by Judy Nunn
As they slowly wound their way up the hill, Bob avoiding huge potholes and ruts where he could, Rodney explained to Sam and Mickey that the other sets to be used in the location filming were ‘actuals’.
‘We’ve hired the real thing,’ he said. ‘The Blackstons’ cottage, the church, the plantation owner’s home, they’re all actuals. It’ll make shooting without floaters more difficult and the lighting’ll be tricky, but with a bit of extra dressing from the art department they’ll be very effective and authentic.’
The views from the top of the hill were spectacular, but as they continued down towards the coast around the back of Mount Erskine, Sam noticed again the blankets of purple-flowered vine that seemed to have such a stranglehold. She’d seen it everywhere they’d driven, in some places it had even crept its way up to the topmost heights of the giant banyan trees. It looked like the morning glory vine that was such a menace in Sydney, she thought, and she said so to Bob.
‘It is,’ he said. ‘A smaller leaf variety but same thing really. It’s not indigenous to the islands at all, it’s a legacy from the Yanks.’
‘The Yanks?’ she queried. ‘How come?’
‘They planted it as camouflage during the war, called it mile-a-minute vine. It grows much faster than the local lantana. Bastard of a thing. It can smother a whole coconut plantation.’
A little further along the road they pulled up at Port Havannah, a huge natural harbour protected by two islands.
‘Havannah Harbour,’ Simon announced as they got out of the car, ‘where the American fleet was based. We’ll be filming here.’
The southern channel between the coast and the smaller of the two islands, Lelepa, had been mined as protection against attack, Rodney told them. ‘No problem with the northern channel between Moso Island and the coast,’ he said, ‘that’s all shallow reef, but they netted the gap between the two islands, lowering the net to take their own ships out. The big threat of course was Jap submarines.’
It was two o’clock in the afternoon by the time they approached Quoin Hill and everyone was starving.
‘The Beachcomber,’ Bob said. ‘They’ve got good tucker there.’ And fifteen minutes later he pulled up beside a weathered building on the wildest coastline imaginable, where pandanus trees grew horizontal to the ground from the sheer force of the wind, and where angry surf churned over treacherous reef as far as the eye could see.
A sign said ‘Beachcomber Resort’, and several bungalows stood apart from the main building, forlorn but brave in their defiance. The Beachcomber Resort obviously catered to only the hardiest of guests, those who were genuinely seeking a remote outpost.
‘G’day, Bob.’ The Australian who owned the place was as weathered as his surroundings. Tall and gaunt, he leaned at an angle like the pandanus trees, as if his whole life was a battle. He welcomed the six of them effusively and chatted nineteen to the dozen whilst he opened bottles of ice-cold Tusker beer, the local brew that was popular throughout the islands. They all guzzled from the bottle, except for Bob Crawley, who was being very professional and sticking to water.
‘Told you,’ Bob said half an hour later as they tucked into the white, firm-textured poulet fish cooked in lime. ‘Good tucker.’
‘Why poulet?’ Sam queried, recalling from her school-days that ‘poulet’ was French for chicken.
‘Jeez I dunno,’ Bob shrugged. ‘But it’s always been poulet and it’s always been bloody good.’
Everyone agreed, and they all voted the meal one of the best they’d ever eaten.
‘Kakae ia nambawan,’ Bob said to the chef, an islander in his twenties who’d served them personally and appeared to run the place.
‘Tangkyu, ta,’ the young man said, pleased with the compliment.
When it was time to leave, the Australian was loath to let them go. Starved of company, he tried to ply them with more beer. ‘One for the road,’ he said with a touch of desperation.
But Bob was emphatic. ‘See you next time, mate.’
Their last image of the Beachcomber Resort was the Australian, standing amongst the pandanus trees, the wind straining his cotton shirt against his ribs as he waved goodbye.
‘Lonely place,’ Bob said.
Two sets were constructed at the Quoin Hill location: the American airbase and the Japanese prisoner of war camp.
