‘Oh, right.’
‘Now you did some … uh … work for Mr Messalino, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘You had a good run for your money with him?’
‘I guess so.’
‘That’s what Bernie heard. Bernie also heard you were a dab hand with the camera. You know how to take pictures that look like they were taken by a bloke with a head on his shoulders.’
‘I can use a light meter.’
‘Well, Bernie says that he don’t need you to take any snapshots as his own lads can do that. But what he does need is someone who can use an 8mm cine camera. He wants some 10-minute films … all the usual ingredients … plenty of humping and that.’
‘I’ve never shot a movie before.’
‘Shouldn’t be too difficult for a man of your achievements, should it, son?’
‘I wouldn’t know where to get the footage processed.’
‘That ain’t a problem. We’ve got a lab up on the Seven Sisters Road that can do it at night.’
‘What would the deal be?’
‘Bernie is generous … very generous. But the market and Bernie’s programme of expansion and diversification have put a little bit of a brake on his good heart. But he’ll look after you. Anyway, I’m Ronnie Swindon … and this is my card. I run the day-to-day operations for Bernie … it has been a real treat meeting you and your lovely wife, Timmy, and we shall talk shortly I’m sure. Good-night.’
And they sailed out the door and thumped all the way down the stairs and slammed the front door so hard the whole house rocked.
Veronica was laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Your new friends.’
‘I wouldn’t say they are friends. More business acquaintances.’
‘They won’t let you get away with anything, Tim.’
‘I’m sure they wouldn’t.’
I got back on the bed and tried to watch Moonrise but I couldn’t concentrate. Eight-millimetre films, eh? They wouldn’t be very difficult to shoot but they would require a more extrovert performer than the stills, someone who would listen and do exactly as they were told. Still, I couldn’t make worse films than those old pictures I showed at Stephen’s parties if I tried, could I? The punters don’t expect great acting anyway; the fact that it is moving is enough for them. I could do for dirty films what Harrison Marks has done for glamour films. But I need a distinctive name to sign the pictures with … how about lopping off the ‘s’ of Marks and swapping the names around? Mark Harrison presents … that sounds right. Sleazy and yet with a bit of polish. Mark Harrison presents … A Moonrise Film … Au Pair Girls in a Chelsea Sandwich!
But what would the deal be? And is Bernie’s idea of generosity my idea of generosity? And who am I and what am I doing here anyway?
First 8mm:
DOLCE VITA FOR FOUR
125 feet (10 minutes), black and white, mute.
The Ronnie/Bernie Deal, as Veronica called it, was simple. I would submit an expenses budget and ‘story’ outline and if they approved it they would reimburse me the costs once the film was made and pay me £75. I paid the performers, bought the stock and organised the camera and lights. They would pay the development costs at the lab. So while it wasn’t the good money I had been making with Mr Messalino it wasn’t to be balked at: £75 clear for just a couple of evenings’ work – an evening to shoot it and an evening later on to edit it.
My contact man up at Finsbury Park was a bloke called Ernie Trundle who worked nights in a small 8mm lab. He was the night-shift supervisor and could do what he wanted. He was an elderly guy and apparently was an old friend of Ronnie Swindon’s dad, Harry, a once well known bank robber who now, funnily enough, runs a caravan site down on the Isle of Sheppey just across the Medway from Grain. (‘You ever want a caravan for the weekend, Timmy, just give me a shout and I’ll fix it with my old man.’) We were limited to 8mm black-and-white because no independent lab yet had colour processing facilities. When you bought a reel of 8mm Kodacolor or Gevacolor the processing costs were included in the purchase price and only those companies have the means to process colour. So, until such time as a safe contact is found in one of these big labs or colour processing becomes easier and simpler the punters are stuck with black-and-white.
