The Technicolor Time Machine Read online

As he stood outside and closed the door of the trailer he closed the door on the picture as well, he knew that. And on his career. Ruf wasn’t going to change his mind, that was certain. Few ideas ever penetrated the muscle and bone to that tiny brain, but the few that got in stuck hard. He couldn’t force the overmuscled slob to go to a prehistoric island for a rest cure, and if he couldn’t—there went the film.

  Barney stumbled and looked up, then realized that he had walked through the camp and almost to the shore without being aware of it. He was alone, on a hillock overlooking the beach and the bay. The sun was just above the horizon, edging a bank of low-lying cloud with a golden light that reflected on the water, breaking and reforming in molten patterns as the waves rolled in. It had the wild beauty of the world empty of man and he hated it, and everything about it. There was a rock lying by his foot and he picked it up and hurled it, as though the sea were a glass mirror that he hoped to break and destroy. But he hurt his arm when he threw it and the rock fell short and only clattered on the pebbles of the shore.

  There wasn’t going to be a motion picture. He cursed out loud.

  “What’s that mean?” Ottar’s voice rumbled from behind him. He spun about.

  “It means get out of here you hairy-faced slob!”

  Ottar shrugged and held out one big hand in which he clutched two bottles of Jack Daniels. “By my house you looked bad. Have a drink.”

  Barney opened his mouth to say something scathing, remembered who he was talking to, so instead said, “Thanks,” and took the opened one. A long, long drink felt good going down.

  “I came here for my daily pay, one bottle, then Dallas say that from his own silver he buy Ottar one bottle because of fight today. This a big day.”

  “This a big day, all right. Pass the bottle. It’s the last day because this film is over, gone, finished, kaput. You know what that means?”

  “No,” followed by a long gurgle.

  “No, I guess you wouldn’t, you untarnished barbaric child of nature, you. In a funny way I really envy you.”

  “Not a child of Nature. There was a man called Thord Horsehead, he was my father.”

  “I mean really envy you, because you have the world made, your world that is. A strong arm, a good thirst, a good appetite, and never a moment’s doubt. Self-doubt, we live on it, and I bet you don’t even know the meaning of the word.”

  “Self-doubt? That like sjálfsmord?”[12]

  “Of course you don’t know it.” The Viking was sitting now and Barney dropped down himself so he could reach the bottle easier. The sun had set and the sky was a deep red at the horizon, blending into gray overhead, then darkening behind them.

  “We’re making a film, Ottar, that’s what we’re doing, a motion picture. Entertainment and big business rolled into one. Money and art, they don’t mix but we’ve been mixing them for years. I’ve been in this business since I wore velvet knee pants and right now, today, at the ripe young age of forty-five I am out of it. Because without this masterpiece Climactic is going to fold, and when they go down the dram I go with them. And do you know why?”

  “Have a drink.”

  “Sure. I’ll tell you why. Because in my long and checkered career I have made seventy-three pictures and each and every one of them has been instantly forgettable. If I leave Climactic I am washed up since there are a lot better directors and producers around who are going to get any jobs that I may want.”

  Ottar, looking very noble and heroic, the eyes of an eagle, smiled out across the sea and belched. Barney nodded agreement and had another drink.

  “You are a wise man, Ottar. I’ll tell you something I never told anyone before because I am getting drunk on your daily wage and you probably understand one word in ten that I am saying. Do you know what I am? I am mediocre. Do you have any idea what a terrible admission that is to make? If you’re lousy you soon know it and you get booted out and go to work in a filling station. If you are a genius you know it and you got it made. But if you’re mediocre you are never quite sure of it and you blame it on the breaks and keep doing just one more picture until you have done seventy-three pieces of cinematic crap and there is not going to be a number seventy-four. The funny part is that number seventy-four could have been a good picture. God knows it certainly would have been different. Down the drain. The picture died unborn, poor picture now in picture limbo. Dead picture, no pic-ure…”

  “What is this picture?”

