Sword and Sandal

by Roland Graeme

  My nerves were shattered. I spoke without thinking.

  “No,” I retorted. “This is what you should expect, from somebody who’s being paid as little as I am to put up with your fucking temper tantrums.”

  Alain let out a snort of glee. “That’s telling him, kid.”

  “Why, you ungrateful little bastard!” Ludovico blustered. But I could tell he wasn’t really angry. Now he the one who was doing the acting. “How dare you speak to me like that!”

  “How dare I? Take my word for it—it’s easy,” I assured him.

  “I ought to fire your ass! I’m tempted to do it. Another word out of you, and I will. All I have to do is pick up the phone, and I can have any one of a dozen actors here in the morning, eager to take your place—!”

  “That’s a good idea,” Alain said. “Why don’t you try Mark Forest or Kirk Morris, first? I hear they’re dying to work with you. And while you’re at it, while don’t you call Steve Reeves, too, and ask him if he’d like to take my place?”

  Ludovico stamped his foot, in his characteristic Rumpelstiltskin fashion. “Actors!” he spat. “Stupid, arrogant, useless sons of bitches, every single one of you—!”

  Alain took me by the arm. “Come on, kid. Let’s go get ourselves some coffee. We have plenty of time, now that we’re both out of a job.”

  But, needless to say, we weren’t out of a job. After that, Ludovico felt no need to be polite to me. He treated me the same way as he did Alain and the other actors he had a modicum of respect for. In other words, he vented his fury upon me, unsparingly, at the slightest provocation—real or imaginary.

  “D’Agostino, you stupid shit!” he would roar, after a take he didn’t like. “What the hell is wrong with you? Is that a brain you’ve got there inside your head, or is it just another thick muscle? How many times do I have to tell you, no big gestures, no emoting! Stop trying to imitate Camargue. For one thing, it can’t be done, because he’s the biggest ham in the business. And for another, having two prima donnas like him on the same set would probably kill me. God knows one of him is enough for me to contend with! Don’t try to ‘act.’ Just hit your mark and say the lines. Now, do it again, and this time do it right!”

  “What’s the point of doing it right?” I yelled back at him. “Do you think anybody who sees this lousy flick is going to be able to tell the difference?”

  “No, I don’t! But when you fuck a girl, she expects you to tell her you love her, even if you don’t mean it. Hell, when you fuck a whore, you expect her to move around a little, and not just lie there, in exchange for your money. And when you take an audience’s money, the least you can do is put a little effort into the piece of crap they’re paying to see. Now, shut up and just do the fucking scene!”

  Ludovico and I got along famously after that. He even paid me the occasional backhanded compliment. “Not bad, for a dumb, useless American,” was one of them. “You flexed your way through that, I see,” was another. And a favorite post-take comment of his was, “Thank God! I thought it would be ten times worse!”

  The downside, though, was that he never really warmed toward Eric. Ludovico never raised his voice or lost his composure when he spoke to Eric. After a take, he would say something like, “That was very good, Mr. Streiff. But would you mind doing it again? And this time, do you think you can remember to hit your mark? And not move from it until after you say the line? Oh, and try to make eye contact with Alain when you’re talking to him. He’s your father, remember, and you’re trying to explain to him why you did what you did. So don’t be afraid to look a little serious. I know all this is a lot to keep in mind, all at once, but don’t worry—we can keep on doing it until we get it right. Don’t worry. You’re doing just fine.”

  By now I knew that, coming from Ludovico, this kind of handling with kid gloves was the kiss of death. He’d written off Eric as an actor, and he was just trying to get Eric’s scenes in the can as painlessly as possible.

  Eric didn’t seem to care. But he wasn’t delusional, either. He had a rather healthy attitude about the whole thing. If they’d wanted a real actor, he remarked to me once, they could have hired one. As it was, he was showing up on the set, wearing the costumes he was given, doing what he was told to do, and not making trouble. And, after all, he was playing the young male lead in a movie, to the best of his ability. It looked as though it might be a pretty good movie of its type, once we were done. It might lead to Eric being offered other parts; but if it didn’t, then he’d be no worse off than he was before. Either way, being able to include a film credit on his resume might help his bodybuilding career, which was what he was really interested in.

