BY JOHN FITZGERALD
(PART TWO)
Continuing the story of those magical “Breakfast on Pluto” days in Callan…twenty years ago this month…
Tullamaine graveyard was another filming location. It might not have been deemed suitable as a venue but for a noteworthy restoration project that rescued this ancient burial site from a forest of weeds and bushes back in 1989. It was a remarkable achievement by the FAS-backed group involved.
Being an extra proved monotonous at times, but Niall Somers loved it. “It gave me a terrific insight into how a film is made”, he told me, adding that he never would have predicted that Callan would be part of the setting for a major film.
Margaret Fennelly’s house in Bridge Street became Braden’s pub. Margaret was herself was a publican up to about two years ago when she retired from the vintner’s trade…little realizing that all the trappings and paraphernalia of a licensed premises would re-materialize as part of a top-notch film director’s artistic vision.
When Neil Jordan offered to convert her house, farmyard, and an old hay barn for use as a film set, Margaret had no objection. She accepted an arrangement whereby she would take up temporary residence in another house for the duration of the moviemaking.
Memories came flooding back for her when the front room of the house again assumed the appearance of a pub, and bottles of stout were displayed in the windows.
Her two pet bantam cocks in the farmyard eyed the film crew suspiciously at first…but gradually they accepted the presence of Jordan, Cillian Murphy, Ruth McCabe, and the hordes of extras that came and went with tedious regularity.
Locals praised the patience and forbearance of the cocks; who might just as easily have refused to cooperate with the moviemakers. Bantams can be moody and obstreperous, but Margaret’s cocks behaved themselves.
This was fortunate for Neil Jordan and his team, as indeed was the excellent weather conditions that prevailed in Callan throughout filming… An angry bantam or a sustained downpour might have turned Breakfast on Pluto into a Dog’s Dinner on Bridge Street!
Keogh’s Bakery became a café, and the interior of O’Brien’s clothes shop, which had retained a kind of quasi-70s look, was ideal for another scene. Jimmy Walsh of Skeaugh had his hour of glory as he struggled to persuade a horse drawing a cartload of milk bottles opposite the church to walk more like a seventies horse delivering milk. Jimmy and others fed him nuts from a bucket to reward obedience and good acting.
Day Three saw a remote controlled helicopter in action…a bird’s eye view of Tyreelin was required as robins fly over this village that Pussy Braden (in the book) describes as “a kip” that he needs to get out of.
Not that this reflected badly on Callan. The town, I understand, was selected as a film location more because of its seventies ambience than owing to any negative or dilapidated aspect of its overall presentation.
Day Eight witnessed the dramatic and much talked about presence of a Dalek at the gates of the Parish Church…or Big Chapel…as Callan folk call it.
Daleks were the famous robotic monsters that sought to make life difficult for Dr. Who in the 1970s Sci-fi series. Their catch phrase was “Exterminate…Exterminate” which they followed up with a deadly ray that reduced a victim to smoldering ash.
The Dalek at the church gate was apparently part of a hallucination scene in the film. Whatever its purpose, it drew the crowds in Green Street. The extras had a long night of it on Day Eight. I felt sorry for Marianne Kelly when she wheeled a pram past the church for about the eleventh time. It was monotonous work, but she loved it, she assured me…
(To be continued…)
