CHAPTER THIRTEEN
1958-59

Hollywood

November. His first day in Hollywood, Paul sat in the old Republic Studios to watch the famed Alfred Hitchcock direct a half-hour in his own series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The great man looked remarkably like the line drawing that opened each episode. In his director’s chair, he gave quiet instructions to individual crew members. The only words Paul heard were: “Action” and “Cut”. No running back and forth, as Paul did; so this was the way of film?

Paul’s agents, Robin and Hugh French, had gotten him an assignment to direct an episode himself. He found himself warmly greeted by Joan Harrison, slight, with short, swept-back hair in her dark suit. She introduced her associate producer, Norman Lloyd, a former actor. Not tall, with receding sandy hair and glasses, Norman displayed a kindly disposition — which Paul appreciated, feeling rather intimidated at being on the legendary Republic lot.

A production assistant brought in sandwiches and Cokes which Norman took with Paul through to Robert Stevens, lead director on the series, who was next door talking to Margaret Leighton, exuding regal grandeur and refinement. Paul had seen her in Rattigan’s Separate Tables, a West End triumph, and also on Broadway winning a Tony as Best Actress.

He realized then, here he was, directing an episode on the most prestigious series in Hollywood.

Back in the room, Joan said, “Paul, you’ll be happy to hear that we just finalized the deal with Denholm Elliott for your show.”

“Wonderful. I last saw him in Fry’s Sleep of Prisoners. He’s a terrific actor.”

The next day, Paul began two days of rehearsals, a rarity in series television. After that, on Friday afternoon, Joan and Norman came to watch the simple run through, and seemed pleased. They broke for the weekend — no rehearsing as in Toronto.

Paul was staying with David and Eileen Greene, who had recently moved from New York. They’d both taken up painting, and Eileen ceramics. That evening, Paul saw the results of their efforts and applauded. “It’s so good to see you being creative, Eileen. You don’t miss working in television?

“I do, actually. But it’s awfully nice to do whatever I want.”

“How do you like doing Hitchcocks?” David asked.

“I thought I’d be intimidated,” Paul said. “But it helps with you guys letting me stay. Exhilarating, I guess.”

“No doubt. Now, time for a gin and tonic. After dinner, we’ll watch a film of Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy. Margaret’s in it, you know. And I think Denholm Elliott.”

On Monday and Tuesday, Paul watched Bob Stevens work, and then started shooting himself. He was taken aback by the speed on set. As soon as the actors repeated their lines, a stage hand marked their feet and the lighting cameraman got the lights focussed while the continuity girl took the actors aside and went over their lines. Once the camera got into position, before Paul knew it, the First AD called for quiet and ran a rehearsal for camera.

All with no input from Paul. But then, this crew had worked together all through the series. But what exactly did the director do?

The First AD (Assistant Director) called, “Quiet on set!”

The noise stopped.

AD: “Turn over sound.”

“Speed”

AD: “Roll camera.”

“Mark it!”

“Scene twenty-seven; take one.”

Pause. The AD looked at Paul.

“Action,” Paul said.

The actors went through the short scene, probably forty seconds, and then, the AD looked at Paul again and he realized he should call: “Cut!”

“How was it?” The First AD asked.

“Hair in the gate,” the camera operator said.

“We’ll go again,” said the first AD.

“I’m just as pleased,” said Denholm. “I’d like another try.”

The rigmarole was repeated.

“Okay for camera? Sound?”

When the affirmatives came, Paul knew enough to say, “Print!”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth, than the First AD ordered, “Next set up! Over the shoulders, Paul?”

Before he could nod, the camera was moving to its new position and adjustments made to the lights, all with such dreadful speed and efficiency.

When Paul didn’t know something, he asked, which the crew seemed to appreciate. He had soon realized that, unlike live television, he’d better plan the staging and camera moves ahead of time. Not a method he enjoyed. In fact, he saw that directors had no need of the substantial experience he had — any agent’s nephew could do it. And often did!

In the end, Norman told him that he and Joan were both pleased. But Paul couldn’t wait to return to his own special way of working on live television.

***

In Robert Allen’s office, Paul leaned forward earnestly. Earlier, before going to Los Angeles, Paul had directed Sammy and The Dock Brief, the first plays produced anywhere in North America by John Mortimer, one of London’s leading playwrights. “Look Robert, you’ve really established Folio. It’s got an audience. So now, let’s do Under Milk Wood.”

Bob frowned. “That’s a verse play for radio.”

“I know I know, but I bet we could do it.”

Bob shook his head. “Richard Burton is doing it on an American network.”

“Yeah, like a film, Bob, with a real village and real houses. Terrible! It’s a VERSE play. You have to use your imagination. Let me have a go.”

“Think you can get the rights?”

“Bob, I met Dylan one night at the Mandrake Club in London. That’s where all the poets drank when the pubs shut at eleven. He was terrific, but full of angst. Drunk when I met him. He died in 1954, poor guy. You know, when I was president of the O.U. Poetry Society, I wanted to get him to come up and talk to us.” Bob raised his eyebrows. “Look, I managed to get C. Day Lewis, Stephen Spender, Louis MacNeice, John Betjeman, I got a ton of famous people. So I sent Peter Dale Scott — he was secretary of the Society — to Laugharne where Dylan lives. But that morning, Dylan had taken the train to London. So he talked to Caitlin, who promised she’d get after him. But nothing happened. Why would he bother coming to talk to a bunch of dumb undergraduates? And anyway, I bet our female members were not attractive enough...”