  “I told you, a work of art. Entertainment. Like your what-do-you-call-them, sagas…”

  “I’ll sing a song from a saga. I sing good.”

  Ottar stood, took a drink to clear his throat, and sang in a roaring voice that blended with the sound of the waves below.

  Strike, strike, sword,

  Thing of my heart where the worm is living!

  Faces with anger my sons will bring vengeance.

  Death has no fear. The voice of the Valkyrs

  Brings new guests to the ale-hall of Odin.

  Death comes. The table holds a banquet.

  Life is done now. Laughing I die!

  Ottar stood for a moment—then roared even louder, with anger. “That was Ragnar’s song when King Aella murdered him and Aella died. I wish I could have slain him.” He shook his fist at the unsympathetic sky.

  Barney was having trouble with his vision, but he found that if he closed one eye he could see well enough. Ottar loomed over him, a figure from the dawn of the world, with his leather garments and flowing hair, the last light of sunset picking out red highlights on his skin. The saga was real to him, and life and art were one. The song was the battle and the battle became the song.

  The idea hit Barney with startling suddenness and he gasped.

  Well why not? If he hadn’t been half potted, drinking on the shore of this ancient sea with a man who should have been dead for a thousand years, it would never have occurred to him. Well why not? Everything else about this business was madness, why not the final touch of insanity? He had the freedom and the power—and he was washed up in any case. Why not?

  “Come with me,” he said, climbing to his feet and attempting to pull the immobile form of the Viking after him.

  “Why?” Ottar asked.

  “To see pictures.” Ottar was unimpressed. “To get more whiskey.”

  This was a lot better reason and they went back to camp together, Barney leaning a good deal on the other man, who seemed scarcely aware of it.

  “The rushes ready?” Barney asked, poking his head into the studio trailer.

  “Coming out of the drier now, Mr. Hendrickson,” the technician said.

  “Right. Set the screen up outside and let’s see them. Show the other takes first, then put today’s on.”

  “Whiskey?” Ottar asked and Barney said, “Sure, sit right down here and I’ll get it.”

  There was a certain amount of difficulty in finding the right trailer in the dark, as well as unusually large numbers of items underfoot to stumble over, then the problem finding the right key for the lock. By the time Barney made his way back with the bottle a folding screen had been set up, as well as some safari chairs. He and Ottar settled themselves comfortably, with the bottle between them, the projector whirred and they watched the film in the wonderfully appropriate theater of open sky and stars.

  At first Ottar had trouble seeing the projected films as picture, his untrained eye not connecting the moving patterns with reality. But he was not unacquainted with representational art, three-dimensional in wood carving and two-dimensional in paintings, and when he recognized the beach and his house he shouted with wonder.

  Dinner was almost through and most of the company wandered over to look at the rushes. Even the ones who had not been present had heard all about the Viking raid by this time, and there were murmurs and gasps when the attacking ship appeared on the screen, cut through by Ottar’s deep growl of rage. As the ship was beached and the fighting began there was only a horrified silence. The angle was good, t
he pictures sharp and clear, the detail almost unbearable to watch. Even Barney, who had been there at the time, felt the hackles rising on his neck when the blood-spattered Viking charged up the hill right into the camera, closer and closer.

  Shouting a battle cry, Ottar leaped at the screen and crashed through it, rolling about in it and tearing at its fabric and metal embrace. Everyone else was shouting a good deal too, and one of the grips brought out a baby spot and plugged it in for light while Lyn managed to calm the Viking down and helping hands detached him from the ruined screen. While this was going on headlights appeared, moving through the camp, and a minute later a white ambulance with LOS ANGELES COUNTY HOSPITAL on its side pulled up in the pool of light from the spot.

  “What a job finding anyone,” the driver said. “You movie people sure have some big sets. I never woulda thought all this could have fitted into one sound stage.”

  Barney said, “What do you want?”

  “Got a call. Pick up a broken leg case, party name of Hawk.”

