting. We also line cut a good deal to reduce the scenes and make them sharper. I had, by now, developed some little tricks of my own. For example, I would never let a character shut a door, allowing them to start to move the door but having the sound of the closing off screen. Later on I developed this more, so that actions, once begun, were very rarely completed. Of course films were cut far slower in those days and scenes had time to breath. I am still averse to overcutting and deplore the pernicious influence of commercials and pop videos on feature films. There are exceptions, certainly in scenes of action, but when dialogue scenes are cut up into mini cuts, the rhythms go to hell and the acting stops, as does my interest. Stanley would never have been that crass. He always had the most elegant sense of balance within a scene, as befits a master of the musical. And,when it came to comic timing, Cary Grant was another master. His throwaway bits of shtick were always worth watching. We don’t make them like that anymore. Today we don’t have many actors who can create those seemingly effortless performances that make the editor’s life easier.
Stanley Donen was much more relaxed during the whole of Charade, which had a lot to do with his home life. He had married the former Lady Beatty around the time of Surprise Package and was living the society life in London and in his country house in Buckinghamshire. He had a chauffeur and every other appurtenance of wealth and success.
He was also still very distant with the technicians. I had now cut three pictures for Donen, but barely knew him. Perhaps that was good, since getting too close to Clayton had upset the balance. The relationship between directors and editors is a close one and often a long one. It is complex like a marriage.
I’ve often wondered whether film and book editors work in the same way. I am often curious if anyone has bothered to edit books at all or even read them. Like books, most movies can be helped or hindered by the editing. It is not just a matter of taking two pieces of film and splicing them together at an appropriate moment, though that is an important basic element. The technical aspect is only of so much importance. It is the approach to the material and the way the editor deals with the director that can be crucial to the outcome. Although the editor is not responsible for the final cut, he can help the director by guiding him. An editor can best make his point by skillfull demonstration. I have never believed in arguing with a director, which usually ends in bad feelings and hurts the film. But I do believe in cutting many versions of a scene to prove a point. Of course in the early sixties, the days of Donen and Clayton, this was rarely required. The paranoia that now surrounds post-production has made the whole procedure more nerve wracking and unsettling. There is much to be said for what now seems like a gentleman’s club atmosphere in which we worked. Time has altered all of that. Pictures are often rushed through post-production in weeks when we had months. Sometimes these rapidly completed pictures succeed and make money, thereby causing the studios to decree that expensive, long post-production periods are no longer necessary. They also point to television series cut on video in next to no time. This is the direction the money providers would like film editing to go and they will doubtless get their way.
The films I cut for Clayton, Donen, and later for John Schlesinger and Roland Joffé, were done with a different spirit. It was the film that mattered, not the budget. We all tried to work within the budget, but we would not compromise. The pictures were made with love and that is now hard to find in the editing rooms of the film world. I am told that the same is true for books—a sorry
