“Don’t take all of this too seriously,” he advised us. “We’re here to produce a product which will entertain the public. Oh, we’ll work hard—don’t either of you doubt that for a moment. But we’ll also have plenty of opportunities to relax, and have fun. It’s all make-believe, remember.”
Eric and I were both twenty-three years old at the time, while Alain was all of thirty-two. It was definitely strange to have a man who was less than ten years our senior portraying our father in the film. In the movie’s prologue, which showed Torquatus as a young warrior, killing the big blond Gaul, Alain played a character approximately his own age, which worked just fine. In all of the subsequent scenes, the makeup department dutifully “aged” him a little, giving him a neatly trimmed beard, and streaking both it and his hair with gray. They also gave him a few tiny crinkles around the corners of his eyes and mouth. There wasn’t any way to age his physique, and since this was, after all, a sword and sandal epic, the costume designer didn’t even bother to disguise it—in most of the scenes, Alain was allowed to show as much of his chest and thighs as did the actors who were playing younger characters. As a result, Torquatus the patriarch looked about forty, at the most. I suppose it was plausible that a man that age could have two teenaged sons, which were what Eric and I were supposed to be. But Alain was the hottest “Daddy” I’d ever seen, outside of a leather bar back in Manhattan.
When it was my turn to report to the costume department, it was a brisk, no-nonsense process. I felt like a piece of merchandise being put through an assembly line, or like a recruit being inducted into the army—a real army, not the fake ancient Roman one we’d be creating on film. Two chain-smoking guys led me into a tiny cubicle, where they brusquely told me to strip naked. Feeling more than a little awkward by the lack of privacy, I did so.
Still puffing away on their cigarettes, they looked me up and down.
“Not bad looking,” one of them grunted. “For an American.” (Whatever that meant!)
“He’s a big boy, isn’t he?” the other responded. “But very small around the waist, for a man of his height and build.”
“His big behind makes up for it,” the first man said. “That’s some meaty ass. Like a couple of round, ripe melons in a sack.”
I decided to speak up. “I’m right here, you know,” I protested. “I can hear you—and I can understand you. And, for your information, my behind is not big. It’s muscular.”
They both shrugged.
“My apologies,” the first guy said, sarcastically. “Your muscular behind is going to be difficult to fit a peplum around, without the fabric making a bulge. Hold still.”
He then attacked me with a tape measure, taking my measurements, more thoroughly than any tailor. As he called out the various figures, the other man wrote them down in a little pocket notebook.
“Come back, first thing tomorrow,” I was told.
I went back in the morning, and then I found, to my astonishment, that all of my costumes had been cut and sewn overnight. With the efficiency so characteristic of this studio, each item had a little tag attached to it, with my name and the number of the scene in which I would wear it penciled on it. I had to try everything on, one ensemble after another, so that the two chain smokers could study the effect and make any necessary adjustments. Sure enough, there were lengthy discussions about whether they’d succeeded in camouflaging my disgracefully oversized glutes.
The core of each outfit was an item familiar to me from physique competitions. It was, for all practical purposes, a pair of “posing trunks”—extremely brief, extremely tight-fitting, and made in a fabric to match whatever else would be worn on top of it. The function of the trunks was to leave the thighs fully exposed, while keeping the genitals and buttocks decently covered.
For the scenes in which my character was off duty, I had a couple of short wraparound peplum skirts, and close-fitting sleeveless tunics, accessorized with belts and, of course, the inevitable sandals. The fabrics were soft and they draped well. The tunics were comfortable to wear, but I quickly discovered that the tight “man skirts” were extremely constricting, and they took a bit of getting used to. We actors did a lot of standing around during the filming—not only during the actual scenes, but while waiting between takes. The first time I tried to sit down while wearing one of my skirts, I learned that it was just about impossible to do so without the skirt “riding up” and an edge of the fabric gouging me uncomfortably in the waist or in the groin. To this day, I don’t know how women who wear miniskirts manage to sit down, or get in or out of a car, gracefully.
