The Technicolor Time Machine

“Let’s go then, into the rubber boots. What did you think of the screen test, Amory?”

“Absolutely first class. This Viking is a natural, a real find.”

“Yeah,” Barney said, chewing on the pencil, then flinging it down. “Let’s hope so. He might be able to do a scene or two—but how will he hold up during an entire production? I wanted to shoot some simple stuff on location first, climbing in and out of boats and looking heroically into the sunset, but the weather has killed that. It’s going to have to be interiors—and keep your fingers crossed.”

Rain blew in around the side curtains of the jeep as they churned slowly over the hill along the mud track worn by the traffic from the camp. A cluster of vehicles was parked in the field behind Ottar’s house, dominated by the thudding bulk of the generator trailer. They pulled in as close to the house as they could, then sloshed up the path. In the lee of the building were hunched most of the housecarls, dripping and unhappy, thrown out into the weather to make room for the film production. The plywood door was blocked partially open to admit the thick electric cables and Barney pushed his way in.

“Let’s get some light in here,” he said, shaking out or his sodden coat. “And clear that crowd away from the end of the room. I want to see this shut-bed thing.”

“Watch out for the stain, it’s still a little wet on the antiqued wood,” Amory said, pointing to the double doors set into the wall.

“Not bad,” Barney said.

Jens Lyn snorted. “Not good! I explained that in a simple house such as this one, the occupants would sleep on the sleeping ledge along the wall, that ledge over there, but they might possibly have a shut-bed, a small, doored chamber built into the wall. Small to retain the body heat, that is the purpose of the shut-bed.” He swung open the five-foot-high doors to disclose a small room floored with a foam mattress and nylon sheets. “But this is an abomination! Nothing about it—”

“Take it easy, Doc,” Barney said, looking at the shut-bed through a viewer. “We’re shooting a picture, remember? You’re not going to get a camera and a couple of people inside the kind of coffin you’re thinking about. All right, drop the back.”

Two carpenters took away the back wall of the cubicle to disclose a camera in a shed on the other side.

“Get in there, Gino,” Barney ordered, “and I’ll run through the action. This is take fifty-four. Just in time, Ottar, you’re about to go on stage.”

The Viking stamped in, swathed in plastic raincoats and followed by the clucking makeup man, who held an umbrella over his head.

“Hello, Barney,” he shouted. “I look good, not?”

He did look good. He had been soaked in a tub—the water had to be changed three times—his hair and beard had been washed, color-rinsed, dried, trimmed and combed, and Rufs Viking outfit let out and recut for his massive frame. He was impressive, and he knew it and reveled in it.

“You’re tremendous,” Barney said. “So great that I want to take some more pictures of you. You’ll like looking at them, won’t you?”

“Good idea. I look good in pictures.”

“Right. Now here’s what I want you to do.” Barney closed the shut-bed doors. “I’ll be inside with the camera. You stand here and open the doors… like this… and when they are wide open you look down at the bed like this and smile slowly. That’s all you have to do.”

“That sounds like stupid idea. Better take a picture of me out here.”

“I appreciate the suggestion, Ottar, but I think we’ll do it my way. After all you are getting a bottle a day and a mark a month and you should do something to earn it.”

“That’s right—every day. Where’s today bottle?”

“When you’re through working, and we haven’t started yet. So stand right here and I’ll get around with the camera.” He threw a raincoat over his head and sloshed out to the shed.

After many shouted instructions and false starts, Ottar seemed to understand what was expected of him and the doors were closed once more and Barney called for the camera and action. The camera pointed into the dark bedspace and whirred as the doors were flung open with great force. One of the handles came off in Ottar’s hand and he threw it down.

“Hell-damn,” he snarled.

Barney took a deep breath. “That’s not exactly the way the scene should be played,” he said. “You have to put yourself into the part, Ottar. You’ve come home unexpectedly, you are tired. You open the doors to retire, then you look down and see Gudrid lying there asleep and you smile at her.”

“Nobody named Gudrid on this island.”

“Gudrid is Slithey’s name in this screenplay. You know who Slithey is?”

“Sure—but she’s not here now. This is pretty stupid I say, Barney.”

Barney had been directing indifferent and bad actors for years, so he took this objection in his stride. “Just wait-one minute and we’ll try it again,” he said.