I wasn’t too familiar with 8mm cine cameras so I bought some copies of Amateur Cine World, studied the ads and spent a day going around the West End shops checking the gear out. The camera I decided on was the new Eumig C5 that was only just out from Johnsons up in Hendon. A beautiful bit of Austrian engineering and just what I needed because, unlike all the other 8mm machines, it has reflex viewing and a built-in zoom lens, an f/1.8 10-40mm, no less. So there would be no messing about with lens turrets and no framing cock-ups arising from a parallax viewfinder. Further, it runs off five pen-light batteries so you are not constantly rewinding a clockwork motor. The thing costs £117 8s. 3d. new and while I had some savings I didn’t want to blow that amount on something I didn’t need myself. Luckily I found a dodgy photographic dealer down in Streatham who was prepared to hire the camera to me overnight for 25 shillings.
I shot Dolce Vita for Four on Friday, 18 August 1961, in a bedsit in Courtfield Gardens that a friend of Veronica’s had. I had two guys from a pub on Westbourne Grove I knew, Audrey who had come via Veronica, and a friend of Stephen’s called Tina who was half English and half Chinese. She said she was an old friend of Stephen’s but didn’t seem to know much at all about him. But she was a real wildcat on camera and was the only performer who didn’t keep looking into the lens.
The storyline of the film was minimal. Audrey and Tina are alone in the bedsit drooling over a Cliff Richard magazine. Audrey gets very excited by Cliff and then Tina produces a dildo. In the middle of the lesbian high-jinks the two boyfriends walk in unexpectedly and join in. There was a slight problem with one of the blokes, Terry, who couldn’t keep it up, so I had to be careful how I shot him. The problem with Bill was that he got too excited while I was reloading the camera and came in Tina’s hand when she gave him a playful squeeze. Luckily I had some condensed milk for come shots, but I don’t see how one can fake an ejaculation itself. The zoom lens came in handy for big close-ups. You can zoom right in for close-ups that fill the screen. Give the punters what they want!
I stole the title from the Fellini film that I had seen the week before at the Berkeley Cinema. As a title it seemed apt and contemporary. The phrase appears all over the place now, even in the News of the World, and it is important to reflect the times. I didn’t actually think a lot of Fellini’s film, it had some nice moments but it went on too long. Perhaps I wasn’t in the right mood to see it, having just had an enormous row with Veronica who had originally agreed to come but at the last moment stormed off to see Exodus at the Astoria instead. (‘I don’t want to see a bunch of Italians – I want to see Sal Mineo. He’s really dreamy!’) The night after Ernie processed it I went up to the lab and ‘edited’ the film together. Joining would be a better term. There was nothing much really to edit, aside from cutting in the opening titles I had shot in my room:
Card One:
Mark Harrison
presents
A Moonrise Production of
Card Two:
DOLCE VITA FOR FOUR
This was really film d’art as they used to call it, filmed theatre. Next time I’ll think in terms of cutaways and editing and see if I can’t come up with something a little more cinematic. But Ronnie liked it and gave me £75 in fivers. Good on you, guv. It ain’t the old Messalino money but it supplements the few bob a week I make at Modern Snax.
Second 8mm:
HOT STUFF
125 feet (10 minutes), black and white, mute.
This was shot in my room on the afternoon of Sunday 19 November 1961. It featured a young guy named Brian Westgate who is a projectionist in a Soho cinema, Shirley the black girl, and a girl Veronica found named Janet Hutchins, a small dark-haired beauty wit
h the finest set of big firm breasts I’ve ever seen. I shot it in less than an hour and it came out pretty good. Brian was a good performer and could get it up at a flick of a wrist (providing the wrist was someone else’s). He came twice in the hour, once in Shirley’s mouth and once between Janet’s tits. I eschewed a storyline in this. It is just a straight fuck-and-suck film.
I got some good three-way screwing shots and the girls had some fun with each other and with the brand new green nylon umbrella I had bought on Friday at Hector Powe’s. I introduced some forced humour at the end. Janet turns to Brian and says by way of a title card:
‘Does it burn after sex?’
… and he replies:
‘I don’t know. I’ve never tried lighting it.’
That’s an old schoolboy joke. One we all heard years ago.
