Dixon

Film Studies

Collected Interviews

Tony Williams, coeditor (with Rocco Fumento) of Jack Londons The Sea Wolf: A Screenplay

oted film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon offers a behind-the-scenes look into the lives of
both major and marginalized figures who have dynamically transformed the landscape of international cinema in the twentieth century. Fifteen interviews spanning two decades of research
are collected here, with many appearing in uncut form for the first time. Dixons interviewees
represent a wide range of cinematic professions (directors, animators, actors, writers, and producers) from several branches of cinema (artistic, avant-garde, and commercial) with Dixon providing an introduction prior to each interview.
Highlights include an interview with Vincent Price (one of only a few to focus on his career
beyond the horror genre); the founding father of New Zealand cinema, John OShea; B-movie
king, Roger Corman; Ren and Stimpy cocreator John Kricfalusi; and British studio veteran Roy
Ward Baker, director of A Night to Remember.
Purposeful in his selections, Dixon offers up voices from twentieth-century cinema that have
never before had the chance to speak at such length and detail, as well as much more well-known
figures addressing unique and obscure aspects of their respective careers. Collectively, this volume presents a treasure trove of firsthand information of keen interest to film scholars and movie
buffs alike, while providing a glimpse into the future of cinema in the twenty-first century.

Contents

Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Endowed Chair of Film Studies, chair of the film studies
program at the University of Nebraska, and editor-in-chief of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video.
He has authored or edited over fifteen books on cinema, including The Second Century of Cinema: The Past and the Future of the Moving Image and Film Genre 2000: New Critical Essays.

P.O. Box 3697

Carbondale, IL 62902-3697
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ISBN 0-8093-2407-5

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Southern Illinois
University Press

Southern Illinois University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Working in Warhols Factory: Gerard Malanga

Surviving the Studio System: Alex Nicol
The Man Who Created The Avengers: Brian Clemens
The Last of England: Bryan Forbes
Shooting Cape Fear: Freddie Francis
Creating Ren and Stimpy: John Kricfalusi
When Im Sixty-Three: Jonathan Miller
The Director as Journeyman: Ralph Thomas
The Orson Welles of the Z Pictures: Roger Corman
Twilight of the Empire: Roy Ward Baker
Subverting the British Studio System: Wendy Toye
The Long Day Closes: Terence Davies
Alternative Screen Identities: Vincent Price
Digital Animation: Sally Cruikshank
The Tradition of New Zealand Cinema: John OShea

Collected Interviews: Voices from Twentieth-Century Cinema

By means of his carefully planned, intelligent interview technique, Dixon has

focused upon both sung and unsung heroes. . . . Unlike other interviewers, he has not only sought out neglected characters but has asked them
pertinent questions relating to their contributions to cinema. This collection
of essays is an important complement to Dixons other work.

Voices
Cinema
from Twentieth-Century

Roger Corman
Vincent Price
Jonathan Miller
Gerard Malanga
Ralph Thomas
Alex Nicol
Roy Ward Baker
Brian Clemens
Wendy Toye
Bryan Forbes
Terence Davies
Freddie Francis
Sally Cruikshank
John Kricfalusi
John OShea

Edited and with Interviews by Wheeler Winston Dixon

Collected
Interviews

COLLECTED INTERVIEWS
Voices from Twentieth-Century Cinema
EDITED AND WITH INTERVIEWS BY

Wheeler Winston Dixon

s OUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS

Carbondale and Edwardsville

Copyright 2001 by Wheeler Winston Dixon

All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
04 03 02 01 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dixon, Wheeler W., 1950
Collected interviews : voices from twentieth-century cinema / Wheeler
Winston Dixon.
p. cm.
Complete, unabridged text of interviews previously published in edited or
abridged form in various journals.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: Gerard Malanga Alex Nicol Brian Clemens Bryan Forbes
Freddie Francis John Kricfalusi Jonathan Miller Ralph Thomas
Roger Corman Roy Ward Baker Wendy Toye Terence Davies
Vincent Price Sally Cruikshank John OShea.
1. Motion pictures. 2. Motion picturesInterviews. I. Title.
PN1994 .D539 2001
791.43dc21
2001020205
ISBN 0-8093-2417-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8093-2407-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

For
Gwendolyn

Contents

Preface / ix
Introduction / 1
Working in Warhols Factory: Gerard Malanga / 24
Surviving the Studio System: Alex Nicol / 35
The Man Who Created The Avengers: Brian Clemens / 47
The Last of England: Bryan Forbes / 59
Shooting Cape Fear: Freddie Francis / 73
Creating Ren and Stimpy: John Kricfalusi / 82
When Im Sixty-Three: Jonathan Miller / 95
The Director as Journeyman: Ralph Thomas / 105
The Orson Welles of the Z Pictures: Roger Corman / 118
Twilight of the Empire: Roy Ward Baker / 132
Subverting the British Studio System: Wendy Toye / 174
The Long Day Closes: Terence Davies / 185
Alternative Screen Identities: Vincent Price / 196
Digital Animation: Sally Cruikshank / 207
The Tradition of New Zealand Cinema: John OShea / 213
Index / 227

viii
Preface

Preface

Although portions of these interviews have appeared in print before, they were often edited for space, and a great deal of material
that I would like to have included was lost. In addition, the interviews have never been published in book form before, as one complete collection, and it seemed to me that the insights included
here were too incisive to be consigned to the relative oblivion of
back issues that are often unavailable, except on microfilm and
only to the most diligent archival researchers. Making these interviews readily available, then, was one of my primary goals in creating this volume, much as Peter Bogdanovich did with his excellent book Who the Devil Made It, in which he collected a variety of
interviews he had conducted since the 1960s.
While the published versions of these interviews were often
abridged, the transcripts themselves remained, thankfully, intact,
and I am pleased now to be able to present the reader with the entire text of each conversation. I am thus deeply pleased to acknowledge the various journals in which these interviews first appeared
and to thank them for their permission to collect the interviews
in this book. The interviews with Gerard Malanga, Alex Nicol,
Brian Clemens, Bryan Forbes, Freddie Francis, Ralph Thomas, Roy
Ward Baker, and Vincent Price first appeared in the journal Classic Images; my thanks to Bob King, editor, for permission to reprint
these materials here. The interview with John Kricfalusi first appeared in a shorter version in Film Criticism; my thanks to Lloyd
Michaels, editor, for permission to include the complete interview
in this volume.
The interviews with Jonathan Miller and John OShea, as well
as portions of the introduction to this volume, first appeared in
Popular Culture Review; my thanks to Felicia Campbell, editor, for
allowing me to use these materials here. Thanks as well to the New
Zealand Film Archive, Wellington, for their help and assistance in
providing research facilities for the essay on John OShea. My interview with Roger Corman first appeared in Post Script; my thanks
to Gerald Duchovnay, editor, for permission to reprint the com-

ix

x
Preface

plete interview in this text. The original publication of my interview with Terence Davies appeared in Cinaste; my thanks to the
editorial board of that journal for permission to reprint the interview. And finally, my interview with Wendy Toye is reprinted from
my anthology of essays Re-Viewing British Cinema, 19001992, by
permission of the State University of New York Press, 1994, State
University of New York, all rights reserved. My interview with
Sally Cruikshank is reprinted from my book The Second Century of
Cinema: The Past and Future of the Moving Image, by permission of
the State University of New York Press, 2000, State University
of New York, all rights reserved. My thanks to the editorial board
of the State University of New York Press for their gracious permission to use these materials in this book.
Except where noted, these are the complete interviews. In some
cases, the interviews are much longer than the versions that originally appeared, which is all to the good.

xi
Collected
Interviews

Introduction

Since the late 1980s, I have been conducting detailed interviews

with some of the many figures who have worked in the cinema
during the past seven decades. From the start, I wanted to contact
a few key figures whose works were of interest to me and not
bother with mainstream figures whose efforts within the cinema
are extensively chronicled elsewhere. In particular, I wanted to focus on marginalized figures, such as directors Wendy Toye and
Alex Nicol, whose works have never achieved the level of attention and respect they so clearly deserve. In addition, I wanted to
discuss some lesser-known aspects of film artists whose works
are well known, as in the case of my conversation with Vincent
Price, which, for a change, did not focus on his many horror films
but rather on his numerous other projects before he became hopelessly typecast.
Along the way, other figures struck my fancy: John Kricfalusi,
the cocreator of Ren and Stimpy, generously gave me time for an
extended interview, and Roy Ward Baker and Ralph Thomas, both
British studio veterans, also were extremely supportive of my
project. Figures such as Gerard Malanga, Andy Warhols most
important assistant during his most important period as a pop
artist in the 1960s; John OShea, arguably one of the most important and influential filmmakers in New Zealand, whose works are
nevertheless unknown here; and Jonathan Miller, the directorwriter-actor-producer perhaps most famous for the Beyond the
Fringe satirical review (a forerunner of Monty Pythons Flying Circus), all merited further attention. And in the case of Roger Corman, I was pleased to be able to discuss his career not only as a
director but also as a producer and distributor whose work spans
everything from Little Shop of Horrors to director Ingmar Bergmans
Cries and Whispers, which Corman helped to finance when, amazingly, every other studio turned down Bergmans project.
All of these artists worked in a medium that was inherently
much more democratic than it is now. Modestly budgeted films
could compete side by side with Hollywood blockbusters, simply
because theatrical distribution in 35mm-film format was the only

1
Introduction

2
Introduction

way producers could realize any return on their investment. In the

same fashion, foreign films, now marginalized to short runs in
major cities and then shunted off to near oblivion on DVD format
(if that), were also once afforded a key position in the United States
and world marketplace, often with subtitles rather than dubbing
(except for the most commercial imports, such as the Italian
sword and sandal and horror films and Japanese monster movies). While the web and the Internet offer enormous potential to
low-budget and independent filmmakers, the quality of the image
is problematic, and the medium is still in its infancy. Even with the
technological advances that are sure to come, it will remain an
electronic medium rather than a filmic one, and so the quality of
its imagery and texture will be noticeably different.
Then, too, with the rise of television and its related formats, we
have increasingly become a stay at home society. While teenagers still go out to the movies, primarily to escape both their parents and the reality of their often-difficult adolescence, most families are content to doze by the electronic hearth and watch the
television, whether it be a small screen television or a large-format home theater. Even the most grandiose home theater can offer but a fraction of the visual and emotional experience afforded
by the proper projection of conventional 35mm film, to say nothing of the shared experience of watching a film with a group of
strangers, united only by the spectacle they witness, alone, and yet
together, in the dark.
Cinema, as we knew it in the twentieth century, is undergoing
a radical transformation. Even now, it is interfacing with the next
generation of imagistic recording, reproduction, and distribution
systems (the net, the web, digital tape and discs, the availability
of films via cable and satellite, not to mention videotape, laser
discs, and new systems not yet known but certain to be invented,
not the least of which may be a simple chip encoding all the information necessary to reconstruct the sounds and images of a
feature film). When more recent art-house low-budget films are
made, their makers hope to graduate immediately to large-scale
Hollywood films, thus rendering the independent cinema nothing more than a potential proving ground for future masters of the
dominant cinema. The model of theatrical feature filmmaking
foregrounding the director as auteur is similarly obsolete, as directors now serve merely as traffic cops (no matter how stylish

their technique) for producers whose interests are solely directed

to the bottom line. The films of the past are dependably profitable;
current releases are another matter. As one media analyst recently
noted, The television divisions make money, the film library
makes money, but current releases lose money. Its worse than it
has been for the past couple of years (Weinraub and Fabrikant 1).
Adds Hollywood producer Ron Meyer, In todays climate, with
risks so great, its just much easier for a studio to say no to anything they believe is not very commercial. David OConnor of
Creative Artists Agency agrees, noting that if a movie doesnt fit
a studios financial model, they can do without making it (qtd.
in Weinraub and Fabrikant 15).
And yet a plethora of cheap programming dominates the marketplace. With every person having access to a camcorder or video
surveillance device, we are now offered Taxicab Confessions, Americas Funniest Home Videos, and the beleaguered casts of such television reality shows as Survivor and Big Brother as the televisual
spectacle of choice. But the terminal nature of the theatrical cinema experience is best exemplified by the opening of the Multiplex Theatre in Valley Stream, Long Island, where the patrons must
pass through metal detectors and body searches to get to their
assigned seats, and where the audience members are repeatedly
warned by a recorded tape played through the public address system that they are under surveillance at all times. The shared communality of the theatrical cinema experience is thus rendered an
obsolete social contract, as movies on video encourage us to stay
within the social sphere of our own homes. Cinema, as Jean-Luc
Godard predicted in Le Mpris, is dead. It remains only to bury
the corpse in an avalanche of ninety-five-million-dollar genre
thrillers, where even the most compliant and creative directors are
hard pressed to create an individual signature in the face of evertightening narratological requirements.
For cinema, once the most contemporary of the arts, has been
eclipsed by nascent technologies. The past can be profitably recycled, as Robert Daly of Warner Brothers comments: DVD, pay
per view, video on demandthese are the critical areas of the
movie business over the next few years. And the good thing about
DVD is its going to bring in revenues in the area that doesnt push
up costs: the library. And Herman Allen, head of the investment
banking firm of Allen and Company, offers an even grimmer prog-

3
Introduction

4
Introduction

nosis: There has been an explosion of industries with a visual

orientation, with the computer and the Internet, and for the moment, these are far more interesting[;] . . . the Internet businesses
make everyone else look small, boring, and pale in comparison
(qtd. in Weinraub and Fabrikant 15).
These observations have a great deal of support from both theoreticians and practitioners within the world of contemporary cinema and video. Certainly the independent cinema (whatever this
term might mean) is locked into a period of serious retrenchment.
Although the mainstream cinema continues to proliferate, and
blockbuster films capture huge theatrical audiences, the cinema
itself is going through a period of radical change at the end of its
first century, coexisting with CD-ROM interactive movies, videocassette and laser-disc distribution, cable television, satellite
television, video games, and a host of competing sound and/or
image constructs. The exponentially rising cost of film production
(not to mention distribution and publicity) helps to ensure the
hegemony of the dominant industrial vision in the middle-American marketplace, and the super conglomeration of existing production, distribution, and exhibition entities further ensures the
primacy of the readily marketable, presold film, as opposed to a
more quirky, individualistic vision.
Theatrical distribution, the mainstay of motion picture distribution for more than a century, is obsolete. Target audiences are
increasingly younger, and these viewers perceive the experience
of seeing a film primarily as an escape from the mundanity of their
prepackaged communal existence, as witness the popularity of
such lowest-common-denominator films as The Nutty Professor II:
The Klumps (2000), Scary Movie (2000), The Flintstones in Viva Rock
Vegas! (2000), and others too numerous to mention. European
films are no longer distributed in the United States; they are remade in Hollywood, in English, with American stars, and then
distributed overseas in this revisionist format. The few foreign
films that attain moderately wide U.S. release are lavish costume
spectacles. In the twenty-first century, it is apparent that audiences
go to the movies not to think, not to be challenged, but rather to
be tranquilized and coddled. Sequels are safe bets for exploitation,
provided that the original film performs well at the box office; it
is for this reason alone that nearly every mainstream film today
is designed with an open ending, allowing the film to be fran-

chised if the parent of the series captures the publics fancy. Television has become a wilderness of talk shows and infomercials,
with time so precious that even the end credits of series episodes
are shown on a split screen with teasers from the upcoming program to dissuade viewers from channel surfing, which is nevertheless rampant. To satisfy us, contemporary spectacle must engulf
us, threaten us, sweep us up from the first. The plots of most
interactive games are simplekill or be killedand yet these
games achieve (at home and in the arcade) a wide currency among
viewers bored by the lack of verisimilitude offered by the conventional cinema. Laura Mulvey asserted that the Hollywood studiosystem film
is really a thing of the pastI mean, its like studying the Renaissance. But at the same time I think perhaps, like the Renaissance,
its something that doesnt go away and still stays a source of imagery and myths and motifs . . . although we could say that the
studio system is dead and buried, and that Hollywood cinema,
however very powerful it is today, works from very different economic and production structures, at the same time, our culture
MTV images, advertising images, or to take a big obvious example,
Madonnaall recycle the images of the old Hollywood cinema, all
of which have become points of reference, almost as though theyve
become myths in their own right, which are then taken over, absorbed, and recycled every day in the different media. (qtd. in
Surez and Manglis 7)
And yet, it seems to me, an equally strong case can be made for
precisely the opposite contentionthat the cinema is not dead but
rather reconfiguring itself, emerging from the chrysalis of variant
digital technologies to reassert itself as the dominant form of image manipulation and discourse, no matter what delivery system
these images may ultimately be led to adopt. Nor is Mulvey alone
in this view; Michael Atkinson, in his 1995 essay The Eternal
Return, argued that, although we now have unprecedented access
to a full century of cinema . . . on video, on cable, [and] in revival
houses, the serious revivalism of cinema is imperiled by the
closing of theaters that cannot compete with the inroads of Blockbuster Video into mainstream American consciousness (4). Further, as Elliott Stein notes, when films are screened theatrically,
even in a major metropolitan center, such as New York, print qual-

5
Introduction

6
Introduction

ity is so variable as to vitiate the film-going experience, offering

patrons one day, a great mint print of a classic; the next day, a beat
up 16mm print, fit for junking (5). Even commercial houses specializing in foreign action imports from Hong Kong in New Yorks
Chinatown are closing due to the impact of nearly instantaneous
(and often illegal) videotape competition (see Wice 14). What can
we offer to counterbalance this grim view of the collapse of the
classical cinema?
We must begin by embracing the future of cinema/video representation and reproduction rather than by seeking to ignore or
avoid it. As with sound-on-film, color, CinemaScope, television,
as well as digital imaging, we should welcome these changes in the
medium we share as scholars, viewers, and practitioners. As an
example of the embrace of the future, Bert Deiverts essay in Cinema Journal on film research on the Internet details a variety of
visual and/or textual research materials readily available through
the net and the World Wide Web (see Deivert 10324). Anna
Everett, in Screening Noir, notes that, to secure our collective future
within the world of cyberspace, we must become programmers,
software developers, and whatever else it takes[;] . . . a whole new
lexicon has emerged (10) in the study of cinema through computer-aided access. And videocassettes and laser discs give us as
scholars, researchers, or casual viewers wider and cheaper access
to cinema/video moving-image constructs, both old and new, than
ever before.
In failing to come to terms with the future of image creation and
reproduction, Henry Jenkins of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology declares, We are paying a tremendous price for our
intellectual and aesthetic conservatism[;] . . . there is enough work
[in the new media environment] to keep us all investigating and
theorizing . . . for decades to come (qtd. in Heller A17). Hollywood
has jumped on the web bandwagon eagerly: nearly every film now
released has a web site of its own, displaying the trailer and other
promotional materials for each new release. Downloading video
onto the web is easy, as is recording these short films onto videotape. The web may indeed be the place where the experimental cinema will be reinvented, as it is cost effective, pervasive, and readily
accessible. Already, short films are making a comeback, and various festivals, in theaters around the country and on the web, have
sprung up to showcase these new works. Downloading films to a

computer hard drive is now relatively quick and efficient, and new
downloading formats appear almost daily. The American Film Institute has even put up a full-screen, full-time online film theater,
which routinely screens classic films, uncut, over the Internet on
a regular basis, with programs changing weekly. Undoubtedly, the
ease with which we can access full-screen moving images on the web
will increase; it will probably be only a few years before even commercial feature films will routinely be distributed in this manner.
The furor over the music search engine Napster points the way to a
similar click and share network of cyberfilm collectors, who will
swap movies over the web the same way Britney Spears and N Sync
audio tracks are now passed from one user to the next. Courts have
ruled against Napster, but the technology is clearly out of the bottle. The existing regime will have to learn to do business with these
new distribution methods, just as they had to accommodate sampling of pop songs (once an outlaw act, now a daily occurrence).
At the same time, despite claims to the contrary, theatrical
niche features are a growth industry, for a variety of reasons.
When Arnold Rifkin took over as head of the William Morris
Agencys motion picture division . . . he set up a special division
. . . to stitch together the sort of movie projects that top Hollywood
agencies traditionally disdain (Bart 89), developing films such as
Quentin Tarantinos Pulp Fiction, David Twohys Shockwave, Desmond Nakanos White Mans Burden, and Kevin Spaceys Albino
Alligator. One of Rifkins top lieutenants, Rick Hess, noted that,
despite what anyone may tell you, theres a voracious appetite for
niche product out there (qtd. in Bart 94). As testing grounds for
newer talent, or as zones of rejuvenation for actors or directors
who have had a few box-office failures (Bruce Willis sought out
small but flashy roles in a variety of niche films after the failure
of Hudson Hawk at Rifkins suggestion), these modest and compact
films are one manifestation of the future of cinema. More women
are making films today than at any time since the silent era, with
such directors as Julie Dash, Kathryn Bigelow, Jane Campion, Amy
Heckerling, Patricia Roszema, Mira Nair, Chantal Akerman, Marta
Mszros, Allison Anders, and many others making feature films
on both modest and grandiose budgets. Gregg Araki, Hal Hartley,
Abel Ferrara, and Jim Jarmusch create low-budget films with regularity and rapidity, ensuring their careers while simultaneously
operating at the margins of commercial cinematic discourse.

