At left - The view of Mary Rose's encampment from an overhead ledge. This is the arena for the climactic battle between Mary Rose and the Queen, where Marta is freed from her captors.

The rescue at the camp begins with two guards being taken out by an unseen whip wielder. The director didn't want to reveal the Queen until her first line. Tessie could have performed the waist wrap on Chencho but was unavailable for filming due to illness. I handled the neck wrap on Hernan as planned. It was an interesting challenge due to the high winds and the difficult positioning of Hernan at the point of a cliff surrounded by brush and rocks.

At right - The view of the well from the ruins below the set. To give some perspective to the height and danger inherent in the location, Anthony is standing on the well, and Ricardo is standing on another point to his left.

I choreographed the duel at the camp with Gaelle Cohen and rehearsed everyday with Bo in the saloon in town. Bo performed all own swordwork including a tricky pass over a well with a twenty foot dropoff on both sides that sets up Gaelle's showy roundoff onto the earth around the campfire. Of course, thanks to both the reshoot to insert Tessie's face and the propensity of the editor to favor facial close-ups, you don't really appreciate either the story or the jeopardy of the action.

Remember When I Said, "Your Wardrobe Will Try to Kill You"?

Originally, the action was shot entirely without Tessie. Roberta doubled Bo opposite Gaelle as the Queen for a single master that, for a few brief frames, provides the only full-figured long shot to survive the final cut. Tessie was in the hospital suffering from dehydration.

At left - Good-looking but user-unfriendly, Tessie's Queen's costume is a non-stretching, form-fitting outfit with a series of 5 overlapping layers at the waistline - all in heat-absorbing black polyester. Careful examination will reveal the metal belt barely visible under the corset and sash.

From day one her costume as the Queen had been a practical problem. Under the blouse she wears a fully-boned long-line strapless bra from Trashy Lingerie in Los Angeles. Over the shirt and the pants' waistline is a metal belt that must be laced up the back each time. Around the metal belt is tied the red sash. This is followed by the corset, which also has full lacing up the back. I worked for six months on Batman Returns, and the first problem addressed was Michelle Pfeiffer's basic needs. She looked fantastic as Catwoman, but you can rest assured that she didn't have to completely disrobe in order to go to the bathroom. The Queen of Swords had wardrobe designed for an action hero in a desert climate that made the actress afraid to drink enough water to keep her healthy because it was such a time-consuming hassle to completely undress and redress every time.

That was only part of the wardrobe problem. The first time Tessie tried to climb onto her horse, she couldn't bend her leg enough to reach the stirrups. In "Destiny" she tried to kick in a 40 mph wind on the point of a rocky cliff and couldn't raise her knee above waist height. This obviously affected her ability to balance on difficult terrain and was matter of safety and I said so -many times. Still, by episode 6, "Duel With A Stranger," the problem hadn't been resolved. Tessie still could barely raise her leg to kick. The actress had taken two months of Tai Bo training and had developed a kick that stretched over my head - but not in those pants. When I doubled Christian de la Fuente, I bent my knees almost to the ground yo the kick to my face play for camera. Four months and nine episodes later in the "Hanged Man," Tessie had to be helped up the ladder by the French coordinator to fight on the roof because her pants still didn't allow her to move with freedom. Since the doubles all had wardrobe altered to permit freedom of motion, I never understood why this was denied to the star of the show. It's not enough for a costume to look good standing still. An action hero has to be able to move in order to be credible and in order to keep themselves safe.

Clash of the Titans

At right, the "Queen" (Gaelle) and "Mary Rose" (Bo) fight on top of a covered abandoned well. About 5 feet behind Gaelle is a drop of over 20 feet to the ruins of a house.

There is no heroism without great villains or at least severe trials or we'd all be heroes and we'd have no need for role models. Without great adversity you can't dig deep and achieve more than you ever thought you were capable of. This gives the rest of us hope, maybe we can also do extraordinary things in extraordinary circumstances. As a sea captain and privateer, Mary Rose had honed her skills with the sword in a hundred battles. I wanted the Queen to be severely tested by a swordsman with all of her skills and far more practical experience. This is a dangerous adversary - a battle of equals. Anything less isn't worthy of our story.