  To give Eric credit, he did well in the action scenes, when he had to fight. These sequences were ostensibly directed by Ludovico, but in fact he delegated a lot of the responsibility to his assistant director, who was put in charge of crowd control during the battle scenes, and to Ettore Pasero, the fencing master, who coached us in how to use our weapons. It was Ettore, for all practical purposes, who choreographed and directed the one-on-one combats that made up a large part of the film.

  I really enjoyed working with Ettore. He’d been in the military, and his hobby was researching historical weaponry and fighting techniques.

  Ettore was a stickler for historical accuracy. He showed us that the way the ancients fought at close quarters with sword or dagger and shield was probably a tight-proximity, wary, tense affair. It was nothing like the flamboyant swashbuckling duels familiar from countless classic Hollywood films. If a studio wanted that sort of thing from Ettore, he was perfectly capable of providing it. But it wasn’t really appropriate for our project. Reluctantly, Ettore did have us get into some more prolonged engagements, including sweeping gestures and fancier swordplay, because it would look good on film. He made sure we understood the difference between reality and cinematic convention, though.

  Another one of his priorities was making sure nobody got hurt. Even with a dull-edged weapon, you could inflict some damage if you weren’t careful.

  Eric was disappointed when he found out that Maurizio, the huge, ripped young Italian bodybuilder who served as his double, wasn’t just his stand-in for lighting or blocking purposes. Maurizio also took Eric’s place during some of the most intense fighting scenes. In the duel with Geminus, and during the climactic battle, Eric’s character, Manlius Junior, fought with the visor of his helmet lowered. This hid his face, and it allowed the stoic and uncomplaining Maurizio, wearing an exact duplicate of Eric’s costume and gear, to jump in for him.

  Eric protested. “They’ll be able to tell it’s not me!” he said, meaning the audiences who would see the completed film. He flattered himself that his body was unique, and instantly recognizable.

  But I had to admit that the average viewer probably wouldn’t know the difference. With their heads enclosed inside those helmets, and in their identical outfits, Eric and Maurizio were virtually indistinguishable from each other from the neck down. Their physiques were exceptionally well matched, muscle for muscle. They were peas in a pod.

  Ettore explained to Eric that they couldn’t take the risk of having him injured. A serious injury might delay the filming. Even if Eric received a slight bruise, scrape, or scratch, the makeup people might not be able to cover it up completely. It was Maurizio’s job to take these risks, and that was what he was being paid for. It would be unfortunate, but the lesser of the two evils, if he got beat up.

  A bit disconcertingly, I wasn’t assigned a stand-in for my action scenes. I did all of my fighting myself. Apparently, I was expendable.

  The fight scenes were grueling to rehearse and to shoot. I quickly discovered that there was a difference between being a bodybuilder, and an all-around athlete. We had no trouble working up a convincing sweat. The makeup artists did a good job of making us look begrimed and bloodstained.

  But Ludovico never thought we were dirty enough. After the makeup people were done with us, he’d have us line u
p in front of him—looking, not inappropriately, like troops being inspected by their commanding officer. Ludovico always had a row of large buckets set up beside his director’s folding chair. Two of the buckets contained sand, in different colors, light and dark. One contained powdered chalk. Another was filled with some sort of dull grayish powder that had an industrial application. The last two buckets held sifted soil, again in light and darker shades.

  Ludovico would check us out from head to foot, and frown. Then he’d say, “Close your eyes,” and after we’d done so, he’d throw handfuls of the stuff from the buckets all over us, until he’d obtained the desired effect. Once I made the mistake of inhaling involuntarily at the wrong moment, and I ended up choking on a mouthful of dust.