  Barney looked around the silent audience until he saw his secretary. “Show these people the way to Ruf’s trailer, will you, Betty? And give him my best, tell him I hope he gets well quick, that kind of thing.”

  Betty tried to say something, but could not find the words. She turned away quickly, raising her handkerchief to her face, and climbed into the ambulance. The silence extended, and a number of people were having trouble meeting Barney’s eye. He smiled a broad, secret smile to himself, and waved his hand cheerfully.

  “On with the show,” he ordered. “Get another screen up and let’s see the rest of the rushes.”

  When the last foot of film had flicked through the projector, Barney stood in front of the screen in the glare of light, shielding his eyes against it with one hand. “I can’t see who’s out there—Gino are you here? And Amory?” There were sounds of assent from the crowd. “Good, let’s set up for a screen test. Get some grips and some lights out here—”

  “It’s nighttime, Mr. Hendrickson,” a voice said from the darkness.

  “I’m not that blind—and I get the message. Overtime rates then, but I want to shoot that test now. As you probably all know, since rumor doth fly on pretty damn rapid wings around here, Ruf Hawk has broken his leg and is out of the shooting. Which leaves us without a male lead. Which may sound bad, but it isn’t, because we don’t have that much film with him in it that we’ll have to scrap. But we need a new lead and that’s what we’re settling tonight, so I’m going to make a test on a guy you all know well, our local friend, Ottar…”

  There were some shocked gasps, a lot of whispers and a couple of laughs. The laughs were what got to Barney.

  “I issue the orders, and I’m in charge here, and I want a screen test and that is that!” He stopped to catch his breath and realized that he was in charge, more in charge than he had ever been before. A thousand years away from the front office, with no phone connections in between. No L.M. to bother him, even if L.M. hadn’t been shut away with his phony heart attack, with the books under his mattress. The whole load was on his shoulders, and his alone, and the picture depended on what he did next. More than the picture, the existence of the studio depended on it and the jobs of everyone here—not to mention his own.

  Normally this was the sort of situation that gave him peptic twinges and sleepless nights, and left him wandering in a black hill of indecision. Not this time though. Something of the Viking spirit must have rubbed off, the awareness that every man is alone against the world and in luck if there is someone else there to help, but the help was not to be expected.

  “We’re doing that test now. Ottar looks the part, no one can argue with that. And if he has got a bit of an accent—well so did Boyer and Von Stroheim, and look what they did. Now let’s see if he can act, at least as well as Ruf.”

  “Five bucks says he’s better,” someone called out.

  “No takers,” another voice answered, and a ripple of laughter ran across the crowd.

  Just like that, they were with him, Barney could feel it. Perhaps the Viking madness was rubbing off on all of them. Whatever was causing it, they were on his side.

  Barney slumped back in the chair and gave a few directions and sipped at the Jack Daniels while the lights and camera were set up. Only when the arrangements were completed did he stand and pull the bottle away from the nodding Ottar.

  “Give it back,” Ottar rumbled.

  “In a minute. But I want you to sing me that saga about Ragnar again.”

  “Don’t want to sing.”

  “Sure you do, Ottar. I’ve been telling everyone how great the song was and they all want to hear you sing, don’t you people?”

  There was a welcoming chorus of “yesses” and some cheers. Slithey swam out of the darkness and took Ottar’s hand. “You’ll play it for me, darling, it will be my song,” she said, reciting a line from her last picture, which had been about some second-rate composer.

  Ottar could not resist the personal touch. Still grumbling, but not meaning it, he stood where Barney told him to, and took the prop ax.

  “Too light,” he said. “Made of wood. No good at all.”

  He sang for them then, first in a chanting monotone, still examining the ax, then louder and with more enthusiasm as the song began to stir his emotions. With an angry shout as he finished the last line and swung the ax fiercely, knocking over and almost demolishing one of the spots. The audience broke into impulsive clapping and cheers, while he strode back and forth before them accepting his due.

