Celluloid Lies

We broke out of the treeline and ran out into the clearing and headed towards our chopper. It was about 70 yards away and waiting for us out there in the high grass with its blades already moving, ready to lift off. By the time we were halfway across the clearing, the VC came spilling out of the treeline after us, firing their weapons.

There were 6 of us, and I was in the lead, huffing and puffing. I was quite a bit older and fatter and slower than the other guys, but I was in the lead because the script said I was in the lead, and if any of those young fools tried to run up past me towards the camera that was mounted alongside the door gunner there in the waiting chopper, I'd smash them in their knees with the butt of my M-16—and they all knew I would, because I'd done it before. An unwritten law there in that particular little Hollywood jungle was that you never get between me and the camera. There are few things more dangerous on a movie set than an old actor pretending to be young.

So here we come running across the clearing towards the camera. From over our approaching heads, back towards the treeline, you can see the VC gaining on us. At the side door of the chopper, I step aside and let my guys scramble onto the chopper. Then I step out into the middle of the camera frame and turn facing the VC charging fast towards me across clearing.
Just me Just me Just me,
kind of thing.

I raise my rife and fire a quick burst of three shots, and two of the VC fall dead.
Then I fire again and shoot the stunt man, Grant Iwada, in the chest. Grant was a scholarship gymnast at UCLA and now makes a very comfortable living getting killed in movies and on TV. When I shoot him in the chest today, he does a kind of back flip and lands on his side, dead, with one arm flung out over his head. For a moment there, lumbering onboard the chopper, I think I notice something out of place about Iwata's outflung arm—a glitter of something—But the chopper is lifting off. And up. And away.
The trees below grow much smaller, etc.

Whew! I'm still huffing and puffing. That was quite a scene. One long, single-camera master shot with no cut-ins, no edits. Actually a hellofa shot, by TV standards. We are all very pleased, and no one more pleased than I, who was, after all and more or less, the hero.

"Aww SHIT!" shouts Becker, one of my guys. "Shit."
He has the walkie talkie and is communicating with the director back at base camp.

"What?" I yell over the loud thwak of the chopper blades.

"We gotta go back and shoot it again," Becker shouts.

The chopper begins its decent.

"Why?" I rasp at him.

"I don't know," he shouts back. "Something about one of the stunt men wearing a gold Rolex."

TDK '65''

• Last Time Around
  
• Charlie Nevins
  
• Young Men And Fire
  
• Austin Healy
  
• Cathy
  
• David River's Birthday
  
• Han's Pavilion
  
• Muscles, Our Neighbor
  
• John Browne, Learning to Dance
  
• Your Brother Mark Browne
  
• Buster
  
• Celluloid Lies
  
• Nuked
  
• Learning to Box
  
• Dog and Goose
  
• Buses and Such
  
• Stealing
  
• Hookybobbing
  
• Stiles Old Upstairs Apartment
  
• Sign Of The Time
  
• Learning to Drive