  On another occasion, he still wasn’t satisfied with my degree of filthiness. He yelled for somebody to bring him a cup of coffee. When it arrived, he stirred it with his finger to make sure it wasn’t too hot.

  “Hold still,” he warned me—and then the son of a bitch threw the coffee right at my chest, so that the warm liquid splashed over my neck and shoulder and dribbled down my torso under my breastplate. The coffee soaked into all the powder and dirt that was already caked on me, and transformed it into patches and streaks of brown muck.

  Ludovico studied the effect, like a painter in front of his canvas. “Perfect,” he declared. “Now you look like a fucking soldier!”

  I kept having trouble with my cloaks. They always seemed to be slipping down and preventing me from freely moving one, or both, of my arms. The worst offender was the big blood-red number I had to wear on top of my armor. The damn thing kept getting underfoot and tripping me up. I couldn’t imagine why any soldier in his right mind would put up with such an encumbrance in battle.

  I envied Alain, who wore all of his costumes as though he’d been dressing like that all his life. He seemed perfectly comfortable in them. And he had a trick of casually flinging one end of his cloak up over his shoulder so that it fell perfectly into place and never impeded his movements. It was as though he had some invisible dresser hovering behind him, pinning his cloak into place, making sure he always looked good.

  We were standing around in our full military kit between takes when I decided to try to imitate Alain’s gesture. Of course, instead of clearing my shoulder, the cloak got snagged on my helmet and stayed there, dangling in front of my face, blinding me. I cursed, loudly and luridly, as I struggled to free myself.

  Smiling, Alain came over to me. “Having trouble?” he asked.

  “Yes. I don’t know how you always seem to manage these fucking bed sheets they make us wear. Is there some secret to it?”

  “Yes, there is. Wait until we break for the day, and then I’ll show you.”

  I was intrigued. When we were done for the day and retreated to the dressing rooms, Alain held on to his cloak for a moment before handing it over to the dressers.

  “Feel the hem,” he told me.

  I did so. I could feel little hard bumps under the seam, spaced at regular intervals.

  “I don’t get it, Alain. What are they?”

  “Fishing weights. They add just enough weight to help gravity keep the cloth in place, instead of flying around at random.”

  We changed into our street clothes. Alain opened his makeup box, and took out a little plastic bag. It did indeed contain the kind of little lead weights that fishermen used on their lines and lures.

  “Come on,” Alain said. “We’ll get you fixed up.”

  We followed the dressers as they carried the costumes back to the costume department. We soon found one of my chain-smoking friends, who, as he took the costumes from the dressers and put them on a rack, scrutinized each item to determine whether it was in need of any cleaning or repair.

  Alain slipped the guy the bag of weights and a banknote. “I want you to do me a favor. Sew these into the hems of my friend’s cloaks, the same way you did on mine.”

  “Certainly, Signore. They’ll be ready tomorrow.”

  I tried to pay Alain back, for the tip he’d given the man, but he told me I could buy him a drink, instead.

  Those little weights made all the difference in the world. The next day, on my very first time, I was able to flip my cloak back every bit as nonchalantly as Alain did. I was delighted.

  “These are the little tricks of the trade you pick up along the way,” he said. “I remember the first time I had to wear one of those period costumes on stage—doublet and hose, hip boots, lace collar, the works. Everything went all right at the dress rehearsal. But then, on opening night, I had this big dramatic moment when I had to draw my sword and brandish it in the air. Well, the sword stuck in the sheath and it wouldn’t come out. The audience laughed, and I wanted to die, but somehow I went on with the scene. Back stage, the other actors pretended nothing had gone wrong, which was well-intentioned of them, but it didn’t make me feel any better. The exception was one of the older actors, who came right up to me and laughed, and told me, ‘Don’t worry about it, my boy. That kind of thing happens to all of us.’ He showed me what he called his survival kit. He kept it in his makeup case, and it contained a little sewing kit, an assortment of straight and safety pins, bits of elastic, different kinds of glues and tapes—all sorts of odds and ends. It included a little bottle of oil, and when we finally managed to free the sword from the scabbard, he oiled the blade lightly—and then, naturally, it slid in and out of the scabbard as easily as a hot knife going through butter. It was a simple precaution, but the prop man hadn’t thought of it, and neither had I. It was on a subsequent occasion that the same actor taught me the fishing weight trick. He’d learned it from an actress who was famous for the way she fell down in a faint or dropped dead on stage. She always had the bottom hems of her skirts weighted so that they would stay down and spread out around her to make a big visual effect, and not ride up and show her legs.”