7
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8
Introduction

CD-ROMs, a new technology only a few years ago, have already

been supplanted in the marketplace by DVDs, which in turn have
seriously threatened the inferior VHS format, which uses analog
rather than digital technology to capture images. Confined in the
past to interactive shoot and kill games, both mediums may be
moving into the zone of true narrative signification, as such wellknown actors as Margot Kidder, Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd,
Donald Sutherland, and Christopher Walken venture into the evermore plot-driven, yet still exceedingly low cost projects. In the
current marketplace, the use of computer-generated imagery is
becoming so prevalent and cost-effective that sets, costumes, locations, and even supporting players can be conjured up with a
whisk of the electronic paint box (see Dixon, Digital 5566). All
of these new technologies raise serious questions in their use and/
or reception by practitioner-viewers, but these areas are precisely
what we should explore in the coming years. The new territorial
domain of the interactive cybervisual construct is one of the most
vital fields of contemporary cinema-videomoving-image research. Certainly, for the current generation, video games seem far
more involving than the traditionally passive spectacle afforded by
conventional cinema. But this is just one harbinger of the future.
Editing of film is no longer done on film itself; that vanished
in the 1970s. For ease, for cost, for its multiple capabilities, the
AVID system, among others, has become the new standard for film
editing. Indeed, many new films, such as Thomas Vinterbergs
brilliant film Celebration and Bennett Millers Cruise (both 1998),
are being shot entirely on digital video and then blown up to 35mm
for theatrical distribution. Soon 35mm projection may well become obsolete, leading to an entirely new digital-video era of image production and exhibition, almost precisely one hundred years
after the birth of cinema. In the early years of the twenty-first
century, we will finally do away with film altogether, replacing it
with a high-definition image laser-projected onto a conventional
theater screen, and audiences will overwhelmingly accept this
transformation without comment. The cinematograph, after all,
is essentially an extension of the magic-lantern apparatuslight
thrown on a screenand it had dominion over the entire twentieth century.
Now, in the new millennium, different systems of image storage, retrieval, and distribution, including computer-chip memory

data files and satellite downloads, will replace film as surely as

magnetic tape replaced optical soundtracks as a vehicle of cinema
production. We will witness a silent revolution of images, in which
the digital creations of a new breed of directors will be as real
and substantial to us as James Cagney, Greta Garbo, Clark Gable,
Cary Grant, and Bette Davis were to twentieth-century audiences
and archivists. This, indeed, is the holy grail of many industry
executives and computer-imaging technicians: the creation of an
entirely synthetic personality for the screen, whose image can
be entirely controlled by the needs of corporate desire.
As one indicator of how far technology has progressed in its
search for an alternative synthetic reality, a new film, Final Fantasy
(2001), provides come clues. Utilizing the voices of Donald Sutherland, James Woods, Alec Baldwin, Ving Rhames, and Ming-Na,
Final Fantasy, budgeted at seventy million dollars, boasts a completely computer generated cast of characters in a film based on a
series of PlayStation games. Produced by Columbia Pictures, the
film was virtually created in an office building in Honolulu, where
hundreds of computer technicians labored for years to bring to the
finished product a disturbing air of humanoid reality. The director of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi, notes that weve created
characters that no longer feel blatantly computer generated. If we
press on, we can achieve the reality level of a live-action film . . .
its something people have never seen before (qtd. in Taylor 56).
Columbia is interested in Final Fantasy not only as an experiment
but also as a harbinger of things to come. If Final Fantasy works,
an entire wave of films can be produced with computer-generated
stars who wont go on strike, cant demand pay raises, and dont
have script approval. Such complete corporate control of movingimage production may well prove irresistible to the multinational
visual conglomerates of the twenty-first century; if such a shift
does occur, it will fundamentally alter the way we think of a film
and of those who create it. No more actors, no more sets, just an
endless series of computer stations, with anonymous technicians
plotting points in the dark.
Since nearly all films are now subjected to a digital cleanup
process on their route to final distribution, a process in which the
original photographic images are transformed into a series of dots
and pixels, manipulated in a variety of methods, and then retransferred onto 35mm film, the total digitization of the moving image

9
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10
Introduction

cannot be too far off, nor will it be an apocalyptic event that utterly changes the face of image storage and reproduction in a noticeable fashion. Rather, as video imaging increases in ease, portability, and image quality, the already blurred line between cinema
and video will vanish altogether, just as digital compositing has
replaced traditional mattes in motion picture special effects. With
more films, videos, television programs, and Internet films being
produced now than ever before, and with international image
boundaries crumbling thanks to the pervasive influence of the
World Wide Web (a technology still in its infancy), we will see in
the coming years an explosion of voices from around the globe in
a new and more democratic process that offers a voice to even
the most marginalized factions of society. Indeed, a host of web
sites already exist for independent and experimental filmmakers today.
A rash of corporate media mergers, particularly the America
OnlineTime Warner merger, demonstrate that the boundary line
between conventional television and web-interactive television is
fast disappearing. Along with a shift in the delivery systems of
home-based viewing, conventional theatrical screening methods
are changing as well. As critic James Sterngold noted in 1999,
Within two years, movie theaters are expected to begin installing
the first generation of digital projectors. And reels of 35-millimeter filmwhich are several feet in diameter and very heavy
would, at long last, disappear, to be replaced with electronic projectors that use magnetic tape or discs. (C1)
Indeed, this has already happened in New York City and other
areas, most recently with the midtown Manhattan screening of the
film Bounce (2001), which was specifically arranged so that film
executives could announce the incipient demise of the 35mm-film
format. Using the new light-valve projection system, Texas Instruments and JVC have both created new machines that use highdefinition digital-video projection to throw the image onto the
theater screen, and exhibitors, as a group, are enthusiastically
awaiting the change. Said the president of one large chain of multiplex theaters, We cant wait for the day were unshackled from
the 35-millimeter prints (qtd. in Sterngold C2).
The advantages for studios and distribution companies are also
obvious. No more shipping of prints; no more theft of prints. With

the use of satellite technology, the movie to be screened can be

directly downloaded from a satellite and stored in computer
memory at the theater, ready to be screened as needed, without
the rips, tears, or scratches found in a conventional 35mm print.
Electronic encryption of satellite signals will make piracy all but
impossible. One method, as described by Robert Lehmer, uses a
128 bit algorithm, which changes every 1/3 of a second. It would
take a super computer six months and between $4 to $6 million
to break the code (qtd. in Willis 15). So for reasons of cost, security, and ostensibly image quality, it seems that digital projection
as a way of life in theaters will soon be upon us.
Filmmakers too are enthusiastically embracing the quality of
the new light-valve projection image. Notes Martin Cohen, the
director of postproduction at Dreamworks SKG, I went into one
demonstration where the only way I could tell the difference between the film and the electronic version was that the film one had
that jittery movement and the electronic one didnt (qtd. in
Sterngold C2). Heralding this new development in digital cinema,
George Lucas opened his film Star Wars: Episode OneThe Phantom Menace in four theaters on 18 June 1999 in an entirely digital
format. Although at the time there were still some technical bugs
to be ironed out, Lucasfilm went ahead with their all-digital presentation plans because they felt that the shift from film to digital projection was right around the corner. Not surprising, Lucas
and his compatriots wanted to be first in line. Its show time!
exclaimed Rick McCallum, who served as coproducer on The
Phantom Menace. The quality is going to get better, but were
doing it now because, as George says, Why not push it now? Its
inevitable anyway (qtd. in Mathews 2).
The aesthetic and commercial stakes in this experiment are
considerable, inasmuch as the studios and their distribution arms
stand to save $1.2 billion each year by embracing digital distribution, which will effectively do away with striking 35mm-film prints
for exhibition and shipping them to the thirty-four thousand
movie theaters in the United States, to say nothing of the global
total of ninety thousand cinema screens worldwide (see Mathews
2). The whole industry is going to be keying on what happens at
those four theaters, notes Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, Inc., a firm that tracks new technological developments within the motion picture industry. Digital is a technol-

11
Introduction

12
Introduction

ogy whose time has come, but how fast it happens is going to depend a lot on what people see (qtd. in Mathews 2).
Lucas presented his own demonstration of the new digital process at the 1999 ShoWest Convention in Las Vegas, in which 35mm
film and digital projection of the same image were shown side by
side to offer a direct comparison between the two mediums. As
Michael Fleeman noted, the demonstration
revealed digital movie quality is now as goodand in some respects betterthan film, with a cleaner, sharper image that wont
show wear and tear with repeated showings. The only problem
with digital [projection] appeared to be color, with white tones
taking on a yellow tint, the blues becoming purplish, and skin tones
giving actresses in the demonstration an artificial almost mannequin-like complexion. (50)
Nevertheless, most audience members were favorably disposed
toward the idea. I was very impressed with the quality, said one
owner of a theater in a large chain. Its almost to the point that
its ready (qtd. in Fleeman 50).
Said Lucas, Im very dedicated and very enthusiastic about the
digital cinema, as he stressed the quality, the savings in cost, and
the ability to do things that just arent possible today with dully
digitized video projection (qtd. in Fleeman 50). Using the Texas
Instruments digital projector, which creates a screen image by
bouncing light off 1.3 million microscopic mirrors squeezed onto
a square-inch chip (Fleeman 50), Lucass four-theater presentation of The Phantom Menace in fully digital format serves as the
forerunner of Lucass plans to photograph and produce the next
two Star Wars films entirely with digital imaging, entirely eliminating conventional 35mm film as part of the production, postproduction, and distribution process.
As Paul Breedlove, director of digital-imaging systems at Texas
Instruments comments,
At this point, its not a technical issue. The technology is ready.
The industry just has to make its business arrangements and
figure out how it will be put together[;] . . . theres a much
smaller group of players within the movie industry that can
make a decision and go forward. Lucas, Spielberg . . . people
like that are going to decide the issue just by doing it. (qtd. in
Mathews 2)

William Kartozian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, echoed Breedloves sentiments. I wasnt sure how
inevitable [digital] was until Lucas spoke up at ShoWest. Now . . .
its just a matter of how we make the changeover, and who pays
for it (qtd. in Mathews 2). Adds Breedlove, Its the last frontier.
Theyve fixed everything else . . . seating, sound, comfort. The only
thing that hasnt changed in the last 100 years is how you project
the movies (qtd. in Mathews 2).
This trend toward digital projection has accelerated. Such films
as The Mummy (1999) have been digitally screened in a number
of theaters in Los Angeles and New York, and Robert Lehmer of
Cinecomm Digital Cinema, the company responsible for the Star
Wars trial run, feels that digital-projection technology should
start rolling into theaters in 12 to 24 months (Willis 14). To further
test digital projection, the distribution firm Miramax arranged a
digital screening of the 35mm-originated An Ideal Husband (1999)
to gauge audience response to the new technology. According to
Mark Gill of Miramaxs Los Angeles office, the exit cards revealed
that 91 percent of the audience thought that digital was as good
as or better than film. And this was a reliefeveryone walks in a
skeptic, never believing that video can be as good as film, but for
the first time were finding out thats not necessarily true (qtd.
in Willis 15). Miramax picked An Ideal Husband precisely because
the film was very much the antithesis of a digital film, as Gill
put it, to demonstrate the range and validity of this kind of technology (15).
While each new digital projector will cost at least one hundred
thousand dollars per theater to install, versus thirty thousand
dollars for a standard 35mm platter projector (see Fleeman 50),
theater owners will probably split the cost of the installation with
a consortium of the major distributors inasmuch as all sides will
benefit, at least economically, from the changeover. Indeed, Lehmer confirms this scenario, noting that our plan has us paying for
the installation and retrofitting of cinemas [with the new digital
equipment]. In fact, our business model is similar to that of Western Electrics business modelwhen theaters made the shift to
sound in the 1930s, Western Electric paid for it, and I think thats
the only way it will happen (qtd. in Willis 15).
Here we have a slightly different situation in that the demand
for the switch to digital seems to be dictated more by economic

13
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14
Introduction

concerns than by any other factor and by a handful of technologically entranced mainstream filmmakers who nevertheless control
a significant portion of the domestic and international box office.
But aesthetic concernsmatters of film grain, contrast, the entire
magic-lantern process of throwing light though colored plastic onto
a screenwill fade and dwindle in the public consciousness, almost
as if they had never existed. The new model of digital distribution,
as described by Lehmer, proceeds in the following manner:
At the distributor, a movie [is] encrypted and compressed, and
that data file is given to us. We take it to our hub where we
then up-link the signal and then transmit it to a satellite
we think the most economic method is satellite, but there are
other options. The distributor tells us what theaters are authorized to receive that signal, and the signal is addressed to
each authorized theater. The signal is then received at the theater via a small satellite dish, and it is stored on-site in our
theater management system. At that point the theater takes
over, and when its time for a screening, the signal goes to a projector where it is decompressed and de-encrypted. (qtd. in
Willis 15)
Film itself will be confined to the era of the twentieth century;
in addition, motion pictures shot and mastered on 35mm or 16mm
film will now be relegated to the revival house and museum as curiosities from a bygone age. Indeed, in the twenty-first century, when
we speak of film studies, we may well be referring to a uniquely
twentieth century art form, when moving images were actually
captured on photographic stock. Digital is taking over. Sony Pictures has already produced an entirely digital feature by Mike Figgis,
whose film Leaving Las Vegas (1995) was shot on Super 16mm. Entitled Time Code, Figgiss digital film was shot in a mere nine days
and starred Holly Hunter, Kyle MacLachlan, Salma Hayek, and
Jeanne Tripplehorn in a completely improvised comedy lampooning (appropriately enough) the traditional Hollywood filmmaking
system. The film opened in traditional theaters in the summer of
2000, transferred to 35mm for general distribution, and garnered
respectable reviews and good box-office receipts. In the future, such
a film will not need the 35mm transfer; the video image alone
would be sufficient. And Bernard Rose, director of Immortal Beloved (1994), a somewhat over-the-top film starring Gary Oldman

as Ludwig van Beethoven, has completed a new fully digital feature ivansxtc (2000), which Rose is publicizing on his own web site,
at www.filmisdead.com. The advantages are so many, notes
Rose. They start multiplying exponentially when you start with
the big one: you dont need to light it (qtd. in Ansen 63).
As David Ansen notes, this means no electricians, grips, makeup department, generators. Digital is going to mean speedy productions, small crews, and low budgets. And the small cameras are
so inconspicuous, filmmakers can shoot on the street without a location permit (63). Actor-director Ethan Hawke is yet another
digital convert: Hawke has finished production on The Last Word
on Paradise (2000), an entirely digital film shot on location at the
Chelsea Hotel in New York. Hawke feels that digital cinema will
raise the talent bar of filmmaking. Itll make filmmaking more like
painting or the novel, in which case you need to be immensely
more talented to do it. This is going to let the future James Joyces
work in this medium (see Ansen 61, 6364).
But while digital imaging makes films easier and cheaper to
produce, the late-century demand for spectacle (which will certainly continue for some time) ensures that only those films produced by the dominant cinema will reach a truly international audience, in stark contrast to the situation that prevailed only forty
years ago, when a resolutely noncommercial film, such as Michelangelo Antonionis LAvventura, could still be certain of a theatrical release, if only because theatrical presentation was the only
method by which producers could recoup their costs or distribute the film at all on an international scale.
Then, too, the era of the low-budget film, in which Roger Cormans five-day epics could compete on the same commercial basis with more costly major studio product, is also a thing of the
past; commercial filmmaking at the turn of the twenty-first century relies on excess and spectacle above all other considerations,
and what is left is relegated to the realm of television sitcoms or
equally formulaic mainstream films. Smaller art films will continue to proliferate in the major citiesNew York, Paris, and Londonbut their hold on the provinces has evaporated. Even with
the ease and low cost of the digital age of production, distribution
is still the most important, if not the deciding, factor in who will
see precisely what films, and where, and how. As Carl Rosendahl
of Pacific Digital Imaging comments,

15
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16
Introduction

For independent filmmakers, the fact remains that if you want

your film in broad distribution, you still have to partner with a
studio. You can make a great film but you cant get it into 3,000
theaters without being able to back the film with millions of dollars of advertising. Most filmmakers cant do that, so they need the
studios. (qtd. in Willis 16)
As an example of this, Stefan Avalos and Lance Weilers Last
Broadcast, a digital feature film produced for only nine hundred
dollarsfor both production and postproductiondespite glowing reviews and a satellite-downloaded electronic presentation at
Cannes in 1999, failed to find mainstream distribution and thus
had minimal impact. However, the similarly themed Blair Witch
Project, directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Snchez, was
picked up by Artisan Releasing and went on to gross more than one
hundred million dollars in domestic rentals alone, simply because
the filmmakers had better access to distribution channels and
perhaps greater negotiating ability. Many who have seen both
films feel that The Last Broadcast is in every way superior to The
Blair Witch Project, but outside of festival screenings (Rotterdam,
Cannes), most people will never get the chance to make the comparison. In short, access to a major distributor is still the deciding factor in the success or failure of a film, no matter what its
production values or reviews.
Yet one can also argue that the moving image, while still controlled as a commercial medium by a few conglomerate organizations, has become with the use of inexpensive camcorders and the
like a truly democratic medium. It is impossible to hold back the
flood of images created by these new technologies, and in the coming century, these images will both inform and enlighten our social discourse. The surveillance cameras now used in New York
nightclubs to provide low-cost entertainment for web browsers can
only proliferate; there is no escape from the domain of images that
shape and transform our lives. While the big-screen spectacle will
continue to flourish, a plethora of new image constructs now compete for our attention, often with a significant measure of success.
The monopoly of the television networks is a thing of the past;
who is to say that theatrical distribution as we know it will not also
collapse, to be replaced by a different sort of experience altogether? IMAX films and other large-format image storage and

retrieval systems mimic reality, but in the future, holographic laser displays, in which seemingly three dimensional characters hold
forth from a phantom staging area, may well become the preferred
medium of presentation, signaling a return to the proscenium arch
but, in this case, a staging space with infinite possibilities for transformation. Powered by high-intensity lasers, this technology could
present performances by artists who would no longer physically
have to tour to present their faces and voices to the public.
The future of the moving image is both infinite and paradoxical, moving us farther and farther from our corporeal reality, even
as it becomes evermore tangible and seductive. The films, videotapes, and production systems discussed here represent only a
small fraction of contemporary moving-image practice, but they
point to the direction of work that will be accomplished in the next
century. Far from dying, the cinema is constantly being reborn, in
new configurations, capture systems, and modes of display. While
the need to be entertained, enlightened, and/or lulled into momentary escape will always remain a human constant, the cinema
as we know it today will continue to undergo unceasing growth
and change. Always the same yet constantly revising itself, the
moving image in the twenty-first century promises to fulfill our
most deeply held dreams while simultaneously submitting us to
a zone of hypersurveillance that will make monitoring devices of
the present-day seem naive and remote. Yet no matter what new
genres may arise as a result of these new technologies, and no
matter what audiences the moving images of the next century
address, we will continue to be enthralled by the mesmeric embrace of the phantom zone of absent signification, in which the
copy increasingly approaches the verisimilitude of the original.
Although Hollywood will seek to retain its dominance over the
global presentation of fictive entertainment constructs, a new vision of international access, a democracy of images, will finally
inform the future structure of the moving image in the twenty-first
century. Many of the stories told will remain familiar; genres are
most comfortable when they are repeated with minor variations.
But as the production and exhibition of the moving image moves
resolutely into the digital age, audiences will have even greater
access to a plethora of visual constructs from every corner of the
earth. We are now in the digital age where we were one hundred
years ago in the era of the cinematograph: at the beginning. The

