THE PRATT’S PAJAMAS: CONFESSIONS OF A CHARACTER ACTOR, by J. Erpingham Pratt (1971) – excerpt
The day we were scheduled to shoot the fistfight, the entire set smelled of burning yurt.
Brando, of course, being Brando, insisted on living his role well outside working hours. He wasn’t just going to play a nomadic half-Mongolian guide whose giant heart couldn’t be contained by the constraints of civilization; he was going to BE a nomadic half-Mongolian guide whose giant heart couldn’t be contained by the constraints of civilization. And if that meant sleeping in a yurt on the set for the duration of the production, then by gum, that’s what he would do.
He wasn’t about to endure this deprivation alone. He flew over what I imagine was an entire middle-sized village of Mongolians – and their families – to help make the Southern California desert an even more faithful facsimile of the steppe than the magic of Hawks and his designers could conjure on their lonesome. Horsemen, musicians, laundrywomen, cooks, a bit of female companionship… authentic Mongolians every one of them – meaning, needless to say, that they wouldn’t be seen anywhere near the front end of a camera. (Leave that to an army of Chinese extras in silly makeup.) Brando’s guests were simply the citizens of his own private Mongolia, several dozen men and women whose presence embodied the madness of his Method.
The day’s shoot would feature his character, Ganbataar, groggy after a night of carousal, and so Brando took it in his mind to celebrate in the actual world as well. Late into the night, he and his cronies kicked back and enjoyed copious bowls of kumis, an alcoholic beverage, apparently popular in Central Asia, manufactured by fermenting the milk of a female horse. Not being one to scoff at the opportunity to sample a new cordial, I politely accepted a bowl, which turned out to be more than enough for my delicate stomach – it took three whiskey sours back at the hotel to wash away the taste.
When we returned in the morning, Brando was still awake – and where his yurt had stood the day before, there was nothing but a pile of ashes. Apparently a cooking fire had spread to the walls of the tent, and by the time the drunken revelers noticed, it was too late. I’m not sure if you’ve ever breathed in the scent of burning wool and sheepskin, but let me just say that touring the infamous stockyards of Chicago would doubtless provide a more pleasant nasal sensation. Though this particular yurt was Brando’s own property, Hawks was furious that a fire had been allowed to break out on his set. The still-inebriated Brando was typically unapologetic, and tensions were high as the crew set up the day’s shots.
I’ll employ my preferred euphemism to quote Bogie’s first words upon arriving on scene: “What the flower died out here?” Having successfully fended off a bout of throat cancer the year before, he suffered fools with even less cheer than he had previously. The Silk Road was to be his first film post-convalescence, and his gaunt, grizzled frame heaved with the hard-won muscles of a survivor. Hawks described the result of Brando’s late festivities, and Bogie responded with nothing but silence and a cock of the chin. Dietrich and I happened to be observing the whole thing, and when Bogie left she turned to me and said, “Pop some popcorn, Erpy – it’s going to be a hell of a show today.”
The scene, of course, was the climactic fight between Brando’s Ganbataar and Bogie’s American merchant Schwinn over the honor of the beautiful Sarnai, Ganbataar’s cousin, servant and lover, whom Schwinn had also fallen for. As Professor Berkeley, I was expected to stay on the sidelines with the women, which suited me just fine. Dietrich had played the world-weary-mistress role so many times at that point that she was far more fixated on the interpersonal pyrotechnics than on her role. Natalie, on the other had, was still dewy enough that she was passionately committed to the outcome of the battle. Decked out in her Mongolian drag, she looked about twice as ludicrous as she had playing cowboys and indians the previous year, but it was easy to overlook this in light of her simple but effective immersion in the moment.
Bogie and Brando each approached the set from opposite sides of the set, not having laid eyes on each other yet that morning. I’ll simply assume it was another stroke of genius on Hawks’ part to announce that there had been a script change – the dialogue preceding the fight was to be scrapped. Instead, Ganbataar would ride up, dismount his horse, and silently confront Schwinn for a few moments before casting a first punch. So that’s exactly what Brando prepared to do.
During the moment of silent confrontation, the contempt these two men held for each other was so thick it started to melt off Natalie’s eye makeup from fifty feet away. Rumors had flown that Brando had despised Bogie ever since 1952, believing the older man had stolen his Oscar from him. Bogie, for his part, had little patience for Brando’s on-set antics, being of the old school of “just stand in front of the camera and talk” acting (a style that, truth be told, has always been far more suited to my own relative lack of talent and propensity for laziness). The horrible smell of burnt yurt, which still saturated the air around us, was like a sensual metaphor for Brando’s peculiarities and Bogie’s disdain for the same. All of these undercurrents simmered in the desert air as Hawks got the silent shots he needed.
Finally, it was time to shoot the first punch. The scenario called for Ganbataar to swing, and for Schwinn to block, before the pair descended into a carefully choreographed scrap. The proposed melee never made it into the final film, of course, due to what happened next. As soon as Hawks yelled “Action!” Bogie pulled back and clocked Brando square in the nose. Natalie shrieked with unfeigned terror as Brando’s cartilage crunched; though it was edited from the soundtrack, Dietrich involuntarily let out that deep, loud laugh of hers. Brando fell backwards, his whole body sending up a cloud of dust from under the grass. Bogie walked away silently and wasn’t seen the rest of the day. And that, of course, is exactly what Hawks chose to include in the film – the moment when Bogie broke Brando’s nose. Ironic, I suppose, that the most famous facial feature of Brando’s later career was gifted him by his bitter foe; and even more ironic that one of Bogie’s most iconic screen moments was the result of his own brief foray into blasted Method-style motivation.
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