Lizardo, the Bog Man
By Harry Buschman
You may have heard of me, but then again, it's
more than likely you haven't. My name is Woody Hatton and I was a Hollywood
screen writer for almost four
months. I came out here to Hollywood to write a script for Meyer Flick. One
was enough -- I'm on my way home to New York.
Meyer Flick found me on the Off Broadway circuit. I had a one act play running in the Village and three full length plays in early stages of completion. I also parked cars in the garage next to the theater where my play was running and that's where I met Meyer -- in the garage I mean, not the theater. I was working there when he walked into the garage with his chauffeur and Gina Marina the Italian movie star.
"They tell me in the theater next door
that the author works in here, name's
Woody somethin'. You know him?"
"Yeah, I'm Woody. Woody Hatton. Mind puttin' out your cigar -- there's
no
smokin' in here." Then he introduced me to his chauffeur and gave me his
card, I ran my finger over it to see if it was engraved, that's how you can
tell if a guy's on the up and up.
"I'm Meyer Flick -- "Flick Studios."
Gina here liked your play." Then he
introduced me to Gina Marina, and while his chauffeur got the car he walked
her up and down, the way you'd show off a thoroughbred horse. "Looka the
way
she moves, nice piece'a work, huh? -- Gina don't speak English awful good, but
she got an idea for a movie from your play. Y'ever done any screenwritin' ....?"
Naturally I said yes, although at the time I didn't know anything about screen writing, but I figured it was a way of getting out of New York, broadening my horizons and maybe picking up a buck or two. Mr. Flick said he was going to be in the city for a few more days but sometime the following week I should drop in on him out at Flick Studios in Culver City. I didn't have a thousand bucks to blow on a round trip ticket to Los Angeles, so I said I didn't know whether my schedule permitted me to travel the following week.
"S'pose I spring for first class round
trip tickets on American?"
"You got a deal," I answered quickly.
We shook hands on it then we stood and watched
Gina climb into the back seat
of the limo, and after Meyer caught his breath he told me he had the utmost
faith in her creative taste in movies. "What can I tell ya," he said
"You wouldn't think it to look at her, but she's got a head on her too."
So that's how it all started, and that's how I became a full fledged screenwriter. A few months later I was cleaning out my desk and heading back home to New York. I console myself now by thinking that a lot of great writers didn't make it in Hollywood. They came back east too -- frustrated and disillusioned. Just because I didn't make it out here doesn't mean I'm not a great writer -- it doesn't mean I'm a good one either. In fact it doesn't mean anything at all.
The movie that Gina had imagined turned out to be nothing like the one act play I wrote back east. That one was called "Out of Sight" and it dealt with an airline pilot who was suddenly struck blind in the cockpit of a 747 half way across the Atlantic, and then agonized over whether or not to tell the co-pilot. Maybe it was the language barrier. Meyer Flick told me that Gina didn't speak English very well -- it's possible she didn't understood it very well either.
The movie would be called "Lizardo, the
Bog Man," and starred, of course, Gina Marina as an Amazon Queen and Axel
Wilder as a young scientist lost in the jungles of Brazil. Fabio Ponti would
direct and James Wong Who was our cameraman. We made up the plot as we went
along, and my most important
contribution was to invent the dialogue as the plot unfolded.
The plot! Yes, the plot .... I suppose I should lay the plot out for you.
There was this warlike tribe of women deep
in the jungles of Brazil. They had
never seen a man until Axel Wilder wandered in more dead than alive after having
been clawed by a tiger. They washed his wounds, and in doing so, noticed he
wasn't built like they were.
The only children in the village were girls
and they were conceived during the annual emergence of Lizardo from the depths
of a nearby bog. Lizardo came up for air during the summer solstice. That was
the big presentation number in the movie. All the Amazon girls danced in wild
abandon during the Feast of the Impregnation.
When Axel regained his strength he taught the Amazonian women the error of
their ways and showed them pictures of television sets, limousines and wealthy
families of men, women and children of all sexes. Realizing he's about to lose
out on a good thing, Lizardo waylaid Alex in the jungle and a bloody brawl ensued.
.... I have just looked back over that synopsis
and I think I've gone far enough. Films are always better seen than described
anyway -- the medium is the message, you know? At our first story conference
I did my best to persuade Meyer and Fabio that the scenario was unbelievable
and it would give me great difficulty with dialogue.
