Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
You know how corporations are legally considered a single person? Well, a movie company is usually a corporation, and I can tell you, it may be a hundred people, but it acts like a single person, with one personality, and one mood at any time.
Going out on the bus, the mood was subdued and foreboding.
An air of doom hung over everybody. I’d never felt anything quite like it before.
Some days a whole company seems to have drunk too much the night before and is more than a little hung over the next day on the bus.
Some days the whole company is jovial and joking.
Some days the whole company is tense because it’s a tough day ahead.
Some days the whole company is bored. Some days the company is thoughtful—like about a week before a picture ends, and everybody is starting to think about going home, ending their little affairs and returning to the wife or husband or whatever.
Those are all normal moods. But I had never experienced this sort of air of impending disaster. Everybody was frightened and confused and off-balance. People didn’t know how to act, so they did nothing except stare out the bus windows.
I guess a lot of people thought we were a jinxed company by now.
Some movie companies are. Some companies have everything go right—everybody gets along, the picture goes smoothly and comes in on time, the little obstacles work themselves out, and the final picture is good.
Other times it’s exactly the opposite on every count.
Things go wrong from the beginning—there are constant foul-ups, the weather is terrible, the production falls behind, the work isn’t very good, tempers are short, and everybody is angry with everybody else.
We seemed to have that sort of production, with too much uncertainty and too much lingering speculation. We had been in limbo too long.
At least, that was how I felt about it. Then, too, everybody was tense about Greenblatt and Robinson visiting the set. That never fails to happen. If the big brass visits the set, people get uncomfortable.
So, all in all, it was not a happy ride out to location. Midway during the trip, the limousine whizzed past us and streaked forward down the road. The limo takes the stars and the director and the producer and any special guests to the location. The troops, like me, ride the bus.
Then a few minutes later, a second limo went past us. I didn’t know what that was, but I guessed it was Greenblatt and Robinson. So did everybody else. There was a moment of murmuring on the bus, and then more silence.
* * *
The Old Tucson set was freezing when we arrived. The crew stomped their feet and clapped their hands and lined up for coffee. Then they got to work, slowly. Greenblatt and Robinson were over in a corner, watching, and it was not an impressive performance.
The rule of thumb is you get your first shot as soon as possible after eight a.m. That makes you a sharp, on-your-toes production company.
Lots of companies are so conscious of this that they plan some crummy little insert shot each day, and knock that off at eight, then go on to the day’s regular work—but on the reports, it shows the first shot at eight, and everybody can relax.
Well, our first shot was a multiple-camera setup involving the nitrogen ram, and it was complicated, and we weren’t ready for an hour.
During this time, Mann talked with Robinson and Greenblatt.
Mann was very talkative. Greenblatt kept nodding and smiling in a distantly friendly way.
Robinson said nothing at all and hardly seemed to pay attention to the discussion.
I was sure it was about production delays.
Franklin set up the cameras and then went into the storefront with Chadney to look at the nitrogen ram. I went along. So did Mann, who disengaged himself from the brass.
The nitrogen ram was now sitting about four feet off the ground and covered in black backing.
Black backing is just black cloth—sometimes it’s called black limbo—which movie companies use all the time for black backgrounds.
Or in this case, to hide something. The interior of the storefront was supposed to be dark—there would be reflections off the glass, but we wouldn’t see inside.
The black limbo over the ram and its pedestal would kill any metal glints.
“What do you want to do first?” Chadney asked Franklin.
“It’s your back,” Franklin said. “Take your pick.”
“Then I’ll do it first, and we’ll do the dummy second.”
“Fine,” Franklin said.
From this I gathered that the stunt would be done twice—once with Chadney being yanked and once with a dummy. I looked over and saw, sure enough, a six-foot dummy being dressed in an identical wardrobe to Chadney.
There was no glass in the window now. Chadney said he wanted a dry run to test the throw. He cleared everybody out and tied a bale of hay with a two-hundred-pound weight in it to the end of the cable.
Everybody stood around while the special-effects man fired the switch.