17
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18
Introduction

cinema is not ending; rather, it is engaging in a process of continual

renewal and transformation, which will lead it beyond the realms
of theatrical projection and/or home video into an entirely new
arena of image construction, storage, and retrieval. We are in the
age of the moving image, no matter what delivery system is used
to disseminate the finished products of our collective imagination.
While nothing can replace the sweep and intensity of theatrical
projection (whether 35mm, 70mm, or IMAX), we must recognize
that this mode of reception is only one of many possible ways to
capture, analyze, and disseminate the image that moves, the images that move before our eyes like waking dreams. The future of
cinema incorporates all known distribution methods and extends
beyond it into the net, the web, and other methods/mediums at
which we can now only hazard a guess.
We are certainly the custodians of the past of cinema, but we are
also the heralds of the future of the moving image, whether on film
or video, or on a chip or digital CD. The new technologies we are
seeing now will only increase their hold on the publics consciousness in the decades to come, and in the end, I think, the practice and
reception of cinema will become more democratic because of it. The
past of the moving image belonged to the few; the future, it seems,
will belong to almost everyone with a camcorder or a computer with
access to the web. With distribution on the web and the use of concomitant delivery systems, more people than ever before will have
a platform from which to present their vision of the world. I do not
argue that this will create a utopia, nor do I claim that what is
coming will be as comfortable and as reassuring as the stories the
moving image has brought us in the past. But the end of the classical cinema, when, as Andrew Sarris put it, films were constructed
like Gothic cathedrals, brings with it the dawn of the individual
as image maker. If only the distribution mechanism afforded by
the web can be equitably maintained (and this is a difficult question), we can look forward to a turbulent yet transcendent future,
in which television viewing drops as computer use rises, people
interact with each other more on a global scale, and the dissemination and transmission of images moves beyond all known
boundaries into the unknowable zone of the world as the simultaneous creator, and consumer, of the future of the moving image.
Making movies, as director-cinematographer Freddie Francis
observed in my interview with him, is hard work but good work. I

hope to have captured in this brief volume the authentic voice of

a dedicated group of working professionals who helped to shape
the landscape of twentieth-century cinema in a variety of ways,
from straightforward commercial filmmaking to much more personal cinematic projects. When we sit back and watch a completed
film in the theater in a matter of hours, we often have little notion
of or inclination to dwell upon the numerous difficulties and joys
attendant in making movies, whether live action or, as is the case
with two of my interviewees, animated cartoons.
There can also be no question that the entire face of moviemaking is changing; with the increasing use of digital effects and
digital origination techniques, film itself will soon be a memory,
replaced by high-powered video projection in which the image is
beamed down to a waiting video projector via satellite, thus obviating the need for any film at all. The cinema is, after all, essentially a nineteenth-century technology, although it has been streamlined to glossy perfection as we cross over into the twenty-first
century. It is thus fitting, it seems to me, to honor the example and
the history of some of the most interesting and prolific artists that
the medium has given us thus far and to collect their voices within
the confines of one volume.
What comes next is anyones guess; many observers have flatly
stated that they feel that, within the next ten to fifteen years, entirely digital characters will populate the commercial cinema, digital characters created out of light and pixels to do the collective
bidding of the studios and distributors. The age of individuality
and character may be behind us in the cinema; what better time
to celebrate the accomplishments of those who made it what it
originally was, the repository of our collective humanist dreams?
While newer, more technically complex films will certainly continue to attract contemporary audiences eager for spectacle, those
who created the films of the second half of the twentieth century
hold a persistent and compelling claim on our memory, and it is
their independent spirit and tenacity, as well as their combined
visions, that we celebrate here.
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23
Introduction

Gerard Working in Warhols Factory

Malanga

24
Working in
Warhols
Factory

While many film historians are aware that Andy Warhol had a
substantial career as a filmmaker in New York in the 1960s, the
details of Warhols working methods during this period have seldom been discussed. Later Warhol films (such as Trash and
Flesh), actually directed by Paul Morrissey, have obscured Warhols
own achievement as a filmmaker. Warhols film style was an individual and highly idiosyncratic affair, but at his best, he created
films of real intellectual interest, quickly and cheaply, using whatever materials came readily to hand. In the 1960s, I was part of the
New York underground film scene and struck up a number of
friendships, among them a lasting relationship with Warhols
right-hand man, Gerard Malanga, during Warhols most prolific
and influential period. Many years later, in the spring of 1991,
Gerard and I discussed this turbulent period in American art and
Gerards impact on Warhols work during the early 1960s.
Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and attended the
Carnegie Institute of Technology for training in commercial art.
Moving to New York City in the 1950s, he began a long period of
work as a commercial artist and steadily rose in prominence and
influence in the Manhattan commercial art world. Finally, however, Warhol had been a commercial artist long enough. The window displays, advertisements, and jobs illustrating cookbooks had
all been extremely lucrative, but Andy longed for a different kind
of fame. He saw others around him, particularly Jasper Johns and
Roy Lichtenstein, appropriating found imagerynewspaper
ads, comics, and stock photographsand incorporating these
images into their paintings.
Johns and Lichtenstein had the right galleries behind them to
make it work. It all seemed so easy, and Andy was jealous. He realized that if he didnt jump on the pop bandwagon now, hed
be left behind. Warhol thus began fooling around with comic-strip
assemblages, in which he would simply cut panels out of comic
strips, paste them onto canvas or paper, and add some paint to
highlight certain portions of the strip. This practice gave way to
the S&H Green Stamp series of paintings, for which Andy would not

only paint each stamp individually but use rubber stamps to create a multiple-image effect.
He soon tired of this approach, however. It was too much work.
As always, Andy relied on others to come up with the solutions for
his problems and, as usual, he was not disappointed. Robert
Rauschenberg showed Andy how to use a photo silkscreen, directly transferring a photograph to canvas with a single stroke, to
create much the same effect. Immediately, Andy had silkscreens
made up of many of the images he had been most interested in,
and he began turning out paintings by the dozen at home. He still
had no studio to work in. Gerard Malanga recalled that
on visiting Bob Rauschenbergs studio sometime in 1962, Warhol was both fascinated and intrigued by the silkscreens that he
saw being applied to the canvases and that he soon afterward
ordered screens of his own to emulate Bob Rauschenbergs
technique.
Using silkscreens, which could create a finished painting in
a matter of seconds, Andy created his first major series of paintings starting in 1962, including the Campbells Soup Can series, the
Disaster series, and the Marilyn, Elvis, and Troy Donahue paintings.
He later used these same images over and over to create new
canvases to pay his rent and living expenses.
I remember we were like little kids when we first met Marcel
Duchamp out at Pasadena, whose retro coincided with Andys
L.A. exhibit of Liz and Elvis portraits. Duchamp was the
spiritual father and role model, suggesting ways to embrace the
mistakes that ultimately became the style of Andys paintings
and movies in the early to mid sixties.
The first paintings sold well but werent valued very highly. One
could buy a Warhol painting for a hundred dollars, less if you
purchased a group of paintings at once. Andy simply had to pay
for his living expenses, and during this period, he even gave away
his paintings to curry favor with influential art-world figures.
Sometimes, Andy would invite prospective buyers up to his house
to select a group of paintings for purchase. Which ones do you
like? Andy would ask. If you like one, Ill make more.
In June 1963, Andy met Malanga at a party hosted by Willard
Maas. Maas, a well-known experimental filmmaker who often

25
Gerard
Malanga

collaborated with his wife, Marie Menken, had offered Gerard a

place to live in New York, at their penthouse in Brooklyn Heights.

26
Working in
Warhols
Factory

I first met Andy at a party at Willard and Maries. However, it

wasnt until several months later that I met Andy again through
an introduction orchestrated by Charles Henri Ford. Andy let it
be known to Charles that he was in need of an assistant, and
Charles, aware that I had previous silkscreen experience, arranged to have us meet at a reception for a Sunday afternoon
poetry reading at the New School. In a matter of minutes, Andy
asked me to come to work for him. The pay was $1.25 an hour.
Somehow the work appealed to me. The money obviously was
not at issue, otherwise I would have moved on.
Gerards first day on the job took place at an old abandoned
firehouse on East Eighty-seventh Street, which was the prototype
of the first real Warhol Factory, or studio. Warhol rented the
entire building for $150 a year but could only use the top floor for
a studio. The rest of the building was practically falling down
around him.
I went to work for Andy in June of sixty-three. It was warm
weather, and so we got a lot of work done. But in the fall, when
we were still working there, and we were also in the process of
looking for a new loft, there was no heat in the building, or even
running water, and so we could only work there a few hours a
day because it got too cold. The building had electricity but that
was it. There was no heat. We set up a few lights to work with,
but it was completely primitive as a work space.
He had the whole building. No one else was on the other two
floors. But he used the top floor for his first studio. It was an
actual firehouse that the City of New York owned. Andy rented it
through some city agency for nothing. And then eventually we
had to vacate because someone bought the building at an
auction from the city.
Almost immediately, Andy began turning to Gerard and others
for ideas for his paintings. Although Warhol maintained a file of images early in his career, he soon gave this practice up and began
simply using whatever came in the door. Throughout his career, Warhol would rely on those around him to come up with the subject
matter for his work, sometimes even the exact image to be used.

Gerard was already proficient with the silkscreen process, and

even when he used too much ink or too little, Andy liked the end
result: It never comes out the way I expect, Andy told visitors.
Gerard accelerated Andys production assembly line, turning out
numerous paintings and sculptures every day.
In July 1963, Gerard Malanga and the poet Charles Henri Ford
took Warhol to buy his first 16mm camera, a Bolex. Andy, who
knew nothing about cameras, relied on Gerard to pick out a suitable machine. They went to Peerless Camera on Forty-seventh
Street, where Andy paid five hundred dollars for the camera,
which could hold only a one-hundred-foot spool of film at a time,
good for about three minutes running time on the screen.
Malanga advised Warhol to purchase for the camera an electric
motor, capable of powering through an entire roll of film in one
burst. As always, Andy wanted everything to be as simple as possible. The object in all his work was mass production with minimal
effort. Andy wanted everything to be Easyville, as if the work would
magically appear, almost by itself, without any help from him.
The whole reason for getting the Bolex with a motor drive in the
first place was so Andy could manage to work the equipment by
a mere flick of the switch: on-off, off-on.
In November 1963, Andy and Gerard moved into the most famous of the Warhol Factory studios, located in a loft at 231 East
Forty-seventh Street. There was only one way to get up to the Factory: an old freight elevator that took forever to get to the fourth
floor, where the studio was located.
All day long at the Factory, rock and roll and opera blasted out
of a cheap portable phonograph, as Andy, always the first to arrive and the last to leave, continued to crank out paintings, graphics, and sculptures at an incredible pace. Malanga assisted him in
turning out the silkscreen canvases that supported the Factorys
decidedly chaotic lifestyle. People drifted in and out at will. Andy
welcomed nearly everyone who came, putting them to work on
various projects, although Malanga always remained his principal collaborator.
The Factory was a turning point in American gay culture. The
whole situation became more lax, although no one really came
out. But within the subculture itself, everybody was completely

27
Gerard
Malanga

uninhibited. People like Ondine, Freddie Herko, or Frank OHara

were all quite obviously gay and didnt care who knew it. So
that was refreshing. The artistic milieu had always been heavily
dominated by homosexuals anyway, and this certainly filtered
down into the Factory scene.
28
Working in
Warhols
Factory

Under Warhols direction, Billy Name (Billy Linich) began covering everything in sight in the new Factorythe walls, the doors,
the ceiling, even the toiletwith silver paint and aluminum foil.
Andy was lionized by Hollywood and New York pop society, and
the Factory became action central, an endless party zone. There
was always time to dance to rock and roll or to invite a visiting
celebrity over for a screen test. Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Jane
Fonda, Troy Donahue, and other young pop celebrities of the period would drop in unannounced. Warhol filmed each new visitor with his Bolex. Malanga used clips from some of the screen
tests for his book of poetry, created in collaboration with Warhol,
Screen Tests: A Diary.
Film was cheap. A one-hundred-foot spool of black-and-white
film cost four dollars; processing was another six dollars. Color
film cost roughly twice that. Warhol bought film in bulk and simply shot anything that seemed of interest. I want to make bad
movies, he told everyone who would listen, and he became more
and more fascinated with the film medium.
Gerard and Andy became inseparable. Critic and filmmaker
Jonas Mekas got Warhol and Malanga involved with Filmmakers
Cinmathque (a theater), and the Filmmakers Cooperative (a
distributor of experimental films). Fascinated with the Hollywood
star system and assured by Mekas that his work would receive
both favorable reviews and instantaneous exhibition, Warhol began his major period of work as a filmmaker. For the time being,
the painting supported the film work, which showed no immediate sign of making a profit.
Andy started an aggressive campaign to reinvent the history
of the cinema, beginning with a series of one-hundred-foot 16mm
portraits of the famous and near famous, including Allen Ginsberg,
Donovan, Lou Reed, and Bob Dylan.
Barbara Rubin brought Bob Dylan to the Factory. She knew Bob
through her association with Allen Ginsberg. Barbara was a
great catalyst. She loved to bring people together to share ideas,

collaborate with each other, and so she thought that Bob should
meet Andy.
Andy was all excited; he thought, Maybe we can get Bob to
be in one of our movies. Dylan and Bob Neuwirth came to the
Factory, and Andy shot a screen test of him. Then Andy gave
Dylan a gift of one of his Elvis Presley paintings. At one point, I
gave the Bolex camera to Barbara, and she shot one hundred
feet of color film of Bob and I together, which I still have.
Sleep was followed by a number of Warhol films composed of
one-hundred-foot reels strung together, including The Thirteen
Most Beautiful Boys, Kiss (originally presented as a serial), Eat, and
others. The first Factory superstars appeared: Ondine, Baby Jane
Holzer, Brigid Berlin, and Gerard Malanga, who stepped into Kiss
as a substitute player at the last minute, when a scheduled actor
failed to show.
However, the Bolex camera was a problem. It was simply too
small and didnt hold enough film. It also couldnt record dialogue
during the shooting, and Andy was becoming more interested in
doing staged movies. After shooting his eight-hour homage to
the Empire State Building, Empire, in 1964 with a rented Auricon
camera, Warhol was struck with the ease of using the machine.
The Auricon could shoot thirty-five minutes of film in a single
take. The sound was recorded directly on the film, eliminating the
need for editing, titles, or postproduction. The sound quality was
terrible, but Andy didnt care. It was fast, cheap, and above all, easy
to use.
Warhol decided to buy an Auricon, and once again, Gerard went
around to the various rental houses with Andy, looking for a used
model for a reasonable price. They finally found a machine at F&B
Ceco on Forty-third Street for twelve hundred dollars, and Andy
was truly launched as an independent feature filmmaker.
Almost immediately, Andy began turning out an enormous
number of feature films. The average cost of a Warhol production
was two hundred dollars for a seventy-minute black-and-white
film. No one was paid. Both Paul America, the star of My Hustler,
and Ron Tavel, Warhols screenwriter, would later sue the artist
for some payment on these early films.
Andy shot a feature film roughly every ten days from 1964
through 1966. The first sound film we made was Harlot [1964].

29
Gerard
Malanga

After that, we didnt make a film for about a month. Then we

started making them on a regular schedule, as fast as Ronnie
could write scripts. Sometimes, there was no script, as in Poor
Little Rich Girl [1965] or Suicide [1965].
30
Working in
Warhols
Factory

Other Warhol films during this period included Camp (1965),

which Warhol gleefully publicized as my first film to use bad
camerawork, zooming, panning, and acting. Best described as a
broken-down variety show, Camp features performances by Jack
Smith and transvestite Mario Montez, as well as Malanga as master of ceremonies. The Life of Juanita Castro starred Marie Menken
as Juanita and consisted of a long series of monologues, in which,
according to Warhols press release, Juanita criticizes her brothers
regime, and condemns the infiltration of homosexuality into their
lives. All of these films were shot rapidly and cheaply. Since Andy
released practically everything he shot, he was never at a loss for
willing participants to appear in his films.
One of the most famous of Warhols films during this period
is his production of Vinyl, written by Ron Tavel. Vinyl was Warhols
adaptation of Anthony Burgesss novel A Clockwork Orange after
Warhol purchased the film rights from Burgess for the nominal sum
of three thousand dollars. The film was originally titled Leather,
but Warhol changed it at the last minute because Vinyl is more
plastic. Malanga played the lead role of a juvenile delinquent who
goes through forced reconditioning after a crime spree; Tavel
named Malangas character Victor, the Victor. The other actors
were cast very quickly from the usual crew of Factory regulars.
The script was given to me by Ronnie [Tavel] about a week
before the shooting. I was so bad at memorizing lines that I
literally had the script by my side during the filming. During the
shoot, the script got thrown on the floor, and a glass of water
spilled on it. At that point, utter chaos broke out because there
were parts of the script I hadnt memorized. The film became
totally improvised after that point. My lifestyle was so busy, so
intense during this periodgoing to parties, openings, whateverthat there was literally no time to rehearse. I was kidding
myself. There simply wasnt time to prepare for the role.
At the last minute, Edie Sedgwick, who had just arrived at the
Factory a few days before, was put in the film as an extra. Edie sits
on a steamer trunk to the left of the frame, idly smoking a ciga-

rette. John McDermott appears as the Cop who busts Victor after
a brief crime spree. The Doctor who reforms Victor was played
by Tosh Carillo. Rounding out the cast, Bob Olivo (Ondine), later
famous for his portrayal of the Pope in The Chelsea Girls (1966),
appeared as Victors sidekick, Scum Baby.
When Andy threw Edie into the shooting of Vinyl, at first I
was upset because Edie wasnt part of the script. She was put
there as a human prop. I was nervous because I thought Andy
was using her to upstage my part, since the film was written
especially for me. But then Edie and I became friends, and I
didnt feel there was any threat involved.
Vinyl was shot in front of a large group of people in April 1965,
just before Andys departure for Europe, where he had a show at
the Sonnabend Gallery in Paris. Contrary to what has been reported elsewhere, the filming was not done late at night. Gerard
remembers that filming started around noon and lasted until
around three oclock.
There was no direction. Basically, the film was supposed to
be locked into place by the structure of the script. We did do a
couple of rehearsals at the Factory with Ronnie and John
McDermott, but not everybody in the cast was present during
rehearsals, so there was never a formal run-through before
filming.
Warhol shot the film so quickly that none of the actors had
adequate time to rehearse, but this gave Andy the rough, nonHollywood look he wanted. As usual, the filming became yet another excuse for a party. At least thirty of New Yorks beautiful
people were invited to witness the shoot, turning the atmosphere
around the production into an astutely staged media event. Both
the Herald Tribune and Fred W. McDarrah of the Village Voice were
ready with cameras in hand. Press coverage was gratifying.
As 1965 continued, Andy hit his stride, turning out Horse, Face,
Hedy the Shoplifter, The Life of Juanita Castro, Drunk, My Hustler,
Screen Tests #1 and #2, Poor Little Rich Girl, Kitchen (also known as
Kitchenette), and many other films.
In mid 1965, Andy made a movie of the Velvet Underground and
Nico rehearsing at the Factory. The cops were coming up and
bothering us all the time, and during the shooting of the film,

31
Gerard
Malanga

the police busted into the Factory because we were making too
much noise. Its in the film. Andy panned the camera away from
the Velvets and onto the policemen and then, after a minute or
so, pans back to the Velvets. But it was just a noise complaint, so
we turned it down, and they left.
32
Working in
Warhols
Factory

The films were all seventy minutes long. Lighting, sound, and
technical facilities were primitive; Warhol didnt care about details. Most of the films were in black-and-white; occasionally, for
a particular project, Warhol might splurge on a reel of color film.
Ren Ricard, later to become an artist and critic in his own right
during the 1980s and 1990s, arrived on the scene.
Ren Ricard arrived at the Factory in May of 1965. He came
down from Boston, and a week later he was appearing in Andys
film Kitchen. When he first came to the Factory, he said, The
reason I came to New York was to meet you, not Andy, and so of
course I was very flattered. I took him under my wing and drew
him into the scene against Andy and Edies wishes.
Technicians on the films included Gerard Malanga and Paul
Morrissey, introduced to the Factory scene by Malanga. Malanga
emerged as the official press spokesperson for the Factory, writing all publicity materials for Warhols films through 1966. Warhol
ended 1965 with the announcement that he had retired from
painting. Filmmaking is more exciting. I dont know what Ill be
doing a year from now, but right now, painting is dead. Meanwhile, Gerard needed a place to sleep. All during this period, he
had simply been crashing around. Finally, poet Allen Ginsberg
came to his rescue.
In late 1965, I moved into an apartment on the Lower East
Side, which was actually Allen Ginsbergs own apartment, on
East Fifth Street between C and D. But it was really a crash
padpeople drifting in and out all the timeand I rarely spent
any time there.
Turning all his attention to film work, Warhol began the production of what was later to be known as The Chelsea Girls, the
three-and-a-half-hour split-screen feature film that was his first
real commercial success as a filmmaker. Warhol shot various reels
of Eric Emerson doing a striptease, Nico playing with her son, Ari,

and Brigid Polk talking on the telephone in various rooms of New

Yorks Chelsea Hotel. Some reels were shot in color; most were
black-and-white. The shooting continued through the summer of
1966, and Andy picked up the pace of production, shooting a
thirty-five-minute reel of film nearly every other day.
The filmmaking process appealed to Warhol because of its ease
and immediacy. As soon as a good reel of film had been shot,
Warhol would screen it at the Cinmathque. The Chelsea Girls is
a good example of this method of filmmaking. Warhol was still
shooting the film as late as 9 September 1966, and yet the first
public performance of the film took place only a few days later, on
16 September. Production at the Factory was still a haphazard affair. During the shooting of Ondines sequences as the Pope, hearing the confessions of some Factory regulars, Andy failed to notice that the microphone was not plugged in properly; as a result,
the initial ten minutes of the first reel are completely silent. Warhol printed the reel anyway, incorporating it near the end of the
film. In addition to production difficulties, Andy was also rather
lax in preparing his films for exhibition. The day before The Chelsea
Girls premiered, Andy was still getting the reels printed up for the
first screening.
As much as Gerard enjoyed working with Andy, the relationship
between the two men was becoming increasingly strained. Andy
was making a fairly substantial amount of money now, but he still
refused to pay his associates any more than a token wage. Gerard
was still making $1.25 an hour; the rest of his superstars got free
meals at Maxs Kansas City. Still, Andy kept his group together by
pitting one person against another and shooting star vehicles for
the favored members of his troupe.
Less than a month after The Chelsea Girls opened (the film would
eventually generate more than a million dollars in rentals), Warhol
shot one of his most unusual and mysterious projects, a film on
the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The film was made in a single
night, 12 October 1966, and was far longer than the usual Warhol
sync-sound feature, clocking in at 140 minutes. Although the film
was never publicly shown, or even named, the originals exist in the
archives of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in Pittsburgh. With typical aplomb, Warhol cast Mary Woronov as John
F. Kennedy and used both Gerard Malanga and Ronnie Cutrone
(who would assist Warhol in the 1980s as a silkscreen technician)

33
Gerard
Malanga

34
Working in
Warhols
Factory

interchangeably in the role of Lee Harvey Oswald. Yet the resultant film was surprisingly uninteresting, and Andy decided against
releasing the finished product.
Warhols films have been unavailable for decades, but now film
scholars can rent prints of some of his best early films, including
Vinyl and Chelsea Girls, from the Museum of Modern Art in New
York. Later films released under the Warhol banner, such as Flesh
and Trash, were actually directed by Paul Morrissey and come
nowhere near the power of Warhols early work. When Warhol
was shot by Valerie Solanas on Monday, 3 June 1968, his filmmaking and screen-painting activities were drastically curtailed. Yet his
first films, made under primitive conditions and nonexistent budgets, are as resonant today as when they were first produced and
deserve to be viewed and re-viewed as some of the finest film work
created during the turbulent 1960s and as an index of the social,
political, and sexual concerns of the era.