There were also cloaks, made from wool. I had a plain blue one, and a white one with a black Greek key pattern embroidered along its edges.
Most of the time, though, my character would be in his military attire—with or without his actual armor. In this case the skirt, with crisply ironed pleats, hugged my hips and barely covered the trunks. Over it I had a wide leather belt to protect my abdomen, with brass studs decorating it and, positioned over my navel, a little medallion depicting the severed head of Medusa, complete with her locks of “hair” consisting of writhing snakes.
That, except for the sandals, was it. In all the scenes in which I was in the camp but not actually fighting, I was going to walk around like this, half naked. I couldn’t help thinking that if the ancient Romans routinely dressed, or rather undressed, like this, then they must all have suffered from chronic sunburn. To say nothing of sunstroke!
I was excited, though, when I tried on my armor. All of the pieces were beautifully fashioned from metal and leather, and they had to be fastened onto me with the built-in buckles and lacings. I had a breastplate, gauntlets for my forearms, and greaves for my lower legs. My thighs were still bare, and it occurred to me that on the battlefield a smart opponent would slash or stab at them first, since they certainly looked to me like my most vulnerable spot.
There was also a helmet, a striking-looking affair with a little sculpture of a rampant, snarling lion mounted on top of it in the front—not unlike the hood ornament on an antique automobile—and a tall “brush” of feather plumes, which added an additional foot or more to the wearer’s height. When I first tried on the helmet, I was staggered by its sheer weight, and I almost toppled over. Plus, the small eye openings severely restricted my field of vision. I realized that this, too, was something I’d need to get used to.
This uniform also came with a cloak—in this case, an unusually voluminous one, in an appropriate shade of blood red. The two costume guys draped it over my shoulders and secured it with authentic-looking brooches. Then they led me out of the cubicle. They wanted me to run up and down the corridor, so they could see how the cloak billowed out behind me. Apparently, this was an important, standard visual effect, without which no sword and sandal epic would be complete.
Feeling like a total idiot, I complied. I soon realized that moving around while weighed down by all of those pieces of armor was no joke. Even this slight exertion made me breathe hard and break out in a light sweat.
I also discovered that several of my leather bits and pieces squeaked loudly whenever I moved. This was no problem, the costume men assured me. They’d treat all of the leather with a special oil they had on hand, which would keep it supple and prevent the “pressure points” from squeaking. The oil treatment, they added matter-of-factly, would also protect the leather from getting soaked in my perspiration. I felt like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.
“Don’t worry, bello [pretty boy],” one of the guys assured me. “It’s our job to make sure you look good. And you will look good, when we’re done with you. After all, you weren’t hired for your acting ability. You were hired for those big muscles of yours.”
I couldn’t deny this obvious fact. Nevertheless, I seethed with resentment, inwardly, at having the truth so bluntly pointed out to me.
Green though I was, even I knew that you didn’t shoot the scenes of a movie in order. You took advantage of which sets
, locations, actors, and extras were available on a given day, and you tried to schedule sequences involving the same groups of people in close proximity, so you could get them over and done with.
And so I started, as the ancient Romans would have put it, in media res, right in the middle of the story, with a scene in which my character, Gaius, pleaded with his father for his brother’s life. I was working with Alain, who was tremendously supportive. He did everything he could to help me feel at my ease, including rehearsing with me on his own time. Still, I was sure I looked, moved, and spoke like an automaton. At least my voice would be dubbed by a professional Italian actor in the finished product. There wasn’t much they could about the visual element, except possibly edit it to minimize my awkwardness.
“Relax,” Alain told me. “You’re doing fine.”
I was convinced he was lying through his teeth, to make me feel better.
What I wanted to do was ask the director if he was at all satisfied with my work so far. But for some reason I didn’t dare. I was still in awe of Ludovico. And I was afraid that, if I did summon the courage to ask the question, his response would be, Are you serious? You’re terrible! The worst actor I’ve ever worked with. I can’t believe anybody could be this bad!
