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in London, the last in a park in New York. The intermediate segment, now being set up, was a matte shot of the bus rolling toward its ultimate destination in the park. Behind the bus was a giant blue screen on which later would be projected the English countryside passing by, thus giving the illusion that the bus was actually moving.
    The scene was number 79 and the script directions read:
    UPPER DECK—NIGHT ( PROCESS )
    Here also the guests are undoing their presents. Tony stands at the front of the upper deck blowing a loud and joyful “View Halloo” on a long hunting horn.
    On the side of the vintage red bus was written “London General Omnibus Company, Limited, John Christopher Mitchell, Secretary & Treasurer,” as well as an itinerary—“Bank—Ludgate Circus—Strand—Victoria Station—Walham Green—Hammersmith.” The bus was on a hydraulic jack, and on either side stagehands were rocking it gently with two-by-fours pried underneath to give a semblance of motion. High up in the rafters, another stagehand slowly waved a prop tree branch in front of a light onto a screen so that the shadow of passing shrubbery could be seen reflected in the bus’s windows. The shot took in only the upper deck, so that the bottom was empty. The principals and extras were all dressed in evening clothes, white tie for the men, period 1920’s dresses for the women.
    On the crane, Wise peered through the camera, composing the shot, his hands expertly working the flywheels. When he was satisfied, he picked up the bullhorn.“All right, let’s have a rehearsal,” he shouted. “I want a lot of brouhaha. This is the 1920’s and you’re all a little high. I think some of you might have been a little high before, so you need no instructions from me.”
    The actors laughed and began to shout and move around the top of the bus. The stagehands rocked the vehicle.
    “That’s it, that’s it,” Wise said. “Slurp a little champagne. Blow your horn, Michael.” Michael Craig, an English actor who was playing the Horse Guards officer who was Gertrude Lawrence’s lover, raised the hunting horn to his lips and began to blow it drunkenly. There was no sound; the sound would be dubbed in later. “That’s okay, that’s nice, more where that came from,” Wise said. “Okay.”
    Wise took his bullhorn once again. He told Craig to keep blowing his horn a few seconds longer and asked Daniel Massey, another English actor who was playing Noel Coward, to come in faster on his line. “You’re waiting too long, Dan. There’s other actors with dialogue in this scene and they’re waiting on your cue.” He looked through the camera again. “Okay, let’s take a picture.”
    The actors returned to their places. The buzzer was sounded and the set doors were locked. The slate boy wrote “Scene 79, Take 1” on his board and snapped it in front of the camera. The assistant director, Reggie Callow, a bulbous, apoplectic-looking man, called for quiet. “Ac-tion,” Wise said.
    The camera started to roll. Almost immediately Wise called “Cut.” Impatiently he shouted down to Callow. “Reggie, what’s the matter with the blue screen? There’s a shadow over there on the right.”
    Callow dispatched an electrician to look at the blue screen. Seconds later the electrician reported that a light had burned out behind the screen causing the shadow.
    “Goddamn it, that’s the second time this morning,” Callow bellowed. “Fix the goddamn thing.”
    Wise climbed down from his perch. He was nervously jiggling a handful of coins. “This is what makes picture making tedious,” he said, settling into a leather director’s chair on the back of which was written “Robert Wise.” I asked how long he had been working on the film. “Three years,” he said. His eyes moved slowly around the set, taking in everything. “I didn’t really want to do another big picture,” he said. “Period pictures take so damn much time. For
The Sand