One of the hands was fixing a ladder up which Roselle was to pass. The story which was being filmed was that of a girl who, starting life in the chorus, had become the wife of a nobleman with archaic ideas. The poor but honest young man who had loved her in her youth (Michael gathered that a disconsolate Reggie Connolly played this part) was ever at hand to help her; and now, when shut up in a stone room of the keep, it was he who was to rescue her.
The actual castle tower had been shot in Arundel. Old Griff Tower was to serve for a close-up, showing the girl descending from her prison in the arms of her lover, by the aid of a rope of knotted sheets.
“It’s going to be deuced awkward getting down,” said Reggie lugubriously. “Of course, they’ve got a rope inside the sheet, so there’s no chance of it breaking. But Miss Leamington is really fearfully awfully heavy! You try and lift her yourself, old thing, and see how you like it!”
Nothing would have given Michael greater pleasure than to carry out the instructions literally.
“It’s too robust a part for me, it is really,” bleated Reggie. “I’m not a cave man, I’m not indeed! I’ve told Knebworth that it isn’t the job for me. And besides, why do they want a close-up? Why don’t they make a dummy that I could carry and sling about? And why doesn’t she come down by herself?”
“It’s dead easy,” said Knebworth, who had walked up and overheard the latter part of the conversation. “Miss Leamington will hold the rope and take the weight off you. All you’ve got to do is to look brave and pretty.”
“That’s all very well,” grumbled Reggie, “but climbing down ropes is not the job I was engaged for. We all have our likes and our dislikes, and that’s one of my dislikes.”
“Try it,” said Jack laconically.
The property man had fixed the rope to an iron staple which he had driven to the inside of the tower, the top of which would not be shown in the picture. The actual descent had been acted by “doubles” in Arundel on a long shot: it was only the close-up that Jack needed. The first rehearsal nearly ended in disaster. With a squeak, Connolly let go his burden, and the girl would have fallen but for her firm grip on the rope.
“Try it again,” stormed Jack. “Remember you’re playing a man’s part. Young Coogan would hold her better than that!”