I’ve already recounted how the stars somehow aligned to send me to Tunisia,
North Africa, on a wild expedition that would eventually land me a job at
Lucasfilm. I've also offered a rough sketch of how the trip unfolded, highlighting
some of the most spectacular Star Wars shooting
locations we encountered along the way.
But it is now time to get down to
brass tacks: the cantina door.
Right upon arriving in the
vicinity of Ajim, on the island of Djerba, we recognized the telltale
architecture that sends the hearts of countless fans around the world
aflutter—we knew we were in Star Wars
territory. As previously told, we found Obi-Wan’s home on the outskirts of town,
and encountered the famous cantina, albeit devoid of its innumerable alien
denizens, right in the heart of Ajim.
While shooting A New Hope, that particular building had
been enhanced with all sorts of accessories in order to provide it with an even
more outlandish, out-of-this-world appearance. The edifice was thus fitted,
amongst other elements, with plastic domes on its top and an actual extension
to one of its sides, complete with a fake door that, had it swung on its
non-existent hinges, would have led to absolutely nowhere. Walking around the
humble abode, we did spot the domes in the backyard, used as some sort of
protective covers, more than twenty years after filming had wrapped on this
weird movie filled with all sorts of creatures. Clearly, the town’s inhabitants
had seen no reason to discard the materials left behind by the film crew, and
had found uses for those decorations, no matter how bizarre they might have
appeared at first.
So maybe, just maybe, the cantina
door had survived, somewhere, and was just waiting for us to unearth it. Right?
Our little group (there were six
of us) decided to split up and conduct a thorough search of the area, spreading
in a circle from the cantina itself, as if a deity had thrown a rock on that
very spot from the heavens, and was watching us ride concentric sand waves across
the dry, scorching land. We felt that the cantina door, if it still existed,
would not have dropped anchor too far from its point of origin. And sure
enough, after barely fifteen minutes of stumbling about, the door—the door—appeared right before me, at
the end of an open field where goats were grazing without a worry in the world.
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| The cantina door: one of my personal Star Wars holy grails |
It was unmistakable: the door had
kept its recognizable shape, and the plastic ridges that adorned its
front—affixed to sections that had been hollowed out in the wood—were still
mostly intact. That ancient, obscure piece of set dressing was now performing
important duties as an actual door, guarding the entrance of a rickety shed
that no doubt sheltered some tools or others. At some distance, an old man
stepped out of the shade and stared at me with curiosity. I raised my hand in a
friendly greeting, made a vague gesture that I hoped would be understood to
mean that I’d be returning in a moment, and hurried back to round up my travel
companions. They hadn’t wandered far, and in no time we found ourselves
standing together in front of the shrine.
The old man had apparently
understood my intent and was waiting for us, in what little cover from the
burning sun the shed could provide. I extended a hand that he shook surprisingly
firmly. As we were clearly foreigners, he addressed me in French—in a deep,
parched voice and with a beautiful accent that smelled of wild flowers and
exotic spices. I explained, also in French and as succinctly as I could, that
we were fans of Star Wars, a movie
shot in that neighborhood back in 1976; that we were fans who had travelled all
the way from North America to visit this corner of the world that was so
significant to us. He only replied that he had never heard of that movie, but
his warm smile and amused eyes spoke volumes: we were crazy kids with way too
much time and money on our hands.
I then proceeded to tell him that
the door to his shed had been part of that movie, and that we were very excited
to have found it. I actually showed him a playing card that featured that fake
cantina entrance prominently, with three Jawas seated in front of it. (That image sits at the top of this article.) The old
smile grew wider. Biting my lip in hesitation, I asked the old man if we could
re-enact the scene and take a picture in front of his shed. The man let out a
soft laugh that had seen generations come and go, and silently waved at the
ramshackle construction with his palm turned up, as if saying “knock yourselves
out.”
And we did.
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| Yours truly, sitting on the right |
It was a strange feeling, knowing
that we were sitting in front of the real cantina door—almost like kneeling
before a holy relic. A small crowd had gathered at the edge of the field, and
the locals were gazing at us with puzzlement. I remember thinking that the
group would have a good laugh at our expense after our departure, and so they
should. We were crazy kids. But the
craziness was just getting started.
Because it’s right there, on the
ground, that our archaeologist guide and my soon-to-be colleague and close
friend, David West Reynolds, asked me in English: “Do you think he’d sell us
the door?”
I laughed out loud and said this
was nuts. What would we do with it—if we could even bring it back with us?
