there's a problem," I said to the assistant director. The accordionists pumped, and the Latvians sang to get their voices warmed up for the scene. In the scene in question, some Latvians are singing along to the popular song Rozamunde when an English hooligan takes exception to these foreigners and their music, becomes aggressive and winds up having to be ejected from the premises by yours truly, Jim the barman. Maybe later this year Britain will regress to using "d" for pence again as its post-imperial Brexit fantasy plays out and it reintroduces the florin, the sixpence and the shilling?Īnother of my pieces of advice went unheeded, for the simple reason that the change I suggested would have completely ruined one of Sarkanais Mežs' main plotlines.
I had to admit I had no idea, though subsequent research showed that it was derived from the Roman dinarius. "But why 'd' if it stands for pennies?" he asked, not unreasonably. When I told this to an assistant director, he looked skeptical. I was even able to provide a little additional value by pointing out that prices on the menu (Jim seemed able to cook a variety of lamb dishes combined with increasingly unlikely vegetables but little else) and beer pumps should be written with a "d" to represent pence and not "p" in pre-decimal Britain. Reproduction advertisements for Guinness and Bass Ale adorned the walls, bottles with specially printed labels were lined up behind a neat little counter and tweed-capped "regulars" filled the tables, puffing on empty pipes and playing brag with practiced ease.Īfter being issued with a white shirt, black waistcoat, a pair of rather tight shoes and a natty little apron to signal my occupation unambiguously to the viewing public, I wandered around the set admiring the work. The transformation of the Mentzendorff House museum into an English pub of the late 1940s was extremely well done.
I arrived on the location for a night shoot convinced a new career would soon open up for me. Only on rare occasions - notably The Shining - does the barman do more than polish and nod but oh! the importance of this job in establishing the mood or mise en scene, if you prefer the Godardian to the Kubrickian. The barman who does nothing but polish beer glasses and nod to customers is one of the great stock characters of twentieth century cinema. This was a marvellous opportunity to boost my thespian bona fides. The part could have been written for me as I do a lot of both in my spare time. In a couple of scenes, a barman by the name of 'Jim' loiters in the background and occasionally brings drinks. They mainly concerned the machinations of a slimy English doctor, a sweet Latvian nurse and our fine, upstanding hero. There are a few sections of English-language dialogue and the producers sent these to me for a quick look, as a result of which a few minor changes were made. Part of it involves Latvians being trained in England to infiltrate the Soviet occupation of their homeland and consequently, numerous scenes are set in a postwar England conjured from locations found entirely in Latvia.
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Sarkanais Mežs is an adventure series loosely based on real events and set in 1949. I occasionally act as a script consultant. Joining the cast came by a roundabout route. All it really takes is an interesting face that can be suitably contorted in the inevitable death scene. If reading The Heavies had taught me one thing, it was that drama school and The Method were by no means pre-requisites for a successful acting career.
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So when I was offered the chance to join the ranks of odd-looking people with a minor role in Sarkanais Mežs (Red Forest), the flagship TV production of Latvia's centenary funding project, I accepted quickly despite a notable lack of acting experience. No-one else is the least bit interested in them. Marc Lawrence and William Bendix, oddballs who can be seen lurking in the backgrounds of innumerable films noirs. To this day I can rattle off the biographies and filmographies of Elisha Cook Jr. When I was young I even had a book called The Heavies, which chronicled the careers of a certain sort of supporting player. They might only get a scene or two, but the presence of these strangely-shaped, broken-nosed, odd-looking and heavily-accented figures gives a film a human appeal and variety that can never be conveyed by the handsome and beautiful leading men and ladies. I have always preferred minor character actors to A-list film stars. Sling your hook! My part in the Latvian centenary series “Sarkanais Mežs”
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