Surviving the Studio System

Alex Nicol

For many years, I have admired the work of actor-director Alex

Nicol, who always brought a bit more than was required to even
his most journeyman assignments and whose work as a director
and actor is often underrated. Nicol is one of a vanishing breed of
film artists: he worked in that period when it was still possible to
make a 35mm film cheaply and effectively and get it into the theatrical marketplace in direct competition with more conventional
Hollywood films, a feat that is no longer possible with the advent
of straight-to-tape and DVD releases, and indeed in the fall of
2000, the Motion Picture Association of America estimated that
it cost a studio an average of $24.4 million dollars simply to advertise a feature film in wide release, to say nothing of the production cost of the film itself. Nicol, whose films as an actor were
modestly budgeted and whose films as a director were made on
budgets of less than one hundred thousand dollars, would find it
impossible to establish himself in todays marketplace. But in the
first half of the twentieth century, when cinema was still a relatively democratic marketplace, open to nearly anyone with enough
nerve and a few dollars, Nicol and his compatriots flourished. As
is clear in this 15 January 1996 interview, Nicol had no problem
acting in low-budget films; what he was interested in more than
anything else was quality. Thus a pedestrian director, such as Lee
Sholem, who cared little for the finished quality of his films, gets
short shrift from Nicol; while Roger Corman (interviewed elsewhere in this volume), despite his legendary respect for the production dollar, is justly praised by Nicol as a genuine and intuitive
artist. As an actor, Nicol starred in numerous films in the 1950s and
1960s; he has worked with every director from Jacques Tourneur
to Terence Fisher to Anthony Mann. His personality as an actor
was an interesting mixture of arrogance and relaxed assurance,
and he effortlessly dominated the many films he appeared in,
whether as a lead or as a supporting actor, throughout his long
career. As he relates in this interview, Nicol also directed a number of interesting films in a variety of genres, including several
gritty, Sergio Leoneesque westerns and an atmospheric Gothic

35
Alex Nicol

film, The Screaming Skull. Nicol graciously consented to an interview

from his California home and spoke with good humor about his
long career in the cinema shortly before his death on July 29, 2001.
WWD :

36
Surviving
the Studio
System

Youve recently been involved in creating an oral history

of your life, isnt that correct?
AN : Well, its really for your grandchildren . . . [Laughs.]
WWD : My records indicate that you were born January 20, 1919,
in Ossining, New York.
AN : Nineteen sixteen. I lied a little bit. When I came to Hollywood, I thought I was a little older than some of the other
people under contract. So I thought, Well, Ill cure that right
now. My father was a prison guard at Sing Sing; my mother
was the head matron at the Womens House of Detention in
Manhattan. But I didnt want to go into that as a profession.
WWD : I understand that you were trained at the Feagin School of
Dramatic Art in New York. Ive never heard of the Feagin
School. Is that where you learned to pick a pocket or two,
or something . . .
AN : [Laughs.] It was the worst kind of training, really. It was
the old English type training, like the Royal Academy of
Dramatic Art. Now what we had to do, we had to speak
with an English accent all the time, for the two years I was
there, and so in my first performances, I have a slight British
accent because it became an unconscious habit. The school
was located, appropriately enough, in the same building as
Stillmans Gymnasium, right near the corner of Fifty-eighth
Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. I went to the Feagin
School before I went into the army in the late thirties after I
attended high school in Ossining. And I also went to St.
Francis Xavier Academy, which was a Catholic military high
school. I went there to learn better manners, for two years,
and then went back to finish up high school in Ossining. But
I didnt get to college until I was sixty years old. [Laughs.]
WWD : So when did the Actors Studio come into your life?
AN : After the army, but you also have to remember that I was in
the Maurice Evans theatrical company for a few years in the
late 1930s, right before I went into the army. Working with
Maurice Evans, of course, who was a superb Shakespearian
actor, was a real education. If you asked any actor in New

York during that period when he was performing, What do

you think of Maurice Evans? they would say, Hes terrible.
But the truth of the matter was, from my own observation and
my own personal opinion, I thought he was a very, very talented actor. He did very little film work; most of it was stage.
Then came the army. I joined the National Guard, stationed in New Jersey, the cavalry unit, at Fort Jackson. They
went on maneuvers in 19391940, in North Carolina, and by
that time, of course, theyd taken the horses away from us
and given us motorcycles, scout cars, and light tanks. We
were getting ready for war, and I spent five years in the army.
I was demobbed, as the British say, in November of 1944,
just before the end of the war, and made my way back to
civilization. That was when I joined the Actors Studio, in the
late 1940s.
WWD : But you made your stage debut in 1938?
AN : Yes, I had done a couple of Broadway shows, but very small
parts, with the Maurice Evans company, as the least important member of the cast. So it really wasnt what youd call a
major theatrical experience. I was learning my craft in public.
And then it all got put on hold until the end of the war, and
then I finally got serious about it. I was one of the original
members of the Actors Studio, but it was a real case of being
at the right place at the right time. Its very useful. Actually, I
auditioned for the Actors Studio in an unusual way. I was doing a scene with a young woman who needed a partner for a
scene, and she was auditioning for a place at the Studio. It was
her appointment, and I just tagged along. But, as sometimes
happens, I got chosen and she wasnt. So it started there.
Marty Ritt and Elia Kazan were running the Studio then. At
one time I was in the same group as Marlon Brando. And all
this time I was content, perfectly happy to be working on the
New York stage. I had no ambition to go to Hollywood.
WWD : So how did you wind up there?
AN : My biggest break in the theater up until that time was as a
walk-on in South Pacific. And when I was in South Pacific, the
first few weeks, I read to replace Ralph Meeker in Mr. Roberts.
And I got that job. So I moved from a walk-on to a small part
in Mr. Roberts, and I was also understudying Henry Fonda.
But I never made it! He never missed a performance! And

37
Alex Nicol

38
Surviving
the Studio
System

Henrys wife at the time died during the run of Mr. Roberts,
but he still didnt miss the performance the night she died.
He didnt show up, and the stage manager finally said to me,
Okay, Alex, get dressed. So I had the outfit on, and then the
stage manager looked at his watch and said, All right, two
more minutes, and we go up. And we were one minute away
from curtain time, and Fonda walked in, in costume, and he
just walked right out, hit his mark, and he played the performance as though nothing had happened. Henry was a very
disciplined actor. Very, very professional. He was a wonderful
guy, really. He was Mr. Roberts, as a person, to the whole
cast. When I came out to Hollywood, I would bump into him
from time to time, and we became casual friends, and when
he died, I was really stricken. Great man, great talent.
WWD : And he worked right up to the end of his life.
AN : Yes, On Golden Pond; a play; and a TV movie. Always working.
WWD : So how did you finally make the jump to Hollywood?
AN : It was in 1950. Universal came to New York to do a picture
called The Sleeping City [1950], and they picked me out of the
ranks of the theatrical personalities of the period, and I never
left New York because we shot the whole thing at Bellevue
Mental Hospital. I played an intern up to his ears in dope
traffic. Richard Conte was forced to do this speech at the beginning of the film about what a great hospital Bellevue was
because we shot the whole thing in a really grim, neorealist
style; it was a very depressing picture, shot entirely on location. It was one of the very first films about drugs. It was raw.
George Sherman directed it, and he was my savior, really. He
came to New York to do that picture, and during the preproduction, he came to see Mr. Roberts. And the first I knew that
hed seen me in the show was when one of his staff contacted
me and made an appointment to see him. For some reason or
other, Sherman picked me out of that whole cast to do the
film. He had me test for the role, and it was a very showy,
very flashy part.
Sherman also directed my next film, Tomahawk [1951].
Yvonne De Carlo, Van Heflin, and Rock Hudson were all in
that picture. A real Universal programmer. Target Unknown
[1951] was another George Sherman film, with Mark Stevens,
Gig Young; I thought Gig was a highly underrated actor.

Every part he did he really gave 100 percent. Then came Air
Cadet [1951; laughs], and that was another programmer for
sure. Making Air Cadet was like going on vacation. We went
to a remote location in the Southwest and shot it at an airfield, and it was just a lot of fun. Not a serious picture. It
took about four to five weeks to shoot; Joe Pevney directed
that one.
Its a funny thing. By then end of the war, I had been in
Europe for three and a half years, and I had broken a leg
during the fighting, so they put me in field intelligence. And
they stationed me at a school at Fontainebleau, and I was
teaching field intelligence to the recruits there. So when the
war ended in Europe, they couldnt send the soldiers home
quickly enough to keep everyone happy, so to keep up morale
they initiated a series of theatrical performances to keep the
soldiers happy. They went through everybodys records, and
anyone who was connected with the theater before the war
got pulled into this makeshift theatrical company. And they
also pulled Joe Pevney into that group, and then a few years
later, hes directing me in Air Cadet.
Then came Meet Danny Wilson [1952] with Frank Sinatra.
He was a wonderful guy to work with. He preferred to use
the first take on every scene, but he would do more. I was
worried about him before the picture started shooting,
though. We were shooting one of the early establishing
scenes in the picture, and it was an early-morning shoot; I
was sort of his protector in that film, and this scene had to
set up the fact that wed been friends since we were three
years old. And Id never worked with him before, and although I knew he was a wonderful performer, I didnt know
what kind of an actor he was. He was in musicals and stuff,
but nothing really dramatic. But I had nothing to worry
about. He showed up and started, and he was really quite
wonderful, I thought. Shelley Winters was in that, and
Raymond Burr played the heavy. Both excellent actors.
Then I did Red Ball Express [1952], directed by Budd Boetticher, who was a talented guy, but he was the only director
in my whole career whom I couldnt get along with. He had a
very big ego, and we were on location in the East at an army
barracks to shoot that picture. Boetticher liked to have all the

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actors be his audience. I regarded myself as a better trained

actor than most of the people there, and Budd was treating
everyone like they were boys and girls. It wasnt his behavior
while he was working; it was what he was like off the set. We
were all living together, and he wanted us all to eat dinner
with him while he played the role of the grand old patriarch,
and I thought, The hell with that.
Because of You [1952] was another programmer. Then came
The Redhead from Wyoming [1952], and they were giving me
my big chance in that. Maureen OHara was in that; it was a
western. Lee Sholem directed it. Oh, God, yeah. That was
terrible. As a matter of fact, when that picture was over, I
went to the front office at Universal and I asked to be released from my contract. Roll Em Sholem they called him.
That was one of the earlier color pictures, shot in three-strip
Technicolor. They ran three rolls of film through the camera
for every scene.
So at the beginning of that picture, Sholem got up and
made a long speech about how expensive film was and how
we should make as few takes as possible. He knew nothing
whatsoever about making movies; it was just get it in the can,
keep on schedule, and shoot the script as fast as possible. All
he would say before every scene was Roll Em!, and then he
would walk around and put his ear next to the camera, so he
could listen to the footage counter as the film went through
because you could hear it click off. And then when you got to
the end of the scene, hed say, Cut! And then hed look at
the script clerk and say, Did they say all the words? And if
she said Yes, then that was it. And I thought, Oh, my God
. . . When I went to the front office to get out of my contract,
they thought I was crazy. But I thought, If this is my big
break, then Im not going very far.
Lone Hand [1953] was George Sherman again. He brought
me back to Universal to do the picture after I quit, and then I
left the studio. And I was rather pleased with myself because
I charged them as much to do that picture as they had paid
me all year when I was under contract. So that was one of my
small victories. This was around the time television was
getting very important, and they wouldnt use anybody in
features who was working in television. They soon got over

that. Then I went into Champ for a Day [1953], which was
directed by William Seiter; he was a very good director, one
of the old boys in those days, a big heavyset guy. It was an OK
film, and I enjoyed working with him, but then came About
Mrs. Leslie [1953], which Danny Mann directed, which I really
enjoyed doing. Danny had been a teacher at the Actors Studio, and then we met again out in Hollywood, and we were
friends, and our families used to get together. Shirley Booth
starred in that, and in the script she was in love with Robert
Ryan, who played a politician, something like secretary of
state, who fell in love with her. The script wasnt as strong as
it could have been, but it was a great cast.
Dawn at Socorro [1954] was George Sherman again, with
Rory Calhoun, Piper Laurie, David Brian, Edgar Buchanan,
and once again, they brought me back to Universal to play in
it. George was really a fan of mine and always wanted to
work with me, so he kept bringing me back to Universal. This
was followed by Strategic Air Command [1955], which starred
Jimmy Stewart and was directed by Anthony Mann.
WWD : What was Anthony Mann like to work with? He has a
reputation now as being one of the most inventive noir
directors of the 1940s, and then he moved into bigger budget
pictures towards the end of his career.
AN : Tony was one of the directors who was strongly influenced
by John Ford. If you notice, in most of Fords pictures, the
background is as clear as the foreground; Ford liked to do a
lot of deep-focus work, particularly in the stuff he shot in
Monument Valley, which was one of his favorite locations.
And Tony was very impressed by this method of working and
used it on some of his small, earlier pictures for Eagle Lion.
He was very creative, great to work with; I admired him.
WWD : And after The Man from Laramie [1955]
AN : Another routine western . . .
WWD : we have Sincerely Yours [1955]
AN : Oh, God . . . [Laughs.]
WWD : in which you worked with Liberace.
AN : Liberace. [Laughs.] Well, you know what happened; I was a
freelance actor by that time, and I had played a few tough guy
roles around that time. And they wanted me to play somebody who was sort of rough and tough, to balance Liberace.

41
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So they offered me the part at my normal salary. So I said to

my agent, No, I dont want to be in that damned picture.
How am I going to explain it to my friends, my children?
[Laughs.] Well, anyway, they finally doubled my salary, and I
was greedy enough so I couldnt resist. Gordon Douglas
directed that; he was a tough nut, that guy. Liberace basically
played himself, and Dorothy Malone was in that; she was
really a sweet lady.
WWD : Around this time, you went to England and did a couple
of pictures for Hammer studios, working with directors
Terence Fisher and Ken Hughes.
AN : Yeah, Heat Wave [1955], directed by Ken Hughes. He was a
clever guy. I liked my role in that; I was a failed hack novelist
who couldnt even scrape together a few chapters for a pulp
thriller, and then the guy who played my literary agent in the
picture drops me as a client because I cant deliver the manuscript for even a pulp novel! Talk about depressing! But it
was a great script, and Sidney James was in that, and Hillary
Brooke, and it was a fast, efficient thriller. Sidney James was a
wonderful actor, and as a matter of fact, right after that, he
broke loose. He did all those Carry On pictures and became a
huge star in England; he really built a wonderful career for
himself. Hughes was a writer-director, so maybe he identified
with the main character! Hillary Brooke was very much like
her character on the screen, and as a matter of fact, every
once in a while, Ill bump into her now; Ill go to a concert
and shell be sitting nearby, very elegant.
I got the jobs in England because my agent was out peddling
me to people, and at that time, they could make pictures a lot
cheaper in England. Hammer was really a very cheap outfit. I
did Face the Music [1954, also known as The Black Glove] for
director Terence Fisher; I played a jazz trumpeter in that one.
Terry was sort of an everyday director; heres the lines, heres
the blocking, here we go, and dont ask me too many questions. So eventually I got back to the United States, and I was
glad to come back. Those British pictures kept me working,
but they were really fast, really cheaply budgeted.
Great Day in the Morning [1956] was directed by Jacques
Tourneur. Virginia Mayo was in that, Robert Stack, Ruth
Roman, Raymond Burr. Tourneur was interesting to work

with; I respected his talent, but I had a little difficulty with

him. He asked me if I could ride, which I certainly could; I
was a very good horseman, and Id been in the horse cavalry
to start with. Then during a take, the belly band on my saddle
broke when I was riding a horse, and I fell off the horse while
the camera was running, and I hurt my knee, I remember.
And Tourneur came storming over, shouting, I thought you
told me you could ride! And that ticked me off. And then he
investigated, and he came back to me later and said, You
were right; the belly band did break, like he didnt believe
me, and that annoyed me even more. But he was OK to work
with, but it wasnt a very good picture. Not one of his best.
Then I decided to direct a film myself, and that became
The Screaming Skull [1958]. I wasnt doing the kind of films as
an actor that I wanted to do, so I thought, Well, Ill try directing. And as an actor, youre in perfect position, if you
choose to do so, to watch the directors youre working with
setting up the shots, making decisions as to where to place
the camera, and so I picked up a lot over the years. But there
wasnt any one director I tried to emulate on that film; I
wasnt smart enough to do that. I just worked my way
through the script, blocking it out as I went along, trying to
get the film shot on time. That was shot on the old Huntington Hartford estate and distributed through AmericanInternational. I liked it; it had some nice dolly shots, a good
atmosphere. We shot the picture in six weeks, and it did very
well. So I was happy with that; it was a nice change from the
films Id been doing.
Then I took my family to Italy, and we lived there for two
years while I did a bunch of films in Italy. We lived in Rome;
God, it was beautiful. We shot most of the pictures at Cinecitta, the gigantic Roman film studios that had been built by
[Benito] Mussolini. We did a lot of films very quickly, with
backing from Italian and Yugoslavian finance sources; we
also did a lot of location shooting over there. It was one of
the happiest times of my life. The films I did there were
Jovanka i laltre/Five Branded Women [1961], which was an
Italian-Yugoslavian film, which Marty Ritt directed (and if
there was ever any director I should have emulated, I should
have emulated him); Via Margutta/Run with the Devil [1961],

