My friend, Alexander “Sandy” Ignon, started his career in Hollywood more than 50 years ago. Although he started as an actor and appeared in Kung Fu, Death Race 2000, Days of Our Lives, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Hill Street Blues, and many other films and TV shows, Sandy has also worked as a screenwriter, key grip, art director, electrician, assistant cameraman, and a carpenter. His essay below is about working on David Carradine’s 1973 film, Americana. I grew up in LA during the 1970s and am beginning to think that it might have been an even weirder decade than the 1960s.
A Scene From the Making of The Last Hippie Movie
Spring 1973 – Drury, Kansas – an event during the making of the last hippie movie ever made.
Kwai Chang Caine, aka David Carradine, the star of the 70’s Kung Fu TV series, sold his residual rights to the show to Warner Brothers for $80,000. A good deal for Warner Brothers. A shitty deal for Carradine. He didn’t care. He was set on directing and starring in his own movie during Kung Fu’s hiatus.
It was a simple story. A Viet Nam vet trying to shake off the war wanders barefoot from who knows where until he comes to a broken down carousel in a field directly across a country road from a deserted two-store town: a garage, a gas station and a dilapidated church in the middle of an ocean of Kansas wheat.
This was Drury, Kansas. Unrecovered from the dust bowl and depression. Corrugated roofs. Tin shingles. Weeds. Population, 5. A gentle green, narrow river ran through it. The Chikaskia River. The church had lost its roof to a tornado fifty years before.
The script called for David to resurrect the Carousel as a labor to assuage his war demons. Bring the rotting wreck and its horses back to life.
In Hollywood, a month before we were to begin shooting, we found a dilapidated merry-go-round at a defunct carnival on San Fernando Road. No horses but we’d figure something out.
John Blythe Barrymore, son of John Drew Barrymore and half brother to Drew, and I played the town rubes harassing David as he fixed up the carousel.
At the time I was also a carpenter and had been helping to restore a half-burned-down house that David had bought in Laurel Canyon. Carpenter, actor, grip. David and I had a complicated relationship. The complications started when I wanted to rebuild the foundations before the thing slid down the mountain. He didn’t care for the fundamentals of construction. Regardless of our engineering differences he hired me to act in the movie as well as pick up any slack as a grip and whatever other tasks he needed me for; sanding horses, repairing the platforms, painting. The entire crew was enlisted in the project.
The less important crew and players, such as myself, were assigned quarters in a campground on the banks of the river about a ¼ mile north of Drury. Fine by me. I had a tent pitched under the cottonwoods and magnolias. The river was our bath tub. The water was green. The water moccasins were black. We kept to ourselves.
At dawn we’d row a leaky pram into Drury for a quick breakfast before the first shot. Egg sandwiches, mini cereal boxes, fruit and a 4 quart refrigerator jar of orange juice that David sprinkled with unmeasured amounts of window pane LSD. He’d tipple throughout the day to maintain his energy. I dropped acid once in the ‘60s . Too much as it turned out. My hand morphed into a monkey’s paw. The rocks were breathing. Everything that moved left ghost trails. Not for me. How David paid attention to directing and acting while the rocks exhaled and the birds spoke French was beyond me.
By a magical stroke of luck, Rick Van Ness, a co-producer and all around go-to man, found the exact number and size of carousel horses in Cleveland. A yellow pages find. He loaded the horses in a bed of hay in the back of a U-Haul and then dropped acid for the long drive back to Drury. Around midnight somewhere on the great plains he heard snorts and whinnies. The horses had come alive, pawing their hooves to free themselves from straw. A terror-filled Twilight Zone ride that lasted until dawn and the acid wore off. He was gaunt and ashen when he arrived. He slept for twenty-four hours.
Big Mike Greene, David’s best friend at the time who was playing the mechanic in Drury, was also an acid head. Mike was a professional card shark who once had his own TV series at Warner Brothers. The Dakotas. He blew up his career when he took too much acid and thought it would be a good idea to put a furry, gray coyote turd in John Calley’s desk. Calley was head of Warners.
