MEMORIES FROM THE GHOST OF CREEPSHOW PAST
My first paying job on a movie was working on George Romero’s “Creepshow”.
Here are my top 10 memories:
1.
I
started off as a van driver, taking the actors from their motel to the set for
the beach episode. That story was about a couple buried in the sand by a
jealous husband. The couple was played by Ted Danson and Gaylen Ross. I had a
crush on Gaylen Ross. If I had known that Ted Danson would become Ted Danson,
I would have paid him more attention. BTW, the actors weren’t buried “straight”
or “standing”, but were kneeling, so the holes in the sand only needed to be
half as deep. I hope that doesn’t ruin the illusion of movies for you forever.
2. The beach episode was
shot in Toms River, NJ. The cast and crew stayed in a motel with a typical
beach sounding name, like The Sandpiper. It was off season. The motel was
otherwise empty. One morning while waiting to pick up the actors, I found
myself sitting in the lobby next to George Romero, the director of this movie
and, as you may know, the director of “Night of the Living Dead.” Though I was
fresh out of college, he talked to me like I was actual human being. George had
this way of smiling with his eyes. He was truly one of the sweetest human
beings I’d ever met; ironic for the father of the Zombie Genre.
3. My first boss, Michael
Spolan, was a trailer editor who got a job cutting two of the segments on
“Creepshow”. I eventually followed him to Pittsburgh to work as an assistant
editor. On my drive out from New York, passing over the Verrazano Bridge,
flames leapt over the railing next to me as I drove over. I took this as an
ominous sign for my time on “Creepshow”, or perhaps for the rest of my life.
4. My boss and the rest of
us who came from New York to work on the movie were put up at the Hotel Bigalow
in downtown Pittsburgh. I was 22 years old, living in a one bedroom hotel
apartment with a full kitchen, and I had it all to myself. I felt like the
richest person on earth. BTW, in those days when you were college age and went
anywhere to live for any period of time, you bought along your music
essentials: receiver, turntable, two big speakers and every record you owned.
Half your car was for your music.
5. As I mentioned, my boss
cut two segments: Father’s Day and the one about cockroaches. Father’s Day was
the first episode shot and a mess to deal with in editing. It was almost
impossible to salvage. The roach episode with E.G. Marshall was like
confection; it went down sweet and easy.
6. Weekends in downtown
Pittsburgh were amazing. No one lived in the city in the early 80s, they all
were in the burbs. So we pretty much had the downtown to ourselves. Only we
weren’t allowed to call it downtown. The official Pittsburgh pronunciation was
DunTun.
7. If you ever work on a
movie and go on a location, remember these two words: per diem. It’s Latin for
“Cash is going directly into your pocket and you’ll be hard pressed to ever
figure out how to spend it all.” I was already making much more money than I
ever had working in trailers. I think it was something like $300 per week. And
then on top of that, per diem. Got bless Latin.
8. When it came time to
prepare for the sound mix, it was all hands on deck. Back before you could post
produce an entire movie on your $600 laptop, preparing the sound tracks for the
mix of your movie involved dozens or hundreds of tracks, each of them assembled
on 35mm reels. It took a small army to prep for a mix and we had one crammed
into George’s office building in Pittsburgh.
9. Two movies before
“Creepshow”, George had directed “Dawn of the Dead”. His Pittsburgh offices was
zombie central and for some reason or another you would often hear the moaning
shrills of zombies echoing from speakers around you. I believe therapy has
finally cured me of that trauma.
10. Steven
King, who starred as Jordy in one of the segments, came to Pittsburgh to see
the cut. I’m pretty sure we were all busy prepping the tracks for the mix when
he arrived. He immediately took to an office on the same floor, closed the door
and proceeded to sit and write for two hours. It was one of the most impressive
feats of discipline I had ever seen. I’d kill for a tenth of that. Or, if not
kill, then at least bury someone in the sand up their neck.
Excerpt
That day, the day Bill arrived, my mom was serving up eggs and complaints.
“Dammit, that daughter ‘a mine,” she yelled to Dolene, across the diner. “She’s like walking birth control. Does she think I’m trying to have babies? ‘Scuse me, Darlin’” Maybell gave Clover’s bubble walker a little kick, sending it between tables 4 and 6 so she could get by and dump a load of dishes behind the counter.
Dolene was homegrown, like the tumbleweed, with eyes like a golden retriever that never quite looked at you directly. She was smart enough to add up a check, but you could tell she was never getting out of Hadley. “I take it you didn’t get laid last night.”
Maybell pointed to her sour puss. “Does this say ‘laid’ to you?”
There was a ‘harrumph’ from booth 5 by the window. That was Rose. Rose was an old woman by the time she was 30. Now she was in her late 60s, a widow since before I was born—in other words, forever. She liked to spend her afternoons at Maybell’s Diner, reading her book and keeping an eye on the goings on around her, as if she was the town’s homeroom teacher.
“Look at Saint Rose,” Maybell said, stuffing dirty plates into the plastic tub under the counter. “Thinks she smells better than Mentos. I ain’t running a library here, Rose. Next time bring Reader’s Digest!”
There was another sound from Rose, something between a ‘well’ and a ‘pfffft.’ She never took her eyes off her book.
The door opened with a DING from the bell that hung on it. No one noticed Bill entering. He was about average in height, but his skinny frame made him look taller. You could tell from his face that he was in his mid-20s, but those were hard years he had lived, and his body looked frail and geriatric. His clothes were old and clung to him like an extra layer of skin, with a smell that would never wash out.
The angles of his face were sharp and careworn. But his eyes, those were different. His face was hard and weathered, but his eyes were soft. They seemed brand new.
No one in the diner even looked. If they did they would have seen those eyes taking in every little detail: the people talking, forks carrying food, the string lights behind the counter, Dolene ringing up a check. But what drew Bill more than anything else was the grill. Harley, the grill cook, must have had four meals going at once, each with its own set of sounds and smells. Most of those meals involved eggs. His spatula made a metal-on-metal scrape as he turned them. Bill was riveted. He went to sit at the counter to watch.
Down the counter, a porkish-looking man named Earle—probably one of three men in town who had never slept with my mom—raised his empty cup. “Can I get a refill, Maybell?”
Maybell stopped and faced him. “Seriously, Earle? Is it so goddam much trouble for you to get up off your ass and get it yourself? Can’t you see I’m working here?”
“Well…” he stammered. “I just—was I—I was—”
Maybell pointed to the coffee pot. “How far away is that? Two feet?”
“Sure, I guess…”
“Am I your personal slave, Earle? Is that why God put me on earth?”
“No, I don’t think you’re—”
Maybell grabbed the pot and sloshed coffee in his Earle’s cup. “There. You happy now?”
He nodded meekly.
While she had the pot in her hand, Maybell filled the cup sitting in front of Bill. “I’ll be by to take your order in a minute, hon.”
Maybell walked on. Bill just sat there and stared at the coffee. For him, there was no diner anymore, no Maybell, no clanking dishes or dumb conversation. He leaned closer to that cup like it was the only thing in the world. And there he was, smelling coffee for the first time. And it smelled like life. Like a whole world. Like this is how a planet smells if you’re up in space and could take a deep breath. Bill was motionless for who knows how long. And then, when he was good and ready, he took his first sip.
Those eyes, the ones that didn’t belong on his head, they closed as if he was praying. No, more like he was hearing a prayer. The coffee was praying to be heard, and Bill heard it.
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