He said, “Talk to me, Gordie.”
I said, “Peter, what colour are my eyes?”
“Blue,” he said.
“That’s right,” I said. “So why can’t I see my eyes on the screen?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he said, a bit anxiously. “We can always shoot some close-ups.”
Great. We’ve just started shooting, and already we’re doing patch-ups.
I never said so at the time, and I haven’t said so up to now, but I don’t think he was at all suited for that role. A good director sees a good story and all the wonderful places it could go. In my experience, Peter was far more interested in finishing whatever job he was on so he could get to the next job, whatever it might be, than he was in investing any time looking at where he might be able to take the story. For the most part you couldn’t get him into a decent, lengthy conversation about anything.
Producers like to hire directors like Peter because they get it done fast. But directors like George McCowan got it done fast too, only George got it done fast because he had worked it all out, first in his head, and then on paper, and then with his crew and his actors, before he ever started to roll film.
Peter had done a tour of duty with the British Army in Korea, and I think he was carrying a lot more emotional baggage than he or any of us knew. Sometimes he would go into his own world and you’d have to pull him out again. But when he got it, he got it, and captured it onscreen. And brought the film in under budget, at $320K. And there were some good times too, when we had fun. When the mood was right, we did have some laughs. So it wasn’t a nightmare. But it should have been a dream, the way Larry and I had dreamed it, and Peter was not a dreamer.
In all fairness to Peter – or P.C., as he liked to be called – the Rock was not overtly film-friendly. The people were wonderful, but the weather was, well, Newfoundland weather. “Gordon, you come from here!” he would wail. “Can’t you do something about these goddamn winds?” In the morning we would shoot a scene when the clouds were moving so fast it was impossible to match the shot. We’d get to a location and it would be sunny, but by the time we set up it would be cloudy, and by the time we finished rehearsing the scene for camera it would be raining, and by the time we were ready to shoot the scene it would be hailing. So we would break for lunch, and it would be sunny again.
We had to wait eight hours to shoot one scene because the rain was so heavy. On another shoot a local fisherman took me out in a little boat, ostensibly for a beauty shot, but halfway across the bay the boat began to sink. So they brought me back in and tried again, and this time the oarlock broke. “Fuck it!” said Peter, and we abandoned the scene. On another occasion Eric House, a wonderful actor, flew in from Toronto to do this one big scene where somebody’s home burns to the ground. I thought the scene looked great on film, but it still ended up on the cutting room floor.*
There’s no denying we were a pretty rowdy crowd. One crew member got so drunk one night that his mates rowed him out to a little island opposite the Holiday Inn where we were staying in Corner Brook – the island was a little bird sanctuary of sorts – and when he woke up the next morning, he found himself on this little patch of dry land, surrounded by water and exceedingly cranky swans. So there were more than a few glasses being raised, by all of us, and more than a few pranks being played, on all of us.
Because we couldn’t afford to fly in as many actors as we wanted, we had to rely on both the talents and the generosity of Newfoundlanders – and for me and Larry, part of the dream came true. The guy who played the Constable was actually the head of the Newfoundland tourist bureau. Will Cole’s sister was played by an old school friend of mine from Grand Falls. The local Kinsmen Club organized the picnic scene in the film, with booths, decorations, even a girl’s school band. And when there wasn’t enough of a crowd to shoot a crowd scene, we sent out an SOS on radio, and the residents poured out of their homes to help us. By the end of the shoot we had used almost one thousand local residents as extras in street scenes. And one of the crew, boom swinger Deryck Harnett, sat down and wrote the tune that became the signature song for the film, using one of Will Cole’s favourite expressions, “It’s a Lovely, Tell Your Mother Kind of Day.”
By the time The Rowdyman was ready to be seen I had also completed the book version, and went on the road to promote it. In the pre-Internet seventies, going on the road meant flying from city to city to chat up every newspaper columnist and radio and/or TV talk show host who would have you, and at the time we believed that the only way to cope with the ongoing buzz in your ears from those seemingly interminable Air Canada flights was to inhale a few highballs per flight. However, as the combination of alcohol and altitude frequently produced unexpectedly high spirits, you often arrived far more cheerful on landing than you were on takeoff. We all drank hard liquor in those days, but never as much as we inhaled on those flights. Still, you had a job to do, promoting your series, promoting your book, whatever it was, and sometimes that’s just what came with it.
