I WAS CAST to play “Charlie” in The Battle of Narva. Starring opposite me was Sandra, a young actress from the Ugala Theatre. I guess they couldn’t find any other Americans for the part, and the setup was preposterous. Who would have believed that an American disc jockey would have had a radio program in Narva in 1944, when the country was under Nazi German occupation, and about to be flattened by Soviet bombs and bullets? Maybe this “Charlie” was an Ezra Pound-like character, doing Axis propaganda? Yet he seemed like an easy-going lad, nothing like you’d imagine a Nazi collaborator American DJ would be. Maybe it was just a case of wrong place, wrong time? Maybe the Nazis didn’t mind a Yankee DJ on the Eastern Front? Wasn’t one of them a famous jazz collector?
I imagined Charlie was sort of like Chris’s character from Northern Exposure. The episodes of The Battle of Narva would open and close with Charlie’s musings on the state of the war. “But what even is war? What is it good for?” and so on. Maybe he would play some quality recordings from The Andrew Sisters (“Rum and Coca Cola,” anyone?), Bing Crosby, a little early Frank Sinatra. But I think Charlie was more of a hepcat, he’d spin sides by Quintette du Hot Club de France. “It’s morning in Narva,” he would say into the microphone, “and to get all of you Narvans and Narvettes started, I’ve got some ‘Les Yeux Noirs’ to brighten up your day.”
Then he’d cut over to the pure swing of Django Reinhardt. That’s how the people of Narva survived the war, at least until they didn’t. While I had the character of Charlie figured out, remembering the lines was hard. Sandra had so much more training. She would sit in the windows of cafes with the script open, memorizing her lines. I had mine before me, but I improvised too much. This provoked a soft-hearted lecture by the director, Bill Murray, who told me that learning one’s lines was a piece of cake, and that I should go easier on myself. “You just have to say the lines, man. Just say the lines.” He said this to me while they were preparing to film a street battle scene. There were all of these extras in Soviet and Nazi uniforms milling about in the city’s streets. It was a disturbing to see them making small talk.
north! 