Cryer - So That Happened

Goddammit.

Cut, cut, cut!

The director yanks off his headphones and wearily barks, Im pretty sure doves dont shit sideways! Am I right? Anybody?!

The special-effects guy (Allen, I think) is at a loss for words. Really, how does one respond to that question? The cast, dressed in tasteless formal wear for a mideighties suburban American wedding, break character and start to mill about restlessly.

There is a moment of tense silence while some of us consider a reply to the directors odd dove query. But fortunately, our fearless leader breaks the tension by answering himself. Thats what I thought.

We are shooting outside a wedding chapel in Phoenix, Arizona, during the summer of 1983, and its incredibly, unbearably, fucktastically hot. My white polyester tux is sodden with sweat and adhering to every contour of my body. The reason Bob, our director, is asking about the physics of bird ejecta is because in this particular shot, the animal wranglers were supposed to release some doves, and when those doves flew over the wedding party, they were supposed to shit on us as we exited the chapel. Sadly, the actual doves, ignorant of their cue, indifferent to the wishes of the director, as well as unconcerned about their chance at screen stardom, did not cooperate and empty their bowels upon us.

So the special effects guy (ninety-five percent sure its Allen), ever resourceful, had jury-rigged an elaborate backup system of pressurized containers to squirt fake dove poo on the wedding party from either side of the camera. But no matter how he tried, said poo would rain onto the partiers with a noticeably wide arc. This made Bob unhappy. Apparently he felt any discerning moviegoer would immediately notice the craps flight path, and their sense of cinematic verisimilitude would be forever compromised. Bob was turning out to be the Stanley Kubrick of turd-trajectory perfectionists.

Not that Bob is being an asshole about it. He seems irritated, yet kind of amused. The Bob in question is actually a Robert: Robert Altman, the acclaimed director of MASH, Nashville, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller. So if any director has earned the right to be an asshole about doves shitting on people, itd be him.

The movie is O.C. and Stiggs, and it is intended to be Bobs subversive take on American suburban torpor dressed up as an accessible youth comedy. The story is about how the two titular teenagers abuse, accost, and generally annoy an atrociously clueless nouveau riche family, the Schwabs. I play Randall Schwab Jr., idiot scion of the brood, while Jane Curtin of Saturday Night Live fame and Paul Dooley from Breaking Away play my parents. Also in the film are Dennis Hopper, Cynthia Nixon, and Ray Walston.

This is my first day of shooting on my very first movie role.

In a fucking Robert Altman movie.

I am quite literally vibrating with excitement, anticipation, and abject terror.

The scene we are shooting is Randalls sister Lenores wedding. Pretty much the entire cast is in it. So on my first day I get to work with both a director I revere, as well as performers Ive admired for ages. Im in the big leagues. Im getting my chance to find out how the actors whove made it ply their trade. To discover exactly how one of the all-time great directors makes his genius manifest. Its going to be amazing. If only they can figure out how to get this bird-shit thing to work.

The crux of the scene, as Bob imagines it, is that the Schwab family emerges from the chapel, followed by the auspicious release of a flock of doves, signifying to all that our clan is the gauchest of the gauche in terms of egregious displays of suburban American wealth, at which pointbig joke!the doves would poop on us. Take that, richies!

But as I said, this guano business is easier said than done. So after Bobs minor outburst, he emerges from his trailer, where hes been watching us on video monitors, with a certain if-you-want-something-done-right-you-have-to-do-it-yourself determination. He confers with his special-effects guy (its possible its Steve), who runs off and hurriedly gathers a large yellow mixing bowl and several ingredients easily found in a refrigerator or pantry. He throws the assortment into the bowl and mixes fiercely. Meanwhile Bob motions to one of the grips, who grabs a ladder and rushes in. The special-effects guy (thanks, IMDb, definitely Allen) hands Bob the bowl and Bob sighs.

With filmic reality on the line, it is now evident that someone will have to go vertical and rain this new faux poo from a proper angle over the assembled wedding guests. And that that someone will be none other than five-time Academy Awardnominated director Robert Altman himself.

Imagine, if you will, this master American filmmakerthe man behind The Player, Short Cuts, and Gosford Parkclimbing a rickety aluminum ladder, perching his shall we say portly frame on the top while a crew member nervously holds the ladder in place, and, as his actors step out from flung-open chapel doors, hurling down on us healthy dollops of