David Lean's Dedicated Maniac - Memoirs of a Film Specialist by R. Torne and E. Fowlie

8/11/2019 David Lean's Dedicated Maniac - Memoirs of a Film Specialist by R. Torne and E. Fowlie

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About the co-author

Richard Torné is a journalist and the editor of the English languageCosta Almería News newspaper in Spain. He has written extensively

on film making in Almería, as well as the illegal property crisis in theregion and the Palomares nuclear incident of 1966.

He has also been a feature writer and columnist for the UK-basedmonthly magazine, Everything Spain, in addition to writing politicalarticles for Open Democracy .

He is currently working on a novel about expats in Spain.









DEDICATION

“To Kathleen, who has been everywhere with me for forty years(lucky me) and whose opinion David always asked for.”

Eddie Fowlie







Copyright © Eddie Fowlie & Richard Torné.

Cover photograph by Kathleen Fowlie.

The right of Eddie Fowlie & Richard Torné to be identified as authors

of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with section 77

and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any

means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,

without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this

publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for

damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British

Library.

ISBN 978 1 78455 178 0

www.austinmacauley.com

2nd

Edition (2014)

First Published (2010)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.

25 Canada SquareCanary Wharf

London

E14 5LB

Printed and bound in Great Britain



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

“I looked long and hard for a writer who would listen to, and

understand a dedicated maniac when he saw one. My thanks to

Richard Torné for all his hard work and understanding.”

Eddie Fowlie





“ I learned that a zebra could kick sideways – although I must confess Iwasn ’ t quite sure how useful that knowledge would be in the future.”

Eddie Fowlie

“ Eddie was the only one who told it to me straight. Everyone else on thecrew thought it might be OK, so that I was the one who fell in it if it

wasn ’ t.”

David Lean

“ If the director wanted a thousand butterflies on the set the next day, Eddie would say ‘ no problem ’ .”

Geraldine Chaplin





FOREWORD

The first film Eddie made with me was in 1966. How I Won The War was filmed first in Germany, then Almería, and finally in England. After a week of night shooting near Hamburg and three planejourneys, I arrived in Tabernas, near Almería, where Eddie was

waiting to show me a possible location area for the next day ’s shoot.Hot and thirsty, we climbed over the hills looking for areas torepresent the film’s North African locations. We reached a point

which seemed suitable and I said, “ This spot will be fine, Eddie.”

He looked round and replied, “ You’ ve just come 800 fucking miles tofind this set-up; why not go the last fifty feet to the top in case it ’sbetter there?”

I didn’t realise it at the time but that had encapsulated EddieFowlie’s principle of life and film-making. He was always prepared togive everything to the cause of a film and had little time for people

who were not prepared to push themselves to the limit to serve theattempt to make a great film.

Undoubtedly, Eddie’s enthusiasm resulted in behaviour which innormal circumstances might be considered certifiable, but like a

whirlwind force of nature, was aimed purely at serving the director he worked for. If you wanted a frozen lake for shooting near Madrid in July, Eddie was your man. A giant chessboard with dogs and monkeysas the pieces, “no problem”.

Sometimes, things did not go quite as planned. On The Three Musketeers , we had a scene, shot in Toledo, where D ’ Artagnan, having

just acquired an elegant suit of clothes, bumps into a rat collector, who was advertising his profession by carrying a pole supporting aline of dead rats.

As the shot was being prepared, I checked with Eddie that he hadthe rat catcher’s dog and the rat pole. I saw the merest flicker crossEddie’s face. “Sure, they’re in my truck.” Slightly suspicious, I askedto check them as we would be shooting the scene within the hour.Eddie climbed into the truck and soon returned with a face like

thunder. “Some fucker’s stolen them off my truck!” Before I had achance to discuss the likelihood of Toledo’s criminal element lying in wait to make off with Mr Fowlie’s four dead rats, Eddie said, “Giveme ten minutes.” Thinking this would be too good to miss, I quietlyobserved Eddie round up a group of children from our crowd of



extras, and hand them all money. They soon returned with a fewcages of pet hamsters. Eddie shouted for the crew ’s painter for a potof grey paint and disappeared into the bowels of his truck. Four tinysqueaks were heard. Eddie reappeared, tying bits of string,

representing tails, onto his painted hamsters, the scene was shot ontime. Just another problem solved, on a film with Eddie Fowlie.