Consequently I was very happy, and more than a bit cheerful, when my Rowdyman publicity tour took me back to Winnipeg, my old stomping ground and one of my favourite cities. By that time I had toured half the country, starting in Newfoundland, doing interviews and talk shows and telling anyone who would listen that there was a book coming out. In Winnipeg I went through the usual string of print interviews – the Winnipeg Tribune, still going then, and the Winnipeg Free Press – as well as a lot of television and radio interviews, selling my Rowdyman book.
The book itself was not exactly heavy-duty. As I recall it may have been seven or eight pages long – well, something like that, you get the idea. Not a huge tome. However, there I was, trying to sell the book and the movie, of course, at the same time. And by the time I got to Winnipeg, flying across the country from city to city – well, let’s just say there was a fair amount of medicine being taken. By the time I got there, to a territory very well known to myself – my old haunt, really – I couldn’t stand up some of the time. I remember doing one interview where I. Measured. Every. Word. And. Spoke. Just. Like. That. Almost slipping off the chair while I did it. Two questions later, I’d used up all the time they had allotted. Because I was in that state where you’re not really fit for anything except maybe embalming.
As it turned out, I was staying at the Winnipeg Inn. Also staying at the Winnipeg Inn were Don Harron and Catherine McKinnon and Catherine’s sister Patrician. I’d just checked in when I got a call from Don, who said he and Catherine and Trish were going out to see Sammy Davis Jr. Would I like to join them, as Trish’s “date”?
Well, sure I would! I’d said Yes to everything since I was a boy. I wasn’t about to stop now.
That day I went to see Irene’s brother, my ex-brother-in-law Billy Reid, and we had a few drinks, and in the late afternoon I did a few more interviews, a couple in bars. By the time I got back to the hotel I wasn’t really in the mood for much. I just made it down the hallway, and I remember that I fell flat on the bed, just as the phone rang, and I rolled over to the other side of the bed to answer it. That would be the sum total of my rest for the day.
“Yes, Don, of course, where are you? Oh, you’re down in the lobby, waiting for me. You thought we’d have dinner first. Yes, of course, be right down.”
I roll off the bed, and out the door, and down the hall, ricocheting off the walls, and just make it to the elevator, when the elevator doors open and two people step out, and one of them says, “Oh look, it’s Gordon Pinsent!” – at which point I fall flat on my face right between the two of them. So now I’m getting pummelled by the elevator doors, which are trying to close, despite the fact that my prostrate form is blocking them. Finally I get inside, and down we go to the lobby, where the doors open wide again, and out I go, staggering forth, right into a large green fern the size of a small tree, crawling out the other side of it in full view of all the guests who are just signing in at the front desk.
Somehow I get t
o dinner, and somehow I get through dinner – “Yes, sounds lovely, I’ll have that too!” – making small talk that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And after dinner we’re crossing the lobby and don’t you know that someone is handing out splits of champagne. “Look!” I say, “champagne splits!” So now I’m drinking champagne, on top of quite a lot of everything else. Then we go to see Sammy Davis Jr., and he comes out and starts to sing, and then he takes his very last final bow, and I realize that I have missed everything in between. And as we’re leaving someone says that Sammy is now going to be singing on this boat that goes up and down the Red River, and that we are all invited.
We’re now in Elmwood, where I had lived, and we’re approaching the boat. And the captain has this huge mastiff dog, which he wears as part of his professional persona. Other people are already onboard, but we make it to the boat, and Patrician is wearing this gorgeous dress, and as soon as we step onboard, this mastiff, this huge dog, jumps up on her and knocks her to the ground. He’s now on top of Trish, and of course I should be helping her. But in my present state I think this is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. No question about it, I was born for these moments. The captain hauls the dog away and apologizes profusely, and the boat shoves off, and we go downstairs, below deck.