During those first few days of filming, Ludovico was invariably polite and formal, even exaggeratedly so, whenever he addressed Eric or me. He called us Mr. Streiff and Mr. D’Agostino, respectively, and he asked us to please do this, or please do that. At first, I found this reassuring. Over dinner one evening, though, Alain warned us that we were living in a dream world. He promised that we’d have our rude awakening, soon enough.
“They don’t call him ‘Vico the Volcano’ for nothing. Ludovico hasn’t made his mind up yet about whether you two are any good or not,” Alain said. “Trust me, he’s only polite to actors during that initial grace period. Once he’s made his mind up, one of two things will happen. If he’s decided you’re lousy and a waste of his time, he’ll still be polite to you, but he’ll only talk to you as much as is absolutely necessary. He’ll freeze you out. On the other hand, if he thinks you’re any good and you have potential, then he’ll start yelling at you, to see whether you can take it. But believe me, he only yells at people he has respect for. And he doesn’t have any use for doormats. So what you do is yell right back at him, and then you and he will get along just fine. I can see from the looks on your faces that you don’t believe me,” Alain added, with a laugh. “Well, wait and see. This honeymoon can’t last forever. Ludovico is sure to throw his first tantrum in a day or two, at the most.”
And so it proved. Sure enough, the very next day, Ludovico didn’t like the way a certain scene went on the first take. Eric and I weren’t involved in it, but we were observing from the sidelines. Ludovico shouted at the other actors and the extras and bullied them, and then, exactly as Alain had told us, you could tell which of these people had worked with Ludovico before—because they didn’t just stand there and take it; on the contrary, they grumbled and, in some cases, they dared to talk back. Freely, and with their speech liberally larded with obscenities.
Then Ludovico and Alain got into it with each other, right in front of everybody.
“What the hell are you doing, Camargue?” Ludovico demanded.
“I thought I was doing the scene,” Alain retorted.
“Well, don’t think. Don’t interpret. Don’t even try to act, because that just seems to get in your way. Just hit your mark and say the lines. And as written, please, without all of those ridiculous pauses and rhetorical inflections. Speak naturally, like a human being. Even you should be capable of that.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“What best? You don’t have a best. Who told you could act, in the first place?”
“My acting teacher.”
“Is it too late to sue him, to get your money back?”
“Probably. Just like it’s too late to hire a real director, one who has any idea of what he’s doing, to save this fiasco.”
Ludovico began to come to a boil. “Do you know who you’re talking to?”
“Yes. A hack.”
“Why, you stupid, useless, good-for-nothing fuck!”
“Fuck this, you son of a bitch!” And Alain punctuated the insult by making a classic European gesture, involving one arm bent at the elbow with a raised clenched fist, and the other hand clamped down on the bend in the elbow.
Then the two of them were off and running. They really did yell at each other, and they said terrible things, speculating about each other’s sex lives, and not even sparing each other’s mothers. Ludovico’s voice rose in pitch as he got more and more agitated, until he was shrieking in a high vocal register like an Italian opera soprano in full cry.
I’d heard the expression “hopping mad,” but I’d always assumed it was figurative. Ludovico really did stamp his foot, and jump up and down, cursing a blue streak all the while. It was quite a performance to watch.
I was horrified, because despite Alain’s advance warning, I still didn’t understand that this was just the two men’s way of blowing off steam. At last, though, they began to run dry, and Ludovico called for another take of the scene. Looking as though he’d be delighted to grab one of the prop daggers and drive it through Ludovico’s heart, Alain stomped back onto the set and did the scene.
After Ludovico said, “Cut!” there was a moment of tense silence. Then he casually added, “Print it,” and everybody visibly relaxed. Ludovico strolled over to where Alain was standing on the set, and smiled sweetly at him.
“See?” Ludovico purred. “It’s perfectly simple, as long as you do as you’re told, and you don’t try to impress us with all that intellectual bullshit of yours.”