Richard Lester



Contents

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................... 25

CHAPTER 2: The voyage begins ............................................... 35

CHAPTER 3: Playing at pirates .................................................. 56

– Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951)

– I’ll Get You For This (1950)

CHAPTER 4: A visit to paradise ................................................ 63 – The Crimson Pirate (1952) – His Majesty O’Keefe (1954)

CHAPTER 5: Londoners and Our Girl Friday (1953) ............... 72

CHAPTER 6: Let’s Build a Pyramid ......................................... 80

– Land of the Pharaohs (1955)

CHAPTER 7: Heaven and Hell ................................................... 88

CHAPTER 8: A Fateful Bridge .................................................. 94 – The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

CHAPTER 9: The Vikings are coming ..................................... 110

– The Vikings (1958) – Our Virgin Island (1958)

CHAPTER 10: Sand and Snow ................................................. 132 – Sea of Sand (Desert Patrol) (1958)

CHAPTER 11: Coconutty ......................................................... 140 – Swiss Family Robinson (1960)

CHAPTER 12: Camels Galore .................................................. 144 – Lawrence of Arabia (1962)



CHAPTER 13: Jungleslavia ...................................................... 167 – The Long Ships (1964)

CHAPTER 14: The snowmaker in summer .............................. 173

– Doctor Zhivago (1965)

CHAPTER 15: Time on our hands ........................................... 183 – Lord Jim (1965)

CHAPTER 16: The day Armageddon showed its face ............. 189

CHAPTER 17: How to blow up a Beatle .................................. 193

– How I Won the War (1967)

CHAPTER 18: Give me a David Lean set up! .......................... 197 – The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)

CHAPTER 19: Tell it to me straight, Eddie .............................. 204 – Ryan’s Daughter (1970)

CHAPTER 20: One swordfight after another ........................... 213 – The Three Musketeers – The Four Musketeers

(1973)

CHAPTER 21: Different tights for different folks .................... 219

– Robin and Marian (1975) –

The Greek Tycoon (1978)

CHAPTER 22: Living the life................................................... 229

CHAPTER 23: Indians... Indians everywhere .......................... 236 – A Passage to India (1984)

CHAPTER 24: The curtain falls ............................................... 244

CHAPTER 25: Leaky ships ...................................................... 249 – Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992)







Somebody at the British Film Institute phoned me about a year ago,asking me if I’d be willing to provide details of my life, so that theycould add them to their archives. I have to admit I thought it was aslightly cheeky request, seeing as I was not going to get paid for it, so

I told him to buy my autobiography when it came out, instead. I guessit was not exactly the answer he was expecting and after a shortsilence he changed tack and asked me where I had learned my trade,perhaps hoping I’d tell him about some fabulous film school I mayhave attended during my formative years. I’m sure I heard his jawdrop when I told him I learned everything playing in Hampton CourtPalace and Richmond Park as a boy. Perhaps he thought I was beingawkward for the sake of it, but the truth is no one had ever heard of a

bloody film school when I started. The only requirement was to be adreamer.