“It’s awfully stuffy down here,” says Trish. “I think I’ll go back upstairs.”
“Good idea!” say I, and follow her. She walks out on deck, in that gorgeous gown, looking like Kate Winslet in Titanic long before Kate Winslet was Kate Winslet, and she is looking out at the shores of Elmwood, where I had lived, and I say, “Oh look, there’s –” and heave. And my hurl sails right past her, just catching the edge of her dress, and right over the railing of the ship. And to this day neither Don nor Catherine has ever mentioned it. Not once. All those years ago, and not once. Maybe they were so embarrassed for me they just want to pretend it never happened. And Trish, the poor darling! First the dog, and then me!
Never mind. With a little help from our friends – or to put it more accurately, with a lot of help from our friends – we tried to give the film a proper launch. If we’d made The Rowdyman in 1992 or even 1982, I’d probably be telling you how we had to fight to get a gala screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. But this was 1972, and the film festival was barely a glint in its founders’ eyes. And since we had almost no budget for promotion, we needed to be as Creative as possible.
In one such burst of Creativity, Larry and I go to Boston, where more than two hundred thousand Newfoundlanders had gone before us, to launch the picture there. We have no money so we order little printed decals to stick on car windows: The Rowdyman’s Coming to Boston Looking for Trouble.
Once we arrive we go to rent a couple of tuxedos for the evening show. When we get to the shop we are waited on by a very nice gentleman, a lovely man, and we try on a couple of tuxedos.
I study myself in the full-length mirror. “I don’t know, Larry, what do you think?”
The salesman looks around, to make sure he can’t be overheard.
“Take ’em! Take ’em!” he says. “I’m quitting here tonight.”
Pardon?
“Oh yes!” he says. “I’m going to be working across the street tomorrow.”
Larry and I are now running down the street with two tuxedos. Two broke Canadians, running down a street in Boston clutching free formal wear.
Couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel.
That night we have bagpipers marching across the street to the movie house, we’re all dressed up in our tuxedos, and the manager, who loves the movie, is telling people, “If you don’t like this movie, I’ll give you your money back!”
Unfortunately, we’re not the only hot ticket in Boston tonight. The Red Sox are also in town, and our opening night fails miserably. And of course there’s an opening-night party, and Larry and I are all decked out in black tie, and someone says, “Gordon, to commemorate the film coming to Boston, you should present something to the Mayor onstage.”
“Sure,” I say. “but what am I presenting?”
I get up onstage to greet the mayor, but it’s not the mayor, because the mayor couldn’t make it. He’s probably watching the Red Sox. So I’m about to present whatever I’m going to present to the assistant mayor, or vice-mayor, or whatever he’s called. And they hand me what I’m going to present. It is a lump.
Really. A lump.
“What is it?” I ask the organizer.
“It’s a walrus, curled up sleeping.”
“It is?”
Mustn’t laugh.
Must not laugh out loud.
“Where are the tusks?”
“Oh, the tusks came loose, so we’ve taped them on underneath.”
“Oh yeah,” I reply half-heartedly, nodding my head. “That makes a difference, I guess.”
The mayor’s understudy comes on stage to get his lump, and I have never before or after seen such a funny look on a man’s face. So The Rowdyman found trouble in Boston after all.
Months later I receive a phone call from a young woman who says she works for a formal wear shop in Boston and that the store owner wants his tuxedos back. Her voice sounds vaguely familiar but I can’t place it, so I immediately call Larry, who confesses that he persuaded his current girlfriend to make the call to me. Back then, as now, Larry loved playing pranks. Especially funny ones. And especially on me.
The Rowdyman is invited to the reasonably prestigious Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Czechoslovakia, which at this time is still one country and still firmly tucked away behind the Iron Curtain.