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an Italian-French film; Tutti a casa/Everybody Go Home! [1961],

another Italian-French coproduction; and Sotto dieci bandiere/
Under Ten Flags [1961], which was an Italian-U.S. coproduction
deal; these were all shot between 1958 and 1960 and then released in 1961. I originally went over to do Five Branded Women
for Marty, and then while I was there I was offered a part in
Via Margutta, and then one thing led to another, and I kept on
working over there. And thats when I brought my family
over. These were all fairly big pictures, and I was having a
great time. I also did another picture over there, Marriage
International Style [1961]; I was keeping very busy.
Then I came back to the States and acted in Look in Any
Window [1961], which was directed by William Alland. Paul
Ankas in that picture; I played his father. Ruth Roman, Gigi
Perreau, and Jack Cassidy were all in that. Then I decided to
go back to directing because I wasnt that happy with that
picture, and so I directed and produced a war film called
Then There Were Three [1961]. This was totally my project; I
put the money up for it, and we shot it in Rome. I regarded
that as my masters thesis; if I knew enough about filmmaking to be able to do that myself, then I figured I must be
doing something right.
All the actors were my friends, Americans who lived in
Rome. I put my last dime in that picture. And some of the
actors even waited until I sold the picture to get paid; they
took participations. They werent doing anything anyway, so
I guess they didnt have much to lose, but they were wonderful about it. I handed contracts out and said, OK, fill these
out, and they came back to me with the contracts still unsigned and said, Alex, whats the point? If youre going to
cheat us, these contracts dont mean anything anyway. So
we pretty much did the picture on a handshake all around. So
they waited until I sold the picture, and I was delighted that I
was able to sell it. I sold it through an agency, country by
country, and as a matter of fact it became quite a big picture
in Italy. But its amazing; this was a feature, shot in 35mm,
and we made the whole thing for thirty thousand dollars,
cash. And I made back my expenses. Today, you couldnt
shoot for one day for thirty thousand dollars. It was in blackand-white, and I only paid for the crew, and the film and

developing, and then the postproduction. I had color available, but I thought, Hell, its a war picture. I can tell it better
in black-and-white.
I was driven to direct pictures by the fact that I wasnt in
love with any of the movies Id worked in as an actor. I had to
do something better. I had to do something I could be proud
of, all the way through, and Then There Were Three was a very
good picture. I was really happy with it; it was gritty and
realistic. After that, I went back to acting in a very curious
picture that had an all-star cast, A Matter of WHO [1961], which
was about the World Health Organization, a sort of suspensethriller film with Terry-Thomas in the leading role. What a
delightful guy he was! Don Chaffey directed that; he was just
beginning to direct, and so this was one of his very first films.
Terry was an international star, and I got second billing on
that. Terry was such a good light comic actor. We had a lot of
fun making that picture; Ill always remember him.
Tierra brutal/The Savage Guns [1962] followed that; we
shot it in Spain. It was a pretty brutal western, a Spanish-U.S.
coproduction, directed by Roy Rowland, who was a wonderful director, one of the old school. Los Pistoleros de Casa
Grande/Gunfighters of Casa Grande [1964] followed that film;
another U.S.-Spanish coproduction. And then, after a couple
of years break, I was in Bloody Mama [1970], working again
with Shelley Winters for director Roger Corman. I played
Shelleys husband in the film. Robert De Niro was in that,
and Bruce Dern; I wasnt doing anything, and Shelley called
me and asked me if Id do the picture, and I liked the story, so
I said, Sure. And so that was how I got involved in that
picture. I played the father; they were my children. [Laughs.]
Corman was very good as a director; most people think
Cormans just a fast, journeyman director, but he had a piece
of story material there that he respected, and so he took it
easy. Nothing like Roll Em Sholem . . . Corman was a
director. Sholem wasnt even a traffic cop; he was a janitor.
Then I made Homer, which we shot in Canada in 1970;
John Trent directed that. Don Scardino was in it. I played
Dons father; I was doing a lot of father roles by that point.
Then in 1973, I directed Point of Terror, a little picture that Ive
quite frankly forgotten all about; I cant tell you anything

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about it. It was just a job. It was sort of like an air force training film I directed when I was much younger; it was just a
job. Then I worked in Woman in the Rain in 1976, which was
an independent film done by a bunch of young fellows who
were pretty much working on that film the way I did when I
was their age; they used their own money, and I think they
paid me twelve dollars for the whole film. Then there was
A*P*E [1976], which was directed by a friend of mine; he took
a bunch of people to South Korea and shot the picture there.
But starting in the 1960s, I started putting money aside to
buy a couple of apartment houses, which was the smartest
move I ever made because Im living on that money now. I
like it here in Santa Barbara, living in a rather elegant area.
Im winding up pretty much the way I wanted to. I have three
children: Lisa is the eldestshes an attorney who lives in
San Francisco and had two little boysAlex III (Im Alex Jr.),
and Eric, our youngest; hes an engineer.
In all my films, I always gave 110 percent. I studied acting
right up until the end of my career, in all the films I did. I
studied it hard. Nothing came easy to me. I had to really work
on it. When I really learned what I needed to know, when I
really felt I was an actor, I couldnt find work anymore. So
then I began to direct. But I think I accomplished a lot of good
work in my career.
But there was a weakness in my attack in this business. I
should have done more projects like the one I financed in
Italy myself, where I had total control over all aspects of the
film. I could have gotten them started and then joined other
people who were doing similar things here in America, but I
never found enough material that I really liked to get that
sort of thing going. My advice to young people entering the
profession is dont do it unless you really love it, unless you
cant live without it. I loved it so much that, when I was a little kid in Ossining, I used to hitchhike into New York to look
for a job as an actor, and I didnt have a single contact, a single attachment in the theater. I didnt know a single person
who was in the theater. I would go down and hang around
the theaters, and if someone was rehearsing a show, Id be
hanging around there, and if they wanted me to go out and
get their lunch for them, I did. You have to have that passion.

The Man Who Created The Avengers

Brian
Clemens

As the person who created the format and wrote, designed, and
supervised the day-to-day production of one of the most popular
television series of all time, The Avengers, Brian Clemens holds a
unique place in television history. Just as it was for almost everyone else who grew up in the 1960s, one of my favorite television
programs was The Avengers, which went through a variety of permutations and cast members before settling into its international
success in the mid 1960s, starring Patrick MacNee as John Steed
and Diana Rigg as Emma Peel. After breaking in with the legendary Danzigers production company at New Elstree Studios writing innumerable television shows and B features, Clemens drifted
into work for the British television production company ITV and
was given merely the title (The Avengers) by Sydney Newman, head
of ITV, and told to devise a series. This he did, brilliantly.
In addition to his work in the creation, storyboarding, and everyday writing of The Avengers (it was Clemens who designed the
famous checkerboard opening for the series and created many of
the more bizarre sets and situations for the long-running hit program by storyboarding many of his scripts for the top-flight directors who worked on the show), Brian Clemens also created the
highly successful British teleseries The Professionals, The New Avengers, Bugs (a British high-tech sci-fi espionage thriller, which is just
entering a new season on British television, with all-new episodes).
Clemens has also written episodes for such series as The Champions, The Baron, Secret Agent (starring Patrick McGoohan), Randall
and Hopkirk, Ivanhoe, Man in a Suitcase, H. G. Wells The Invisible Man,
and Mark Saber; has written the screenplays and/or stories for the
feature films Operation Murder (1957), Station Six Sahara (1963, starring Carroll Baker), And Soon the Darkness (1970), See No Evil (1971,
with Mia Farrow), Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974, a Ray Harryhausen special-effects spectacular),
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974, which Clemens also directed
for Britains fabled production company Hammer Films), The
Watcher in the Woods (1980, a Disney film starring Bette Davis in
one of her last roles of substance), and Highlander II: The Quicken-

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Clemens

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The Avengers

ing (1991, with Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert); has written several episodes of the American television series Perry Mason
(three television movies in 199192), The Father Dowling Mysteries,
and Remington Steele; and has won a BAFTA from the British
Academy of Film and Television Arts for the creation and production of his British comedy series My Wife Next Door.
With all this productivity, he shows no signs of slowing down
and keeps working at a furious pace in his home in Bedfordshire,
England. Brian Clemens has worked with nearly every important
figure in British cinema and television, and his life story is a document that is both a fascinating study and a compelling reminder
that quality television can be both entertaining and well written.
This interview was conducted on 22 May 1997.
Ken Taylor [the author of The Jewel in the Crown] gave me
your number.
BC : God, Ken and I started out together in the industry years
and years ago, but I havent heard from him in ages.
WWD : You both broke in working for the Danziger brothers, two
of the most legendarily cost-conscious producers in the
business. They made features and TV series in Britain, often
with American actors. And actually, I like the Danzigers little
crime thrillers, like the short features Feet of Clay, High Jump,
and the Mark Saber crime television series.
BC : Well, the first feature film I wrote for them was called Operation Murder [1957], which was directed by Ernest Morris and
starred the American actor Tom Conway, George Sanderss
brother. Before I got to the Danzigers, I was working for J.
Walter Thompson Advertising, and I had just had a play on
BBC Television, Valid for Single Journey Only, which Id written.
And then at a bridge party one evening, one of the guests
mentioned that she was working for the Danzigers and that
they needed writers, and so I was tapped for that. Working
for the Danzigers was wonderful because I had the kind of
grounding working for them that only the Hollywood hacks
of years ago, like Ben Hecht or the Epstein brothers[, had]. For
a long time, the Danzigers didnt have any studios of their
own, although they eventually built some studios at New Elstree, but before then, they used to move in[to] Elstree, ABPC
[Associated British Picture Corporation], MGM, and so on.
WWD :

And theyd move in anywhere where there were still sets

standing around from big movies. And then theyd come to
me and say, Look, weve got two weeks to shoot, so we want
you to write something for these sets, a seventy-minute second feature, and it must have the Old Bailey, a submarine, and
a mummys tomb in it. So Id write it to order. And nobody
believes that they made movies like this once, but its absolutely true. And so nowadays when people say rewrite this
or lose seven sets, it doesnt phase me in the least because
Ive had the best training in the world. The equivalent in the
United States is, of course, Roger Corman.
WWD : What kind of schedules were these films shot on? Did
you ever get a chance to get down to the set?
BC : Very rarely because, if I was on the set, theyd say to me,
Why arent you home writing? In all the years I worked for
the Danzigers, I think I only went on the set eight times in
four years. They made the Mark Saber and all the rest of the
half-hour television series in about two and a half to three
days. The budgets were minuscule. About seventeen thousand pounds for a feature, which would take eight to ten days
to shoot. Jimmy Wilson was their key director of photography, and he worked very, very fast indeed.
WWD : What happened next?
BC : Well, my big break came, I think, when I wrote the pilot for
the series Ralph Smart created, Danger Man, known in the
U.S. as Secret Agent, with Patrick McGoohan. I got involved
because by that time Id gotten an agent, and he was looking
around for work for me, and he knew they needed some help.
They were shot in black-and-white, hour-long shows, and
they were shot in about five to eight days. That was one of
the first series to crack the U.S. network market, on CBS. The
pilot I wrote was called View from the Villa, and it was set
in Italy, but the production manager set the shoot on location
[in] Port Marion, which looked like Italy but which was
much closer. And obviously, the location stuck in Patrick
McGoohans mind because thats where he shot his television
series The Prisoner much later. Theres one further amazing
story connected with this first episode of Danger Man; the
second-unit director on the show shot some location and background stuff and sent the dailies back to the editing room at

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Clemens

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The Avengers

Elstree. Ralph Smart looked at them, hated them, and called

up the second-unit director and said, Look, these are terrible, youll never be a film director, and then he fired him.
The name of the second-unit director? John Schlesinger
[famous for Midnight Cowboy and many other films].
WWD : So were you working for Danger Man exclusively?
BC : No, I was kind of moonlighting from the Danzigers then. I
was kinda locked in with them on a weekly payroll. They
didnt pay me any more for a feature or a TV episode; they
were just paying me a flat fee. It was something about sixty
pounds a week, which was a fair amount of money back then.
Then I was called to Madrid to rewrite a film called Mission in
Morocco which starred Lex Barker and Fernando Rey, amazingly enough, directed by Tony Squire. I was in Spain about
three months; they had a terrible script, and they flew me
out, and I rewrote it in the time-honored way that I would
write a couple of pages a day and then push them under the
door, and then theyd go out and shoot them.
And all along, I was still turning out stuff for the Danzigers
and British television shows like Sir Francis Drake, Ivanhoe,
and H. G. Wells The Invisible Man; at one time, all of British
episodic television was written by about ten writers, and I
was one of them. I never worked on Robin Hood or The Saint
because by that time I was busy with The Avengers, then, but
thats about it. I worked on nearly everything else.
Around this time, I started working on more features, and
I cowrote Station Six Sahara [1963] with my good friend Bryan
Forbes, who later went on to be quite a director in his own
right, which was directed by Seth Holt and starring Carroll
Baker and Denholm Elliott. Then I did a feature for Arthur
Brauners [CCC Filmkunst] in Germany called The Peking
Medallion [1967], which was shot in Berlin. That starred Nancy
Kwan, Robert Stack, Elke Sommer and was codirected by
James Hill and Frank Winterstein. James Hill, of course, went
on to direct a lot of episodes of The Avengers. And then in 1970,
I produced and wrote a film called And Soon the Darkness,
which was directed by Robert Fuest, who directed the very
famous Dr. Phibes films with Vincent Price. He had a great
sense of style and color in his direction. Ian Wilson was the
director of photography. Then I wrote a script on spec, See No

Evil [1971], and Columbia said, Well, if Mia Farrow plays the
lead, well buy it. And she read it and liked it, and so they
bought it, and we shot it. Richard Fleischer directed that;
Gerry Fisher was the director of photography. After that, I
produced and wrote Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde [1972], which
Roy Ward Baker directed, which was a lot of fun to make,
and then I wrote the screenplay for The Golden Voyage of
Sinbad [1974] for Charlie Schneer. Gordon Hessler directed
that; it was mostly a showcase for Ray Harryhausens superb
special effects.
And then I decided to direct something, after writing all
these scripts for other peoplebecause Id written so many,
and storyboarded so many, that I figured if I couldnt do it by
now, I never could. So I wrote and directed Captain Kronos:
Vampire Hunter [1974] for Hammer Films, which was the first
time Id ever directed anything; not even a TV show before I
stepped on the stage with that one. I could have directed The
Avengers on many occasions, and I did direct a lot of secondunit work for The Avengers. When we shot And Soon the Darkness, I storyboarded lots of that with Robert Fuest, and my
partner on that, Albert Fennell, whos now dead, [said,]
Well, I think its about time that you directed something.
So with Captain Kronos, I finally did.
WWD : What was it like working with the Hammer unit?
BC : It was fine; as long as you stayed on schedule, it was OK. Im
very much a first-take or second-take man. Id learned a lot from
the Danzigers and from Corman, although Ive never met Corman, but I admired the fact that he got so much shot so fast,
and it looked so good. That was the key: speed and quality.
And of course so many people owe their careers to Corman.
WWD : How did you then make the jump to Walt Disney for the
film Watcher in the Woods [1980] with Bette Davis?
BC : I wrote the screenplay from a book, but I thought the end
was impractical, so I suggested an alternative ending. But
they said, Oh, no, this is what we want, and Disneys sonin-law Ron Miller was in charge at that point, who was a nice
guy, but he really didnt know anything about making movies.
So I said, Look, this ending really isnt going to work, but
they insisted on it, so they shot it with John Hough directing,
and then they released it and found out that it didnt work, so

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they pulled it, brought in another writer, and told him to tack
on the ending that Id suggested in the first place, and then
they rereleased it to fairly good business.
WWD : What about Timestalkers [1987]?
BC : Thats a TV movie, really, directed by Jerry London; it was a
time-travel film, sort of a forerunner of Timecop. It was a good
project. Klaus Kinski was the villain; it was Forrest Tuckers
last movie, and William Devane was the lead. And more recently, I wrote three Perry Mason TV movies in 199192, just
before Raymond Burr died, which were really a stretch for
me, and I did the story for Highlander II: The Quickening [1991].
WWD : Lets talk about The Avengers because thats really what
made you an international name and got you all this work doing movie scripts. It really was one of the biggest hit television
series of all time. Actually, it should be pointed out that the
series was originally suggested by the head of drama at Associated British Corporation [ABC] television, Sydney Newman.
BC : Yes, but in all fairness, the only thing he came up with was
the title, The Avengers, and he said, I dont know what the
hell it means, but its a good title, so now go up and write
something to go with it. I wrote the pilot for the series, Hot
Snow, which featured Ian Hendry, who was left over from a
show called Police Surgeon, which was a terrible series, but ABC
liked him playing the role of a young doctor. So we started
out with the title, and a young doctor, Dr. Keel, played by Ian
Hendry, left over from the other series. Then Newman said,
Weve got to have a CIA man, or a Scotland Yard man, or
something in it, and well call him Steed, and in truth, thats
all Sydney Newman gave me when he said, Go off and write
the pilot for The Avengers. That was the brief, so to speak.
The first shows were broadcast in December 1960; they were
done on videotape.
WWD : How did Patrick MacNee get involved?
BC : The reason Patrick got plucked in was because he was available and he was cheap. Hed been in a lot of films, like Brian
Desmond Hursts A Christmas Carol [1951], but he was very
much looking for work. He was perfect for the role; the
chemistry was stunning. But it was just luck, really. It went
through a lot of changes early on; Honor Blackman was in
the videotape episodes, and other characters were introduced,

but it wasnt until Honor Blackman left the series in March

1964 to work on Goldfinger and other feature-film work that
the series really took off. Thats when we cast Diana Rigg as
Emma Peel, in December of 1964; she came to us as a Shakespearian actor, and she was superb. Thats also when I pretty
much took over, along with Albert Fennell, creating the look
and the scripts for the seriesfor example, the chessboard
opening sequence was mineright down to the storyboards.
Julian Wintle produced, and Laurie Johnson wrote a new main
title theme for the series, and it all just clicked overnight.
From then on, all The Avengers were very much my pigeon.
WWD : Who was responsible for the pop stylization of the
series visually?
BC : That was all mine. I storyboarded it like Hitch [Alfred Hitchcock] used to do. I was totally hands-on with The Avengers. It
sounds immodest, but the whole style of The Avengers was
me. Diana Rigg was particularly fun to work with; she was a
young, very young, inexperienced unknown actress, who happened to have a lot of talent. She was very professional to
work with; I have nothing but good things to say about her,
and she never gave us a moments problem all during the
production of the series. She enjoyed herself immensely on
the series; we all did. They were all shot on ten-day schedules, so we had to work very fast. But because we planned
everything out to the nth degree, they all looked great.
Patrick MacNee was great to work with; Patricks one of
my best friends, actually. I always think that when he goes, it
will be a bit like losing Trafalgar column. A consummate professional and always grateful to The Avengers; hes not one of
those actors who made their name in a series and then spend
the rest of their lives knocking it. Recently, of course, the
whole series was rerun on A&E [Television Network] in the
U.S. to excellent ratings; there were something like eightyseven filmed episodes, one hour each, and with the video episodes added in, I would guess that about one hundred forty
episodes survive; some went out live in the early days, or the
videotapes were lost. Once we got onto film, we were able to
save everything. Even in film, in black-and-white, our budgets were very, very low; under forty thousand pounds for an
episode. Try to do that today! And we begged them, we begged