Dealing with highly eccentric film directors was just another quirkthat came with the job, and I’ ve met many in my career, from one-eyed cigarette-rolling gamblers and crazies willing to throw live horsesover a precipice, to panic-stricken individuals who seemed to be on apermanent knife-edge. There were, however, just a handful ofgeniuses. One of them in particular was often irascible and awkward,

but they didn’t come much bigger or better than David Lean. I neverfigured out if he was hard on the outside and soft on the inside or theother way round, but during the thirty-five or so years I knew him Ilearned more from David than any other director. He once said:“People remember pictures, not dialogue.” I couldn’t agree more.Film critics (never the best judges of his work) would probably scoff,but as David once said he wouldn’t trust one of them to shoot aclose-up of a teapot. He insisted on nothing less than absolute

perfection, that’s why he expected others to have the same exactingstandards all the time. If you failed – and actors in particular came infor a rough time, especially if they could not, or would not, do thingshis way – he could become a bit of a tyrant, but he never was towardsme. The film industry has changed a lot since I stopped working somefifteen years ago, so you can imagine how far it ’s changed comparedto that day, some sixty-five years ago, when I first walked up to the

Warner Brothers’ gate in Teddington Studios to enquire about a job – any job. Nowadays, they have all sorts of fancy names to describe

what I did: you can be a Production Designer, an Art Director, an Assistant Art Director, a Buyer or whatever else the film unions andthe accountants can come up with; they even have a man in charge oftrees and greenery! In my time a Prop Man did everything, down to



the tiniest detail, such as calculating how long a cigarette should burnfor, or helping to design and build a Spanish Galleon. Although I nolonger work, I could still do it now; I could still find the answers tothe problems, except that I can’t get about very much these days. My

routine is mostly limited to feeding sixteen hungry mouths; the straymoggies who turn up at the door of my beach house in Carbonerasevery morning at six o’clock sharp. But I can still dream – that’s why Igot into the film business in the first place.







CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

I recently saw Lawrence of Arabia for the first time from start to finish.It may surprise some, but I only viewed a few rushes when it wasbeing made and never bothered to see the end product – I never did

with the films I worked on, based on the view that once I finished myjob the rest mattered little. And yet, with the perspective of time, Imust admit I was quite pleased with the end result. What’s more, I feltmy own contribution wasn’t bad at all, especially the Wadi Rum set.

When I saw the size of the camp, everything seemed grander andmore lavish on screen, and I realise what a huge undertaking it hadbeen to prepare. For a long time I was convinced that I had aboutthree hundred tents in place (all done without a computer in sight),but it’s clear to me now that I had erected far more than that, spreadout over three to four miles wide. It may seem like we went to a lot of

trouble just to have the camp appear for a brief instant on screen, butit was worth it: we were helping a genius to conceive his vision.

In fact, the thing that struck me most about watching the filmsome forty-seven years after it had been made was how David Leankept the audience in suspense. Timing was the other thing, not justbetween each cut but between the actors. It was all done by Davidbecause he gave them strict and very precise instructions about that. Icould find fault with the film, but nothing with my work or David ’s.

Watching the film decades later gave me a deeper understandingof why David asked me to prepare props a certain way. Right at the

very end when Lawrence is about to go back to England, I rememberDavid asking me to polish the top of the desk so that it would reflectlike a mirror. If you look at the scene carefully as Lawrence leaves, hegoes through a see-through curtain, but in the bottom of the frameyou see the top of the desk …and Lawrence’s ghostly reflection; theimpression of a man who’s finished.

Tortured souls, tragic heroes (always men) facing dilemmas andforced to question their actions were the central themes of most ofDavid’s leading characters. Perhaps they spoke for him through theiractions, projecting his own inner doubts. David would never talkabout his fears to anyone, but in the same way the beautiful images he



created on film often made words redundant, we developed an almosttelepathic understanding that helped to transform his visions intoreality. That bond between us would remain until the day he died.

The film schoolI think it finally dawned on me that I was leading quite a unique andexciting life when we were about to blow up the bridge on The Bridgeon the River Kwai . I was in the water helping to place the dynamite, andas I surfaced I saw David Lean looking down at me. “Bloodymillionaire’s stuff!” I remarked. It neatly summed up what we were alldoing, playing with trains and blowing up bridges, like the games we

used to play as children, save for the all-important difference that onlymillionaires could do it this way. The last time I had been thisinterested in trains was when I was two years old, waiting at the gateof our little house in the hope of catching a glimpse of a scary reddragon screaming past me and spewing sparks from the long, thinhorns on its head. The dragon was actually the local tram which ranbackwards and forwards along the main road, and I was waiting formy father to come flying off it on his way back home from work. It

was August 1924, I was about to turn three and for some reason I wanted that dragon, or a toy one just like it. I didn’t get either, but Imade up for it with my imagination. I found a paradise in which tolive out my fantasies a stone’s throw away from where I lived in thehuge, green open spaces of Hampton Court Palace, Kew Gardens andBushey Park.

