George MacDonald Fraser - The Light’s On At Signpost

It was fascinating to see the original cast in musketeer uniform again. Oliver Reed and Frank Finlay were showing grey, but Chamberlain was Chamberlain still, and Michael York looked so ridiculously young that a rumour arose suggesting that somewhere in an attic there was a Dorian Grey portrait of him showing the ageing process. Roy Kinnear was as portly a Planchet as ever, Christopher Lee stalked the screen as a formidable Rochefort, and Jean-Pierre Cassel ranted splendidly as Cyrano de Bergerac (with his own voice this time).

In addition to the old hands, Pierre had assembled a first-rate cast of newcomers to the musketeer canon: Bill Paterson was a fine lookalike King Charles and Alan Howard an imposing Cromwell, Kim Cattrall sneered and swaggered it up a storm as the lovely villainess, Philippe Noiret was an urbane, devious Cardinal Mazarin, and C. Thomas Howell a properly stiff-necked and explosive son of Athos. Bill Hobbs was again the fight arranger, and the production wouldn’t have been complete without Eddie Fowlie in charge of props. This was the team that set off for Spain with such high hopes.

It is an excellent rule, and one which I’ve tried to follow with only moderate success, that the farther a scriptwriter can stay away from the actual shooting, the better. For one thing, they’ll just make you work; for another, you have to restrain a mad impulse to get into the act and show them how it should be done. Fortunately, I’ve always been able to master it, and watch the proceedings deadpan – so much so that Lester was once heard to exclaim: “Look at him, standing there in his steel-rimmed spectacles – he’s hating it!” In fact, I wasn’t; it’s just my normal expression.

However, I broke my rule this time. I wanted to watch the old gang at work again, and also to see one particular scene being shot. King Charles I, like most of the Stuarts, was a golfer, and I’d decided it would be nice to see him slashing away in the rough, and wrote a scene to that effect. Dick had the inspired idea of getting Billy Connolly to play the caddy, and the result was quite my favourite sequence in the movie – so, naturally, most of it ended up on the cutting-room floor; there’s a malign destiny that causes that sort of thing to happen. But at least I saw it, and have the whole thing on tape.

I flew home again full of optimism. It was a happy shoot, they were plainly enjoying it, and everything was looking good.

Then the blow fell. Pierre phoned me at home one night, and I remember exactly what he said: “Our old friend Roy Kinnear passed away today.” I couldn’t believe it; when I’d last seen Roy he’d been in splendid form, lying contentedly under a Spanish oak making remarks as Oliver Reed and Bill Paterson rehearsed a scene; now suddenly that jolly, witty, lively man whom everyone had loved, was dead, literally in the prime of life.

It had been a ghastly accident, a fall from a horse in which he suffered internal injuries which proved fatal. It put the production into shock from which it never recovered.

My first reaction was the human one: shocked misery. My second was the professional: what happens to the picture? How much of Roy’s part is in the can? Can the remainder be fixed somehow? Pierre answered these questions: the production would continue, and I was needed immediately in Spain to doctor the script; would I fly out next morning? *

In this kind of crisis there’s only one thing to do: get on with it. Shooting had been suspended for one day, then it continued while I scrounged a typewriter and paper and a copy of the script and retired first to a corner of the production office and then to a trailer beside the outdoor set where I could get at Dick or Pierre or whoever else I might want to consult. Then I read through to see what remained to do.

It could have been worse. Roy’s final scene, fortunately, was done – the grand finale, in which virtually the whole cast rode past in parade. Most of the other scenes could be fixed by using Roy’s double, judiciously shot, and voicing over his lines. “We might get Rory Bremner,” said Dick. I don’t know if he did, but whoever voiced in the lines did a perfect impersonation.

One scene looked impossible – the meeting between Planchet and D’Artagnan near the start of the film, which was absolutely necessary, and just too long to be played with the double’s back to camera. But, think hard enough and it comes: Planchet was in flight from an angry pursuer when he encountered D’Artagnan, who was having his boots polished in the street – so let D’Artagnan hide him under a cloak and use him as a foot-rest while the polishing continues, the pursuer is foiled, and D’Artagnan and the concealed Planchet can exchange their chat in peace. It worked, I typed it up, and spent the rest of the day talking with Christopher Lee on the battlements of the castle where the daring escape of the Duc de Somewhere-which-escapes-me was taking place.

Christopher was in full seventeenth-century fig, rapier, eye-patch, and all, and in no time a crowd of tourists, and sightseers who had come to watch the shooting, were clustering around to stare at him. It struck me then (and still does) that this man was the ultimate film star; he must have made more pictures than John Wayne, even, and the whole world knows him. Beauties and matinee idols may come and go unrecognised, but Christopher Lee is familiar from Indian village to Eskimo igloo, an instant magnet to admiring fans, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer man. When a Spanish lady approached and asked timidly if she might have a picture taken with him, he consented at once, and was immediately surrounded by her family, all beaming for the camera, with Christopher towering over them.

“I never know quite what to do on occasions like this,” he said, while the lady sidled closer, preening. Tactful Fraser suggested he bite her on the neck, at which he sighed heavily and said: “Don’t you start – I gave that up long ago.” Which was true. The camera clicked, he swept the delighted senora a bow, and off they all went, fans for life.

Guy Hamilton told me a story which illustrates the kind of admiration which Christopher attracts. Guy was directing him in the Bond movie, The Man with the Golden Gun , and the set was visited by Muhammad Ali, professing himself a devoted Lee fan, and requesting an audience. They were introduced, Ali assuring Christopher that he was his favourite movie star, and then he had added: “And I’m gonna dedicate my next fight to you, too!”

This was taken as an extravagant compliment, no more – but sure enough, when Ali won his next fight (I’ve an idea it was the Rumble in the Jungle) and the ring was awash with fans, handlers, and journalists, the champion fought his way to the nearest TV camera and roared into the lens: “I won that fight for Christopher Lee!” Which, as Guy remarked, was not only a tribute to Christopher, but proved Ali a man of his word.

I didn’t stay in Spain, since my job was done, and despite the professionalism with which everyone carried on, you could feel the cloud over the proceedings. My next contact with the film was a press screening in Salford for French journalists (so help me, it’s true), and then there was the London premiere, attended by the Duke and Duchess of York, and the reviews, which were pretty unanimously unfavourable.

I wasn’t surprised. Roy’s death had overshadowed the making of the picture, and the aftermath of recrimination and litigation was no encouragement to the viewing public. But there were other reasons why the film wasn’t a success. Dick had fallen seriously ill before shooting began, and while he made an excellent recovery, the pre-production had been affected, not least because he and I had not been able to go over the script as meticulously as we’d done with the earlier films, and I’m sure the picture suffered in consequence; we never got our usual happy ping-pong of ideas. Talking it over years later we agreed that we could have done better – with hindsight, I should have strengthened Christopher Lee’s part and put more venom into his father – daughter relationship with Kim Cattrall; that would have worked well. And there were other areas I could have improved, too.