‘It’s a bit of an MGM backlot,’ Rodney said as they wandered amongst the barbed wire enclosures and bamboo huts of the POW set, ‘having the two sets side by side like this. But it’s eminently practical, good for transport, and the terrain’s spot on for both of them.’ He waved an arm around at the barren landscape of grasses and hardy scrub.
They chatted with several of Rodney’s team who’d been working there since the early hours of the morning, before driving the further kilometre to the airstrip.
‘This is for real,’ he told them, ‘this was the actual airbase and the landing strip was still here, we just cleared it a bit. With permission of course. And we added the revetments.’ He indicated the three-sided, flat-topped embankments. ‘They’re aircraft protection against enemy bombs,’ he said. ‘The planes were housed in the revetments and camouflage hauled over the top – netting and vines – to prevent visibility from the air.’
‘Allo! Allo!’ A group of islanders had appeared from nowhere, mainly women and children, and they were waving to the group and smiling excitedly.
‘Allo!’ Bob called, encouraging the others who all waved back. ‘They’re from Epule village,’ he told them, ‘it’s just nearby.’
‘Ah yes,’ Simon said, ‘Epule village, we’re recruiting extras from there when we film the airbase sequences.’
As they returned to the Landcruiser, Bob asked them if they wanted to go back to Port Vila the way they had come or continue on the round trip, since they were by now nearly halfway around the island anyway. ‘Be a little bit longer,’ he warned them, ‘and the roads are rough until the last few k’s.’ They voted unanimously for the round trip.
Nearly three hours later, when they arrived back at the Crowne Plaza after the gruelling drive, they agreed it had been worth it. The whole of Efate was a scenic wonder.
Simon and Nick joined Sam on her verandah at dusk to share a cold Tusker before meeting the gang for dinner.
‘Now you tell me how a Winnebago could be expected to make that trip,’ Nick said after they’d toasted each other.
‘Did you tell her?’ Simon asked with a disapproving scowl. ‘About Marsdon?’
‘Why not? Best to be warned. Don’t you reckon, Sam?’
‘Too right,’ she agreed.
Simon didn’t. Harmony amongst the cast at all costs. He intended to personally field any prima donna behaviour from Marsdon, and he expected there’d be some, but he didn’t want Sam fed with a sense of antagonism before he’d even arrived. He glared at Nick, who shrugged back.
Too late now, Nick thought, aware that Simon would take him to task when they were alone. Besides, he was glad he’d set Sam straight. Forewarned was forearmed.
But over the next fortnight Sam had little time to dread the arrival of Brett Marsdon. The work was intense, tiring and thoroughly exhilarating. Most of her scenes were with Mickey and the actors who had been flown in from Queensland to play the smaller roles of the British commissioner, the church minister and various prominent colonials and expats. There was also the key support role of the village girl who befriended Sarah, teaching her Bislama and the ways of her people. A young islander called Elizabeth, who worked for the local radio station, had been cast and the affinity between the two women was so immediate that Simon quickly dispensed with the official Bislama coach he’d hired for Sam, recognising that Elizabeth’s coaching from the sidelines only strengthened the bond.
They shot the montage sequence denoting the passage of time, and Simon marvelled at Sam’s skill as he watched the emergence of Sarah Blackston, transformed by her purpose into a woman of strength and beauty.
Ten da
ys into the shoot the Frenchman who was to play Phillipe Macon, the plantation owner, arrived from Paris.
Louis Durand was a highly respected and popular actor in the world of European art-house cinema. He was in his early forties but answered to thirty-five, not through vanity but for casting purposes, and his latest movie, L’Homme qui a Perdu son Honneur, had won that year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Torpedo Junction was to be his first major Hollywood movie, and Simon considered the man a casting coup.
‘He’s top box-office whichever way you look at him,’ Simon had said. ‘Europe already loves him and America’s keen to welcome him with open arms.’
Louis was an arresting presence. A charismatic mixture of ugly and handsome that the camera loved, he was destined to play powerful characters, usually of the more unsavoury kind. In reality, however, he was a highly intelligent actor who loved his craft. Following the Academy Awards, he had been inundated with offers from America but he hadn’t agonised over his choice. He had decided to make his Hollywood debut playing Phillipe Macon in Torpedo Junction because the film was to be directed by Simon Scanlon. Louis was an avid fan of Scanlon’s work.