At Karlovy Vary, justifiably more celebrated for its spa than its cinema, there is one central meeting place, the theatre where the films are screened, which also has its own café, dining room, and bar. Each country has its own table, distinguished by the presence of a small replica of its own flag. My table is the size of a school desk, because I am the only one at it. I am particularly drawn to the East German delegation, who are followed everywhere by men in black. I join them for drinks and dinner, and we keep our voices low, because we know we are all being monitored.
The café is a bit of a throwback to black-and-white Hollywood melodramas of the fifties, with the East German delegation noisily holding court at their own table, which appears to be somewhat larger than the rest. The café itself features, among other things, a poorly dressed crooner whose sister walks around him dancing in fishnet stockings while he sings. At one point he sings a German song, playing up to the German table, until a delegate from Poland jumps to her feet and cries out, “Stop singing that! You’re singing that just because there are Nazis in the room! You are Polish. Sing in Polish!”
Which is a bit shocking for the rest of us. But my new comrades assure me she is right about the Germans. One of them says he went on a tour of the area with them, and claims that they were pointing out places where they had shot Czechs and Poles during the war.
One night we stay until the café closes, which drives our minders crazy; they are very anxious to get us back to our hotel, so they can wash their hands of us. So we let them take us back to our hotel, and I quietly let it be known that I am hosting an open bar in my room. The East Germans aren’t allowed to leave their rooms, but all our rooms are in a row. So they climb over the balcony railings, balcony by balcony, until they reach my room. They want to know all about Hollywood, and I tell them some of my Hollywood stories, and they are absolutely enchanted.
Before the screening of The Rowdyman I might as well be invisible. I am simply the foreign guy who seems to be part of the East German delegation. After the screening there is applause from all the tables, and suddenly I am a somebody. Of course I have no idea what my hosts actually think of my film, until one night an Oscar Holmoka–type at the bar introduces himself to me in halting English, saying something like “Me, jury.” Suddenly I am face to face with a real live jury member. Before I can ask him anything, he volunteers: “Me, Rowdyman.”<
br />
I am thrilled, of course, but surprised that a juror at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival would declare himself to me before the final day.
“Well, thank you!” I say, as modestly as I can manage. “I’m glad you liked The Rowdyman.”
Mr. Jury Member looks puzzled, and then consults with his interpreter, and then nods, finally grasping what I just said to him.
“No, no,” he says, shaking his head. “No like Rowdyman movie!” He leans forward, just to be sure I understood. “Me, I am a rowdy man!”
Probably.
After I get back to America – which isn’t a moment too soon for me – I write a script inspired by my adventures in Karlovy Vary. It is called Melancholy Buns, and I tuck it away somewhere for safekeeping.
Now it’s so safe that even I can’t find it.
When we premiere the movie in St. John’s, we bring the house down. Literally. The roof falls in on the Paramount Theatre. Fortunately it happens overnight, when the cinema is empty. Structural weakness or some such thing. Happily, we manage to pull off our big opening night, with lineups that stretch all around the block, without inflicting any serious injuries.
When we premiere the movie in Ottawa, I am seated next to Pierre Elliott Trudeau. My seatmate, the Prime Minister of Canada, has already finished his bag of popcorn during the trailers. The lights dim, the screen flickers, the music starts, and hey, there we are, up on the big screen, upside down.
I find myself wondering if Peter Carter’s heart is going to blow.
“It’s upside down, sir,” I tell Trudeau, hoping he will not conclude that I think him incapable of figuring that out all by himself. “I’m sure they’re working on it.”
Canadian film.
Government money.
What could be better?
The Rowdyman is a success.
Better than that, it’s a bona fide hit. A mini-hit, yes, a Canadian hit, yes, but a hit nonetheless.
In his review in the Los Angeles Times, film critic Charles Champlin notes that “this rogue is part of an unfamiliar and beautifully observed setting. The environment helped make him, and the movie reveals them both.” Champlin finds our whole ensemble, particularly Frank Converse and Linda Goranson, to be fresh, attractive, and notably gifted. He loves Will Geer’s performance too, and displays impeccable taste, keen insight, and great wisdom by stating, quite unequivocally, that my performance is “excellent and charismatic.”
Next Page 12