Confessions of a Technophobe, New Series 44
Part 4
1976 and beyond
As far as I knew, there were no agents representing either screenwriters or film directors in South Africa at the time. However, I did uncover a guy who also worked as a freelance literary agent. He was very young, in his early twenties, but full of energy. He was also a person of mixed race, classified as a “Coloured ” in South Africa. It was during the Apartheid years, and I was impressed by his determination to succeed in a difficult industry, as well as being restricted by virtue of his color. He offered to represent me and I rather cynically wondered whether I would ever hear from him again – not because of his ability but rather because of the limited number of movie projects in the country. I also wondered how many movie companies would even speak to him because of his ethnicity. A few weeks later, I was delighted to get a call from him. He had found a wealthy businessman who was obsessed by an idea for a movie and was prepared to pay a writer to turn it into a screenplay. My agent warned me that the idea was pretty whacky.
As usual I needed the work and readily agreed to meet the man. It turned out that he was a major manufacturer of toilet bowls, even exporting them to a number of other countries as well as the local market. As I set off to meet him, I figured that his profession was hardly the inspiration for a movie. I was completely wrong. This seemingly sane and successful businessman, Patrick Nichols, who traveled the world promoting his products, had had a nightmare one night whilst traveling in the Far East. He dreamed that he was sitting on one of his own products in a Singapore Hotel, when something reared up inside the toilet bowl and took a chunk out of his posterior! He thought that this could form the basis of a horror story. I actually had to restrain myself from laughing. On a scale of mad ideas it was at least a ten … and yet, I wondered. If I could pull this off it would be quite a feather in my crap … oops, I mean cap!
Patrick and I agreed that we should aim at the American market and set the story in the US. He came up with the idea that the creatures in the toilets should have originated in the ocean. This reminded me that there are many unknown and fearsome creatures in the deepest parts of the oceans. How would it be if a relatively small fish from the depths be brought to the surface for research but escaped into a sewerage system and feeding on toxic chemicals (dumped illegally with other waste products) grew substantially to create a ravening monster. Some of these monsters with vicious teeth would fight and bite their way into the sewerage of some private homes, with devastating results as they attacked unsuspecting humans seated on toilets.
I proceeded to weave a story around this. As it happened, I had previously visited an aquarium and deep-sea research laboratory in the town of Clearwater, near Tampa in Florida. I persuaded Patrick to send me to the US to research the practicalities of the idea before writing the screenplay. He agreed and announced that he and his wife would come with me. They had always wanted to visit Florida and in addition Patrick wanted to learn as much as he could about the mechanics of making a movie. He bought me a Business Class air ticket. He and his wife travelled First Class. On the flight I was upgraded to First to join them. The only time I have ever travelled First Class. What a delight!
I spoke to both the Clearwater Aquarium and the local sewerage department. They thought us completely mad but attributed it to the kind of weird ideas that came out of Hollywood from time to time. In my search for film locations, I discovered the neighboring town of Tarpon Springs. It is the center of the sponge-fishing industry in the US and the town is largely populated by Greeks who are the descendants of the original sponge fishermen who came to the US in the late 19th century to start up the sponge industry there. It seemed to me that it might provide an interesting backdrop tp the movie.
With the influence of my wife Hero’s Greek Cypriot heritage, I eagerly drove to Tarpon Springs to eat some authentic Greek food (which I love). I chose one of the attractive-looking restaurants, looked at their menu and decided on eating some calamari. On the menu it said battered calamari. I prefer it grilled without batter. I asked the waitress if I could have the grilled version. She looked at me as though I was completely mad and said that they didn’t do that. I insisted. saying that grilled calamari was the preferred choice in many Greek and South African Greek restaurants. She shook her head dubiously and said she would check with the chef. She came back and said that the chef had replied that if he cooked it that way, I wouldn’t like it so no, he wouldn’t do it.
I left the restaurant and tried another place nearby. To my disappointment they also refused to cook it my way. I discovered that all the Greek food in the town had been modified to suit American tastes, thus losing its unique qualities, for my palate at least. I understand that this is the fate of so many ethnic restaurants in foreign countries, but I thought that in a place where the majority of its residents are Greek, some authenticity might survive. I heard subsequently that a couple of the restaurants did provide some authentic Greek dishes, but I never got back to try them out.
Patrick and his wife returned to South Africa before me whilst I remained to check on some possible film locations. This included a boat trip on the Everglades, as I thought my story might include some of my monsters escaping into this vast marshy region of Florida. Driving around, I found a sign advertising boat rides to see alligators, with the added attraction of visiting an authentic Native American village. I stopped off and bought a ticket for this cultural experience. I was escorted to the boat and introduced to the “Captain” of the craft, which could hold about ten passengers at most. We set off at speed in the boat which had a huge aircraft type propeller mounted near the stern. I had seen these boats in still photos and movies of the Everglades and had been told it was because the water is very shallow in most areas. An underwater propeller would easily get stuck in the mud. The boat also had a very shallow draft, ideal for travel in the Everglades. As we headed for our first alligator experience, the captain told us, “I’m often asked ‘what is the difference between an alligator and a crocodile?’ The simple answer is that alligators are freshwater creatures and crocodiles are seawater animals.”
