Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

Behind the security screen, the Commodore was directing the setting up of a full-scale film unit.
More property was purchased around La Quinta - a ten-acre ranch, code-named Munro, became a
barracks for the film unit personnel and a studio was built in a huge barn on the Silver Sand Ranch,
a 140-acre grapefruit farm. Lights, dollies, cameras and a vast range of technical equipment were
all moved into the new studio. Hubbard took to wearing a cowboy hat, suspenders and a bandana,
which he imagined gave him an artistic mien appropriate to a film director.
The Cine Org was to cut its teeth making simple promotional films illustrating various situations in
which Scientology could be used beneficially. Hubbard wrote all the scripts and knew exactly what
he wanted, but found it infuriatingly difficult to transfer his vision on to celluloid. Surrounded by an
army of enthusiastic amateurs running around desperate to please, nothing seemed to go right. If
the actors remembered their lines, the lighting was botched; if the lighting was all right, the sound
failed; if the sound was satisfactory, the sets fell down . . . The Commodore's temper worsened day
by day.
An appeal had gone out to Scientology branches around the world for volunteers with acting and
film-making experience to help Ron in a special project. Among the first to arrive was a middleaged
couple from Las Vegas whose show business experience extended to four performances of
their own dance and comedy act at the Sahara Showcase. Adelle and Ernie Hartwell were
champion ballroom dancers who had taken a few Scientology courses and had been led to believe
that joining the Cine Org would give them their big break.
They were disillusioned from the moment of their arrival. 'I was absolutely shocked', said Ernie, 'to
see every one running around in shorts, ragged clothes, dirty and unkempt. They put us in a little
three-room shack on the edge of the ranch. We go inside and what a mess! The place was overrun
with bugs and insects.'
'The main thing I disliked,' said Adelle, 'was that when we first got there we were programmed on
the lies we had to tell. If we ran into one of our friends, we had to tell a lie to them and tell them we
were just there for a vacation . . . We were schooled on how to get away from process servers, FBI
agents, any government officials or any policeman who wanted anything to do with Hubbard.'
Adelle's introduction to the Commodore was unforgettable. She was working in the wardrobe
department when she heard a barrage of abuse from behind a screen: 'You dirty goddam sons of
bitches, you're so goddam stupid. Fuck you, you cock-suckers . . .' It seemed to go on for several
minutes. 'I had something in my hand and it fell to the floor,' she recalled. 'I said, "Who in the world
is that?" They said it was the Boss - we weren't allowed to use the name Hubbard for security
reasons. "You mean the leader of the church speaks like that?" I asked. "Oh yes," was the reply. "he
doesn't believe in keeping anything back."'
Adelle Hartwell was supposed to be a make-up assistant on a movie called The Unfathomable
Man, which chronicled Hubbard's view of mankind from the beginning of time to the present day.
She soon learned that Hubbard was a director who like plenty of gore, and gallons of fake blood
had to be prepared in advance of every day's shooting. 'Did he ever like those films to be bloody,'
she said. 'It was enough to make you sick.
'We'd be shooting a scene and all of a sudden he'd yell, "Stop! Make it more gory." We'd go running
out on the set with all this Karo Syrup and food colouring and we'd just dump it all over the actors.
Then we'd film some more and he'd stop it again and say, "It's still not gory enough," and we'd
throw some more blood on them.'[4]