Read The Light's on at Signpost for Free Online Page B

three productions, and can only echo what Cary Grant said of Hitchcock: “I whistled all the way to work .”
    We agreed that Prince and Pauper would need a complete rewrite, talked it over with Alex Salkind and Pierre Spengler, and that was that. I flew home, discarded the original screenplay, and did a new version of Twain’s charming story (he saw it in fairly dark terms, but I liked it for its excitement, humour, and ingenuity). It’s an historical fantasy based on the premise that the boy prince, Edward, heir to Henry VIII, and his double, a young thief named Tom, changed places and found themselves having bewildering adventures in their unaccustomed roles. It had been an Errol Flynn swashbuckler forty years earlier, with the title roles being played by twins; Salkind and Fleischer were to give it blockbuster treatment with a cast which would eventually include Oliver Reed, Charlton Heston, and Raquel Welch (all Musketeer veterans), as well as George C. Scott, Rex Harrison, Ernest Borgnine, and David Hemmings, with young Mark Lester, the angelic hero of Oliver!, in the two lead parts—a huge challenge for an actor of eighteen, since it is really four parts, the Prince, the Pauper, the Prince- as-Pauper, and the Pauper- as-Prince .
    I did the first draft, following Twain as closely as possible, and Fleischer liked it. Kathy and I flew to Hollywood, where Dick and I went over the script, and agreed revisions. I flew home and did them, Dick approved…and now I break into my notes, written at the time, when I was waiting for the production to get under way…
       
    Fleischer phones, with the splendid news that Rex Harrison is to play the Duke of Norfolk—can I beef up his part? You bet I can.
    Down to Penshurst Place, Kent, for the first day’s shooting. Ancient house, beautiful grounds, Olde England to the life, with Fleischer setting up his stuff with Jack Cardiff, and yeoman warders lying on the grass looking harmless. Why don’t they get great big burly thugs for these parts nowadays? This lot of minions wouldn’t frighten anyone. Where are you Harry Cording, Ray Teal, Dennis Wyndham, et al.…?
    Through a Tudor arch strides Henry VIII—Heston, in full fig, looking terrific in the true sense of the word, extending a regal hand for Fleischer to kiss (he doesn’t).
         
    I’d met Heston in Paris in the production office at the Georges V before the M3 premiere—he had heard me give my name at the desk, and loomed up beside me saying: “I’m Charlton Heston.” Taken all unawares at the sudden appearance of a living legend, I had been startled into saying: “By God, so you are!”, at which he had taken no offence, handing me a whisky and starting to talk Scottish history (he is part Fraser and immensely proud of it—aren’t we all?) He had also confessed to a wish to play Flashman at Little Big Horn, an episode I had yet to write.  
        
    F. and H. go into a huddle over the script, and call me in. H. suggests rewording one of my lines to read: “You failed me in Scotland, Norfolk, and you know it well.” It sounds a wee bit corny to me, but I’m not fussy—maybe he knows better what will sound right. I stick my heels in on another point, the line where Henry says he’s been on the throne five and thirty years. H points out, correctly, that at the time Henry had been on the throne thirty-seven years; I plead poetic licence, claiming that five and thirty sounds better, and he yields. He looks horribly like Henry VIII, which is disturbing when you’re sitting on a garden bench with him arguing about what he should say, and expecting to be consigned to the Tower at any moment.
    Meet Mark Lester, a tall, ethereal-looking, nervous lad who smokes Marlboro as if they were going to stop making them. He writhes convincingly in a muddy flower-bed while Heston stands on him, and Graham Stark, in jester’s motley, flings himself prone, crying “Break away, old Hal!” in a variety of accents. Rex