My Scottish parents – like many before them – fled theHighlands before I was born and happily settled in the south-east of

England at Nº.5, Fairfax Road, Teddington, on the outskirts ofLondon. My father, Jock – or Ned, as my mother Mary called him – was a skilled motor engineer who worked making hand-built AC Cars.He later became the chief of a fleet of huge Daimlers for a funeralcompany. It was a sign of the times, as they had just decided tochange over from black, Belgian horses to motorcars. Jock was agood dad, but occasionally the relationship soured (usually the resultof my being informed upon by my mother of a misdemeanour ofmine). He would then make use of his considerable strength to whackmy bare backside with his hand. If it was more serious, he would use astrap. It acted as a sure-fire deterrent, and I kept mostly to the rulesor, better still, tried to not get found out.





parents, who taught me to stand on my own two feet from an earlyage.

One activity that helped me on my path to independence waslearning to read. Mum and dad had the habit of going out to the pub

with their friends every Saturday evening and I would be sent to bedearly with comics like Comic Cuts or Chips , which contained strips witha comment below each individual picture. That way, in the gas light, Ilearned to identify and interpret individual words. It didn ’t say muchfor the educational system at the time, but it worked for me. My bedpiled high with comics, I invariably ended up falling asleep to dreamof the stories and the characters. As I grew older, I progressed fromannuals to books and Comic Cuts and Chips gave way to Arabian Nights ,

Aesop’ s Fables , Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe . These becametreasured possessions that helped to shape my imagination and boostmy self-confidence. With loving care I made brown paper dustcoversfor each to put on bookshelves, which I fashioned out of orangeboxes, complete with a little curtain in front.

School was a totally different matter, however, as I spent moretime honing skills which had little to do with the development ofacademic knowledge. We had no luxuries such as pen and paper, and

had to make do instead with a slate and slate pencil, eventuallyprogressing to steel pen-nibs and ink-wells. But progress, if you couldcall it that, was a double-edged sword. Now, the dreaded ink blotbetrayed our mistakes and became a customary feature inschoolchildren’s exercise books. It was rather easy to blot paper andas a result I got whacked a lot, but I didn’t care, which was just as wellas you got an extra ration for flinching. The teachers, it has to be said,had a penchant for inflicting physical punishment, the legacy no

doubt of their public school upbringing. For worse misdemeanours,such as talking in class, I was regularly called up to the front of theclass to get a whack across the palm of my hand. In fact, out of aboutsixty boys in our class I gained a reputation for breaking the record incanings and for never flinching. I made sure I never wiped my handdown my trouser leg (which was a dead giveaway). It was something Icould at least feel proud of. In fact, I got caned so often I got to knowin detail the different types of canes used and learned that the swishyones made the most damage. But there were certain records my prideand the sorer parts of my anatomy were prepared to renounce.Determined to put an end to one of the teachers’ favourite pastimes, Isneaked into the empty classroom, took the canes from the top of thecupboard and threw them into a fire. I never got found out, but my



satisfaction was short lived. Days later, the teachers were soonfurnished with new, even swishier canes.

Public transport was limited to those who could afford it. In mycase, walking was the only option. We did the half-mile walk to school

all year round, come rain or shine, four times a day on most days. Those in the group who were a bit bolder occasionally jumped on theback of a horse and cart to hitch a free ride. This was called a‘ whippey ’ on account of the driver turning round and flicking the long

whip at the opportunistic free-loader whenever one of us shouted‘ Whip behind guv ’!’

