On
the subject of playing Filby per et fils, Alan
Young told Ray Ferry, editor of Famous
Monsters of Filmland, "George [Pal] said to
me, 'I can't pay you very much, but you can do whatever you want
with the character,' and I said, 'Well, I'd like to make him Scottish,"
because I am Scottish, and I did my father's accent, and my own
when I first came to this country. I thought we should make them
redheaded, so you could see the three generations."
(NOTE:
If this was, indeed, Young's idea, it's a remarkable coincidence,
because the character of Filby in the Wells novel has red hair!)
"Plus, the Scottish people,"
continued Young, " are a sort of a
mysterious people -- a lot of them believe in mysticism and second
sight and that kind of thing, and I knew that [Filby] would understand
his friend George, where the other English people wouldn't understand
him. So, that was why I did him that way."
On his
makeup
as the aged James Filby:
"They made a face mask of me to fashion all
that rubber stuff -- the old age pieces -- all around. On the
morning of that shot, I got made up by Bill Tuttle, and as I left,
he gave me a little jar of glue, and he said, 'That's in case
it comes off,' and I said, 'Well, won't you be on the set?,"
and he said, 'No, the budget can't afford a makeup man on the
set.' So, I had this jar of glue, and that was at 6:00 or 7: 00
in the morning. Well, they didn't get around to shooting that
scene until late afternoon, and by then I could feel bits of my
face falling off, so I'd get the glue out and stick it back on
again, but by the time they actually got around to shooting that
scene, it was about 4:30 or 5: 00. So George said, 'Alan, I can't
do any close-up's because I can
almost see the glue brush strokes on your eyes.' So, if you remember
the scene, it was done in a two shot all of the time. There were
no close-up of this old man because bits of the face were peeling
off."
RIGHT: Alan
Young as Jamie Filby
