SCRIPT 2
SENSIBLE PEOPLE do their memoirs by taking daily notes, like Alec Guinness and Alan Clark, which gives the published work an immediacy and excitement lacking in those recollections which begin: “It was in the summer of 1977 …” Being idle, and having no great ambition, until quite recently, to write my autobiography, I haven’t taken daily notes, but on one occasion I did write up my doings on a weekly basis. That was during the making of The Prince and the Pauper, and for the sake of variety, and because it contains trivia which may be of interest, I am including that account as I wrote it, with only a little editing. Since I didn’t start my note-taking until some time into the production, I shall have to set the scene with a brief introduction. So … it was in the summer of 1977 that Alex Salkind invited me to do a screenplay of Mark Twain’s novel, to be directed by Richard Fleischer. A screenplay had already been done, and I was to adjust, or, if necessary, do a complete rewrite. I read it, and decided to start from scratch.
Accordingly I flew to Paris and met Fleischer, and so began a most happy collaboration with one who was to become my closest friend in the movie business – indeed, Kathy and I have no closer friends anywhere outside our family than Dick and his delightful wife Mickey. We see them only at long intervals, but they have been great fun in London, Los Angeles, the Riviera, Spain, Budapest, Rome, Dublin, and elsewhere, and as David Balfour said of Alan Breck, they can burn down my barn any time.
Dick, whose father, Max Fleischer, was one of the great animators and the creator of Popeye, is a pro from way back, one of the masters of Hollywood’s golden age and a meticulous artist of immense versatility. You name it, Fleischer has directed it, from newsreels to such celebrated films noirs as The Narrow Margin; massive spectaculars including The Vikings, Barabbas, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Tora! Tora! Tora!; musical comedy (Dr Dolittle), science fiction (Fantastic Voyage), fantasy (Conan the Destroyer and Red Sonja) and a host of outstanding films which defy classification, among them Soylent Green, 10 Rillington Place and The Boston Strangler. I’ve been lucky enough to write for him on three productions, and can only echo what Cary Grant said of Hitchcock: “I whistled all the way to work.”
We agreed that Prince and Pauper would need a complete rewrite, talked it over with Alex Salkind and Pierre Spengler, and that was that. I flew home, discarded the original screenplay, and did a new version of Twain’s charming story (he saw it in fairly dark terms, but I liked it for its excitement, humour, and ingenuity). It’s an historical fantasy based on the premise that the boy prince, Edward, heir to Henry VIII, and his double, a young thief named Tom, changed places and found themselves having bewildering adventures in their unaccustomed roles. It had been an Errol Flynn swashbuckler forty years earlier, with the title roles being played by twins; Salkind and Fleischer were to give it blockbuster treatment with a cast which would eventually include Oliver Reed, Charlton Heston, and Raquel Welch (all Musketeer veterans), as well as George C. Scott, Rex Harrison, Ernest Borgnine, and David Hemmings, with young Mark Lester, the angelic hero of Oliver!, in the two lead parts – a huge challenge for an actor of eighteen, since it is really four parts, the Prince, the Pauper, the Prince-as-Pauper, and the Pauper-as-Prince.
I did the first draft, following Twain as closely as possible, and Fleischer liked it. Kathy and I flew to Hollywood, where Dick and I went over the script, and agreed revisions. I flew home and did them, Dick approved … and now I break into my notes, written at the time, when I was waiting for the production to get under way …
Fleischer phones, with the splendid news that Rex Harrison is to play the Duke of Norfolk – can I beef up his part? You bet I can.
Down to Penshurst Place, Kent, for the first day’s shooting. Ancient house, beautiful grounds, Olde England to the life, with Fleischer setting up his stuff with Jack Cardiff, and yeoman warders lying on the grass looking harmless. Why don’t they get great big burly thugs for these parts nowadays? This lot of minions wouldn’t frighten anyone. Where are you Harry Cording, Ray Teal, Dennis Wyndham, et al. … ?
Through a Tudor arch strides Henry VIII – Heston, in full fig, looking terrific in the true sense of the word, extending a regal hand for Fleischer to kiss (he doesn’t).
I’d met Heston in Paris in the production office at the Georges V before the M3 premiere – he had heard me give my name at the desk, and loomed up beside me saying: “I’m Charlton Heston.” Taken all unawares at the sudden appearance of a living legend, I had been startled into saying: “By God, so you are!”, at which he had taken no offence, handing me a whisky and starting to talk Scottish history (he is part Fraser and immensely proud of it – aren’t we all?) He had also confessed to a wish to play Flashman at Little Big Horn, an episode I had yet to write.
F. and H. go into a huddle over the script, and call me in. H. suggests rewording one of my lines to read: “You failed me in Scotland, Norfolk, and you know it well.” It sounds a wee bit corny to me, but I’m not fussy – maybe he knows better what will sound right. I stick my heels in on another point, the line where Henry says he’s been on the throne five and thirty years. H points out, correctly, that at the time Henry had been on the throne thirty-seven years; I plead poetic licence, claiming that five and thirty sounds better, and he yields. He looks horribly like Henry VIII, which is disturbing when you’re sitting on a garden bench with him arguing about what he should say, and expecting to be consigned to the Tower at any moment.
Meet Mark Lester, a tall, ethereal-looking, nervous lad who smokes Marlboro as if they were going to stop making them. He writhes convincingly in a muddy flower-bed while Heston stands on him, and Graham Stark, in jester’s motley, flings himself prone, crying “Break away, old Hal!” in a variety of accents. Rex Harrison stands by registering polite concern.
Time out, and Graham Stark is busy snapping away with his camera, something which he does, he tells me, on all his films – his collection should be worth a fortune one of these days. He is telling me what I suspect will be a scandalous story about Michael Curtiz, when Rex Harrison, who has been rehearsing with Heston and Harry Andrews, strolls over – and who can stroll like him? – and murmurs to me that now that Henry’s line to Norfolk has been changed, he feels that he’d like something stronger to say in reply. Could I possibly … ? Sensing a slight needle here, I do a quick think, and give him a line off the top of my head which pleases him inordinately. I’d say it was passable, no more, but he writes it carefully into his script (left-handed), crinkling happily and repeating it with obvious enjoyment. When they come to rehearse the scene again, he drawls it out, Heston’s head jerks up in what may be well-acted royal displeasure or sudden suspicion that he is being upstaged (either way, it’s a perfect reaction), and Harrison opens his mouth and laughs silently.
The word is that he is notoriously a bastard to work with, and I have heard horror stories about his temperament, but I can only say he seems extremely easy and reasonable to me – of course, I don’t have to photograph, produce, direct, record, attire, or act with him, and in my experience actors tend to be more friendly with writers than with anyone else, possibly because they have to depend on them. I’d given him a line, and he’d been happy with it; when I ask him if he has any thoughts about the rest of his part he leafs through the script and delights me by giving a sudden guffaw and exclaiming: “I like this!” It proves to be an exchange between him and Hertford (Harry Andrews) who has been sent to arrest him.
Hertford: In the king’s name!
Norfolk