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The Avengers

them, for another three thousand pounds per week to put

them in color, but they wouldnt do it. They had no idea what
they had. We wanted to shoot in color from day one, the moment we got on 35mm film. And they said, No, were not
gonna take that chance, thats another three thousand pounds
per episode.
We cast so many guest stars that it became a weekly game;
What name star can we get in the series now? If we were
shooting it now, wed try very hard to get Steve Martin, for
example. Wed see who we could get, and then wed write the
script around the guest star in lots of cases, depending on
what they could do. In the end of the series, it was a bit like
Laugh-In because everybody wanted to be on the show; we
were that big of a hit. As a guest star on The Avengers, you got
money, you had fun, and you were in a very interesting and
different series where you could do whatever you liked, really.
We got John Cleese from Monty Pythons Flying Circus; Peter
Cushing worked on it, Donald Sutherland, Valentine Dyall,
Clifford Evans, Nigel Green, Freddie Jones, Charlotte Rampling, Andrew Keir, Michael Gough, Patrick Magee, Dennis
Price, Barbara Shelley. We got everyone we wanted, practically.
Wilkie Cooper, Gerry Turpin, Alan Hume, Gilbert Taylor
were rotating directors of photography; between them they
shot most of the episodes. Alan Hume went on to shoot the
Bond films; Gil Taylor went on to win an Academy Award for
his work as a DP. You see, the difference in the look of The
Avengers is that nowadays, if you shoot a TV show, you get a
TV crew. But in those days, if you went on the studio floor,
you got the very best theatrical motion picture crew you could
imagine; these were all top, top professionals. Roy Ward Baker,
Gordon Flemyng, Robert Fuest, Don Leaver, James Hill, and
Charles Crichton were some of the directors, and they were all
first rate. Roy Ward Baker had a long Hollywood career, and
his films are really superb. So all of these people brought
extra quality to the look and design of the series as a whole.
WWD : Who was the person who cast Linda Thorson to replace
Diana Rigg in The Avengers?
BC : Well, that was a producer named John Bryce. Albert Fennell
and myself had a falling out with ABC Television U.K., and
we left the series for about five or six weeks, during which

time they pursued us all over the place trying to get us to come
back, and it was then that John Bryce cast Linda Thorson as
Tara King. Lindas OK, but I wouldnt have cast her.
WWD : What can you tell me about the episode The Forget-Me
Knot, in which Tara King [Linda Thorson] and Emma Peel
[Diana Rigg] exchange places? Wasnt Linda Thorson already
a part of the show by this point?
BC : Well, there was that hiatus when we left the series, and when
we came back, we said, Well, weve got to have an episode to
introduce Linda Thorson to the audience, and I hate killing
off characters, so lets just figure out a way to have Emma
Peel make a more graceful exit. I think its an act of weakness
when you kill off the lead; everybody hates that, and youve
also closed the door to any possibility of doing anything with
the character in the future as well. Im very proud of that show
because Steed loses the girl and gets the girl, so to speak, in
virtually the same shot. Its something Im very happy with.
WWD : How involved are you in The Avengers movie?
BC : Not at all. What happened was that EMI, who owned The
Avengers, because I dont own it, they sold it to Cannon, who
sold it to someone else, and eventually it wound up at Warner Brothers. Sean Connery is going to play the villain, and
Ralph Fiennes will play Steed, and Uma Thurman will play
Emma Peel. Jeremiah Chechik will direct the film.
WWD : What about other series you were involved in during this
time?
BC : Well, The Champions, The Baron, Randall and Hopkirk, and all
those other series were being made in the next office, practically, at Elstree by my good friend Dennis Spooner, who unfortunately is no longer with us, the guy who wrote Pennies
from Heaven. Whenever he had an opening in one of his
series, hed say, Come on over and write a Champions for
me, and whenever I had an opening in The Avengers, Id say,
Come over and write one for me. So we swapped back and
forth, and I wrote a bunch of episodes for these series.
WWD : How did The New Avengers come about?
BC : Totally. I mean, I produced it and wrote it, and so on. In retrospect, I think it came out very well. All the episodes that
we shot in England came out very well, indeed: in fact, I think
that one episode, Dead Men Are Dangerous, is one of the

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The Avengers

best episodes of any of The Avengers series, along with perhaps The House That Jack Built from the first series. But
then we ran into money problems from the French, who were
coproducers of The New Avengers, and as a result, they said,
Youve gotta make some in France, and youve got to make
some in Canada, and it made an enormous difference in the
quality of the episodes. As soon as we moved into another
country, we started to lose control.
WWD : What about The Professionals, the next series you created?
BC : Well, that was quite simple. We stopped making The Avengers, and the guys who showed it over here in the U.K. said,
Wed like you to make us a new series. And we said, What
kind of a show? And they said, A cop show. And so thats
how The Professionals was born. Wed like a buddy show,
they said, not like Starsky and Hutch, but something with a
bit more bite. So I invented The Professionals, with Gordon
Jackson in it, Lewis Collins, and Martin Shaw. Again, we had
great writers on it: Dennis Spooner, Chris Wicking, Tony
Barwick were just a few. Charles Crichton directed a few of
those shows as well. A very dear man.
WWD : What about The Protectors?
BC : Well, that was a Gerry Anderson show, one of his first stabs
at directing live actors instead of puppets on his old shows
Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet. Well, instead of directing
bits of wood, he decided to get actors. Robert Vaughn and
Nyree Dawn Porter were the stars; a lot of people took turns
directing, including Don Chaffey, Charles Crichton, Michael
Lindsay-Hogg, Roy Ward Baker, Cyril Frankel, even Robert
Vaughn himself directed an episode. I wrote some episodes,
which were all thirty minutes; Dennis Spooner, John Goldsmith, and Sylvia Anderson wrote others. They produced a
total of fifty-two shows; it even ran for a time in the U.S.
WWD : Tell me about your latest series, Bugs.
BC : Well, thats a high-tech series, and Carnival Films came to
me here and said, Nobodys doing escapist TV series anymore, theyre all very nitty-gritty, and would you like to do
something thats high-tech escapism along those lines, the
kind of series you used to do? And I said, Sure, because I
love those sort of pop, upbeat, escapist kinds of series, and I
think the audience needs this sort of entertainment, particu-

larly in difficult times. Theres a place for brutal realism, like

the British TV series Prime Suspect, but you need something
to balance it so that the audience has a choice. Bugs was a big
hit and, in fact, weve just made another batch of episodes for
the series, which start airing again next month [June 1997].
WWD : Who are some of your favorite writers?
BC : Edgar Wallace. Im very fond of him. Not many people know
that he wrote King Kong.
WWD : Could you share a bit with us on your working methods?
How fast do you write a script?
BC : Well, I do write them very quickly, its true. Sometimes I
write them very quickly indeed. And Soon the Darkness I wrote
in a weekend. But Id been blocking in my mind for several
months, so all I was really doing was putting it down on
paper. Series episodes were also written very quickly: I had
to write The Forget-Me Knot in a weekend, simply to keep
up with the production schedule. What I had to do was block
it in my mind, put it on paper, and then give them the design
for the set so they could go ahead and build it so we could get
it shot on time and on budget. So they built the sets before
theyd seen the script.
I dont dictate scripts; I dont use a computer. I have a
number of little old portable typewriters; one in Hollywood,
one in Spain, and about five here in my house, and I just
write my scripts on those. You see, when I was a little boy,
about five years old, my father said to me, What do you
want to be? And I said, A writer. And so very wisely he
bought me a typewriter. And then I went into the army for
two years; I got a little bored, and I took a typing course to
brush up. That really got me started on the craft of writing.
My normal procedure for writing is I block it out roughly
in my head, whats going to happen in what order, and then
I write telegrams to myself, just one line for each scene. Then
I expand upon that, and of course, as you write it, it changes,
mostly for the better. My general principle is if Im writing
television, I aim for ten pages a day; for a feature, five pages a
day. Thats about my average pace. Writing screenplays is
second nature to me now; there are a dozen things I want to
write. Right now Id like to do a film noir, something like
John Dahls Red Rock West, or a Raymond Chandler kind of

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thing. I think Im going to start on it this weekend. My two

favorite directors, by the way, are John Ford and Hitchcock;
the old masters. I like the little films that nobody seems to
notice but me; the little suspense films like Timelock that
really get the suspense going. Films like Trainspotting are OK,
but I wasnt entertained by it, but I had to see it because its
part of our industry now. Another example is Reservoir Dogs.
I thought Reservoir Dogs was a wonderful film, but I hated it.
Every so often nowadays you get a really good film like
Speed; that was a terrific film. But films lack style somehow
these days; the other evening I watched Pat and Mike, the old
Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy film, and it had style
and charm. It really worked as a piece of filmmaking.
My father, who is dead now, was an engineer, but he also
worked in the musical halls; my mother, who is ninety-eight,
is still very much alive and kicking. I dont think I told you
that Im related to Mark Twain, which is why one of my
sons is named Samuel Joshua Twain, and the other is named
George Langhorne Clemens. Ones fifteen and the others
seventeen.
WWD : Of all the projects youve worked on, what was the most
satisfying for you?
BC : The Avengers, without a doubt. It was such a wonderful time;
it was the sixties; they were the halcyon days, and I was living in a golden age. You never really know youre living in a
golden age until its over, you know? Golden ages are always
then, not now, arent they? But I had so much, and I met so
many wonderful people, like Charles Crichton, Roy Ward
Baker, people like that. I was working with the best of the
British film industry and learning from them. And things
were inexpensive; now everything costs a fortune. But with
The Avengers, we really lucked on to something. Without a
doubt, it was the most fulfilling time of my life.

The Last of England

Bryan
Forbes

Bryan Forbes has had a long and varied career in the cinema, has
actively functioned as writer, producer, director, actor, and critic
since the 1940s, but has somehow never broken through in the
publics consciousness in the way that Richard Attenborough, Sir
Carol Reed, Sir David Lean, or other of his contemporaries have
been able to do. And yet the range of Forbess accomplishments
is extraordinary, from his appearances as an actor in such films as
Henry Hathaways Of Human Bondage (1964), Basil Deardens
League of Gentlemen (1959), John Guillermins I Was Montys Double
(1958), Guy Hamiltons An Inspector Calls (1954), Val Guests Quatermass II (1957); to his work as a director on Whistle Down the Wind
(1961), The L-Shaped Room (1962), King Rat (1965), The Wrong Box
(1966), The Whisperers (1966), The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969), and
The Stepford Wives (1975), to name just a few of his many directorial credits; and to his substantial career as a scenarist, from Jos
Ferrers Cockleshell Heroes (1956) and Guy Greens Angry Silence
(1960) to his more recent work on his own production of The Naked Face (1984) and Richard Attenboroughs Chaplin (1992), although this last assignment was not without problems, as Forbes
details in this 19 July 1997 interview.
In addition to all this activity, Forbes also served as a chief of
production at EMI Elstree from 1969 to 1971. Among the many
actors he has worked with in any one of his numerous capacities
are Christopher Plummer, Michael Caine, Katharine Hepburn,
Edith Evans, John Mills, Ralph Richardson, Peter Cook, Dudley
Moore, Peter Sellers, Albert Finney, George Segal, Leslie Caron,
Paul Henreid, Donald Pleasence, Yul Brynner, Robert Morley, Richard Burton, and Honor Blackman. He is also the author of several novels and volumes of memoirs. Indeed, Forbes is one of the
last survivors of the era of the great British studio system, but after some forty years in the industry, his energy and industry are
unabated. I spoke with Forbes at his home in England, right after
he had returned from a quick trip to New York.

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In all the areas in which youve worked, as an actor,

writer, producer, director, production executive, whats the
area that gives you the most satisfaction?
BF : Well, actually, I was a writer who became an actor who
became a screenwriter who became a director, and I guess in
the final analysis, because its less ephemeral than most
things, writing probably gives me the most satisfaction. But
on the other hand, if you write a screenplay, and then you see
it come to life, theres no greater pleasure. You have no idea
how people react when they read your novels because youre
not there with them; but when you sit in an audience and say,
My God, Ive made them laugh; Ive made them cry, thats
a real satisfaction.
WWD : And yet theres nothing thats more incomplete than an
unproduced screenplay.
BF : Yes, thats true. Ive had better than average luck with my
work, except for biographies. Its curious. I must have spent
at least five years of my life writing major biographies, none
of which have ever reached the screen. I wrote screenplays on
the lives of Winston Churchill and Henry Ford. I wrote the
first draft of the screenplay for Dickie Attenboroughs Gandhi
[1982] and then decided that I didnt like Gandhi as a person,
and so I parted company with that production. And I did the
first screenplay on Chaplin, which was abandoned, although I
had a sort of credit on it. Actually, I dont think theres probably more than ten lines of my script in the finished film, but
yet I received cocredit for the screenplay with William Boyd
and William Goldman.
But the Writers Guild is very honest, and they figured that
anybody who spends a year and does most of the major research for the piece deserves the credit. At one time, I was
going to take my name off it because it was a very unhappy
experience the way my script was not used by Universal.
They walked away from it in a most arbitrary fashion; they
wouldnt even agree to see me. This was all rather sad because Richard Attenborough is my oldest mate, and were
still in partnership. But it did blight the friendship for about
a year, and then I thought, This is stupid; a friendship is not
worth a screenplay, and so now were back on again on keel.
But, yes, it did cause problems for about a year.

WWD :

You were born July 22, 1926, and youre yet another
graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art [RADA].
BF : Yes, I won a Leverhulme Scholarship, but I didnt stay very
long because it was the middle of the war, and I knew I was
going to be called up. One did a lot of fucking. Since there
were only about eighteen young men in the academy at that
time, and over two hundred rather nubile and pretty young
girls, and about seven of the eighteen men were gay, the rest
of us had quite a field day. But I just thought it was becoming
rather a waste of time when you knew you were going to be
called up and possibly killed, it seemed more important to go
out into the world. So I only stayed about a year of the threeyear course and then went directly into rep. There were a lot
of reps, or repertory theaters, at that time in England, some
two thousand or more weekly rep companies. I was on stage
from the time I was seventeen, starting out in a rep company
called the Intimate Palmers Green, and then I went into
Rugby Rep, and then various other reps, and then I finally
got a West End job in a Terence Rattigan play, and of course,
thats when I got called up, just as I was getting my first professional experience on the stage. I was called up in 1943, with
British army intelligence, and served until 1947.
WWD : And this led to your screen-acting debut in 1949, in
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburgers bomb-disposal
thriller The Small Back Room, in which you played, pretty
much, a corpse.
BF : Quite right. Mickey Powell was a bit of a little martinet, and
he had a voice like General Montgomery, very high pitched,
and he could be very cutting when he wanted to, saying
things like, Do you call that acting?which gives one lots
of confidence. But I only had a one-day part, originally: the
boy who picked up the bomb and was blown to pieces. I remember that I was paid twenty-five pounds for the day. So I
lay there on the studio floor, amidst the rubble. I didnt have
a stand-in or a double. In those days, filmmaking in Britain
was very leisurely, and it wasnt until after eleven oclock in
the morning that Mickey actually looked through the camera
at me. He didnt like what he saw, and so he asked the company at large, What do people look like whove been blown
up by a bomb? And a passing prop man answered, Pow-

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dered gramophone records, guvnor. So they got a bunch of

old shellac gramophone records and smashed them up, covered my face in Vaseline, and stuck all these bits of black all
over my face. Mickey took another look through the camera,
and said, Ill tell you exactly what that looks like. It looks
like an actor with smashed up gramophone records all over
his face. So then they decided they would bandage me to
look like the Invisible Man, with only one eye. So now its
about half past three in the afternoon, and they hadnt taken
a shot. Finally, they got the shot they wanted, but it took forever; no one seemed in very much of a hurry, I can tell you.
This was typical of British films of the period. There was
a lot of waste. A lot of people seem to have the notion that
British filmmaking during this period was carried on at an
absolutely breakneck pace, but its simply not so; perhaps on
the quota quickies but not A features, I can tell you. In fact,
when I was directing, I always used to have a chess set with
me on the stage, and I would play long games of chess with
my soundman between shots. One of the major factors was
that lighting took so long; they used enormous brute, or
arc, lamps, which only lasted about twenty minutes, and then
all the arcs had to be switched off and trimmed and allowed
to cool. So very often between shots, it wasnt unusual to be
waiting twenty or forty minutes, which gave one a good deal
of time to pursue a quiet game of chess.
In 1950, for example, I had a job in a war drama called The
Wooden Horse [directed by Jack Lee] for which I had an eightweek contract. Well, it stretched out to fourteen months!
That was the insanity of the film units during this period. I
mean, this was just after the war, and there must have been
four hundred derelict prisoner of war camps all over Europe
to use as sets. What did the producer do? He built a new one
from scratch, clearing miles of forest and timber in the process. This was the madness of the film industry. Props were
lost; they used extras who couldnt really act, and so they had
to reshoot a lot of it, but I didnt complain; I was getting paid.
But it was sheer, extravagant waste, and the whole thing
could have been made a good deal more efficiently with just
a little bit of common sense.
WWD : In your early films as an actor, such as Derek Twists

Green Grow the Rushes [1951], Raoul Walshs The World in His
Arms [1952], and Sea Devils [1953], Ronald Neames The Million
Pound Note [1953, known in the U.S. as Man with a Million],
and other of your films from the early 1950s, youre refining
your craft as an actor, but you havent started your career as
writer yet. How did that come about?
BF : Well, I was out in Hollywood under contract to Universal as
an actor in the 1950s when I made The World in His Arms for
Raoul Walsh, and [Albert] Cubby Broccoli, who was later
to produce the James Bond films, was one of maybe seven
hundred people in the world who read my first published
book, which was a collection of short stories. As a result, he
gave me a screenwriting assignment at seventy-five dollars a
week, for a script which was never produced. But anyway,
Cubby liked what I did, and so he sent for me when they ran
out of pages on an Alan Ladd film called The Black Knight
[1954, directed by Tay Garnett]. And I sort of saved their
bacon on that because they had literally run out of pages;
they had nothing to shoot. So I wrote that as fast as I could
on a day-to-day basis, and somehow, we got through the film.
WWD : Where did you acquire your skills as a writer?
BF : Well, when I was at RADA, I was already writing turgid,
unpublishable novels. There was one which was published,
but thankfully, it sank without a trace, and I dont even acknowledge it to this day. During the war, I didnt have time to
write novels, but I did write quite a lot of short stories, and
after the war, they were published under the title Truth Lies
Sleeping. I also did a lot of journalism. I was fiction critic on
the Spectator, I wrote for the Evening Standard, the New Statesman, anyone who would employ me. And it was very good
training because you had to meet deadlines, and of course
you got paid. So I got the reputation as a fast man with a pen,
and as a result of that, I got my first real screenplay assignment, for Cockleshell Heroes [1956].
WWD : That was directed by Jos Ferrer; were you happy with
the way it turned out?
BF : Not really, no. It was directed rather badly, and Ferrer
brought in another writer to punch up the script, which I
didnt appreciate. And, in fact, with the associate producer, I
was responsible for reshooting a good deal of the film, with-

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out Ferrers knowledge because the producers werent happy

with the way it was going. So I sort of wrote new scenes for
Trevor Howard, and although I wasnt really directing the
scenes (the associate producer did that), I was on the floor all
the time, and this was really valuable training which would
serve me very well indeed later on. But it was not a happy
picture at all. Ferrer was a megalomaniac behind the camera.
WWD : Im struck by the fact that you seem to move from genre
to genre very easily, as an actor, writer, and/or director.
Youve done everything from science fiction to comedy to
war films, and yet you seem equally comfortable in each of
your projects. To what do you attribute this?
BF : Well, I did a lot of films as an actor in the early to late fifties, even a film for the Danziger brothersHarry Lee and
Edward J. Danzigerwho built a rather cheap studio which
they called New Elstree, which was mostly under water all
the time. I acted in a film for them called Satellite in the Sky
[1956, directed by Paul Dickson], but they were a very cheap
outfit indeed. Theyd come to films from the hotel business,
from whence they should never have strayed. An Inspector
Calls was quite a different affair; it was based, of course, on [J.
B.] Priestleys stage play and was a quality production all the
way around. And I was in both of the first two Quatermass
films in 1955 and 1957, both of which were made for Hammer,
another outfit which was very small and made films very
quickly. They were jobs; it was work; some were better than
others, but I was always looking for the chance to direct and/
or script my own films, and finally, in the early 1960s, I got
the chance, with Whistle Down the Wind [1961].
WWD : What was that like?
BF : Well, Hayley Mills was a big star at the time, the number
one juvenile star in both Britain and the United States. Shed
been in J. Lee Thompsons film Tiger Bay [1958] and David
Swifts film for Disney of Pollyanna [1960]. The whole thing
came about because Dickie Attenborough and I were both
working as actors on a picture I cowrote called The Baby and
the Battleship [1956] directed by Jay Lewis, which was filmed
on location in Malta. We shared a room, and although I had
known Dickie for a long time, we were friends, but we had
never really worked together before. We both decided that

wed come to a sort of crisis point in our careers; we werent

getting anywhere. We felt that we werent less talented than
some of the people we had to work for. So we decided to form
a company called Beaver Films, and I wrote a script which
never saw the light of day about a British army war cameraman . . . interesting script, but it never got filmed. And then I
wrote a script called The Angry Silence [1960], and that was a
kind of landmark movie. It was a labor drama; Dickie starred
in it, along with Pier Angeli and Michael Craig; it really got a
lot of people upset in its depiction of how labor unions can
get out of hand. I think its still very powerful today.
This was a great start for our company, as the film, which
was directed by Guy Green, did extremely well. At the same
time, Carl Foreman, the producer, asked me to write a thriller
for him, and so I wrote The League of Gentlemen [1959], which
was directed by Basil Dearden, which Dickie coproduced and
acted in, and this led to the creation of another parallel production company, Allied Filmmakers, which consisted of
Basil Dearden, Michael Relph, Dickie, myself, Jack Hawkins,
and Guy Green. That company, Allied, went on to make six
or seven more films, including Basil Deardens Victim [1961],
which was perhaps the first serious and sympathetic examination of homosexuality on the screen, Sance on a Wet Afternoon [1964], which I made, and the first one we made through
Allied Filmmakers, which was Whistle Down the Wind.
I originally wasnt going to direct the film; Guy Green was
going to do it. But about ten days before we were going to
start filming, Guy came to Dickie and me and said, Look,
Ive had this wonderful offer. Youre paying me five thousand pounds, and MGM wants me to direct Light in the Piazza
[1962], with Olivia de Havilland, and theyre going to pay me
fifty thousand pounds, so will you please release me? And of
course we said yes, but then we had no director, and I took
over. So I was lucky because it was a great picture to start
with. Hayley Mills was wonderful to work with.
WWD : You were still doing acting jobs at that time, and youve
continued to do so; tell me about your part in J. Lee Thompsons The Guns of Navarone [1961].
BF : Well, that was just two days work, but Carl Foreman had a
lucky charm in all of his films, and that was that there was