Reynolds thought the door would find a place of honor in the private museum of
Steve Sansweet, one of his friends
and colleagues at Lucasfilm, and also the world’s nuttiest collector. I
admitted that I liked the idea, and so I stood up and turned to the old man.
“We would like to bring that door home with us,” I began in French, “if at all
possible. Would you consider letting us purchase it from you?”
I expected the owner of the
cantina door to burst out laughing, call out to his friends in disbelief and
share some quick comments with them in Arabic, all the while eyeing us like a
bunch of loons freshly escaped from the nearest asylum. Instead, he kept a
perfectly straight face and returned only one word: “Oui.” Reynolds had no need
for a translation here, and pressed on without missing a beat. “Ask him how
much.”
Feeling very much like a Jawa
haggling over droid parts, I relayed the question. The man bit his lower lip,
and after a pause that could have been pregnant with quintuplets, he said, “one
hundred American dollars.” Only then did he allow himself a smile—the kind of
knowing smile that says, hey, I may be
just an old Tunisian shepherd, but I know a good deal when I see one, and I
think you understand that. I smiled in return, nodded in appreciation. The
man added, “It’s been a good door to me,” and I thought that was a perfect line.
I smiled again, with genuine delight, and translated the man’s remarks for my
English-speaking companions. Reynolds laughed, said “Oh, I like this guy,” and
immediately agreed. Money changed hands, the bills quickly vanished into the
folds of the man’s white robe, and he helped us disconnect the cantina door
from his shed. No tools were required: the ancient wooden barrier had been
hanging by little more than a few loose nails.
It was with a strange sense of
elation that we removed ourselves from the man’s field, under the puzzled gaze
of half a dozen goats and handful of locals. Grinning from ear to ear, Reynolds
and I were carrying the door, like an oversized trophy after a hard fought
match, and I wish someone had captured the scene with a camera. (Alas, in that
pre-smartphone age, a snapshot was not yet hiding in every pocket.) Despite the
excitement of the moment, we understood that we now had a problem on our hands:
how did we intend to bring the door home? We quickly decided that the best
solution would be to saw the door in half—through the middle section, which was
all wood—and then fold it on itself, with the top half facing the bottom half,
thus encasing the precious and fragile pieces of plastic set decoration inside the door itself. We figured that
if we could just nail the two halves together, the door would be ready to
travel in relative safety.
Fine. But how? And where?
In the west, the sun (singular)
was setting fast on Tatooine, and we realized we were racing against the clock.
We had to find someone with the tools we needed for the job, and soon.
We started walking, our growing
shadows connected by a mysterious rectangle of darkness hanging between us. Despite
my questioning some of the town folks, night fell before we reached our
objective. But we were in luck: one helpful resident eventually directed us not
to someone with a saw, but to an actual woodworking shop armed with equipment
beyond our needs. Surprisingly enough, given the late hour, the business was
still open and several employees hard at work when we stumbled in. Tools ground
to a halt and the mechanical ruckus gave way to an amused silence as one head
after another turned our way.
I introduced our little group and
explained our situation. Could they provide the services required? “Bien sûr,”
one of them replied. Two of the men brought our door to what looked like a
homemade—albeit fiercely effective—table saw, then proceeded to expertly slice our
relic in half, nail the two pieces together, refuse payment and shake our hands
with the most charming smile in the world. They even provided a burlap bag to
stick our wooden assemblage in and tied the whole thing with a rough piece of
rope.
The bag, along with its coveted
contents, would make it back with us to the airport and survive four plane
trips. Smuggling it through customs proved surprisingly easy: we explained it
was an old door we intended to restore and put in a museum. How much more
Indiana Jones-esque can you get? The customs official laughed, shook his head
and let us through, and that was it.
The cantina door now rests
comfortably in Rancho Obi-Wan, in northern California, as one of the most
exclusive pieces in my friend Steve Sansweet’s collection—the largest private
collection of Star Wars memorabilia
in the world. I try to pay Steve (and the door) a visit from time to time,
although not nearly as often as I’d like.
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| Thanks to Steve for the picture! |
One day, I promise myself to fly back to Tunisia and find my way to the outskirts of Ajim. I just need to see what that old shepherd installed on his shed to replace the strange door he’d been using for over twenty years. For all I know, some kid might greet me there and tell me, in that fragrant French of theirs, how his grandfather once spun a tale about some sentimental fools from overseas who showed up, decades prior, in search of an old piece of junk.
(Next chapter: The Call)
(Full series here)
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