At left - Diagram from Angelo that demonstrates the Spanish guard on the right attacked by the French guard. As described by the Maestro, the Spanish guard is with the wrist in tierce and the point in line with the face.

I utilized a lovely reversal built on a move suggested by Gaelle when we were evolving the choreography for the climactic scene. It's a favorite move of choreographers from taken from the notes of arguably the greatest fencing master of all time, Domenico Angelo in his fencing treatise, "The School of Fencing," published in 1787. It is interesting to note that Angelo even devotes a chapter on how best to survive and triumph against the Spanish Guard and a swordsman who has been trained in the Spanish system, i.e., The Mysterious Circle.

At right - Diagram from Angelo that demonstrates capturing and controlling the opponent's weapon with the left hand and threatening with the point behind the back. Note that the threat only works if the opponent cannot control his own blade and/or remove the point.

The maneuver I chose for "The Witness" required the Queen to close distance as she parried to the outside in tierce and caught her opponent's blade in her left hand while bringing her to "sword's point" by dropping her own blade behind her back. What makes the move almost unbeatable is the control exercised over the opponent's blade by her left hand. There was a moment's pause as the Queen, reluctant to kill, expects Mary Rose to surrender. Mary Rose, the survivor of a hundred shipboard swordfights, pivots her own blade clockwise, in spite of the Queen's grip on her sword hand, and deflects the Queen's point. This catches the Queen in a very vulnerable spot, with her blade behind her own back, its tip no longer threatening her opponent. In other words, she has to scramble to spin out of the situation, and finds Mary Rose waiting with a backhand fist to the face. To be able to extricate herself from what is normally an unstoppable move makes Mary Rose a very dangerous opponent, indeed, and the Queen has the opportunity to register this discovery. The editors focused on facial closeups and the story goes unappreciated. We took the time to shoot this story and I saw the dailies. The choices were available.

At left - At the fight's end, the Queen (Gaelle) gets the upper hand, cleverly disarming Mary Rose (Bo Derek) and holding her at sword's point.

This of course calls for the Queen to change tactics and dig deep. In our final phrase she catches Mary Rose with an inside parry (high carte for the experts out there), and again closing distance stops Mary Rose's guard with her left hand before inserting the pommel of her sword beneath her wrist. Maintaining the connection of pommel against wrist, the Queen circles her sword guard clockwise to twist Mary Rose's cutlass from her hand. The Queen catches it in her left and Mary Rose finds herself abruptly and unexpectedly disarmed facing both the Queen's blade and her own. Peter Ellis, the director was especially pleased with this story choice. It set the scene perfectly for Mary Rose's defiant refusal to surrender and the Queen's decision not to kill her.

At right, Mary Rose (Bo Derek), and Queen double Gaelle rehearse the final fight under Anthony's watchful eye. Both Bo and Gaelle dedicated many hours to rehearsing the fight so their performance together really flowed.

Bo Derek and Gaelle executed the move perfectly several times for our coverage. The reshoot substituted a insert of a smash to the wrist for a simple strip disarm. Apparently, someone thought it more important to have a close-up of Tessie instead of a surprise reversal brilliantly executed by our hero. When you reshoot a sequence that substitutes the face of the lead for jeopardy and story revelation, you reduce the outcome to a foregone conclusion that makes it that much more difficult to pretend you don't already know your hero is going to win. This cheapens your hero and violates your covenant with your audience. Of course that's just my opinion. You also rob the guest star's character of the opportunity to come in and shake the story up a bit. Especially when the actress worked as hard and performed as effectively as Bo Derek. Unfortunately, very little of her efforts appear onscreen in the final edit.

I miss the scene at the end as originally written. In the first script, Mary Rose wounds the Queen during their fight at the camp. After her son is released in town and before she rides off she shakes Tessa's hand and suddenly pulls up her sleeve. The fresh scratch on Tessa's arm confirms her suspicions as to the Queen's true identity. She says, "A scratch from a rose can be dangerous." A nod confirms her decision to keep Tessa's secret and she says the final lines, "Fair winds and safe anchorages, Tessa Alvarado." She proves herself an honorable friend and possible future ally if ever the Queen should need her help. Another choice.

Until next time,