The feeling was mutual. Simon found a soulmate in Louis Durand, a man equally dedicated to the world of film. And, as with the other members of the cast, the all-important rapport between Louis and Samantha was perfect. Everything was progressing so smoothly, Simon thought, that something simply had to go wrong.
‘Oh man, what a place! Let’s party!’
And this was it, Simon realised, the moment he’d dreaded. All his nightmares were answered with the arrival of Brett Marsdon.
Simon had gathered the principal cast in the hotel reception area to greet the American upon his arrival, and both he and Nick were unimpressed by Marsdon’s flashy exuberance. But to the others, Sam included, Brett Marsdon appeared as handsome and personable as one would have expected from his onscreen persona and the press that had preceded him.
He seemed younger than his twenty-eight years, Sam thought. Boyish in his enthusiasm. He was very American and very showy, certainly, but his handshake, freely offered to all, was warm and firm and his dazzling smile appeared genuine. This was neither a jaded actor working purely for his eight-figure fee, nor an ego-driven superstar who believed his own publicity; this was a young man happy to meet his co-workers. Why judge him for the very Americanness that had given him his worldwide popularity?
‘I can’t tell you how great it is to meet you guys. God, I’m looking forward to this.’ He turned to Sam, dimples flashing beguilingly. ‘And we get paid to be here?’
Sam laughed. ‘That’s exactly what I said.’
Perhaps the all-American enthusiasm was fake, she thought, or perhaps he was merely excited, an eager puppy wagging his tail. She decided upon the latter. And he was certainly good-looking, even more so than the camera gave him credit for. But she was surprised to discover that he was only a few centimetres taller than she was.
Like a number of leading male stars, Brett Marsdon was below average height, but he was in such perfect proportion that the tall, muscular onscreen image was an easy deception for the camera. Lean-hipped, he moved with the grace and agility of a boxer in training, and beneath his open-necked silk Armani shirt, his compact body was toned to perfection. The smile, the dimples, the piercing blue eyes that the women’s magazines swooned over, were all as electric offscreen as on, but it was the very force of his energy that made him compelling. He was like a coiled spring, body and mind alert, in love with life and ready for action.
‘Man, I’ve been to some places,’ he grinned at Sam, ‘but this is it! We’ll have a ball here, you and me, Sam.’
Sam sensed Simon’s disapproval, and Nick’s too, but she couldn’t rid herself of the eager-puppy impression; they were being a little unfair, she thought.
‘We’ll do some work first, shall we?’ She smiled a subtle warning to Brett, who immediately took the hint.
‘Oh man!’ he said, turning the full force of his attention on Simon. ‘This role! I can’t tell you how much I’m into this role. He’s a hero, man, they don’t write them like that any more.’
‘Well, you can thank Nick for that,’ Simon said a little woodenly. ‘Nick’s the writer, you know.’ Simon wasn’t sure whether Marsdon had twigged to that fact during the introductions.
‘Oh yeah, man, I know.’ Attention swung to Nick. ‘Your work is fantastic. I love the script, I wanted the role the moment I first read it. But then Mort would have told you that.’
‘Mort was a bit too busy telling us about the Winnebago.’ Nick wasn’t sure why he’d made such a bitchy remark and he sensed the daggers from Simon the moment he’d said it. But he hadn’t liked the innuendo in Marsdon’s ‘you and me, Sam’ comment. He realised that to everyone else it had seemed innocent, and perhaps, given his own relationship with Sam, he was being overprotective. Perhaps it was simply because he was gay. Maybe he was a little more alert to sexual predators. Whatever it was, he’d be willing to bet that Marsdon was on the make. And within only minutes of meeting his co-star. Nick didn’t like the man.
‘The Winnebago!’ Brett’s laugh was genuine. ‘Shit, man, you didn’t take that seriously.’
‘Well, we did at the time,’ Nick’s reply was arch, ‘given the fact that Mort was going to pull you out of the movie.’ He was aware of Sam beside him and knew that she was taken aback, just as he knew that he was behaving totally out of character; it was unlike him to be so discourteous and unfriendly.
