The Light's on at Signpost (23 page)

S
PECULATION
…that a hundred years from now the United States will have split into three—a Hispanic and Asiatic state in the West and Southwest, a black state in the Southeast, and a white state in the North, including Canada. Another possibility: that the Southwest will have gone back to Mexico.

Americans will scoff at this as crazy. It is the habit of great countries of imperial pretensions to take the future for granted, as the Romans no doubt did in Trajan’s day, and as Britons, with a few far-sighted exceptions, did at Victoria’s jubilees, and Americans do now. They envisage their country going on forever, one and indivisible, more or less as it is now—or if not forever, at least into the age of Captain Kirk, who is a reflection of America, so that’s all right.

It is difficult for young countries on the crest of the wave, and for young people for that matter, to realise that Today, far from being permanent, is already almost Yesterday, and as for Tomorrow, God alone knows. But why should I even entertain the possibility of the USA fragmenting? She is the richest, strongest, most materially advanced country on earth, proud of herself and her polity, confident of the future; she has never (not even in 1942) been seriously menaced with invasion, she will repel the terrorist menace, and she survived in the 1860s the one real threat to her unity—but that is the point. The danger then came from internal dissension, and that,
I believe, is where it will lie henceforth. But I shan’t be here to see it. Neither will those who call me crackers.

I sincerely hope I’m wrong, for a strong, united America is the hope of the world, and while I disapprove strongly of her assault on Afghanistan, and think we should have looked to our own interests first, I have to admit that Blair’s present action (however much it may cost us in blood and treasure) has strengthened the special relationship as nothing else has done since the 1940s. He was rash and wrong, but at least that much good has come of it.

Of course the relationship, however warm it may be at the very highest level, has less to do with politics than with the social, cultural, and even spiritual ties between us. At its simplest, we are
interested
in America, and they in us, and it matters little who occupies the White House and Number 10 so long as we read each other’s books, watch each other’s films and plays, laugh at each other’s jokes, and feel at home in each other’s countries—all of which sprang originally from blood kinship and shared history, and continues with our shared language and laws and community of ideas.

We
know
each other in a way that sets us apart from Europe, despite America’s huge immigration from the Continent, and the Euromania which affects some of Britain’s dimmer politicians. What interest do the great mass of Britons and Americans take in French or German elections? None, and who in either country could name the French, German, or Italian head of state? Precious few—but every sentient Briton knows George W. Bush (and followed his entertaining election, and the lurid scandal of his predecessor, with avid interest). Likewise no foreign story in the last few years excited more interest in the US than the glittering rise and tragic fall of the Princess of Wales. And every American knows the Queen. All of that is what goes to the making of the “special relationship”, and it will endure as long as both countries continue to speak the tongue that Shakespeare spake (more or less), and hold the faith that Milton held.

As to that tongue of Shakespeare’s, an eccentric American has advised me that it is high time we stopped calling it “English”, and substituted “Anglo-American”. Actually, he thinks it should simply be “American”, since the United States is the only remaining superpower (a fascinating piece of reasoning, this) but for sentimental reasons he is prepared, jolly decently, to stick “Anglo” in front. In support of this remarkable claim he quotes H. L. Mencken, a well-regarded American pundit who had a most colossal bee in his bonnet on the subject, and even wrote a book about it.

Mencken’s case was that the “American form of the English language” departed from the parent stem and began “to drag English with it”. He held that “the Englishman has yielded so much to American example…that what he speaks promises to become…a kind of dialect of American.”

As an example of the fly sitting on the chariot wheel and complimenting itself on the dust it raises, this is a beauty. It apparently escaped Mencken’s attention that in the whole passage of his from which I have quoted, a passage of around three hundred words, there is not one of American origin; all were coined in England, as were the grammar, syntax, and form of the language. What he and my correspondent failed to understand is that American English is just another group of dialects of the mother tongue, and no more a separate “language” than Australian, South African, Canadian, Scots, sub-continental Indian, and all the other dialects of English spoken world-wide. Of course vocabularies differ, but very slightly when one considers the colossal bank of words common to all, and what is spoken in Britain (again, a great variety of dialects) has certainly been enriched (some might say polluted) by American words and usages, but the root and being of the language have not altered. English is English still, overwhelmingly so.