The bale of hay was yanked off the ground and flew through the window at frightening speed.
One minute it was lying on the ground, and the next minute it was gone with a whish of air.
It was scary to imagine a man being yanked like that.
Chadney watched it all professionally. “I think it’s fine,” he said. “We can get started.”
Two things happened now: Chadney and three other stuntmen fitted him with the brace.
The brace was an ugly contraption that looked something like a regular back brace for a bad back.
It wrapped all around him and was heavily padded.
Chadney also wore pads on his knees and elbows.
Then Chadney put on his shirt and vest, over the brace, and the wardrobe man cut a slit in the back of the shirt and the cable was fitted onto the brace through the shirt.
Meanwhile, the special-effects crew were gingerly carrying the candy glass to the window.
They treated it as delicately as if it were nitroglycerin.
It was, in a way. The slightest bump would shatter it, and that stuff is expensive.
A small pane of candy glass—let’s say three feet by four feet—costs a couple of hundred dollars, and this was an enormous piece.
You know, of course, that nobody in a movie breaks real glass.
That’s too dangerous. Special candy glass is fitted instead.
Candy glass has the consistency of peanut brittle—it snaps easily.
They call it candy glass or sugar glass because in the old days it was made of some kind of sugar.
Nowadays it’s plastic, but they still call it candy glass.
Anyway, the cable was fitted through the glass and Chadney took his position. I was paying attention to Chadney. He looked nervous, but he couldn’t move around much, because he was attached to the cable and the slightest jostle might break the glass behind him.
Then I saw Mann pop up. He glowered at me but didn’t come over. Mann went to stand with Greenblatt and Robinson.
The tension among the crew was incredible. We were all focused on Chadney. And with good reason. Everybody on that crew, including me, knew a stuntman who had died or been crippled or had a very close call. It happened all the time.
“Ready on cameras?” Claude said.
“A camera ready,” came a voice.
“B camera.”
“C camera.”
The camera crews all signaled that they were ready.
Claude said, “Al?”
“Okay,” Chadney said, with a slight smile.
“Tim?”
Tim was the special-effects man. He had to fire the blood hit on Chadney’s chest, and also the nitrogen ram. “Ready,” Tim said.
Claude turned to the director. “We’re ready.”
“Okay,” Franklin said.
At that moment, Harlow Perkins, dressed in a beige cashmere blazer, appeared from inside the storefront. “Just a minute, just a minute!” he said loudly. “Hold everything!”
* * *
To say that the mood was broken would be the understatement of the century. Everyone on the set just stared at him. Chadney turned around and gaped. Perkins, looking his usual elegant self and totally out of place on the Western street, walked right past Chadney and up to Franklin.
“I must advise you,” Perkins said loudly, “that for insurance purposes you have to perform this stunt first with the dummy.”
Now Franklin stared. His mouth dropped open. For a long time, nobody spoke at all. Finally, Franklin said, “What are you talking about, ‘for insurance purposes’?”
“You are carrying a policy on this man,” Perkins said, nodding toward Chadney. “Should anything happen in the performance of this stunt, you would lose your coverage unless the stunt was first done with the dummy.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Franklin said.
“I’m telling you how it is.”
“Never in all my years—” Franklin began.
“Have you read a stuntman’s insurance policy?” Perkins said. “Well, I’m telling you now. You risk this man’s coverage in the event of an accident unless you do it with the dummy first.”
“He’s full of crap,” Chadney said, finally speaking up. “Let’s shoot.”
“Look,” Franklin said, lowering his voice. “There are psychological factors here. That man is ready to do a dangerous stunt, and he wants to do it now. He’s safest when he’s mentally prepared, and that’s right now. The longer we wait, the more nervous he’ll get. I don’t want to delay—”
“Do the stunt now!” Mann said. “Come on, let’s get going!”
“Mr. Mann,” Perkins said mildly, “I would think as producer you would have a stake in following correct procedure. That stuntman could sue you if something went wrong.”
“He wants to do the stunt, and I say let him do it now.” Mann was obviously very agitated, very tense.
