Chapter 45

Thursday was work, work, and more work. I was in scenes all morning long. One was a real surprise. It turns out my mother in the movie was being played by Anna Romanov. It was a cameo appearance for her. She had no lines. She just had to give me a hug as I was leaving the house to go to America. Of course, she did it in style. The look of tragedy on her face told the entire story of a mother’s heartbreak and worry.

After that scene, I thought about how my Mum would have played it. The answer was she wouldn’t. If you tried to do something to one of her children, that she didn’t care for, hell wouldn’t hold it.

By lunchtime, I was ready for a break. An afternoon of testing was looking good by comparison. I’m such a wimp!

My exams were in the same room with the same guy that looked like he had sucked on a lemon. He performed the all but strip search gave the same dry instructions. When I was asked if I had any questions I gave an original.

“None, sir.”

I didn’t want to be seen as boring and repetitious like some other people in the room.

It was such a relief to get to the physical part of my day. Who would have thought holding two swords out straight for ten minutes would be relaxing, that lifting one hundred pound weights soothing or getting hit in the face repeatedly calming. Well, maybe getting hit in the face with a boxing glove isn’t calming but it was certainly more interesting than those exams.

On the way home I stopped at a grocery store to pick up some items. It was surprising how fast things went and what they cost. I was spending close to ten dollars a week on groceries! There was a car wash on my route so I ran the T-Bird through.

I decided that I had studied as much as I needed for my exams and given myself the night off. I watched TV for several hours and then read. Tonight it was about Lorenzo substituting for the Right Honorable John Joseph Bonforte who was missing. I had read it before but it was still a lot of fun. I could now relate to the actor.

Friday was fun, after my morning exercises, and run with Dick, I stopped at his apartment and presented Janice with a hairdryer. She promised to try it this very morning. At the studio I gifted one to each of the two make up girls, then one to Mr. Wayne for his wife, and another to Anna Romanov. This left two, one for Nina and a spare for whomever I had forgotten. Actually, I would order another run of one hundred and present one to everyone on the set.

Miss Romanov’s reaction was the most interesting. Everyone else received it as an interesting and probably useful device. She turned it on to see how it performed. She then told me that I was a very intelligent person and that this would greatly influence her new idea.

We then went to work. Again it was a serious day of filming. Every day the pace seemed to pick up. At the same time, I was becoming comfortable with the process. I paid attention to what the Director was trying to achieve with each scene. Mr. Wayne told me that he tried to work with Ron Dodge whenever he could because he always had a clear vision of the movie in his head.

Having a vision of the story he was telling was a huge part of success. Many a Director was known for shooting as much film as they could, then trying to pull a story out of the resulting mess. This usually failed.

Today I had a gunfight with one of the Hole in the Wall Gang. As could be predicted I won. The only difference between this and most westerns I had to pretend to throw up afterward. This was the first time that Sir Nicklaus had killed a man and Ron wanted it to be a defining moment. Sir Nicklaus could kill and do it very well, but it would never become normal to him.

Of course, this endeared him to Lilly played by Ellen even more. In the movie, this scene is followed by one where Big Jim played by Mr. Wayne told him that is how real men felt. Only heartless killers felt no remorse. One more step towards Sir Nicklaus’s growing up. These scenes left me very uncomfortable. I had killed two bank robbers and felt no remorse. Was I a heartless killer?