Another memory of Jack Salvatore's of working on COUNTERPLOT:
We didn't really have any pre-shoot rehearsal time, so the first time I met Allison is actually the first scene we're together in the film. It's a scene in which Connie Lane---the framed-for-murder hero's girlfriend---arrives in Puerto Rico, where she's heard he's hiding out from the police.
It takes place on a dock in San Juan harbor....and her costume is the one you see in that lobby card---suit with pillbox hat and light veil. Granted, I was only 12 years old or so, but a guy knows beautiful when he sees it...and that, she was. A stunner.
At my height, she seemed to be well, 50 feet tall (pun intended), and her obvious attributes were not to be denied, even under a fairly austerely tailored suit. We worked the scene a few times together, and she was very sweet to me...not a diva, not a primadonna....just two working actors, one trying to bring the other, younger one, along.
There's a scene to which you allude...in which Connie is singing in a nightclub. Late in the movie, the two characters---Connie and Manuel, the kid---realize that while they've been at loggerheads over who loves Forrest Tucker more, they do both love him. While she's singing with the band, Manuel---who's just found out the hero's fled again and they've BOTH lost him--- charges up the aisle of the club to Connie and they embrace.
The script actually says something like "Connie presses Manuel to her bosom"...and I remember being a little worried about how that would go, because her wardrobe for the scene was a black velvet sheath with a daring decolletage. The crew--mostly young Puerto Rican guys---were teasing me mercilessly about being careful not to get too...uh...aroused by getting that up-close & personal.
I remember that we were getting ready to block the scene on set. Even Kurt Neumann, the director, had gotten on the teasing bandwagon, making sure I knew exactly what "business" the script called for. Allison was smiling through it all...and all I remember saying to her, before I ran up to her was: "Don't mess up my makeup." Broke up the set...including Allison...she got it....and made sure to make all those crew guys as jealous as possible, by making sure the script was followed to the letter...and then some.
I saw Allison several times off set. She was staying at the Caribe Hilton, and I spent a lot of time swimming and dining there. I really had no idea of her career...nor she of mine...but she was always pleasant and nice to me...and treated me as a relative equal, within the limitations of my age.