  “That was great,” Barney said. “Now we’ll try just one more little business before we let you go. You see that lamp stand over there with the coat and helmet hung on it? Well that’s an enemy sentry. You’re going to stalk and kill him, just as you really would.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Ottar, what kind of question is that… ?” Barney knew what kind of a question it was—the kind that is very hard to answer. The why for an actor was easy enough, because acting was how he earned his bread. But why should Ottar do it?

  “Forget that for a minute,” Barney said. “Come over here and sit down a minute, have a drink, and I’ll tell you a saga for a change.”

  “You have a saga too? Sagas are good.”

  In this pre-entertainment, preliteracy age the sagas were song and history, newspaper and book all rolled into one, and Barney knew it.

  “That’s fine,” he said, and waved the camera on Ottar. “Just grab the bottle and listen to this story, the story of a great Viking, a great berserker and he was called Ottar…”

  “Same name as me?”

  “The same, and he was a famous warrior. He had a good friend whom he drank with and who fought beside him and they were the best friends in the world. But one day there was a battle and Ottar’s friend was captured and tied up and taken away. But Ottar followed and he waited, hidden near the enemy camp, until nightfall. He was thirsty after the battle and he drank, but he stayed quiet and hidden.”

  Ottar took a quick sip from the bottle as he said this, then pressed his back against the trailer.

  “Then it was dark and the time had come. He would free his friend. Stand, Ottar, he said to himself, stand and go save your friend who they will kill by morning. Stand!”

  Barney hissed the last word, commandingly, and in a single lithe movement Ottar was on his feet, the bottle fallen and forgotten.

  “Look, Ottar, look around this building and see the guard. Carefully—there he is!”

  Ottar was part of the story now. He bent low and moved one eye slowly around the comer—then back.

  “There is the guard, his back is turned. Creep up on him, Ottar, and slay him silently with your hands. Close them around his neck so that he dies without a sound. Quietly now, while his back is fumed.”

  Ottar was out from behind the trailer, bent double and drifting as soundlessly as a shadow over the rutted ground, No one moved or uttered a word as he advanced. Barney glanced arou
nd and saw his secretary next to him, eyes fixed on the stalking Viking.

  “Halfway to the guard, Ottar heard a sound. Someone was coming. He hid.” Ottar vanished into a patch of darkness and Barney whispered, “Get out there, Betty. Just walk on and exit stage left.” He took her arm and started her forward.

  “Ottar hid, shrouded by the darkness as one of the women came by. She walked close but she did not see him. She went on. Ottar waited until it was quiet, then came forward again, closer and closer—until he could leap!”

  Gino had to pan the camera rapidly as the Viking moved out and sprang, running—still in absolute silence —and hurled himself through the air onto the dummy. The helmet rolled aside and he had the steel rod of the lamp support between his fingers, bending it almost double in a single contraction of his muscles.

  “Cut!” Barney said. “That was the story, Ottar, just the way you would have done it. Killed the guard and freed your friend. Very good, real good. Everyone now, let him know how much you liked that performance.”

  While they cheered and whistled, Ottar sat up, blinking rapidly, slow memory returning as to where he was. He looked at the twisted metal, then threw it aside, grinning.

  “That was a good story,” he said. “That was the way Ottar does it.”

  “I’ll show you the rushes tomorrow,” Barney said. “Let you see the moving pictures of yourself doing all these things. Meanwhile—it’s been a long day. Tex—Dallas—will one of you take the jeep and drive Ottar home?”

  The night air was getting cool and the crowd broke up quickly, while the grips put the spots and camera away. Barney watched the tail light of the jeep vanish over the rise, then realized that Gino was next to him, lighting a cigarette. He took one from the pack.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “I don’t think,” Gino shrugged. “What do I know? I’m a cameraman…”

  “Every cameraman I ever met knows, deep inside, that he is a better director than any bum he ever worked with. What do you think?”

  “Well—if you was to ask me, which you have, I would say that this guy is at least better than that slab of corn beef they carried away, and if the test looks like I think it will look—then maybe you have discovered the find of the century. The eleventh century, of course. Talk about method acting!”