“Let’s try and be calm,” Perkins said.
“Calm! For Christ’s sake, we’re trying to make a movie here, and your meddling is getting in our way!” Mann was turning purple with rage.
But now Franklin was wavering. He walked over to Chadney and conferred quietly with him for a moment. Chadney nodded. Franklin nodded.
I looked at Mann. He was chewing his lip. The veins stood out on his forehead.
Then I saw Franklin unhooking Chadney from the cable, and the wardrobe people were bringing over the dummy.
“What the hell are you doing?” Mann demanded. “Do the stunt with Chadney!”
Franklin paid no attention. He helped hitch up the dummy to the cable.
“Chadney,” Mann bellowed. “You chickening out? You letting this bastard get to you?”
Chadney said nothing. He helped to get the dummy in position. Then he walked with Franklin back to the cameras.
“This is crazy. This is insane,” Mann said. He was lighting a cigarette. His hands were trembling. “You guys don’t know what you are doing. This is insane.”
“We’ll do Chadney next,” Franklin said quietly. “Okay, Claude.”
“This is insane. We have to get the job done,” Mann said, smoking his cigarette.
Claude said, “Quiet for a take! Roll cameras!”
“You’re all insane,” Mann said.
The cameras began to roll. We had two high-speed cameras, and they made a very loud grinding noise. The slate boys rushed forward.
“A camera!”
“B camera!”
“C camera!”
“You have speed?” Franklin shouted over the din of the cameras. High-speed cameras take a few moments to get up to operating speed.
“Speed!”
“Speed!”
“Speed!”
“Then . . . action!” Franklin shouted, looking at Tim.
Tim pressed his buttons. The dummy’s chest exploded, spurting blood. And the nitrogen ram yanked the cable.
What happened next is vivid in my mind. Even though it happened so fast, I can still see every bit of it, like I was a slow-motion camera myself.
The dummy was lifted off the ground, lifted way too high.
It was flung about fifteen feet into the air, and it slammed against the top of the window frame, mostly missing the glass except for the feet, and then it was yanked inside the storefront with such force that the whole phony storefront came crashing down. The entire set was destroyed.
“Holy Christ,” Franklin said.
The storefront collapsed in a heap of timber and dust. We all just stood there, watching in disbelief.
The camera crew forgot to turn their cameras off, and the grinding sound continued until the film ran out, and then they hastily turned them off.
There was a long silence. Nobody moved toward the destroyed set.
Until suddenly Chadney shouted, “You son of a bitch!” and flung himself on Mann. He began to punch him, taking him to the ground, where Chadney continued to hit Mann over and over again.
Mann was screaming, “Get off me, you crazy bastard! Get off me!”
We were all in such a state of shock that we didn’t do anything for a moment, and then Perkins finally said, “Better break that up,” and a couple of the grips went over and pulled Chadney off Mann.
Chadney was struggling to get free, and the whole time he kept saying, “I’ll kill him!
I’ll kill him!” and Mann was just lying there, coughing in the dust of the street, with blood dripping from his nose and mouth, and finally he got up on one elbow and stared at Chadney without saying a word.
The other stuntmen had gone into the demolished storefront to check the nitrogen ram. One of them came back out. “The settings were changed,” he said.
“What?” Franklin said.
“The settings on the ram were changed. Somebody increased the throw and kicked up the pressure from three hundred to five hundred pounds. That’s why it happened.”
Chadney struggled even harder at this news. “That son of a bitch!” he shouted. “I knew it! I knew it!”
Franklin asked, as calmly as he could, “Who changed the settings?”
There was a long silence, until finally Perkins gave us all the answer: “It was Charles Mann.”
“You’re lying,” Mann said as he struggled to get back on his feet.
Perkins took a roll of film from his pocket. “Before the stunt,” he said, “I was sitting on that rooftop over there”—he pointed to the building next to the store—“with a camera.”
Perkins stepped closer to Mann and raised the roll of film to his face, as if daring him to try to take it.
“The camera never lies,” Perkins said. “It was you.”