George MacDonald Fraser - The Light’s On At Signpost

That was the end of my connection with Superman . Dick came back on to the picture, and although I was summoned in haste to Pinewood during the shooting, it was simply to do a very minor tinker on one part of the plot which could easily have been accomplished without me. I watched one daytime scene being shot – an announcer talking to camera, and a couple of cars being wrecked – and one night scene involving the enormous New York street which had been built on the back-lot – life-size at one end, and dwindling down in size at the other to give a sense of perspective. It was a smashing set; I heard it was eventually demolished by a high wind, much to the annoyance of a later production which had hoped to use it. Pierre and I stood in the dark eating endless hot dogs and watching them rehearse and then shoot the bit in which a woman with a pram doesn’t get hit by a falling girder.

There was a royal premiere attended by the Queen, followed by a dinner, but I confess that my chief interest was in recognising little bits and thinking “I did that” or “I was responsible for that,” or “Well, I sort of influenced that”, which is the only personal satisfaction you can get from a movie in which your participation has been limited to tinkering little things, script-snipping and arranging and so on. Critical opinion of it has changed; at the time, the flying sequences were regarded as terrific, there was much praise for the music and the opening credits, and the end titles provoked mirth for being of such length that they even included the breakfast cereal used by Clark Kent’s earthly parents. The early “earth” scenes were interminable, and I came out asking myself why the hell they hadn’t just been content to shoot the original N – B scripts, instead of padding it out with unnecessary junk. But it was obviously going to gross a jillion, which it did.

Superman II was the better movie, probably because Dick had the direction all to himself. But I like to think back to that Paris hotel room, with Hamilton and me up to our ankles in coloured paper, and tell myself that our labours were not in vain.

*The Macmillan Film Encyclopedia describes Guy as “among England’s most technically proficient craftsmen”, which is an understatement. After his apprenticeship with Rene Clair he graduated to assistant director with Carol Reed and John Huston, and worked on such prestigious films as The Third Man and The African Queen before going on to direct a string of major pictures, including four James Bonds – one of which, Goldfinger , I regard as the best in the series.

*But we may have underestimated his talent; many professional boxers have acted, and acted well, since James J. Corbett and his fellow-champion John L. Sullivan trod the boards a century ago. Rocky Graziano, Max Baer, and Maxie Rosenbloom were all good comic actors, and more recently Jersey Joe Walcott, Tony Galento, and Henry Cooper have acquitted themselves well in supporting parts.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.