My First Break

by David Barlow

Doin' the Hollywood Shuffle

Hollywood! A feature film rewrite! I've got it made… I think.

My first movie was called The First Time. I was an extra, and I did what I thought was quite stellar work–walking along a city street as the young principal actors ran past me, and standing on an observation deck admiring the view of Niagara Falls.

Leonard Maltin gives the film one-and-a-half stars. When it was released the next winter, I was back at university. A fellow student (Douglas Bowie–who would quit school to become a prominent screenwriter and playwright) gave me a book to mark the film's Kingston debut. It was titled, How to Make it in Hollywood. It would be 10 years before I worked on another feature film. Oddly enough, it would be in Hollywood.

Louis Del Grande and I are taking a meeting at CBS in Los Angeles about a sit-com pilot. Our producer is very hot, coming off a big box office success with a teen musical. Deals all over town. Regrettably, there will be no names in this story. Names would allow you to identify the movie we worked on and I still cling to some vestige of pride. In the network meeting, Lou cracks a particularly hip joke that corpses the producer. Afterwards, the producer tells us he needs a rewrite on a feature film and we're the guys for the job. Our first job in features! The producer hints that this could be just the beginning of a long and mutually beneficial relationship. Heady stuff.

We read the script. It is built around a singing group that had been manufactured (think Spice Girls) to capitalize on the pop-music craze that was sweeping the nation at the time–disco. Disco music was not an area of specialty for Lou and me. But between the musical numbers the script is trying to be a romantic comedy. In our not-so-humble opinion we can help make it better.

We meet with the director. She is an actress–in her prime, shall we say–known for playing acerbic character parts in TV sit-coms. This is her first time directing a feature. Her husband is a highly regarded acting teacher in Los Angeles. He is her rock. He is also in hospital having a heart bypass. She is scared. We go to her house one night to discuss the script. Odd as it may seem, she is more concerned with her husband's bypass. I get drunk and we all hold hands. I don't remember getting much in the way of substantive notes.

On to the first read-through. We drive through an unfashionable part of Glendale to the Debbie Reynolds Rehearsal Studios. The parking lot is full. An attractive, middle-aged woman waves at me from the loading dock. "You'll have to park on the street. Please don't block anyone's drive; the residents complain all the time." It's Debbie Reynolds. She's gone from "Singin' In The Rain" to giving me directions on where to park. It's a cautionary metaphor about the vagaries of show business. I miss it.

Everyone gathers in a rehearsal room. The producer is at the head of the table with his co-producer–the man who created the singing group, composes their music and produces their records. He is French. The cast take their seats–an Olympic gold medallist, some familiar faces from TV series, an Academy Award nominee. No superstars, but the fame quotient is quite sufficient for my first feature, thank you very much. The producer introduces us to a large man who has a soft, southern accent–reminiscent of Vivien Leigh playing Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire. This is the screenwriter. This is the moment he learns we are here to rewrite him. He does not seem happy to get the news.

The read-through begins. The actors give it their best shot, the rest of us play the admiring audience. The script lays there like a beached beluga. Belly up. How bad is it? The lead singer in the group falls asleep during the reading. First movie part he's ever had. Dead asleep.

When it's over, everybody keeps their game face on until the actors leave the room. Then the producer, panic creeping into his voice, asks "What are we going to do?" The French co-producer starts it off. He speaks passionately and at length, with much use of his hands and some sound effects, restructuring the film and describing new scenes. At least, that's what I think he's doing. I can't really tell because, in his enthusiasm, he lapses into French about three-quarters of the time. The remainder is such heavily accented English that it might as well be French. Around the table, everyone is intent, nodding in agreement. Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't speak French? Yeah, sure.

Now the producer turns to us. What do we think? All eyes upon us. This is why I work with partners. I look to Lou. After all, it was his joke that got us here in the first place. Lou takes a deep breath and says, "I think the problem with the script is... there's no conflict." Silence for a beat. Then the writer speaks up. His Vivien Leigh/Blanche Dubois accent has taken on an edge. "We have to pick locations in New York City in three days. We don't have time for conflict."

Most of the rest is a blur. We do a rewrite, we hand it in. We think we have improved the material a bit. Not one line of our rewrite is used. The movie tanks. I cash the rewrite cheque and move my family back to Canada. I have worked in television ever since.