We were on location in the cemetery one gloomy, biting, raw day. Carol stood staring down a long alley of trees that flanked a perfectly straight, endless road whose perspective took it to a tiny point, finishing with grey sky. He simply announced: “Now we’ll shoot the ending.”
When the camera was ready, it was pointing its eye directly at that distant apex. Then Carol shouted, as loudly as he could, “Action!” From far, far away, Valli started her walk up that lane toward the camera.
The hero, smoking a cigarette, was standing in the foreground waiting for her. Like the audience, he was confident that she would join him, and they would stroll away happily together, arm in arm. Valli walked on and on, closer and closer, until at last she was a life-sized figure in the foreground with the hero. And then, without turning her head, or even glancing in his direction, she continued her steady pace, out of the shot, and into limbo.
I remained there, as directed, still smoking the cigarette. My eyes followed Valli out of the shot and, anticipating Carol’s shout of “Cut,” I almost strolled back to my chair to wait for the assistant to announce “Once more, please,” or for Carol to say, “Print.”
Nobody uttered a word. The camera kept rolling. The special effects men from their high perches continued to drop toasted autumn leaves from above. I continued to puff on my cigarette, and began to get quite panic-stricken. Was there more to the scene? Had I gone blank? What was Carol waiting for me to do? I took one more puff, then in exasperation threw the cigarette to the ground, at which point Carol shouted through his laugher the word I had been waiting desperately to hear — “Cut.”
- Joseph Cotten, Vanity Will Get You Somewhere