After the session we all went down to Au Père de Nico in Lincoln Street, just off the King’s Road near Sloane Square. Very Chelsea-ish. We sat in the courtyard out the back and had some really good crêpes and wine. The whole bill only came to £4 12s. 6d., which wasn’t bad at all. I spent a bit of time editing this film together. I had shot cutaway close-ups of the faces of each of the performers as they rolled their eyes, licked their lips and sighed. I could inter-cut these as reaction shots away from the main action. I had also realised after shooting the first film that one shot of a girl sucking a guy, or whatever of some sexual activity, is much the same as another and that it was not necessary to shoot it from another angle again. Just dupe your original shot, which is what I did. Dupe it or flip it. I shot 100 feet of film and ended up with 125 feet. The cuts and inter-cuts certainly gave it a more cinematic feel. After Ernie had done his neg cutting and produced a new print I took it along to Ronnie, who pronounced it a ‘gem’.
I was walking down Charing Cross Road one evening on the way to meet Stephen in a pub over in Covent Garden when I saw French Joe on the other side of the road leaning against a lamp-post and smoking a cigarette. I walked across. He was shaking and tears were running down his face.
‘How you doing, Joe?’
‘I’m doing all right … but poor Jimmy ain’t.’
‘Who?’
‘They hanged him this morning … at the prison. He’s dead. He was a really good mate … he was. Really good.’
‘Who hanged him?’
‘The fucking prison hanged him … the rozzers. Who do you fucking think hanged him? The taxman?’
I then connected what Joe was saying with the news I had heard on the radio earlier. James Hanratty had been hanged for murdering some bloke called Michael Gregsten who was married but having an affair. Hanratty had discovered them together in the car, surprised them, and then with a gun got them to drive for miles up to Bedfordshire somewhere and there he had shot Gregsten, raped the girl and then shot her, believing she was dead. She wasn’t. She recovered and eventually identified him. Why was French Joe upset by this?
‘Was Hanratty a friend of yours?’
‘Yes he was. And you knew him too!’
‘I did?’
‘Yeah, I came into your place enough times with him. He was a good mate.’
I remembered when Joe said that. Hanratty was a slight guy, a young guy who often used to hang about with Joe. A harmless sort of guy, did a bit of thieving but that was about it. We had even given him some casual work in Modern Snax. Very polite. Gentle. Harmless. This was the guy who was supposed to be Public Enemy Number One? The Worst Murderer of Our Times? The thing hit me like a lead cosh. I staggered.
‘Did he do it, Joe?’
‘No, he didn’t. He was set up. The rozzers know he was set up. There’s this bloke up on the ********* *****. He’s the ******* of the murdered ******* ****. He took a dim view of Gregsten carrying on with another woman so he decided to take the law into his own hands and have the frighteners put on Gregsten. He got this loony Peter Alphon to go in there with a gun and frighten him. You know, just frighten him. But Alphon is a real loony and he ends up shooting the guy and raping the girl. The shit hits the fan then but this geezer’s got friends in the police so it all gets hushed up and they can’t do Alphon because he’ll lead them back to the geezer who set it up so they get poor Jimmy instead.’
‘How the fuck do you know this?’
‘I know it … Alphon told me, that’s how I know.’
‘Haven’t you told anyone?’
‘I’ve told the pigeons and I’ve told you … should I write a letter to her fucking Royal Highness, the Queen? Dear Ma’am, There’s been a bit of wrong business going on in your kingdom? Do me a favour!’
‘What about Desmond the journalist?’
‘He couldn’t hang Jimmy quick enough.’
‘There are other journalists.’
There’s something else going on here. I heard that this geezer up on **** **** ***. ***********. *** ****** ******* *** **** ******* *** **** **** ** ****** ** ***** *** ** *** *** ** *********. * *** *** **** * *** ** ** *** *** ** *** ** *** **** **** ****** *** * ********* *** *** *** ******* ** *** *******. ** ***** ***** *** *** *** ***.’
1962 is getting even more bizarre than 1961 ….
Needless to say, I never ended up seeing Stephen that evening. I slouched up Charing Cross Road and caught the underground down to Queensway and I had a quick drink in every pub between there and home. I got in and fell asleep on the sofa.