Bob, amused by Paul’s tale, nodded. “All right, see what you can do.”

***

Brimming with excitement, Paul leapt to open the door to his Isabella Street apartment for Rudi, in his winter coat and fedora. Paul usually went from show to show so quickly, he had no time to catch his breath or otherwise reflect on what he was doing – he just forged ahead, each new occurrence being exciting enough.

“Where is Angela?” Rudi came in and closed the door.

“Off dancing. Nineteen cities in January. But she’s home at the Royal Alex for February, when we do this.” They went straight into the small room set up as Paul’s office. “Rudi, it’s going to be such an exciting show — have you read it?”

Rudi pulled a face, as expected. “Paul, what you think? I understand this rubbish?”

“Rudi Rudi, just listen:

“To begin at the beginning:

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless

and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched,

courters’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the

sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboatbobbing sea.

The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine to-night

in the snouting, velvet dingles) ...”

Paul had to stop, because Rudi had completely switched off. “Houses blind as moles, Rudi! Moles, they’re little blind creatures, so ‘they see fine’ in pitch darkness! Listen — “in their snouting velvet dingles” — get that, Rudi? Dingles, well, they’re little wooded hollows...”

Rudi shook his head. “What, now I design little wooded hollows?” He laughed.

“Okay, okay Rudi, but this, you have to admit this is funny:

MR EDWARDS Myfanwy Price!

Paul read with appropriate inflections, but giggling all the while:

“I am a draper mad with love. I have come to take

you away to my Emporium on the hill...

Throw away your little bedsocks and your Welsh

wool knitted jacket, I will warm the sheets like an electric

toaster, I will lie by your side like the Sunday roast”

“No? Okay, how about this?” He flipped through pages.

“It is night, neddying among the snuggeries of babies.

“Get that, Rudi? Neddying among the snuggeries...”

Again Rudi shook his head. “Crainford (Head of the Design Department) says you need a village. So I build a Welsh village in studio?” Rudi snorted.

“Rudi, Rudi, those guys have no imagination. Can’t they see it’s not a play about a village — it’s about people. A radio play. Probably the best radio play ever written.”

“So give it to those radio guys. What do you expect me to do?”

“You know what I expect us to do — use our imaginations.” But then Paul slumped. “But how can we do that if you won’t even read it?”

Seeing Paul’s switch from ebullience to dejection, Rudi sat up. “Okay, Paul, tell me what you need. Read!” Rudi gestured to the script. “We find elements, okay?”

Paul sighed and nodded. Rudi pulled out his pad and thick pencil, as Paul read:

“Mary Ann Sailors, opening her bedroom window above the

taproom called to the heavens:

“I’m eighty-five years three months and a day!”

Organ Morgan at his bedroom window playing chords on the

sill to the morning fishwife gulls

Rudi: “Two windows.”

Paul grinned and went on searching:

“At the sea-end of town, Mr and Mrs Floyd, the cocklers,

are sleeping as quiet as death, side by wrinkled side, toothless,

salt and brown, like two old kippers in a box.”

“One bed,” Rudi dutifully wrote.

“No no, Rudi, we need two beds. See, right after that comes this bit:

“And high above, in Salt Lake Farm, Mr Utah Watkins counts,

all night, the wife-faced sheep as they leap up the hill

smiling and knitting and bleating just like Mrs Utah Watkins.”

“Two beds. And two windows? This is gonna knock their eyes out!”

Paul had to laugh and then, ignoring the sarcasm, went on.

“The Reverend Eli Jenkins, in Bethesda House, gropes out of bed

into his preacher’s black, pads barefoot downstairs,

opens the front door...”

“A doorway.”

“Yeah, and we just need one; I’ll use it for other bits. Oh heavens, here, let me read you this:

“The owls are hunting. Look, over Bethesda gravestones one

hoots and swoops and catches a mouse by Hannah Rees, Beloved Wife.”

 

“One cemetery...”

“No no, Rudi, I can play that on the Narrator — oh, I never told you, Douglas Rain is the spitting image of Dylan, if we curl his hair. I met Dylan, you know.”

“Big deal — you met the writer. Congratulations!” In spite of himself, Rudi laughed again.

“Rudi, Rudi, it’s like you meeting Goethe — ”

“If I need to meet him, I put on little wings,” Rudi made flapping motions with two hands, “and I fly to heaven.”

And so the two of them, laughing, sketching, having fun, went through the whole play figuring out what elements they needed. And then, the chunky Austrian tugged on his hat, dove into his coat, and went out into the frosty Toronto morning, to make what would turn out to be one of the most breathtaking designs ever seen on CBC television.

Paul assembled a splendid cast of Welsh actors, headed by Powys Thomas, Diana Maddox and Sarah Davies, who threaded the play with their delightful lilting accents.

The show got some thirty-five laudatory letters. The distinguished critic Chester Duncan’s review said, “It seems to me at this moment that I have never seen a program that excited and satisfied me as much as Under Milk Wood.” Ron Poulton, in the Toronto Telegram, wrote: “No drama Department of any US network did anything better last season.” This was echoed by the well-known TV critic, Dennis Braithwaite, who wrote, “I thought the CBC Folio version of Under Milk Wood this week was as fine a television production as I have ever seen.” The show went on to win the prestigious Ohio State Award that year, which stated: “... exceptional utilization of the TV media. Brilliantly conceived and executed, beautifully staged and performed… A brilliant illustration of CBC creativity, integrity and respect for art.”