ACROBATIC CINEMA

Three hundred meters in the air, a cinema operator films an adventure and romance novel under the lightning rod of the Eiffel Tower

“Come and see us tomorrow morning. We turn on the Eiffel Tower.

I was punctual at the meeting given to me by my friend René Clair. At a quarter past ten, the successive elevators took me slowly across the three platforms of the gigantic tower. A few more steps and here we are on the footbridge of the last platform. The public does not go higher.

An artists' lodge 300 meters above sea level.

A door, on which is written: "Do not enter". I hit. "Ah, there you are," said Rene Clair to me, taking me by the arm. Come, let me introduce you. The room in which we find ourselves looks like a ship's lower chamber full of nooks. Iron beams everywhere, firmly riveted. Against the wall a tap under which is a bucket filled with soapy water, and chairs cluttered with dresses, coats, open travel bags, men's trousers, jackets.
— Madame Madeleine Rodrigues...
Squatting in front of a mirror on a chair, the young woman my friend introduces me to raises her blonde, curly head, her face strangely colored by the make-up she was finishing.
- Sir...
But René Clair is dragging me along.
— Henri Rollan, the young first, the lady's lover...
— Prejean. a guy, that one. Aviator, descended from the Boches…
"Marcel Vallée, Préfils, Stacquet... Are the three of you ready?" So back to work. Take the cards, the banknotes. Don't forget the jewelry. There you are, Guichard...

Guichard is the operator. He walks everywhere with his 20 kilo camera equipped with a foot as heavy as it is cumbersome.

A game of manila in the air

- Come on, let's go up.
- Again?
Sky ! Here I am on a roof without a railing. Three hundred meters at my feet
Paris, flattened, extends to the horizon. I hesitate. Another staircase, but in the sky this one. Then a walkway, and finally Eiffel's room. There, it's a real commander's poop deck. I love the horizon, nothing blocks my view and there are seats, a sofa...but what a precipice.
On the small footbridge we install a table and three chairs. We bring playing cards and stacks of banknotes that the wind raises in a worrying way.

— Vallée, Préfils, Stacquet, call René Clair, sit down. You play cards. Vallée wins and successively picks up the stacks of banknotes, with marked satisfaction.

“Put. jewelry. The detective must have stolen more jewels than the others...
Begin.

We hear the click of the camera ... then a stop and a command: "Start again." But the sun has gone dark and we have to wait. Alfred Guichard, the operator, a colored glass glued to his eye, watches the little cloud.

— Be careful, he shouts, the sun is coming back. Here it is indeed, and the game of cards begins again at the same time as the click.

"Perfect," said Rene Clair. That's enough for you...

A flirtation with your feet in the air.

Madeleine Rodrigues, in a white dress, and Henri Rollan, in a beach suit, have stepped over the banister of the small staircase and are walking on the outer beam which holds the last frame, the one which ends the tower. There is not the slightest guardrail...and steeply, 300 meters below, the mainland. What a fall if they had the slightest vertigo.

.Madeleine Rodrigues has installed large cushions, fabrics, lacquer boxes, brushes, a lovely silver box in which she locked Turkish cigarettes. Charming boudoir on this eagle's nest

Alfred Guichard, who is looking for a place for his camera, whispers in my ear, amazed
—Hein, she's cheeky, the little one, I'm shaking, me. But he found his place. Standing on the banister of the stairs, with the chasm beneath him, he spins with both hands.

give me fire

— Stop! shouts René Clair, running to join Madeleine Rodrigues and Rollan on the beam.

The hair in the wind, the neck entwined in a large muffler, without worrying about the danger nor the fever which does not leave it for two days, the young director gives his indications. Préjean is there too. With the agility of a monkey, he climbs after the beam and settles on an iron bar, the cigarette in his mouth, the most naturally in the world.

The device is spinning. Clair has retreated and is shouting his orders.

— Rollan, have a cigarette. You have no fire. Make a sign to Préjéan who will give you some.
Préjean descends and, when he is only a meter away from Rollan, holding himself by his feet, he lets himself go backwards, like an acrobat on a trapeze, and gives fire, in this worrying position. , to Rollan who lights his cigarette.

: An expletive… the operator said it. What is going on? He had not
enough film you have to reload the camera... and start again! the perilous scene...
Here is what is done. Préjean goes up on his eagle's nest, then here he comes down and jumps over Madeleine Rodrigues and Rollan. One false step and it was a fall into the void.

So you don't have vertigo? I then asked Rollan. He then showed me on his sweater a little Goddamn beast that had come to rest there when he was perched on his observatory.
-Nothing to fear today, he replied, I'm ready.

PIERRE BRET