What is at work in Mencken and others, of course, is a manifestation of that mutual envy and rivalry which have existed since 1776, and even earlier. We envy American power and wealth and
pre-eminence (which they like to call leadership, bless ’em); America envies British culture and self-satisfaction, and has an inferiority complex about them which is expressed in braggadocio, of which Menckenitis is simply an expression. It has even been claimed in the United States (and echoed by the ignorant here) that America is responsible for English being the world language. American films, TV and pop culture are advanced in support of this claim, and it seems almost cruel to point out that long before there was such a thing as an American sound movie, let alone US TV programmes and pop, English was already the official language of one-quarter of the human race who inhabited the British Empire, which had spread the English tongue over the Orient, Africa, and, incidentally, North America.

I should add that I hold America and its people in an affection and admiration amounting almost to love. (I love my children and grandchildren, too, but that doesn’t stop me correcting their wilder flights when necessary.) To conclude, I can only adapt the words of the American poet Alice Duer Miller when she wrote of her love for England, and say that in a world where there is no United States I do not wish to live.

G
EORGES
-A
LAIN
V
UILLE
was Swiss, short, stout, excitable, and great fun. On occasion I wondered if he might not be certifiably mad, but I feel I owe him a great debt, not only because he commissioned (and paid for) a fortune’s worth of screenplays, but because he entertained Kathy and me in a Riviera villa once used by John F. Kennedy, paid for first-class travel and hotels in all kinds of exotic places (Hollywood, Madrid, Cannes, Gstaad, Sicily, etc.) where he lavished hospitality like a Greek tycoon, and kept us and many others entertained with his constant enthusiastic chatter, his high spirits, and his mania for telephoning in public at the top of his voice and in several languages.

“ ’Oo we phone now?” was his war-cry. “I know—we get Kirk Dooglass!” And he would start shouting into the phone, often interrupting himself to repeat aloud what the other party was saying. I have heard him pursue Douglas, William Holden, Rex Harrison, and some nameless unfortunate at Warner Brothers whom he roundly abused in Italian, all within the course of a couple of hours. He was trying, with mounting frenzy, to cast a picture which was already well into production, and since Holden and Harrison finished up in supporting roles, his energy paid off.

That bout of phoning ended with his slamming down the receiver with a cry of “Telly Savalas, bah!” followed by a torrent of words which I didn’t understand, a bellowed instruction to his cook that
he wanted steak
bleu
for dinner, and a heated discussion with his lady, whom he was reluctant to take flamenco dancing after midnight.

That was Georges-Alain, who for a brief hectic hour was the talk of the film world (c. 1977–79), the boy wonder who was going to be the new DeMille…and then it all faded away.

I had never heard of him when Dick Fleischer phoned me shortly after
Prince and Pauper
. Vuille had the rights to James Clavell’s novel,
Taipan
, and wanted Fleischer to direct a mega-budget film of it; Fleischer had stipulated that I should do the screenplay “and I was prepared to be obnoxious if he wanted a different writer.” Which was kind and flattering, but I would have jumped at the project anyway. I knew
Taipan
was a massive best-selling historical novel, I’d have worked with Fleischer on anything, and from the sound of it Vuille had the drive and the bankroll to make the film a blockbuster. Douglas Rae negotiated my deal, and I sat down to read the paperback, several hundred pages long.

It was a wonderful atrocity. I’ll never say of a man “He can’t write”, because it has been said by lofty critics of authors who are read by countless millions—Ian Fleming, Conan Doyle, and Edgar Rice Burroughs (who may be no Stevenson as a stylist, but made enough to found a university, which not many authors do, and won the grudging respect of my English teacher, as we shall see). But I must be honest and say that Clavell’s book struck me as supremely dreadful…and yet…

Much of it I found turgid and corny, and it bore some of the worst marks of the American historical fiction-writer (Clavell was actually a very British Australian) adrift in a non-American subject. There were enough trivial inaccuracies to worry me, and a romantic misconception of how early Victorians spoke, thought, and behaved.

For example, Brock, the heavy, talked a bizarre kind of English in which he said things like “Thee be a bagful o’ farts,” but the tone and style of the whole thing were so wrong that I began to
wonder how far the Chinese background, of which I knew little, was to be trusted. It was fairly bursting with colourful Oriental stuff, social and cultural, and I was far from sure whether it was authentic or the product of Clavell’s fertile imagination.