  Alain gave me a lot of good advice. Much of it, in deference to my status as a complete novice, was no doubt pretty basic. “Don’t move so fast,” he would tell me, after an unsuccessful take. “We aren’t doing a comedy, where you want speed. So don’t be afraid to slow it down and take your time. The camera exaggerates everything, including your movements and your gestures. Less is more—usually.”

  He took my script and make lots of marginal notes in it. “Try saying this line a little slower, because it’s important to the plot. But here on this page, it needs to sound casual, because you’re just making conversation. So keep it light.” He smiled at me. “You’re good-looking. You’ve got that ‘young and innocent’ thing going for you. That was probably why you were hired. So take advantage of it. Don’t think the fucking thing to death. Just be yourself.”

  You may find it hard to believe, but during those first two weeks in Italy I abstained from sex. I didn’t even jerk off! This wasn’t a conscious choice on my part. For the first time since puberty, I was so preoccupied with other things that I simply got out of the habit of worrying about when and how I’d achieve my next ejaculation. We put in long hours at the studio, and in our limited free time Eric and I squeezed in our workouts whenever we could. I still managed to do some sightseeing, but I probably saw less of Rome in two weeks than the average tourist does in two days. In particular, the city’s night life remained a closed book to me. I could usually feel myself beginning to fade quite early in the evenings, and all I wanted to do was head back to our hotel and go to bed. I got as much rest as I could, in anticipation of the next day’s filming.

  I envied Eric. He was as busy as I was, and he expended just as much energy. But it never seemed to fail—every night, when I was ready to crawl into my bed (alone) and fall asleep, Eric began to get his second wind, and he was ready to go out on the town. I don’t know how he kept it up (in every sense of the word). I guess he was simply a born party animal.

  After checking out a few other prospects, Eric embarked on an affair with none other than Maurizio, his stand-in and stunt doub
le. Their romance last for the duration of the filming. Once Tito Manlio was in the can, Eric and Maurizio parted ways, amicably enough. Judging from all outward appearances and from what Eric told me, however, they certainly went at each other hot and heavy while it lasted.

  The irony was that Eric had bothered to learn no more than a handful of Italian words and phrases, while Maurizio spoke no English at all. I found myself pressed into service as their interpreter and go-between, setting up their meetings outside of work. How they managed to communicate when they were alone together remains a mystery to me. They relied on body language, no doubt.

  I admit it—I may have been just a bit jealous. I remember remarking to Eric once that, given their similar physiques, for him going to bed with Maurizio must be like having sex with himself. It was a bitchy comment, but Eric only laughed.

  Not that I didn’t have my own opportunities to indulge myself, sexually. When Eric and I walked down a street, we could usually count on turning a few heads. We were often accompanied by Maurizio and some of the bodybuilders who were working on the film, either in bit parts or as extras, and the larger our group of muscle men, the more attention we received. Much of this was simply the “freak factor,” so to speak. Had we been in Venice Beach in California, where bodybuilders were thick on the ground, no one would have given us a second glance. But here in Rome, we were an exotic minority.

  Most of the young Italian men I saw were slim and boyish-looking. How they managed to stay so trim, on a presumably pasta-based diet, accompanied by a regular intake of wine, was a mystery to me. Didn’t their mamas and girlfriends ever feed them? These guys all seemed to have a lot of nervous energy. Maybe that was how they burned the calories off. Or maybe they just fucked them off!