BACK PAGES:HOLLYWOOD CAME to Dublin in 1960 and found itself thwarted by the perversity of the Irish weather.
Seeking grey skies and rain, it got sunshine instead for the filming of the opening scenes of The Big Gamble, a tale of three people bringing a lorry from Ireland to the Ivory Coast, which starred Belfast-born Stephen Boyd, then on a high from his recent appearance with Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur.
“The Port of Dublin. The boat from England is being warped into the dock. It is a grey, cold day. The atmosphere is one of gloom, chill.”
The above are something like the opening lines of a 144-page document bound in green covers, the shooting script of The Big Gamble, an original story written for the films by Irwin Shaw, author of The Young Lions, which Zanuck Productions are shooting on location in Dublin.
When I asked Richard Fleischer, the director, why Ireland had been selected for the first part of the picture, he said: “From here we move to Africa. We wanted a camera contrast for the hot African sun. We heard that there is much rain, low skies, and so on in Ireland, so we came here.”
Our variable climate, however, never likes to be taken for granted, so when shooting began, the help of the Dublin Fire Brigade had to be called in to hose down the streets of Old Kilmainham to give them that nice, rain-washed appearance.
The world of make-believe that is the cinema is responsible for many remarkable transitions and translations. Few, however, are as remarkable as the translation of the French actress and singer, Juliette Greco, to the steps of a 200-year-old house for the first shots of this picture.
This is her fifth English- speaking film and she has now mastered the language. “This will be her first comedy part,” I was told by the unit publicist, Phil Gersdorf. “She has a vivacity and humorous quality which should come over nicely.” . . .
With Miss Greco in the leading roles are the Belfast-born actor, Stephen Boyd, David Wayne and Dame Sybil Thorndike, with good solid Irish support from Marie Keane, Harold Goldblatt and a talented nine-year-old from Ballsbridge, Fergal Stanley.
Wayne, who plays the part of a Dublin bank clerk, gained his first professional experience with a Shakespearean repertory company which gave 600 performances at the Cleveland (Ohio) Exposition in 1936.
His first Broadway hit was as the leprechaun in Finian's Rainbow. Filmgoers will remember him for his appearances in How to Marry a Millionaire, Three Faces of Eveand The Last Angry Man. . .
Director Fleischer is quietly spoken, small in stature and so gentle and unassuming that he had to beat the prejudice that expects directors to be ferocious, twice as large as life. However, his work on The Vikings, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, The Narrow Marginand Compulsionhas put him among the world's best.
And, behind them all, quietly watching, endlessly observing the business of “take” and “retake” in and around Dublin for the past few days, a grizzled, cigar-smoking man who bears one of the really legendary names in Hollywood – Darryl Zanuck.
I watched him as he watched the business of film-making for an hour, never uttering a word. “As a producer he is different,” I was told. “He does all his work before hand in his office at his desk.”