We had no school dinners, either. Packed lunch for mostconsisted of bread and drip: two thick slices of bread, known as

doorsteps, with beef dripping between them and wrapped innewspaper, were usually eaten in the playground below street level.

This was a grim, dark cellar, enclosed within arches that supported theschool building. Despite the diet – literally dripping with animal fat – none of us were overweight. There was also almost no truancy, either.If someone failed to answer his or her name during register, the truantofficer rode on his bike to the offender ’s home to find out why anddrag him back into the classroom by his ear to be caned. It wasn ’t all

sore bottoms, though. About half-way along the half-mile journey from school there

was an old, disused clay pit just off the main road, which our gangused as a playground. Without doubt, the best ride we devised was asteeply sloping track which was slippery, and we discovered that ifyou urinated on it the slide down was even better. Boys and girls

would pee on it from top to bottom, demonstrating a practicalapproach to equal rights long before it became fashionable to do so.

Along the main road there was also a turreted, stone building withnarrow windows, set far back in the shadows of the huge chestnuttrees and hidden behind a row of high walls, spiked railings and bigiron gates. When we later found out it was the lunatic asylum, wealmost shat our pants in terror. Our imagination ran amok and westarted conjuring up tales of creatures – half-men, half-animal – that

were kept in cages. We were pretty sure we could hear them howlingat night and decided that we would never walk on that side of theroad again. I think this was my first attempt at script writing.

Down our road we were the only ones who went anywhere withthe family. As a special treat, every now and again we’d go on a paddleboat trip from London to Margate. The boat, the Golden Eagle , wasfull of Londoners playing accordions and singing bawdy songs like



‘Knees Up Mother Brown’, with the women waving their skirts,dancing and laughing cheekily as the men cheered them on. I decidedI liked Londoners and their unique zest for life. Even in those daysLondon was a hub of social activity. The Lord Mayor ’s Show;

Bertram Mills’ Circus at the Olympia; pantomimes at the Lyceum; thePalladium; and the Zoo at Regents’ Park were all seats of learning forme.

On one occasion, on a steam boat trip to Scotland, my father gotpermission to take me to the engine room and down through thenarrow iron gangways. We walked in amongst the huge, shiny steelshafts and pistons that surged madly up and down like the boots ofgiants – it was the scariest thing I had ever seen, worse even than the

lunatic asylum. Observing my fear, dad gently guided me up to theship’s bow. As we looked down over the edge we spotted a bloom ofjellyfish swirling in the water. We stood silently in awe, watching thejellyfish glinting under the moonlight. It was a special moment. No

words were spoken, but the experience brought us even closer. Laterthat day he opened up to me for the first time and told me how hehad managed to survive four hellish years fighting in France duringthe Great War. He had either been very lucky or very smart, but I

suspected the latter. He confessed he never went ‘over the top’ first:“Somebody ’s got to be last,” he wisely remarked. He reasoned thatone’s chances of survival increased dramatically just by being a littlebit sharper than the rest.

He lived to see the war through, but cancer eventually caught up with him and he died at the age of sixty-two from smoking woodbines – his only real weakness. He lay in bed in agony for two weeks, but heput up a brave front for the sake of the family. “I’ ve got a cancer but

we’ ve got to keep it secret from mother,” he pleaded with me.Despite the pain he kept his dignity right until the end. At the funeralthey took the hearse past all the pubs he used to drink at, right downinto Sussex. With his death I lost my inspiration and the person I hadmost looked up to, but rather than withdraw into myself I turned tofilms for solace.

My initiation into movies was the same as most other people ’s. Inthe junior years a few of us could afford to go to the pictures onSaturday mornings at the Super Cinema in Kingston. Despite being

very old, dilapidated and infested with rats, we were drawn to it like amagnet, and for the modest fee of threepence we got to sit high up inthe gods. As there were no seats, we sat on the steps almost knee-deep in discarded peanut shells. Watching expectantly, we waited for

Documents

David Lean's Dedicated Maniac - Memoirs of a Film Specialist by R. Torne and E. Fowlie