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always one character named Weaver somewhere in there, so

he called me up and said, You play Weaver. And so I did. It
was just a brief scene, bringing tea to James Robertson Justice, or something like that. But you know something? If you
start life as an actor, you never turn down work. People think
Ive had something of a charmed life and ask me why Ive
done so many things. Well, one of the reasons is that Im trying to earn some bread! So why turn down a part like that,
when it means a nice check in a good film?
WWD : Tell me about the remake of Of Human Bondage [1964,
directed by Henry Hathaway, Ken Hughes, Bryan Forbes].
BF : [Laughs.] Well, as an actor, there are still sacred and profane
remains of my performance in that film. I wrote the script,
and I was also playing the second lead opposite Laurence
Harvey and Kim Novak. And both Larry and I were so appalled by the way Henry Hathaway treated Kim Novak that,
on two occasions, we actually walked off the set and said we
wouldnt come back unless he apologized.
WWD : What was Hathaway doing?
BF : Well, Ill give you an example of his direction of Kim Novak.
Hed say, Dont just stand there, stand there with your legs
open. Show your cunt because thats all they want to see.
WWD : Charming.
BF : Well, Larry and I werent going to put up with this, and we
were appalled by Hathaways behavior, and so it got worse
and worse and finally Hathaway just walked out of the studio
one day and got on a plane at Dublin airport and left, just like
that. Hed been shooting the picture for three or four weeks,
and suddenly, we had no director. Ray Stark, who was the
producer, came to me and said, Will you direct it? And I
said, No, I wont. I really cant direct myself. I just cant be
objective about my performance. Its impossible. But what I
will do is direct for a fortnight to save your bacon, and in that
time, youve got to find another director. So Ray found Ken
Hughes, and he took over the film and finished it. But we had
a lovely cameraman on that, Oswald Morris, and so despite
all these problems and interruptions, I think it turned out to
be a pretty good film. John Box was the art director. And my
wife, Nanette Newman, was in it, weve done about seven
films or so together, and we enjoy working together very

much. I was very sorry when Larry Harvey died so prematurely of cancer; he was a very witty, charming, generous man
and one who really made working on any project a great deal
of fun.
WWD : Another of your key films of the 1960s was The L-Shaped
Room [1962], which is one of the most beautiful films ever
shot in black-and-white. Do you have any thoughts on the
use of black-and-white versus color when filming?
BF : Yes, Im very fond of The L-Shaped Room. Leslie Caron did a
superb job in it, and Ive lately been receiving a lot of favorable press from the gay community here in England for my
casting of Brock Peters, as Carons gay friend who lives upstairs, and for Cicely Courtneidge, who was wonderful as the
lesbian character in that film. But the thing is that I wasnt
conscious at the time of doing anything unusual in this casting; it just seemed that it made the film more realistic for the
time and place it was set in. I feel it was really very much
ahead of its time. And it could only have been made, in my
opinion, in black-and-white.
I love black-and-white, but what can you do, commercially? I mean, right now, theyre going to remake Sir Carol
Reeds The Third Man [1949] just to make it in color, and as far
as Im concerned, thats obscene. Its such arrogance to say
you can rewrite Graham Greene. Not to mention re-creating
the performances of Orson Welles or the direction of Sir
Carol Reed. But anyway, I love black-and-white. I made one
of the last big black-and-white films in Hollywood, King Rat,
which I scripted and directed in 1965. And subsequently I
made The Whisperers [1966] with Dame Edith Evans in blackand-white, and you see, you couldnt make that film in color.
It simply wouldnt work. That was such a superb film, I
thought, and Edith was so good in it. And during the making
of that, I gave my editor on the film, Tony Harvey, a week off,
and he shot his first feature film, Dutchman, based on LeRoi
Joness play, in one weeks time, starring Shirley Knight and
Al Freeman Jr. A really good first film for him. And then Tony
went on to make, of course, The Lion in Winter [1968], with
Katharine Hepburn and Peter OToole.
WWD : How do you set up your shots? Do you storyboard in
advance?

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BF :

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No, I never use a storyboard. I respond to the actors on the

floor, and I work with the director of photography to get the
shots and coverage I want. I start very gently with the blocking, planning all the entrances and exits because its very difficult to plunge straight in to what you think is going to be the
style of the movie right away. I suspect that very few people
do that. It comes upon you, as it were. Youve got a general
idea of where youre going, but how youll get there is something you have to find out as part of the process. And what I
normally say to the actors is I dont mind by which route
you reach my destination, but youve got to reach my destination. Because actors dont hold the whole film in their heads.
They memorize their sides and thats it. I re-member when
I got the chance to direct Whistle Down the Wind, I went to Sir
Carol Reed for some advice; he was really my mentor and a
man I greatly respected as a director. So I said, Carol, can
you give me a couple of tips? And he gave me two wonderful
tips; you wont find them in textbooks, but I think theyre
really essential. He said, Never humiliate an actor, and never
cut before the actors have exited the frame. For editing and
continuity, it really makes things much, much simpler.
WWD : What was it like working on a black comedy like The Wrong
Box [1966], where you have a large cast of superb comic actors
at your disposal, who are also at the same time a wildly competitive group of actors to contend with? Its a Victorian
screwball comedy, in a way.
BF : I loved making it. It was a very happy movie. James Villiers,
Ralph Richardson, Michael Caine, Peter Sellers, Peter Cook,
and Dudley Moore in their glory years, Johnnie Mills, my
wife, Nanette Newman, Tony Hancock (and that was his last
film), Thorley Walters, and so many others. It was a huge
cast, and the logistics of getting it shot were formidable, but
it came off very well, and I was very pleased with the result.
WWD : Lets talk about some of the cameramen youve worked
with. You worked with Gerry Turpin on The Wrong Box; who
are some of your favorite cameramen from this period of
British cinema? Unfortunately, there were no camerawomen
at the time.
BF : Yes, thats right. Well, Ive been very lucky. I worked with
some of the great cameramen. I worked with Burnett Guffey

on two occasions; he shot King Rat for me and did a wonderful job. He partially shot The Madwoman of Chaillot [1969] for
me as well. Guffey had started as a camera operator working
on John Fords The Informer in 1935, so he really knew his
craft completely. I worked with Claude Renoir, who is one of
the great, great artists of the cinema, and as far as English
cameramen, I worked with Dougie Slocombe on The L-Shaped
Roomhe was a brilliant cameramanGerry Turpin, of
course, and Tony Imi on The Raging Moon [1971], which was
retitled Long Ago Tomorrow in the States, which I thought was
a pathetic title. Gerry Fisher was a lovely man, but there were
some strange ones, like Wilkie Cooper, who used to always
cut down trees and wave them in front of an arc lamp to get
an effect. Burn Em Up Basil Emmott, who used to move
like lightning on the set; he shot I Was Montys Double [1958],
which I scripted. And of course Chris Challis, but I only
worked with him as an actor, and I never worked with Jack
Cardiff, either, which Im sorry about. He was always working with Mickey Powell. I know Jack, but I never worked
with him.
WWD : How on earth did you wind up directing The Stepford
Wives [1975]?
BF : Well, the producer of the film, Edgar Scherick called me up
and said, Do you want to direct The Stepford Wives? I want
an Englishman to do it, to get a new slant on it. So I went to
Connecticut and directed The Stepford Wives. I enjoyed it, and
its become something of a cult movie. They made several
sequels to it; I had a lot of fun doing it, and I never took it
too seriously.
WWD : I wanted to ask you about Deadfall [1968], which you
scripted and directed. A lot of people dont like it, but I think
Michael Caine is excellent in it, and it has a convincingly
bleak outlook, which for some reason I find appealing.
BF : Well, I think its my most stylish picture. Gerry Turpin shot
that for me. We set out to make a really elegant film, and I
think we succeeded. Eric Portman was marvelous in it, and
Michael Caine, who had just been introduced to films with
his first major hit in Sidney J. Furies The Ipcress File [1965]. I
know a lot of people dont like Deadfall, but I thought it was
really rather effective for what we were trying to do; a psy-

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chological cat-burglar film. I think the pacing was ultimately

too slow, but I really admire the film in a number of ways.
WWD : You became involved with The Madwoman of Chaillot
when John Huston left the picture; how was that experience?
BF : Making that picture was almost an unreal experience. When
I used to look through my viewfinder, I used to think, My
God, theres Charles Boyer, theres Danny Kaye, theres Yul
Brynner, theres Katharine Hepburn, theres Giulietta Masina,
theres Maggie Leighton, theres Dame Edith Evans, theres
Claude Dauphin, theres Paul Henreid, theres Oskar Homolka,
theres Donald Pleasence. It was overwhelming; as a film
buff. This was the history of the cinema I was looking at.
The only person who gave me any trouble on that film was
Paul Henreid, who was a prick; thats what he was. He was
just incredibly pompous. I took over that film on ten days
notice from John Huston and inherited all sorts of things,
including the main cast, and all of the cast members were
tied to very tight contracts, and the whole film had to be shot
on a very specific and tight schedule. Henreid was one of the
first people to arrive on the film, and I had an enormous
scene to film with him, with the French army and everything
else, and he didnt know a word! He kept blowing take after
take. I tried everything I could to placate him; I shot it from
different angles, but finally wed done something like thirtyseven takes, and nothing was usable in any of it. And this was
the very first day! So I thought, Jesus Christ, what have I
gotten into here?
So at the end of the day, I went back to my rented house
and said to Nanette, my wife, My God, he must be sitting in
the hotel alone cutting his wrists. So I rang him and said,
Hey, come on, lets all go out to dinner. So we drove back
into Nice to take him out to dinner. And over drinks, I said to
him, Listen, Paul, dont worry, we all have days like that;
and he said, Im not worried. Film is cheap. And in his own
autobiography, he blamed me for all the problems he had on
the film, and wrote, I never had confidence in Bryan Forbes
after that moment. Well, its ridiculous. He was an extraordinary man, very ungracious. Nobody liked him; he was the
only loner on the entire film. Katharine Hepburn was very
gracious and the soul of professionalism; and other than

Henreid, everything ran smoothly after that opening incident. But what a way to start the picture!
WWD : How did you become involved with International Velvet
[1978]?
BF : Well, Dick Shepherd had been my original Hollywood agent,
and hed just taken over MGM, and he was looking to do
all sorts of new projects, and so he called me up and said,
Weve been looking through what weve got on the list;
will you remake National Velvet [1944, directed by Clarence
Brown]? I said, No. Reissue the old movie. But he didnt
want to do that, so he said, Will you write a sequel? And
after a lot of discussion, I agreed to do it. I never wanted to
call it International Velvet; I wanted to call it Winning, but I
never had a chance. They wanted to climb on the back of the
old movie, which was a big mistake, but I loved working with
Tatum ONeal, who was completely professional and very
pleasant to work with. Christopher Plummer, Tony Hopkins,
and my wife were in it; it was a good cast. But when the film
came out, it was as if Id introduced a new strain of cancer
to the United States; the notices were really, really bad in
America, although in the rest of the world it did very, very
well. In America, it wasnt the year for any film that was sentimental; they didnt like Tatum, for some reason, so it was
sad. Nanette and I went over to do the promotional tour in
the States, and every day, it was very unpleasant indeed. Id
never received notices like that before.
WWD : Tell me about Sunday Lovers [1980]. What was that?
BF : Well, that was a three- or four-part Italian film, directed by
douard Molinaro, Dino Risi, Gene Wilder, and me. And
Gene Wilder really blew it for us all.
WWD : What happened?
BF : Well, its a classic example of dont direct yourself. Dont
direct yourself in a comedy, in this case, because theres nobody there to tell you that youre not funny. And hes a very
funny man, but its terribly difficult to direct yourself in a
film. Its not like the theater, where you have an audience to
play to. In a film, the only person you can really play to is the
director, and if youre the director, and youre not getting any
feedback because you cant analyze your own performance,
then youre in trouble. And thats what happened there.

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What about your most recent films: Jessie [1980, TVM],

Better Late Than Never [1982], The Naked Face [1984], and The
Endless Game [1990, TVM]?
BF : Well, Jessie is a beautiful film, a really sad period piece, which
was shown in the U.S. only on PBS, although it had a theatrical run over here; a really fine film Im very proud of. The
Naked Face was for Cannon Films. Roger Moore, who was in
the film, was an old mate, and I always wanted to work with
Rod Steiger, Art Carney, and Elliott Gould, so I took the job.
It was based on Sidney Sheldons first novel, actually; shot on
location in Chicago. It was a difficult shoot, but in the end, I
think it turned out pretty well. I was there for nearly a year,
and I had a great time. The Endless Game was from my own
novel; I had a really fine cast in that, including Albert Finney,
George Segal, and Ian Holm, Kristin Scott Thomas, Michael
Medwin, and Derek de Lint, who was in Philip Kaufmans
The Unbearable Lightness of Being [1988]; I spotted him in that
and cast him in this, and he was very good indeed.
WWD :

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Shooting Cape Fear

Freddie
Francis

I have known Freddie Francis since the early 1980s, when he was
feverishly active as both a director and a director of photography.
Freddie is one of the giants of British cinematography, with two
Oscars to his credit and numerous other awards; his most recent
film as director of photography is David Lynchs Straight Story
(1999), which he shot while in semiretirement in a mere twentyeight days on location in Iowa. Starting out as a clapper-loader,
Francis advanced through the ranks to assistant cameraman and
during World War II served as a camera operator in the Royal
Army Kinematograph Service. After the war, he worked on such
films as Outcast of the Islands (1951), Mine Own Executioner (1947),
Beat the Devil (1954), and Moby Dick (1956; Francis also functioned
as an uncredited second-unit director on this film) until he was
given A Hill in Korea (1957) as a full-fledged director of cinematography. Francis continued his work as a DP on such films as Time
Without Pity (1957), Room at the Top (1958), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), The Innocents (1961), and numerous other
films, before breaking into feature direction with Two and Two
Make Six (1962) and The Brain (1962). However, it was Franciss
direction of the suspense classic Paranoiac (1962), starring the late
Oliver Reed, that firmly put him on the map as a director; released
in both the United Kingdom and the United States, the film received excellent reviews, and Franciss directorial career was truly
launched. However, with his subsequent direction of such films
as Dr. Terrors House of Horrors (1964), The Skull (1965), Torture Garden (1967), and numerous other horror films, Francis became irrevocably typecast as a horror filmmaker. In disgust, Francis withdrew from directing for a time, until he was chosen to shoot David
Lynchs first major feature film, The Elephant Man, in 1980. This
film set Francis firmly back on the path of cinematography, and
his work since then, including The French Lieutenants Woman
(1981), The Executioners Song (1982), Dune (1985), and many other
films, has firmly established his reputation as one of Britains finest cinematographers.

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Francis

74
Shooting
Cape Fear

In December 1991, I was invited by the National Film Theatre

of the British Film Institute to deliver a lecture on the work of
Freddie Francis. At the last moment, Freddie called me at my hotel
in London, and he expressed his desire to do the lecture with me,
sharing the stage at the British Film Institute (BFI). Freddie had
then just returned from the United States, where he had been filming Martin Scorseses Cape Fear (1991), and so naturally we spoke
about his involvement with the film as our first topic. The audience was filled with Freddies friends and admirers, including many
of Great Britains most distinguished directors of photography.
What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation, with a
few questions from the audience at the end of the presentation.
Tell us about working with Martin Scorsese on Cape Fear.
I know we had a couple of telephone conversations while you
were shooting that, and there is a bone of contention that
Freddie and I have. I feel that Freddie favors the CinemaScope frame over other formats, yet he steadfastly denies
this. But when Martin Scorsese makes his first CinemaScope
picture, whom does he get as his director of cinematography? Freddie Francis. So what do you have to say about that?
FF : Well, working with Marty is very strange. When I first met
with Marty, in his apartment in Manhattan, he asked me to
do the film straight away. So it happened very quickly. We
got on very well, like a house on fire. Marty loves movies
and, you know, because Ive been in the business for a hundred years, we were talking about movies, and Marty was
laughing it up. But then when we started shooting the film, a
strange thing happened.
Marty is in some ways unaware of what goes on around
him. Film is all that matters to Marty, and what ever else goes
on around him he doesnt care about. And so Martys got a
lot of people around him to protect him. Im not sure against
what. But I suddenly found them protecting [him] against
me! The first few weeks on the movie, I wasnt very happy
about that. Plus the fact that Marty is one of these directors
who directs via the television monitor, and this is something
I hate. If I cant touch the actors and work with them, I cant
work. Its just not real, you know? So finally I had to tell him,
Im not enjoying this movie. Here I am working with one of
WWD :

the greatest filmmakers of the present-day, and Im not having a good time. I was very sad about it.
But then I decided to try another way to get to know him.
Since he directed via the TV monitor, I decided to join him
there rather than staying on the floor. I would sit with Marty,
staring at the television monitor. Fortunately, I had a wonderful operator [Gordon Hayman] and a wonderful gaffer, so
this meant that I could leave the set once we were shooting.
So I sat with Marty, and wed watch the whole thing on the
TV screenthe rehearsals, the blocking, the actual shooting.
We talked about the old days, and we began getting close. He
started listening to me about other things, and very soon I
was labeled sort of a troublemaker because I have a wicked
sense of humor.
And so I would upset the people protecting him by getting Marty to do things that nobody had scheduled or budgeted for. So eventually, we started having a good time. I was
happier and so was Marty. We became very close. Hed leave
me to shoot various sequences. And in fact, when we finished, I persuaded him to let me shoot what I think is the
absolutely wonderful miniature work at the end of the film,
the stuff with the houseboat breaking up. It was shot over
here in England, all of it miniature work, and it really came
out very well. Even people who work on films say that they
dont be-lieve they are miniatures. So we finished up great,
great friends.
WWD : The man who was the camera operator on Cape Fear,
Gordon Hayman, is a brilliant camera operator. He shot Glory
for you as well, yet his name was inadvertently left off the
credits. When you won the Academy Award in 1990 for Glory,
you made a point of mentioning his work on the film, rather
than thanking everybody else, which I thought showed a lot
of style. And then you added, Were available in January.
This, I think, is an accurate measure of your integrity and
your desire to keep constantly employed. It seems that you
simply cannot stop working.
FF : I know I keep intending to take a rest, but somebody says
something to me, and I get interested in a project. The next
thing I know Im back in America, working eighteen hours
a day.

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Francis

WWD :

Why are you making so many films in America these days?