"Shut uppa you mout, rookie," Fabio finally exploded. "We know
this business,
forget the dialogue -- just write down what the actors have to say."
I asked him about the dialogue for Lizardo, and after considerable thinking
both Meyer and Fabio decided the bog man would speak in his native Amazonian.
"We use sub-titles, see." Meyer said. "Getcha self a book on
Amazonian outta
the liberry."
Our budget was limited, and almost half of
it was spent on the Bog Man suit
for Lizardo and costumes for Gina and the rest of the lost tribe of the Amazonians.
We tried to maintain a racial mix, six blondes for every brunette. The cast
grew so large that Meyer finally put his foot down -- "We sure ain't takin'
this crowd to Brazil, y'hear, Fabio. We just do it in the lot like we always
do, see. Any remotes y'gotta do, y'do in Laguna Beach."
I think we lost a lot of authenticity that
way, and it put an enormous weight
on the shoulders of the camera man and the film editor. Our editor was an old
timer I got to know quite well. His name was Quincy Gables and he'd been in
the film business nearly forty years. He claimed he could make a movie out of
nothing. "Just tell me what'cha story is and I'll make ya up a movie from
the
strips I got layin' around on the floor of the shop." He got his chance
to prove it, and you can decide for yourself how successful he was by watching
the TV Guide for "Lizardo, the Bog Man." It can usually be found on
the Sci-fi channel late Saturday night. You'll see my name rolling by, "scenario
and dialogue by Woodrow Hatton."
The dialogue was dubbed in after the scenes
were shot. Neither Gina Marina
nor Axel Wilder could be trusted to remember their lines during the action.
It also meant that one take was enough for almost everything. You remember
silent movies, don't you? Oh, you don't! -- well in silent movies the actors
pretended to talk but didn't, then a title would pop up telling the audience
what they said. I couldn't help thinking it would have been the perfect
solution for us as well.
Gina's accent was pure Sicilian and trying
to make, "Looka! Lizardo. he's a
comma!" sound as though it had been spoken by the crowned Queen of the
Amazonians was not easy. On the other hand Axel's voice was as pipey and
petulant as a pimple faced teenager, his brave assertion that civilization was
only a day's journey up river was unconvincing. But that's why good editors
are worth their weight in gold. Quincy was able to chop the vowels from the
end of Gina's almost every word in much the way as you would trim the inedible
ends of asparagus. Axel Wilder's voice was lowered an octave or two until he
sounded just like Darth Vader.
There are some directors who know when their
picture is finished, but Fabio
Ponti is not one of them. His truck driver's voice was amplified far beyond
intelligibility and he could be heard halfway to Las Vegas. He and Wong sat
in the cherry picker with the camera careening above our heads like a pair of
frenzied witches. His face purple with rage, Meyer finally pulled the plug on
the movie.
"Fabio, sweetheart! FABIO!! (Bring him
down, Goddammit.) No more already,
we're through yet. Outta money, outta film -- and Gina's gone back to Sorrento,
or wherever the hell she's from." This was true, Gina had seen some of
the test prints and had already brought suit against Flick Studios for fraud.
She had also caught Meyer 'en flagrante' with one of the blond Amazonian slaves.
Flick Studios was now in the hands of attorneys and the future of the picture
was in the hands of Quincy Gables.
That was enough for me. My salary stopped abruptly
when Flick's assets were
seized. Even a tight-fisted man like me cannot exist without money in California.
Luckily I still had my first class return ticket and the little money I had
saved from six months living in a walk-up flat in Culver City. I would like
to have stayed and watched Quincy put the picture together, but my life-style
could not be maintained on the little money I had saved. The rent was due and
if I paid it I would be penniless in a pitiless town. Like Maxwell Anderson,
Dalton Trumbo and the rest, I kissed tinsel-town goodbye.
So it shall be as it was before -- writing
plays and parking cars. Will I be sadder? Not really. Will I be wiser? Hardly.
Will I be older? Definitely! With philosophical detachment I look down and see
the Grand Canyon passing
below me reduced to the size of a pothole in a New York City street. Reality
is an illusive thing, and when you're in the belly of a 747 flying at 40,000
feet. The plane seems a far more solid place than the universe itself.
Where you've been and where you're going are
figments of your imagination.
It's where you are that counts.
©Harry Buschman 1999
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