In the script Mike-the-mechanic sees an opportunity to hustle some extra bucks from the merry-go-round restoration project. Mike is in possession of a crucial (stolen) part, a bevel gear for the Carousel’s drive shaft. The carousel wouldn’t turn without it. So Mike makes a deal with David. “We’ll put on a show in the church. You fight my wolf I got in the back of the shop. If you win you get the gear. If Mowat wins, I get all the door money and keep the gear ‘cause most likely you’ll be too torn up to finish. Maybe dead.“
David is too invested to refuse. The carousel is nearly finished. He can’t refuse the deal. Also, it’s the big set piece in the movie. “Heroic Vet kills killer wolf and wins the gear. The lights go on and the magical carousel lives again to thrill the townsfolk.”
The executive producer, Skip, a weasely, big-toothed, big smiler, pedophile grifter who took off with all our hard earned pay an hour after we finally wrapped, sends out invitations to the locals to be in the audience for the wolf fight. A way to pad expenses and his own pockets. “Do you want to be in a movie?” A hundred and fifty people show up. $5.00 a head. Wheat farmers and their families. Tow truck drivers. Waitresses. Welders. ’55 Chevys. Cat Fish Bob, the local weed dealer. Combine operators. Hayseeds on flatbeds. A Beechcraft riveter down from Wichita for the weekend at his river cabin.
David insisted on shooting the movie in absolute sequence, page one, scene one, page two, scene three. One take per set up. No more. No exceptions. Couldn’t afford an extra foot of film. “You better make it count, Sandy. If you can’t remember your lines don’t say anything or make up something.”
Dawn of the wolf fight scene in the roofless church, the “wolf” shows up in the back of Dan Haggerty’s pick up truck. This was before Haggerty became Grizzly Adams. It was rumored that he and his Hollywood animal trainer ran a stolen car chop shop in Van Nuys. They’d driven non-stop from L.A. with this giant German shepherd in a cage in the bed. A gentle giant of a dog exhausted from the drive at top speed. They’d downed unholy quantities of bennies, weed and beer and stank like compost piles. Their eyes were blood shot cartoon spinners.
They roll into Drury. We’re all there to greet them. Billy Record, a cocky know-it-all, the key grip, goes over to Haggerty’s truck. It’s brand new but it’s been re-painted and not very well. Billy does a slow walk around it and suddenly starts yelling, “This is my fucking brother’s truck, you fucking thief! It was stolen three weeks ago!” Haggerty came up with a lame story that didn’t work. Busted. Billy hopped into the crew truck. “I’m gonna go call the Sheriff motherfucker!” David grabbed the ignition keys and talked him down. “If you do that that’s the end of my movie, Billy. Our movie. You don’t get paid and we’re run out of Kansas. Settle this when you get back to L.A.”
The locals show up with their five dollar bills. The assistant director gets them situated on the bleachers in the barn surrounding a chicken wire pen with a sawdust floor. The fight ring. After David’s signed a bunch of autographs he tells everyone to make a lot of noise. Mike announces the event like a circus barker. David yells ACTION! The DP shoulders a hand-held Panaflex to get in close for the jaws, the saliva, the blood from all different angles to cut into.
“Mowat the killer wolf” is already in the pen, looking anxious. David makes his entrance. “You got the gear, Mike?” Mike exhibits it over his head for all to see, then rings a bell. Round one. Turns out Mowat’s got no fight in him. He’d rather be lying on a rug in a living room. David crouches and stalks him, growling, provoking the dog to violence. Mowat backs off, cowers. This isn’t going to work. David goes at him, starts wrestling him. Mowat extracts himself. Scared, runs to the opposite corner. All these people shouting. And this fucking maniac trying to pick a fight. This goes on for a while until David slaps him hard and throws a head lock on him, hitting Mowat’s ON switch. Mowat goes bat shit violent, tears the shit out of David’s face, really goes after David. David’s bleeding, sweating, filthy in the dirt. Torn shirt and pants. The audience screams blood lust things. I do too. Remember, I’m his main threat in town. “Get him, Mowat! Kill the sonofabitch!” Finally David gets on top of Mowat for just long enough to pin him and make it look like he’s won. “CUT!”