Having seen dozens of wild crocodiles in the rivers of South Africa as well as nearly being grabbed by a croc from the banks of the river Tsavo in Kenya as a child, I was well acquainted with the freshwater crocs, dismissed by our Captain. I called out that as I was from South Africa, I knew quite a bit about freshwater crocs. There are indeed some seawater versions of this animal, especially along the coast of Australia’s Northern Territories. They are reputed to be the largest reptiles in the world and used to number about 200,000 but the species is diminishing. At one point the Nile crocodile in most rivers in Africa was nearly wiped out. Because of their danger to humans, they were declared vermin and, in addition, a profitable industry developed as hunters killed them and sold the crocodile skins to the fashion industry. It was then discovered that proliferation of a large fish called the barbel had been controlled by the crocs but when these reptiles were being hunted out, the barbels began to play havoc with the riverine structure of the rivers. They like to dig holes in the mud banks, causing them to collapse and inhibiting the flows of these vital sources of water. So, ironically, a new industry subsequently developed – croc farms. These reptiles are being bred to restock the rivers and keep the barbels under control. Messing with the balance of nature can have disastrous consequences!
Back to the Everglades and the Captain. When I told him about the freshwater Nile crocodile, he looked at me with a mixture of disbelief and disinterest. His only comment was “I guess we learn somethin’ new every day.” I knew he was never going tell anyone the facts. He’d been delivering the same patter for years. We eventually found some pesky little alligators that did not begin to match up to the croc monsters back home. Just before leaving the boat, I had checked on my road map and found a place called Everglade City which looked to be about fifteen miles away. It was late afternoon and I wanted to get there before dark but the roads in the area were in poor condition so I asked the Captain, “How long will it take to drive to Everglade City from here?” He looked at me blankly and shrugged. “Everglade City? Never heard of it.” At first I thought he was kidding. He had told us that he was born and bred close to the boat rides. He was about fifty years old and surely he would have known about a town less than twenty miles away. Apparently, his ignorance of the place was genuine. Although I continue to find America a fascinating place, I’m sometimes amazed at the lack of awareness of some rural folk in anything beyond their immediate environment. Just to compound the issue, I visited the Native American “village” before leaving. It turned out to be one shack with a few tables of Native American art. Our host was a huge young man who looked as though he played American football. He gave us a lecture on his own Native American tribe, which (from memory) could have been the Miccosukee, whom he claimed were the only Native American tribe to never have been defeated by either the Spanish or white Americans.
Looking at the display of artwork and other curios, I noticed some colorful beadwork. Our guide referred to them and said that the beads were woven in the form of messages to be sent to other tribal groups. Excited by this find, I spoke to the guide after his talk and told him that in South Africa some of the African tribes such as the Venda people also wove beadwork messages into headbands and other paraphernalia. He reacted with a scowl and walked away from me. I was confused but later realized that he didn’t like the idea of his tribe’s beadwork not being unique. None of this really added anything to my toilet movie but I did find the experience fascinating. When I later reached Everglade City, it turned out to be what I would have called a tiny village but with a number of upmarket homes and a small hotel where I booked in for the night. I discovered that it had been incorporated as a town in 1923 and as a city in 1960. With a population of 283 in 2020 and over 300 in earlier years, I was fascinated by its designation as a city. In Britain a town becomes a city only when a cathedral is built there. I have never found out what makes a town become a city in the US. Everglades City certainly did not have a cathedral. It was an attractive little place on the banks of the Barron River; I was still puzzled about our famous boat captain’s complete ignorance of the city (despite its diminutive size).
I spent another few weeks in Clearwater whilst I finished the first draft of the screenplay. This involved paying further visits to both the Aquarium and the sewerage plant. Both establishments were intrigued by the storyline for the movie, but I had to be careful not to suggest any incompetence on the part of either establishment. I had one of the characters in the movie deliberately remove some of the deep-ocean creatures and place them in a large tank adjoining the sewerage plant. The idea was that this character persuades the sewerage management to experiment with the deep-ocean creatures, which are initially quite small, using them to eat the sewerage, thus cutting down costs. Initially it works very well. The creatures have ravenous appetites and consume much of the waste in the sewerage system. However, because various toxic chemicals have been dumped into the sewerage, including steroids and growth hormones, the creatures get larger and larger, eventually breaking out of the tank where they have been kept and where sewerage has passed through to be eaten by them. This leads to the creatures entering home systems and finally attacking humans. Frankly, the whole idea is rather grotesque but as a writer I regarded it as a fascinating challenge.
Once the screenplay was finished, both Patrick and I made numerous attempts to sell it to production companies, without success. The reaction to the storyline was that it was intriguing but ultimately too horrifying. I still have it and occasionally I pull it out and present it. I came close to selling it a couple of times but as so often happens in the movie industry, the companies concerned found something else that they deemed to be a safer bet. I did have the satisfaction of being told that I had written a beautiful script on a horrifying subject! Patrick was philosophical about it. His story had been expanded and written to his satisfaction. I don’t think he was too upset about not getting it screened. I’ve never given up hope on it and include it in my portfolio. I’m currently trying to acquire an agent once again who may have connections with the horror movie producers. I certainly don’t.
It’s hard to remain motivated by something for which I have very mixed feelings.
That’s why my association with ExoTech, although quite different from moviemaking, has continued to excite me for the past few years. It’s a bit like the hope of finding a large diamond in the desert sands of the Namib. If found, it would be both a thing of rare beauty as well as of great value. ExoBrain is the rare diamond of computing, and it has been found. It is currently being fashioned into a gemstone of incredible quality. And like a diamond it is forever!