“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
“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 around 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!”