I caught up with Stephen about a week later in his little coffee bar in Marylebone. He had been pestering me to get a print of Dolce Vita for Four for him. I put it on the table and told him that he owed me £15.
‘That’s an awful lot of money, old boy.’
‘That’s what it cost me. Times are changing.’
‘I think you are forgetting I sent you cute little Tina.’
‘I paid her the rate, £10. Why should I now fork out £15 for you? I can’t get them free. I have to pay what the punters pay if I want a print. These blokes run everything as a business.’
‘They do?’
‘Yes, they do. If you can’t afford £15 I’ll flog it to someone who can. All right?’
‘Calm down, Timmy. I need that print.’
‘And I need £15 or I’m off. Got it?’
‘It’ll have to be a cheque. You’ll take a cheque?’
‘If I have to … yes.’
‘A post-dated cheque?’
What a mean fucker this guy is when it comes to money. The cheque will probably bounce but what choice do I have?
‘Start writing,’ I said.
Third 8mm:
ALADDIN’S LAMP, OR, RUB VERY HARD!
125 feet (10 minutes), black and white, mute.
This was shot one Friday evening in April 1962 in the room in Porchester Road. I didn’t really have my heart in it. It was shot and cut professionally enough and Ronnie liked it so I guess that is all that matters.
The actors were Frank from next door and a girl Stephen had sent over called Trish who works in a travel agent’s somewhere in the city, or so she said. Frank didn’t mind appearing because he could wear a disguise.
The story was pretty basic. Trish is reading the new Sunday Times ‘Colour Section’ (‘A Sharp Glance at the Mood of Britain’). It was the first issue and had come out a couple of weeks or so before. She gets bored reading this so she starts sorting through the wardrobe. She’s ready for bed in her baby-doll nightie. She finds an old brass lamp. She rubs it and a fairy princess appears (played by Veronica in a hat and curtains). The princess says she will grant Trish one wish. Trish’s wish is for a big stud so, who should walk into the room, but Frank in a mask and loincloth! He gives her a jolly rogering and she is left exhausted. She falls asleep and when she wakes up in the morning she looks perplexedly into the camera: was it a dream or did it really happen?
Frank performed pretty well but had difficulty keeping it up after a while so we had to cheat some of it. He managed a good come shot over the girl’s tummy. Trish seemed a bit of a raver and was eager to appear in anothe
r film. When I gave her a tenner she nearly had another orgasm. Frank told me afterwards that he is moving out next week. He’s found somewhere cheaper to live. And smaller. A broom cupboard or something over a laundromat on the Harrow Road just to the north. My feeling is that he’s doing this to avoid his creditors.
It was about 10.30 p.m. on a Tuesday and I had just walked up Queensway. It had been a real pig of day at Modern Snax that was crowned by a £5 discrepancy in the till. I just wanted to get into bed and get unconscious. As I turned into Porchester Road a car that was parked in front of the house flashed its lights. I took no notice and was walking by when I heard my name being called. It was Stephen. He was sitting in a white Jaguar. ‘Jump in,’ he said, indicating the back.
I climbed in and pulled the door shut. ‘Are we going for a ride or what?’
He turned in the driving seat and just stared at me. His face was intermittently illuminated by the headlamps of passing cars. He seemed agitated. Nervous.
‘Why don’t you come upstairs? We can have a drink,’ I said. ‘You look like you could do with one.’
‘I haven’t got time tonight.’ This was said in a clipped unemotive manner. Something was on his mind.
‘What are you doing Friday night, Timmy?’
‘Not much I shouldn’t think. Why?’
‘I need you to take some photographs.’
‘Some photographs?’
‘Yes, photographs.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of a woman I know. She wants to be photographed with a couple of black guys … big black guys. Not light-skinned chaps … really black ones. Her husband wants to see them too … the photographs, that is, not the … uh … chaps.’
‘She does?’
‘Yes. Can you supply them?’
‘I’ll get Sonny and a mate of his … it might cost her.’
‘That is not a problem.’
London Blues Page 14