Behind The Scenes And on The Set With Anthony De Longis

"HONOR THY FATHER"

In the next scene, Dr. Helm pursues the wounded Churi and is persuaded to liberate the stolen death mask from Montoya's strong room. Peter Wingfield is a trememdous athlete, and I enjoyed watching him skulk across the garden trellis, making the eight-foot drop to the courtyard look effortless. It was a great disappointment to me that I didn't get to do more in the series with this very talented actor. I offered a tip on the merciful "sleeper hold" he applied to the guard and we moved to the office interior.

At left - This antique table in the office was used for the Queen's backroll. The ingenious Colonel Montoya has hidden his "booty" behind one of these bookcase. Can you tell which one?

Dr. Helm proves himself a man of parts and shows the Queen the hidden latch to Montoya's strong room. Helm enters with the mask and finds himself under the gun of a soldier. The Queen yells, "Get down," and drops the soldier with a throwing dagger. Helm says, "He's dead." She says, "You're alive." The scene was originally written with Dr. Helm sounding the alarm. We were trying to avoid having the Queen being saved by others, rather than by her own skills and awareness. This scene was also the first time the Queen had ever killed except in self-defense. The change in the order of airdates made the distinction moot.

The Queen hears someone coming and sends Helm ahead, hiding in the office to buy him time to escape with the mask and save Churi. Montoya enter his office and walks past the hiding Queen, exposing his back. Before she can act, he spins, his sword trapping her against the post and they begin their "talking duel."

Photo at right - These stairs lead up to the upper landing near Montoya's office. The stairs are about a meter wide, each riser is about 8 inches high and 8 inches deep - smaller than many adult feet.

Making the best of what you have

The sequence that follows had a unique evolution. Brian Grant told me he wanted something fast and simple because he didn't have any time to shoot it. He said, "just do the stair fight from "The Mask of Zorro." I asked where he had in mind for me to stage this action and he said the stairs outside of Montoya's office. I'm a fan of Bob Anderson's work so I knew the sequence well. There is indeed a fight on a magnificent set of gently rising stairs that are so wide the antagonists fence sideways in extended lunges on the same step. Our stairs were steep and so narrow you'd skin both elbows with your hands on your hips and climbed sharply to a seven foot ceiling of exposed corrugated metal. The entire ceiling would have to be dressed. Our DP, Alwyn Kumst and I both pointed out the unsuitability of the location and I looked for an alternative.

Montoya's office was the logical place to start. There was a desk, shelves of books, a suit of armor, statues, tables of maps, decanters and brandy snifters, big chairs, a huge table and almost no ceiling room. There were so many wonderful things to trash and incorporate. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This was the second encounter between the Queen and Montoya, and the problems were still the same ones I faced in "Vengeance" - if your hero isn't challenged by an equal or superior adversary, they're not much of a hero. The question was how to keep Montoya dangerous and skillful and still have him lose at the end of the day and make the audience anticipate their next encounter when things could conceiveably end up differently.

I invited Valentine Pelka to join me in the office and fielded ideas and suggestions from both Valentine, Roberta and Mary. The ideas were wonderful if we'd had all the time in the world to shoot the sequence. I knew that we didn't. I thought to have the Queen forced into a chair and roll backwards inside the chair to avoid Montoya's followup attack. Fernando informed me that the furniture in the office were all antiques, and we couldn't risk damage without having to pay museum prices for the furnishings.

Photo at left - In the fight, Montoya walks towards his desk and then pivots, catching the Queen against the white post in the center with his smallsword.

The Queen and Montoya meet again

Finally, I came up with a sequence that was easy to shoot and did a minimum of damage to all concerned. I suggested the Queen hide behind the post next to the bookcase when Montoya enters his office. Just when she's about to spring on him, Montoya whirls and traps her with his blade. He knew she was there all the time. A short phrase proves their equality with the blades, then Montoya switches to strength, grabbing the Queen and throwing her back against the conference table. She parries his attack, kicks him backwards and backflips to the opposite end of the table. Roberta jumped in for that part, and then Tessie picked up the action around the post before dumping a chair that trips Montoya and gets her out the door to the landing.