In fact, it was a great hodge-podge, and certainly not literary—but it contained what used to be called a rattling good yarn, with highlights which would translate spectacularly to the screen.

It is set in Hong Kong in the early 1840s, where Britain has just taken possession, and bears some passing resemblance to historic fact. Since the great entrepreneurs of the island, Jardine Matheson, were Scots, Clavell had made his central character a Scottish adventurer, Dirk Struan, a sort of Rhett Butler figure, half-merchant, half-pirate, and all swashbuckler, locked in deadly feud with a fellow-adventurer, Tyler Brock. They play out their rivalry against a background of imperial expansion, opium-running, piracy, sex, skulduggery, and general turmoil; there is intrigue, escape, betrayal, love pure and profane by the bucket, duelling, sea battles, ships exploding, and Manchu bannermen tramping by the thousands. I have to salute Clavell for his Chinese pirate with a Cockney accent who wants to send his son to a public school, and for his device of binding Struan to do favours for the bearers of special silver coins, which are produced in the most unexpected places—but for some reason the author leaves half of them unused, which is frustrating.

In short, whatever its literary merits, it had everything necessary for a big-screen epic, concluding with a colossal typhoon, and was going to cost a bomb.

It would obviously have to be considerably cut and condensed, and given a stronger narrative form than it had in the novel; characters would have to be reshaped, incidents changed, the dialogue translated from Hollywood-speak into early Victorian—but from a scriptwriter’s viewpoint it was a bloody gold-mine. Clavell might not be able to “write” a story, but by gum he could “see” it.

I flew to Nice and the Villa Nelleric, a palatial edifice of marble and glass and luxurious furnishings, where I met Vuille for the first time, and, more immediately important for me, Clavell himself, a burly heavyweight who looked more like a business tycoon than the screenwriter, director, and producer he was, in addition to being a successful novelist. He had an impressive track record, including
The Great Escape, 633 Squadron
, and
To Sir, with Love
; when we walked out on the terrace looking down on the rocky cliffs dropping to the Mediterranean, I asked why he hadn’t written the script himself.

“I did,” he said. “Twice. Didn’t work.” He paused. “It’s got to be Sean, hasn’t it?”

“Connery—for Struan? I don’t see how Vuille could go past him. He’s made for it.”

Unfortunately, Vuille could, and did, but I’ll come to that. In the meantime I talked the thing over with Clavell and Vuille and Maud Spector, the casting expert—how far we discussed possible actors at this point, I don’t remember; as far as I was concerned, Connery was essential, and I pushed for Robert Shaw, with whom I’d worked on
Force Ten
, for Brock (alas, he died soon afterwards), but I don’t think it was until later that Edward Fox, David Niven, John Gielgud, Shirley Maclaine, Alan Badel, and Telly Savalas were pencilled in for various parts—probably without their knowledge. Possible Brocks included George C. Scott, Anthony Quinn, and Rod Steiger, but it was agreed then, and was wrestled over all through pre-production, that the vital casting would be Struan’s Chinese mistress—a big part for which an unknown Chinese girl was essential.

“There aren’t any around, and we can’t use a non-Chinese in make-up,” Fleischer was adamant. “They’d picket the theatres. We’ve just got to find her.”

That wasn’t my business. I went home and started writing. It was to be a three-hour epic, which meant about 180 of my typed
pages—or more probably, knowing me, 200 and cut left right and centre afterwards. Fleischer had told me that various attempts, apart from Clavell’s, had already been made at a script, but I refused to look at them, and he agreed. Starting from scratch is the only way to ensure yourself a sole screen credit; work on another man’s draft, and he’ll claim a share, naturally enough—and it doesn’t matter if you’ve rewritten him entire, his agent will still be in there hollering.

Whereby hangs an interesting tale. I had met Carl Foreman a few times—at an award ceremony, in the White Elephant, and once, as I’ve already related, in his London office when I was on my way to Yugoslavia to work on
Force Ten from Navarone
, and we had discussed his Phileas Fogg, Junior, idea, in which I’d expressed guarded interest—not expecting anything to come of it, and it hadn’t. That was all my acquaintance with Carl Foreman.