Haggerty rushes in and calms the dog. No problem. Mowat can’t wait to get away.
Next shot in the post fight sequence is the crowd following me, following David in stunned awe of David ‘s heroic victory. “Okay,” says David. “The next shot is everyone follows me out. You’re all in awe. You’re stunned by my heroism and bravery. You follow me at a distance, Sandy will follow me at twenty paces. You’re especially in awe of me.”
Got it.
So the prop man hands him a “dead wolf.” A stuffed wolf he found in a prop room at Warners. The last time it saw action was as a wolf extra in “White Fang.” It was stored on a shelf under heavy boxes for like fifty years. A four inch thick plank of gray fur. Flounder-faced with glass eyes. Nobody says anything. It’s no secret it ain’t no match to Mowat’s black hulk. Maybe dead wolves turn gray and super stiff soon as they die?
David mounts White Fang on his shoulder like a surfboard. ACTION! He limps out of the church, bleeding. I follow, keeping my awestruck distance until the crowd behind me pushes me within a foot of David.
“CUT! Goddammit, Sandy. You’re supposed to be in awe. Stay back. Twenty feet.”
“Doin’ my best. The crowd pushed me.”
This was a simple no brainer one-take shot. I’m catching the blame. He’s pissed. We regroup. ACTION!
Same thing happens. He’s fuming now. David glares at me. “You’re burning up my film. Stay the fuck back!”
Take three. ACTION! Again. The crowd stumbles me, right into David’s back. Fucking morons.
This time he whirls on me in a rage. “Act Motherfucker!” He swings the wolf like a baseball bat smashing me upside the head, mashing my ear. The wolf busts in half. Excelsior explodes in a giant gout of dust. The front half hangs. He swings a fist, hits me, shoves me hard. “Fuck you,” I yell and hit him back. He wasn’t expecting such a reaction. I throw him on the ground. It degenerates into a wrestling match. Pounding. Rolling in the dirt. Michael Stringer, the DP, keeps the camera rolling. Fight came to a draw. The Kansans didn’t know what to think. Here’s Kung Fu in a real fight and he’s met his match. Is that in the script?
The stunt man pulled us apart.
I told David to go fuck his mother and his shitty movie and stalked off to the river and rowed up to my tent. I had no money. It’d been two weeks without pay. All the LSD and peanut butter sandwiches I wanted, which I didn’t want but not a dime. I’d worked my ass off like everyone else restoring that carousel. Sanding. Painting. Greasing. Bolting. Hell, I’d found the merry-go-round at Kemsley’s Shows to begin with. I’d driven up to Winfield and procured a gun belt, a gun, a badge, a sheriff’s uniform from the county sheriff and been obligated to have dinner with him and his family. He wanted me to meet his daughter. He was a movie fan and wonderfully trusting. Of course I was a perfect gentleman but wow. His daughter was as hot as the front porch that day. (These cop props were for David’s brother, Bruce, who was playing the Drury Sheriff.) I’d also wrangled a small bulldozer and graded the shoulder so the camera crane could track smoothly. I was an unpaid asset and my ear was on fire from being smacked with White Fang the flounder dog. I sat in my tent trying to formulate a plan for getting back to California. Eventually I fell asleep until David unzipped the tent fly. “Hey, man. I’m sorry. It wasn’t your fault. I need you in the movie. You’re already established and you’re really good. You’re a real actor, man.” He grinned. “Hey, you beat Kwai-Chang Caine.” He did have a special kind of charm when he turned it on.
“I hope you printed that,” I said.
“Don’t have the budget.”
“…If you hadn’t blown it on an exploding wolf....”