I had wanted the Queen to shatter a lamp hanging on the post over Montoya's head, forcing him to duck and plunging the office into darkness. This would make Montoya's stumble over the chair more credible and account for his delayed pursuit. Unfortunately, props had no breakaway glass globes for the purpose, so the idea was abandoned because we couldn't do it safely.

Photo at right - The Queen removes the attacking soldiers from the fray quickly. Ricardo, as a soldier, goes flying over the railing (left), and the rest go stumbling down the stairs like a set of dominoes( right).

The Queen dashes for the stairs. A guard, played by my partner, Ricardo Cruz attacks. The Queen disarms him and throws Ricardo over the railing into the pads below. Guards are charging up the stairs and are almost to the top. When I discussed the possibility of having two to three guards fall down the stairs together, Ricardo suggested five. Brian Grant loved it. When the first guard reaches the landing, the Queen parries his attack and drives a boot into his chest. Guard one, played by Luis Miguel, falls backwards into Chenco, then Domingo, Juan Miguel and Nino, each man acting as a cushion for the one above as they all tumble down the stairs and out of sight. It was a wonderful "Stooges" moment.

Photo at left - Anthony works with Valentine on the balcony set of the Queen vs. Montoya swordfight, demonstrating one of the finer details of a thrust. Valentine's coverage of the balcony phrase was shot later with Roberta standing in for the Queen.

Her escape is blocked,so the Queen reverses direction. As she passes Montoya's office, a blade snakes out of the darkness stabbing for her vitals. Originally, I planned to have his sword tip shatter a pane of glass in the door to the balcony as the Queen opened it to escape. We had no time to feature this extra bit of drama so the Queen simply dodged the blade, then slammed the office door onto Montoya's sword and dashed past him onto the balcony. Montoya confidently follows, thinking he has her trapped. We shot all this in about an hour. That was as far as we got when the clock ran out.

Photo at right - Anthony (in white shirt at right) stands in for Tessie's coverage of the Queen vs. Montoya fight. This was shot by the 2nd unit.

A few nights later, we shot the balcony phrase with Roberta and Valentine for Val's coverage because Tessie was shooting first unit dialogue for "The Witness." The night after that, my hand and shoulder stood in for Val as camera shot over my shoulder for Tessie's closeup coverage, salute and the start of the leap from the balcony.

Photo at left - Tessa, as the Queen, prepares to leap onto her horse after she salutes Montoya. In reality, the sequence ended here; after this, Natalia stepped in to perform the leap onto the horse.

Finding her escape blocked, the Queen allows herself to be driven by Montoya to where she knows her horse is waiting. Just when he thinks she has nowhere to run, our hero smiles, salutes and jumps over the balcony onto her waiting horse. Natalia handled the leap. This was the birth of calling "banana" instead of "action." Natalia stood in position at the edge of the balcony, and Ricardo led "Chico the Wonder Horse" into position. We'd roll cameras and just before Brian could say "action," Chico would move his hindquarters just enough to make the jump imposssible. We did this three times. People say horses are dumb - don't you believe it. Chico knew just how much to move and when, and he'd look so innocent when Ricardo would return to reposition him. So "banana" was born and we got our shot.

Photo at right - Natalia, standing in for the Queen, and Gael (Churi) prepare for shooting the show's final scene. Cameraman Brian Gedge (in white) and director Brian Grant (in black) plan their shot.

There's too many hours in the day for just one "Queen"

The final scene of the show was our last shot of the 2nd unit schedule from the first evening. Natalia, who was a superb camera double for Tessie, stood in. Originally, there was dialogue between the Queen and Churi, but scheduling didn't allow for Tessie to shoot that night and make turnaround for her full day of shooting the next day. There was simply too much in this episode for the star herself to do in the allotted time.

As you can see, it takes many performers giving their all to make one "Queen of Swords."