Now, just as I was getting down to work, he came on the phone to my home. “I hear you’re rewriting my
Taipan
script,” said he. I said I wasn’t; I didn’t know he’d done a script, but anyway, I was starting from scratch. (The alarm bells were tinkling.)

“Why don’t I send it to you, anyway?” he said.

“Because I don’t want to see it,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Are you kidding?”

“I’ll send it anyway.”

“Sorry…what was that? I’m not hearing you—there’s something wrong with the line…oh, blast!” Etc, etc.

He sent the script, too, the crafty brute, and I promptly shot it off to Douglas Rae unopened, with instructions to return it forthwith.

If I seem to have been unduly cautious, I wasn’t. For self-protection it was necessary that I shouldn’t see Carl’s draft—for one thing, it might colour my view of the project, but far more importantly, it might cost me a sole credit if he could claim that I had in any way used or adapted his material. It would be tricky;
since both his script and mine would be based on the same novel, there were bound to be resemblances, but if it could be argued that there were resemblances which had
no basis in the book
(in other words, if Carl had put in original stuff of his own, and my script contained roughly similar material), it would look as though I’d got it from him, and he would have a fair case for demanding a share of the credit.

Carl’s offer to show me his script was fair enough—he’d done work, and he hoped to get credit for it—but I was being equally fair in refusing to look at it: I wanted it to be my movie based on my script, alone and unaided. He was just a wee bit naughty in trying to force his script on me when I’d made it plain I didn’t want it.

I’ve still not seen his script, but if Carl were alive I’d never be able to convince him of that. By one of those coincidences, we had both invented identical closing scenes for which there was absolutely no basis in the book. So Dick Fleischer tells me. Mind you, the scene is one which might well occur to any scriptwriter; it involves a shot of the Hong Kong beach in 1841, suddenly pulling back in a colossal zoom to show Hong Kong as it is today. We thought of it independently, which is something that happens more often than you’d think.

I finished my first draft, thinking Connery throughout—and Shaw, even though I knew now that he would never play it. I sent it off—and got the best reaction to a script I’ve ever had in my life. Fleischer was enthusiastic, Scott liked it, especially the part for the Chinese girl (but didn’t want to play Brock, who reminded him of Long John Silver), and as for Georges-Alain: “Oh, Georges, I cried! It is so beautiful! I am reading it in the car, and I cry, believe me! I cried and cried!”

When you get that kind of response you prepare to write the second draft to take care of all the changes they’ll want when they’ve come down off Cloud Nine. Sure enough, a week later found me
chopping and changing—I can’t remember what, now, but it didn’t take long, and the script was ready to try out on the big names Georges-Alain had in his sights.

Connery was not among them. I got quite stroppy about it, so did Fleischer, but Georges-Alain was adamant. He wanted the biggest in the business, which admittedly Connery wasn’t at that time—as if that mattered, when he fitted the part like a glove. So the script went to Hollywood, but who turned it down or couldn’t come to terms with Georges-Alain, I don’t know: Clint Eastwood was mentioned, and Dick Fleischer told me that Paul Newman had been complimentary but said that he was “a twentieth-century man”, which was true; Westerns aside, he’s never been at his best in costume. Anyway, casting is not a writer’s affair, but when I heard that Georges-Alain was thinking of offering Connery the part of
Brock
, I came pretty close to apoplexy.

And then, out of a blue sky, he came up with Steve McQueen, for $10 million, the highest price in cinema history up to that time.

All this took some months, and while my memory of events is sharp enough, it isn’t coherent. No reason why it should be, since with the script complete I was involved only intermittently. We made at least two visits to the Villa Nelleric, Kathy and I and the Fleischers, conferring with Georges-Alain and generally living the Riviera life, eating at the Eden Roc and having tea at the Hotel du Cap, which was so damned exclusive that guests were expected to pay in raw cash, to the chagrin of wealthy Americans. The Cannes Film Festival was on during one of our visits, and Georges-Alain improved the shining hour with an enormous banner proclaiming “Taipan” to the lobby of the Carlton Hotel, where he kept an office full of telephones for shouting into. He dragged me to a lunch on the beach, where we ate at long trestle tables under awnings, up to our calves in the powder that passes for sand at Cannes; like everything to do with the Festival, it was noisy, frenzied, tacky, and generally hell on earth, a view shared by a tall, weary-looking man
opposite me who looked familiar and turned out to be Yves Montand.