That backhanded compliment set the two of them off again.
“Permit me to apologize for having a brain,” Alain said, with a sneer. “Obviously, it isn’t a requirement in this business. Not for a director, anyway!”
“Suck my dick,” was Ludovico’s blunt rejoinder. “God knows you’ve had a lot of practice doing that. I understand that’s how you got your first big break, when you started out. Many, many years ago. When you were a pretty little boy, spending all of your time down on your knees with your mouth open, or bent over, with your buttocks spread.”
“Suck mine! At least that might shut you up for five minutes!”
They went on like that for the rest of the day, taking time out only to film another scene. By the end of the day, Alain had literally shouted himself hoarse, to Ludovico’s mingled glee and chagrin. Poor Alain had to go to the studio doctor, to have his throat sprayed. But even being warned not to talk at all until the following morning didn’t stop him. That night, while we were having what was supposed to be a pleasant dinner at a restaurant, Alain amused himself by scribbling obscene notes addressed to Ludovico. He passed them around the table for all of us to read. I don’t know whether he actually put them in an envelope and had it delivered to the intended recipient, but I wouldn’t have put it past him.
Once Alain had recovered his voice, and he had the doctor’s okay to return to work, it was business as usual between him and Ludovico. We were doing the scene in which I, as Gaius, was pleading with Alain, as my father Torquatus, to spare my brother’s life. This was my Big Scene, at least in terms of any real acting, as opposed to standing around flexing and being decorative, or fighting. I was nervous.
“Cut!” Ludovico bellowed, after the first take. “That was lousy! Absolutely lousy, Camargue! Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the saints in heaven! Would it be too much to ask for you to give me one millimeter of film I can actually use? Do it again.”
“It’s your fault, you stupid son of a bitch,” Alain told him. “You’re shooting this scene all wrong, you know.”
“Oh, I am, am I? Please deign to give me the benefit of your hitherto unrevealed directorial genius,” Ludovico said, with elaborate sarcasm. “So how would you shoot it, if you were in charge—which yo
u aren’t, thank God.”
“Instead of keeping the camera on me the whole time, you ought to keep it on the kid.” By the kid, Alain meant me. “Because it’s really his scene, and he’s pretty good.”
Ludovico wheeled about and stared at me. His eyes, wide and glaring, seemed to penetrate right through me. I was terrified. I wanted to back away from him and babble, Oh no, Mr. Morelli, please don’t listen to him! I’m not any good, not any good at all. I know I’m terrible. You’re the director, after all. We’ll do the scene however you want! Please, don’t hurt me! But I was so scared, I was literally speechless.
“Ha,” Ludovico muttered, still looking at me. “God damn you, Alain! It’s killing me to have to say it, but maybe—just maybe—you might have a point. All right, do it again, the same way you did it before. Only this time we’ll keep the camera on the kid.”
We did the scene again. I felt numb. Somehow, I managed to hit my mark and mouth my lines. All I knew was that, when Ludovico finally said “Cut,” in a gruff tone of voice, I was ready to collapse from sheer relief, because the ordeal was over. For now, at least!
“Fuck!” Ludovico shrieked.
Oh, God, I thought. Was it that bad? I wanted to dig a hole with my bare hands, crawl into it, and pull the soil over myself, to bury myself.
“Print it!” Ludovico shouted. “Damn, that was good!”
“I told you so,” Alain gloated.
“Shut up, Camargue! When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.”
“Maybe if you asked for it a little more often, we’d end up with a real picture, instead of another flop to add to your long list.”
“Kiss my ass!” Ludovico turned to me. “Good work,” he said. But before I could get over my shock, let alone bask in this unexpected praise, he started barking again—at me, this time. “So, pretty boy, what’s the matter with you? Did you have one of those big, heavy weight plates dropped on your head in the gym? Why don’t you act like that all the time? Why’ve you been holding out on me? I suppose this is what I should expect, from a muscle-bound American with no experience and no brains.”
Sword and Sandal Page 20