8/22/23
Newsletter #435
The Crack of Dawn
After the first day of shooting the Ghoul Trench, my new friend, Jack Perez, and I went back to the hotel where we were both staying. As we had a drink in the hotel bar, Jack asked me if I had noticed one of the ghouls, apparently named Tanya, who was actually a very pretty girl. I said no, they all just looked like plain old zombies to me. He assured me that Tanya was really cute, and he told me when he asked for her phone number, she not only gave it to him, she said he should call right after work. He removed a piece of paper from his pocket, then in his own restrained fashion, though now appearing petrified, he asked, “You think I should call her?” I said, “Are you nuts? There’s a phone right there next to the bar. Call her.” Jack dutifully walked over to the phone and made the call. He returned a few minutes later not saying anything. Dropping into his seat, he then stared down at the table with a worried expression. I asked, “What is it?” Jack looked up and said, “She’s on her way here.” I said, “That’s great.” He said, “She’s going to break my heart.”
Meanwhile, back at the Ghoul Trench, everybody was doing a boffo job. The art department had dressed the hell out of it, with bubbling goo and giant cobwebs, which got all over the crew. I, of course, was seated off the set, in front of video village, so I didn’t get fully slimed, just slightly. I am, by the way, one of those directors of whom I hear actors bitch about. I often show the actors the action by doing it. I also do that which is apparently the most dreaded of all things a director can do – from an actor’s perspective – which is if I don’t get the line-reading I want, I just perform it for the actor. In interviews I’ve heard any number of actors complain about this directorial practice. Really? You don’t like it? Too bad. I’m always in a hurry and I use the tools that I have available to me. The great director, Michael Curtiz, who directed Casablanca, and was the top dog at Warner Brothers for 20 years, gave all of the actors’ line readings in his thick Hungarian accent. Both James Cagney and Humphry Bogart wanted to kill him, and Errol Flynn finally wouldn’t work with him anymore. Guess what? They were all wrong and Michael Curtiz was right. How do I know this? Um, Curtiz made their best movies, and you can still watch them. If he annoyed them, pissed them off, got their blood boiling, it made them act better.
So, I was on the set performing all the parts for everybody and I did get slimed, but I escaped as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, I used the same gag twice in that scene, but it was a great gag that the previous director hadn’t used at all. There were two kinds of smoke for atmosphere: smoke in the air, and dry ice fog on the floor. You can’t see through dry ice fog, and you also can’t breathe if you’re in it. It’s pure carbon dioxide. I explained the gag to Kevin Sorbo, and he was totally with it. He was also young and full of piss and vinegar then. I began by letting everybody see this awesome set, with giant spiderwebs (made of contact cement), gooey slime burbling out of cracks, vines and dangling moss, all beautifully lit with smoky beams. On Steadicam we slowly moved forward through, in and around all of this shit, ending up in a slightly open area, pausing, then up bounds Hercules from the dry ice fog. Kevin had been down on his hands and knees holding his breath since “Action.” It seems kind of long in movie world, but in reality, it was about 90-100 seconds. It’s so good of an entrance that I used it again with the three evil, sexy girls (who are on the poster).
The three sexy girls pop up out of the fog – I figured, if it worked once, it’ll work again – and rub Hercules all over his body, arousing him, when suddenly snake-like, forked tongues shoot out of their mouths, entwining Hercules in a tangle of tongues (the FX department did their best). He finally uses his mighty strength to pull away, tearing the tongues to pieces, then just punching the girls, cause that’s how Herc rolled back then.
Just when it seemed like it was safe there in the underworld, twenty ghouls popped up out of nowhere and swarmed Hercules. They tore at him, biting his arms and legs. He fought them off, but they just kept coming. Finally, Hercules grabbed the vines and crawled up the wall and out of the goddam Ghoul Trench. Goodbye, Ghoul Trench.
So, back in the hotel bar, Jack had just spoken with one of these ghouls who chased Hercules out of the trench. He said, “She’s coming here.” That’s when he glumly and fatalistically predicted, “She’s going to break my heart.”
Enter Tanya Fretz. Slim, tall, 23, short red hair, and just a lovely young lady with a beautiful, lilting voice. She worked in radio. Jack and I both immediately fell in love with her. All I could think was, “She was one of the ghouls?”
I open the shade at 5:48 and no dawn yet.
But it to shall arrive.