The Gorille: Operation Poker
In 1991 I was cast to do Mario, the killer in The Gorille: Operation Poker a French/German co-production to be filmed in Prague, Czecoslovakia . Czecoslovakia was under a Communist government. I had to get a working visa from The Szecoslovakian embassy in Washington, DC. I had never been to a Communist country and I was a bit apprehensive but very curious. I flew on Lufthansa Airlines and changed planes in Frankfurt,Germany for Prague on Monday morning. My excitement grew on the plane while landing in Prague. It reminded me of all those movies I had seen on the TCM channel of World War Two movies. Thoughts came to mind of Cold War, Espionage, Spies, Orson Welles in the Third Man among others. my imagination ran wild. I was driven to the hotel, a few hours later I met the Austrian director Peter Patzak who told me that on that coming Friday we would be leaving for Vienna because the revolution was starting. I thought he was exaggerating but once in Vienna, on the news were stories of military tanks attacking protesters. On Sunday we returned to Prague to continue our film. The people were marching and the government kept fighting back.
Lines to purchase foods were very long. In our hotel lobby I noticed a group of people were staring at me and that made me nervous, I thought they could be the secret police tracking foreigners just like in those Cold war movies. One of them was sent to my table and asked If I was in the movie Crocodile Dundee 2. I felt relieved. They invited me to their table and told that they were part of the Black market and could give twenty times the exchange rate. The banks were offering me five Czech dollars for each Deutschmark and the Black marketeers offered me twenty to one. This was the first time being recognized paid off for me. Shooting the film was tricky for me because each actor in the film spoke their dialogue in their native language. It was challenging but doable. Each country who had actors in the film also got their films dubbed in their language. We had actors from Italy, France, Germany, Yugoslavia. I spoke in English and got a response in another language. During the protests the foreign press arrived to report on the revolution so, I took the opportunity to start video taping and I still have a copy of the revolution on VHS.