‘In the past now, Nick. Neither here nor there,’ Simon said with a withering look and a voice like ice. ‘Good to have you aboard, Brett, I look forward to working with you.’
‘But it’s just so much bullshit, you know?’ Brett appeared desperate to clear the air. ‘Just agent stuff. They have to keep up with the agreements of the previous contract, it’s their job. I couldn’t give a shit about a Winnebago.’
‘Fair enough,’ Nick said, aware that he’d gone too far. ‘Not my call anyway. Sorry.’ The apology didn’t sound heartfelt, but it was enough.
‘Come on, Brett.’ Simon whacked a solid arm around the smaller man’s shoulder. He hadn’t reversed his initial reaction to Marsdon, but he was willing to give the young man the benefit of the doubt; it was to his own advantage to do so. ‘Everyone to the pool, drinks are on Mammoth.’ And the others all trooped off after them.
‘That was a bit rough,’ Sam said to Nick as they followed.
‘I know. I’ll cop it from Simon. But the bloke’s going to try to crack on to you, I can tell.’
‘So? I can look after myself, Nick.’
‘Sorry.’
He looked so dejected that she took his hand as they walked down the stone steps to the pool.
Brett watched them from his position propped against the bar, Simon Scanlon and Louis Durand on either side. The writer had come on pretty strong, he thought, and he’d sensed it had something to do with Samantha Lindsay. But, as they walked hand in hand down the steps, he sensed something else. The guy was a fairy, he was sure of it. No competition there then.
The conversation inevitably turned to film and, in discussing European cinema, Brett Marsdon raved about L’Homme qui a Perdu son Honneur.
‘It should have won Best Picture,’ he said to Louis, ‘not just Best Foreign Film. It’s a work of art, man.’
As it turned out, Brett was an avid admirer of the great French film directors. Furthermore, he’d seen every one of Louis’s major films, and preferred to watch the original versions without their subtitles which he found very distracting.
‘Parlez vous francais?’ Louis queried and suddenly, to everyone’s astonishment, Brett started chatting away to him in rapid French.
Simon stared dumbfounded for a moment or so before turning to Nick, who was the only other French-speaking person present. ‘What the hell is he saying?’
‘His grandmother’s French, he grew up in Menton on the French Riviera and he visits
her every year after the Cannes Film Festival.’
‘Hey, I’m sorry, you guys,’ Brett apologised, halting midstream. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just so wild to be working with Louis Durand, you know?’ He punched the big Frenchman’s arm lightly. ‘Man, your work is great!’
‘Merci beaucoup,’ Louis smiled, aware that his ego was being pandered to, but finding the young man’s passion for French film most gratifying.
Simon, delighted by the rapport established between the American and the Frenchman, was rapidly reassessing his initial impression of Brett Marsdon. Nick, however, was not impressed. So Marsdon was bilingual and had a knowledge of French cinema, so what? He still didn’t like the man.
Brett had the rest of that day and the next to get over his jet lag, but it was obvious jet lag meant nothing to him. He stayed up late that night after dinner, talking first to Louis Durand until the Frenchman retired, then to anyone else who was in the mood for a drink and a chat, and the following day he insisted upon coming out to location to watch the filming.
‘The old Marat plantation,’ Simon told Sam. ‘Once the wealthiest property on the island, I believe. Pretty rundown now, leased out to a New Zealander, but the location’s glorious.’ They were shooting a scene between Sam, Mickey and Louis in the home of the French plantation owner, and the set was an ‘actual’. It was just beyond Port Havannah Harbour and the house overlooked Undine Bay.
‘Just look at that! Man, what a place!’ Brett said yet again as they pulled up in the Landcruiser beside the still waters and the sandy white beach.
‘Good spot, eh?’ Bob Crawley agreed. He was thrilled beyond measure to be driving Brett Marsdon. A true blue Hedy Lamarr if ever there was one, he could dine out on this for the rest of his life. And what a beaut bloke into the bargain.