The Patriot Post® · Consorting With Angels

As some of you are aware, I was recently AWOL. I was off my computer because I was overseeing the shooting of one of my comedy screenplays, “Angels on Tap,” down in El Segundo, a beach community adjacent to the south side of LAX.

Because we were using the local Moose Lodge, we only had access from 4 a.m. to 4 p.m., the hours when it wasn’t open to its members. When you are accustomed, as I am, to going to sleep after midnight, you can understand that I was a basket case from sleep deprivation long before we had crossed the finish line.

If you’ve never been on a soundstage, it can best be described as organized chaos. It’s rather like a military operation, except that nobody dies, although after a few days of averaging three hours of sleep, I could have made a convincing zombie in “Night of the Living Dead XIV.”

Ours was scheduled to be a four day shoot, but unforeseen events led not only to a fifth day, but to a 17-hour sixth day. It was then that I discovered what a thin line separates zombiehood from being in a full-blown coma.

Because it was about as low budgeted as you can get without winding up with a silent movie on your hands, the only reason we got through it at all is because we were blessed with a terrific director (female), cinematographer (female) and crew (male and female).

In spite of the infinitesimal budget, we also had a first-rate cast, the biggest names of which included the likes of Jamie Farr, Ed Asner, Ron Masak, Alan Rachins and Marion Ross. In case you’re one of those strange ducks who hasn’t watched TV over the past several decades and are unfamiliar with them, they are best known for, respectively, “MASH,” “Lou Grant,” “Murder She Wrote,” “L.A. Law” and “Happy Days.”

In case any of you are wondering what Ed Asner was doing in one of my movies, I have known and liked Ed ever since I wrote a couple of episodes of “Mary Tyler Moore.” Subsequently, I wrote a TV movie, “A Small Killing,” which starred Ed, along with Jean Simmons and Sylvia Sidney.

It’s no exaggeration to say that politically, Ed and I are polar opposites, but, unlike far too many liberals in Hollywood, who brag that they would never hire a conservative to act, write or direct, in one of their productions, I don’t believe in blacklisting talented people, no matter how loony their political beliefs might be. And in case you might be wondering just how loony Ed’s are, I can report that when asked whom he was supporting in the presidential race, he said Joe Biden, but only because he didn’t believe that self-admitted socialist Bernie Sanders could win.

On the other hand, I am happy to report that I know for a fact we had at least three conservatives in the cast. I am not free to divulge their identities because I wouldn’t wish to be responsible for their being drummed out of the Screen Actors Guild.

The truth is that the three of them also like Asner in spite of his politics, although when I was having lunch with two of them, they agreed that instead of Asner’s playing an angel called Swifty, I should have named his character Lefty.

All in all, the shoot went well, although there are a couple of actors I am hoping we can afford to loop. Looping entails bringing in someone to record and replace the dialogue spoken by the actor on screen. It is similar to dubbing, except that procedure involves replacing the dialogue when the movie is shown in a foreign country and which would otherwise require sub-titles.

We are all hoping that post-production can be wrapped up by December, that being the time of year when people are most likely to have angels on their mind.

At this point, we don’t know what will happen when the movie is edited, scored and ready for release. In seeking a distributor, it may be shown at film festivals. Or it may be sold to TV. Or it might even wind up in movie theaters, competing with those terrible blockbusters that bust our eardrums with unrelenting explosions, declare war on our bladders with their three-hour running times and make our teeth ache with their unbelievably putrid performances.

So watch for “Angels on Tap.” I think I can guarantee that it will be the funniest movie you’ve ever seen, at least the funniest in which nearly every actor is sporting wings. And if you pay really close attention, you might even spot a devilishly good-looking, short, bald, Jewish angel shooting pool in the background.