Bad Woman, Good Woman by Richard E. Riegel

Author:Richard E. Riegel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: black rose writing, richard e riegel, bad woman, good woman
Publisher: Black Rose Writing [email protected]

CHAPTER 14

Rikki Tate couldn’t stop laughing.

She was holed up in a motel outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana, hunkered down while a nasty storm passed through the area. The wind was whipping the trees and the rain was coming down in sheets. Not a good night for a private investigator to go traveling. Not a good night for anyone to go traveling.

So she was watching television in the motel, sipping Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola, eating pork rinds.

“A land of wonders beyond compare,” was the line she heard that made her laugh and laugh. It was from a movie on TV, a grade B movie that Rikki remembered from her childhood, whose topic was the lost city of Atlantis. She remembered seeing the film with her parents and brother at a drive-in theater in Atlanta. As she recalled it, it was part of a triple feature, not simply a double feature, along with another film, Journey to the Center of the Earth, starring James Mason and Pat Boone. It had been so long ago that she forgot what the third film was all about.

She remembered one aspect that seemingly tied the films together, that is, it seemed to be that the films shared more than a science fiction theme; it seemed that the films also shared some of the same sets used in producing the films. It wouldn’t be until later, in firm adulthood, that Rikki discovered that filmmakers did share the use of sets and props, because it was good economics.

She recalled seeing the same ornate columns used in two Ridley Scott films, Legend and Blade Runner. She also had read about the practice of sharing sets and props from an article she’d read somewhere along the way.

It all made sense, now that she was an adult. The reuse of props and sets. The reuse of actors and actresses. It was all part of the economics of movie production. She was glad she didn’t ruin the experience as a child by being able to figure out the curiosity. As an adult, she was nevertheless enthralled and titillated by the motion picture industry. She enjoyed films that had certain actors in them. Anything with Bruce Campbell was a hit. Anything with Kevin Costner was a dud. It seemed there were movies that made everyone famous, like John Carpenter’s The Thing, and conversely films that sounded a death knell to all the actors in the film.

Although her thinking could have lessened her appreciation of filmmaking, it only created more magic. She knew that movie and TV actors were working stiffs as herself, on the screen as much to earn a living as to provide entertaining distraction for the masses. It was a job, and some actors were better at their craft than others. One thing she discovered was that an actor like John Wayne never really portrayed anyone other than his own on-screen persona, barely an actor at all. Then there were actors like Anthony Hopkins, who was good at whoever he was pretending to be.

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