Are there any other films being made?
WWD : Yeah, thats a problem. Theres nothing happening in
England now, except TV.
FF : Its a terrible thing, you know, this business, which Ive been
in sixty years or so. But theres nothing left. Its just falling
around our ears!
WWD : What do you attribute that to principally?
FF : In the old days, the Americans used to screw us and make
sure we couldnt show our films in America. Who wants
British films? theyd say. And then, too, we dont have
this sort of knack that the Americans have of being able to
start on a project and then just pile money in on it until
its finished.
For example, on Cape Fear, we were shooting in Ft. Lauderdale, and I said, Marty, why are you doing this film in
Florida? He said, Because its the only place in America
where the artists can fall in the water without getting cold.
I said, Well, thats fine, Marty, but there are no fast-flowing
rivers in Florida, and weve got this enormous night storm
sequence at the end. If we go to a river in Florida, well have
to take along wind machines, rain machines, lightning machines, all that stuff, and youll never get through the movie.
And so he said, What should we do? I said, Welland I
was backed here by dear old Henry Bumstead, the wonderful set designeryoull have to do it in a tank. Marty said,
OK, you know about tanks, and if thats what you think,
well do it. So I thought, Fine, were all going to get on a
plane and go to Universal where they have an enormous process tank. But, no, Marty doesnt like working in Los Angeles. So what do we do? We build a huge special-effects tank
on a piece of waste ground right there in Florida, complete
with a huge soundstage.
WWD : Just for the movie?
FF : Just for the movie. And so now, somewhere in Florida, you
have an enormous stage, with a tank, costing at least three
million dollars, sitting on someones property. But this is
the American way. No wonder the film cost so much! I was
talking to Marty last night, and its taken forty or fifty million dollars to finish it.
FF :

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Shooting
Cape Fear

WWD :

And yet its doing great business, at least in America, so I

guess the expense is justified.
FF : So thats why we have no movies in this country. We just
dont spend the money. We dont have the money.
WWD : Tell us a little bit about working with David Lynch. You
worked with him on Dune, which was not the worlds happiest experience because of all the process work. Why dont
you tell a little bit about shooting Elephant Man?
FF : Well, David is a lovely guy. When he was making Elephant
Man, he was very, very poor. When he came over here to shoot
the film, he was still doing a newspaper delivery route in Los
Angeles! He couldnt wait until he got his per diem expense
money while we were making the movie. He lived on that; his
salary was just gravy. But it was a wonderful experience for
him. David had never been in a studio before. I mean, he made
Eraserhead [1977] which is a brilliant student film. But Elephant Man was his first real film in a real studio. And frankly,
at that point, David didnt know his way around the studio,
and he elected that I would take him on a tour. But nevertheless, he knew what he wanted; he knew everything he needed
for the film instinctively. You know, I merely had to get what
he wanted, which is part of my job anyway. Working with
David is great, great fun. I hope well do another film together.
WWD : Could you talk a little bit about the early 1960s, when you
were already well established as a director of cinematography
and then you started directing films? On the one hand, you
were directing horror films for Hammer Films, Ltd., but on
the other hand, you were shooting such classics as Sons and
Lovers and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. How did you
negotiate that kind of split in your career?
FF : Well, a real director of photography has to really get involved with the director of the picture as well. The most difficult part of a cameramans job is to get into the directors
mind. And unless you are in his mind, its hell. But if you
want to make a good living, you have to keep working all the
time. Because, you know, the money wasnt that good back
then. And I was working on picture after picture. Some of
the time I was working with directors who I didnt like at all.
They didnt excite me, so I thought, Well, what the hell, you
know, why dont I just do it and go home.

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Francis

As an example of this, right after you had shot Sons and

Lovers and won the Academy Award for Cinematography, you
went right into The Horsemasters [1961], a Disney TV movie.
FF : I needed to work, you know, as my friends here will tell you.
But The Horsemasters was still the most enjoyable picture. My
operator in those days was Ron Taylor, who is now a DP himself. And we just knew it was going to be a rubbish picture. I
mean, the laughs started when dear old Bill Fairchild, who
was directing it, was having terrible trouble with one actor,
who shall remain nameless. And after a few days, Bill said to
me, This guy is terrible. Im going to kick hell out of my wife
tonight for telling me to cast this guy. So he went home,
and said, That guy you told me to cast, hes terrible! She
said, Who is it? He said the guys name. His wife said,
That wasnt the guy I asked you to pick! And that set the
tone for the picture. We did have a lot of fun. Every time I
fly to America, I meet Ronnie Taylor, and he says, You know,
I havent yet caught The Horsemasters at the Classic [a film
revival house in London, since closed].
WWD : Having seen you on the set working, it often seems to me
that youre practically directing the picture. Your visual input
into the setups, the way that you work with the actors and
with the director, is so much of a hand-in-glove operation that
it often seems to me that the director is simply keeping the
artists happy, while youre really designing the look of the
film. For instance, I watched Freddie working on the set of Her
Alibi [1989]. Tom Selleck was the lead, and Bruce Beresford
was the director. It was a very small whodunit picture, not
particularly ambitious. This was just before Driving Miss Daisy.
I started talking to Bruce Beresford, and said, You know,
as long as Im down here working on a biography of Freddie,
perhaps I should write a brief article about the making of this
film. Beresford looked at me as if Id gone mad and said, On
this film? So no one was very happy with the way the shoot
was going. But even here, I have never seen anyone work
harder on the set than Freddie. Hes there at seven oclock in
the morning, and the first shot is done by 7:40. At lunch time,
he sends somebody out for a plate of food, and he keeps right
on working. Theyd go until nine or ten at night, just to get
it right.
WWD :

78
Shooting
Cape Fear

Well, I always try as hard as I can, and it gets the picture

finished.
WWD : Tell us about shooting Room at the Top.
FF : Well, Ive known Jack Clayton who directed it, for a long,
long time. And I always knew when Jack directed a picture, I
would photograph it. The picture went very well. However,
there are two stories. One, the producer was James Woolf,
who was more interested in finishing on time and getting
the film done very quickly than anything else. And Ronnie
Taylor was the operator. And its the strangest thing: whenever Jimmie Woolf would arrive on the set, Ronnie would be
lining up a complicated crane shot. And Jimmie Woolf would
say, Why are you taking so bloody long? And all the blame
for falling behind schedule would fall on Ronnie. So I had to
defend Ronnie to get what I wanted.
But the other story is this. We decided that Laurence
Harvey, the star, should look more like a working man than
he did in his usual films; you know, less glamorous. Halfway
through the film, Larry, who was very friendly with James
Woolf, complained about the way he was looking in the dailies. And so James Woolf asked Jack Clayton to remove me
from the picture, which Jack refused to do. Jack said, I like
the way Freddie is doing the picture, and if Freddie goes, I
go. And so I didnt go. I stayed on, and I did the picture
pretty well. But listen to this. Ten years later, after Jimmie
Woolf died, Jack Clayton was given papers that had been in
Jimmie Woolfs desk. Woolf had in fact tried to replace Jack
Clayton as well, just so he could replace me as DP! And in
fact, hed actually asked another DP to do the picture! I
didnt know any of this was going on. But anyway, we got
away with it. Its a constant battle.
WWD : Sons and Lovers won the Academy Award for you in 1960.
You werent there to accept it, though, because you were
working on something else at the time.
FF : Indeed. I needed the money. [Laughter.]
WWD : Jerry Wald accepted for you, right?
FF : Jerry Wald, whom I didnt know. I must say, Im very happy
with that film. I saw Sons and Lovers just a few weeks ago. We
did this film in about six weeks, five days a week, 8:30 to 6:30.
Very quickly and very cheaply. Today, it would cost millions.
FF :

79
Freddie
Francis

WWD :

80
Shooting
Cape Fear

Does anybody have any questions hed like to ask Freddie

at this point?
AUDIENCE MEMBER : What do you think of shooting in video?
FF : I dont know because Ive never done it. I hate to say this,
but I think Im too old to start experimenting with video. Ill
experiment with film as much as you like, but I think video is
completely over my head.
WWD : You dont even like to use a video tap on films [a device
that allows one to view the shoot on a video monitor while
shooting].
FF : No, I dont, not at all. As I was saying earlier on, I had to do
it to overcome the situation with Marty on Cape Fear. But it
has so many limitations. I dont know how directors can use
it. You cant see the expressions in peoples eyes. You cant
see the detail. And the shutters rolling, so it causes flicker. I
dont like it at all.
AUDIENCE MEMBER : I have a more technical question. I know you
use the Lightflex attachment in most of your work, but
Kodak is coming out with such sensitive new film stocks, I
wonder if you still like to use the Lightflex on your films?
FF : I think I got a little bit lazy, using it all the time. I didnt use
it on Cape Fear because of the CinemaScope format. But I still
like to use it. I think it helps as much as using a higher speed
film, and Im a great champion of the Lightflex. But surprisingly enough, I didnt miss it on Cape Fear. So I dont know
what that says. Maybe Im getting used to the new filmstocks
after all.
AUDIENCE MEMBER : Freddie, we all know so much of your early
work was in black-and-white. And then, of course, like all of
us, you moved to color. When you are working in color, do
you still wish you were working in black-and-white? Does
the black-and-white experience have any influence on the
way you work in color? And another question: Do you think
there is any possibility of black-and-white becoming fashionable again?
FF : The second part of the question, I hate to say I dont think
so. Im hoping that my relationship with Marty will continue
and that Ill be able to persuade Marty to make a black-andwhite picture because, if Marty said he wanted to make a
black-and-white picture, there is nobody who can stop him.

On the first question, I find that my lighting techniques

have hardly changed at all from black-and-white to color. I
dont know why this is. Its probably that Im lazy, but it is
true that I dont use much backlight now, with color, and I
used to with black-and-white. But I dont sort of consciously
think, Black-and-white will do this, so if its not black-andwhite, Ill do this. No. Its just how my eye sees it. The important thing is to be honest in what you do. If you dont have
that, then youre wasting your time and cheating the audience. Filmmaking is hard work, but its good work. I love it.

81
Freddie
Francis

John Creating Ren and Stimpy

Kricfalusi

82
Creating
Ren and
Stimpy

When I asked John Kricfalusi (pronounced Krisfalusi), the director-animator-cocreator of the hit Nickelodeon cartoon series Ren
and Stimpy what his job was at Spmc, the animation company
he founded to produce the show, Kricfalusi instantly replied: Im
the ringleader. While this statement somewhat oversimplifies the
matter, Kricfalusis approach to his work is very definitely on his
own terms, and he brooks very little dissent from his strongly held
opinions. Throughout our 2 February 1992 telephone conversation, Kricfalusi repeatedly praised his coworkers on the show and
took pains to identify individual contributions by animators, inbetweeners, and the rest of his technical support staff. At the same
time, however, Kricfalusi indulged in some sweepingly dubious
generalities about his own work and about the animated cartoon
in general.
Cartoon characters have no gender, he asserted, in response
to my question about the gender of Ren and Stimpy. I was about
to mention Minnie Mouse, Olive Oyl, Betty Boop (all females), or
Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig (all decidedly male), to say
nothing of Rens phantasmal heterosexual frenzy in Kricfalusis
cartoon Marooned, but I thought better of it. I had the distinct
feeling that, if I disagreed with him, John would hang up.
Kricfalusi uses classical music in his cartoons because its
cheap. His favorite movies are The Night of the Hunter (1955) and
The Maltese Falcon (1941); his favorite comedians, the Three
Stooges. Yet he is not a fan of Tex Avery, the ultraviolent 1940s
animator who created Droopy, Screwy Squirrel, and the Blitz
Wolf. All in all, Kricfalusi is not a man who is afraid to voice his
opinions. But he is also a man of genius. Ren and Stimpy is the best
animated cartoon to come along since the glory days of the 1940s.
It is fresh, funny, utterly original, and completely anarchic. It appeals to children, as well as adults. Working with Nickelodeon,
Kricfalusi created an ambitious schedule of twenty eleven-minute
shorts for the 199293 season; at thirty-six, he is already one of the
indisputable greats of the animated cartoon, right up there with

Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, and the other renowned
masters of the medium.
Kricfalusi doesnt like to analyze what he does, like most filmmakers, but for once, I disagreed with him and pointed out that it
was his personal vision and commitment to quality that made the
series so successful. Reluctantly, he agreed, but he remained suspicious of any attempts to figure out precisely why Ren Hoek (an
insomniac Chihuahua with the voice of Peter Lorre) and Stimpson
J. Cat (an overweight alley cat described by Kricfalusi simply as
retarded) had clicked so resoundingly with viewers. Perhaps a
few answers can be found in the transcript that follows. This interview was conducted just as Ren and Stimpy was beginning to
peak as a pop-culture phenomenon. Sadly, shortly after this interview, Kricfalusi was taken off the series, allegedly for going over
budget and over schedule. Because he sold the rights to the characters to Nickelodeon, the series continued with other directors.
But the real snap of the show vanished. This, then, is a glimpse
of an accomplished auteur working at the peak of his powers, just
before the roof caved in.
WWD :

Do you think of a story first and then the gags, or the gags
first and then shift them into a story?
JK : It can work a million different ways. Its just whatever inspiration we get. If we get enough ideas for itit becomes a
story. Sometimes its a complete story idea, and sometimes it
starts out with bits and pieces and grows from there.
WWD : Was there ever a particular gag that you wanted to do, but
the studio heads thought it was too far out for your audience?
JK : Actually there[re] lots of them. Plenty of them. But mostly
theyre subtle gags. Last year, there was a gag in Space Madness. Remember the scene in which Ren and Stimpy are
having quality time together on the spaceship? Nothings
happening, right? We cut to closer and closer shots of their
faces, to show that they have memorized everything about
each other, since theyve been stranded in space forever.
I also wanted to do one shotremember when you were
a kid and youd go outside on sunny days and youd look
around and get this film of paramecium or something in
front of your eyes? Those little weird squiggly, wiggly things

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Kricfalusi

84
Creating
Ren and
Stimpy

that are always at the edge of your field of vision? You never
can quite get a focus on them. You look at them, and they zip
away. Well, I wanted to have that effect, panning by in front
of Stimpy as Rens point of view of Stimpythese weird little
parameciums floating in front of his eyes. [Laughs.] Just to
add to his madness, you know? But they didnt understand it
at all, so we scrapped it.
WWD : So Nickelodeon looks at your storyboards and then gives
the OK?
JK : Yes, they have approval on the story and the storyboards.
WWD : How many people work on these episodes? Whats your
core staff?
JK : Well, right now there[re] about thirty. It will go up to about
fifty this year because were doing about twenty episodes.
WWD : Ren and Stimpy seems like its the result of a group process. How does the story evolve? Do you pass the script
around amongst different departments and ask for input?
Sound effects, for example?
JK : Well, we figure out the story in basically two steps. One,
we do a story outline. We dont use scripts. Scripts are too
primitive for animation. Theyre a thing of the past. So we
come up with an outline, two or three pages, and thats the
plot. The major gags are figured out at the outline stage. But
theres no script yet. We dont write in all the dialogue yet.
Then we take the outline and go next to a storyboard. We fill
out the story on the storyboard. Rather than have a script, we
work out all the gags, all the details, and the camera directions in the storyboard.
Then we have a layout. The layout is where we plan the
final poses of the film and the backgrounds around them. We
compose all the shots, and we draw every acting poseevery
time there is a change of attitude or mood in the character,
we draw every single onewhich most studios do not do, of
course. Most studios take the storyboard, if youre talking
about television studios, and they ship the storyboard overseas for animation.
We dont do that. Theres no way the show would be the
success it is if we did that. There would be no acting. Our
show is heavy on acting. What makes a lot of our gags play is

the reactions of the characters. How they read the lines and
how they look when they read the lines. You dont get this in
any other cartoon today.
WWD : So when you use overseas studios, they just do the inbetweening?
JK : Well, in some cases, yes. But theres one particular studio
Carbunkle in Vancouverwho adds a lot when they do the
animation. They do just beautiful animation. They animated
Space Madness, for example.
WWD : Another great episode is Nurse Stimpy. That had so
many setups and shots edited together, especially towards
the end. Who worked on that?
JK : It wasnt the animators who were responsible for that; thats
the work of the layout artists. Actually also its the storyboard artistChris Reccardi. On Nurse Stimpy, the storyboards were figured out by Chris Reccardi. That montage you
referred to was created by Chris. Its really great stuff.
WWD : Why do you use so much classical music?
JK : [Laughs.] We use whatever we can get cheap!
WWD : Do you fear losing control over things when you ship stuff
overseas?
JK : Thats why we do the layouts hereso that we have as much
control as possible. Normally, in older cartoons, for example,
classic Bugs Bunny cartoons, the director would work directly
with the animatorso the layouts didnt have to have a lot of
poses in them. The director would sit there working with the
animator, and they would work out how the acting was going
to happen. The director would do sketches, and the animator
would add to ityou have a lot of control this way. But because of budget considerations today, we just cant afford to
do it this way anymore.
WWD : What is the budget and actual running time of the Ren
and Stimpy cartoons?
JK : They are eleven minutes each. Im not going to quote an
actual figure on the budgets, but its higher than your average
Saturday morning show.
WWD : Do you get pressure from any civic-minded groups, or do
you feel obligated by Nickelodeon to be politically correct?
JK : No. I feel obligated to be politically incorrect! I think thats

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Kricfalusi

86
Creating
Ren and
Stimpy

the stupidest term Ive ever heard in my life! Why is one persons view politically correct when another persons isnt?
Who decides that?
WWD : Do you get a lot of grief from pressure groups who write
in with complaints?
JK : No, we havent had any negative press at all. We have had
tons of press. Id say 99 percent is really positive. Great.
Which really surprises meI actually thought we would get
at least a few people mad. I think that we are living in a
society that has such a dearth of real entertainmentstuff
that doesnt claim to be anything more than entertainment
that people appreciate something good.
WWD : How long have you been developing the characters Ren
and Stimpy? Did the voices come first and then the characters, or the drawings?
JK : The drawings came first. We were struggling to figure out
voices for a long time.
WWD : Is Rens voice a Peter Lorre imitation?
JK : Yes, its a bad impersonation of Peter Lorre. [Laughs.]
WWD : I thought so. He was described by Newsweek as a sort of
Frito Bandito imitation . . .
JK : No. Hes not supposed to be like the Frito Bandito.
WWD : Describe the genesis of Ren and Stimpy.
JK : [Sighs.] This is the question I hate more than anything.
WWD : Sorry.
JK : Well, they were just doodles. They were just doodles I used
to do. For no reason other than to amuse people around the
studios that I worked at, while doing crap. Stuff I worked on
years and years ago.
WWD : Why did you decide to do the voice for Ren yourself?
JK : I did the voice for Ren because I cast a whole string of professional voice actors, and none of them could get the intensity that I wanted. They might be better actors, but they just
couldnt get the soul right, so I just did it myself.
WWD : What would you say is the basis of Ren and Stimpys relationship with each other? Whats the basic chemistry between them? They seem like Abbott and Costello in a way.
JK : Theyre just a classic comedy team. Ren is an asshole. Stimpy
is retarded. [Laughs.]
WWD : Do they have genders? It seems nonspecific.

JK :

Cartoon characters dont have genders.

Are you interested in a live actionanimation mix at all?
JK : Not really, not unless its for a joke. It doesnt mix naturally.
It always looks terrible.
WWD : What were some of your first gigs?
JK : I worked on some of the worst cartoons ever made. There
was this studioFilmationa few years back, the worst studio
ever . . . [Laughs.] They made Archie and Gilligans Planet and
some of the most horrible cartoons you ever saw. They just
turned your stomach to watch them. I started there. We took
some of the most classic cartoons and ruined them! We
ruined Tom and Jerry and Droopy. We ruined Mighty Mouse
and Heckle and Jeckle. We did updated versions with limited
animation. They were so bad theyre almost funny. Almost
funny. Except that theyre kind of sickening. I also did a lot of
subcontracting, and I freelanced for all the studios: HannaBarbera, Filmation, DIC. I worked on so much terrible stuff. I
sort of enjoyed working on The Jetsons, really The New Adventures of the Jetsons. I just liked the styling of The Jetsons. I liked
the way the characters looked and the backgrounds. I enjoy
the early Hanna-Barbera stuff, particularly Huckleberry Hound
and Quick Draw McGraw.
WWD : Huckleberry Hound was kind of a rip-off of an old Tex Avery
cartoon, Billy Boy. The voice was taken from Texs Billy Boy.
JK : Yes, the voice was, definitely.
WWD : When did you hook up with Ralph Bakshi?
JK : I worked with him a couple of times in the early eighties.
None of it was ever produced. He wanted to get into the
shorts market. He wanted to recreate the short-cartoon market, which is tough to do. I worked doing some storyboards
for him for a while, writing cartoons and stuff. It never really
got off the ground. I also wrote a live-action movie for him.
That didnt get off the ground. That was my history with
him then. I was doing things for him that he couldnt sell.
[Laughs.]
He retired for four years. Then he came back and decided
that he wanted to get into TV. He looked me up, and we developed a bunch of ideas and tried to sell them to television.
They were much too weird for television. Then he sold Mighty
Mouse. So we took all our weird ideas and stuffed them into
WWD :

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Kricfalusi

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Creating
Ren and
Stimpy

the Mighty Mouse series. They didnt fit at all. They had
nothing to do with Mighty Mouse. But we used them anyway.
WWD : Yes, your cartoons are full of lots of weird gags, as in the
Ren and Stimpy cartoon Fire Dogs. The fireman who appears
in Fire Dogs seems kind of Bakshiesque. Very over the top.
Or the narrator who forces Stimpy to push the History Erase
button in Space Madness.
JK : Well, the fireman in Fire Dogs is Ralph Bakshi. Thats
really him! [Laughs.]
WWD : Do you always push your writers to go one step further out?
JK : I dont need to push them. Theyre all insane.
WWD : What do you make of the Ren and Stimpy cult following on
college campuses?
JK : I dont feel connected to that. Its an abstract thing that people tell me. I havent really witnessed it.
WWD : When you create a cartoon, are you writing for yourself or
your audience?
JK : I always write for the audience. Im not out to be any auteur
or anything like that.
WWD : Yes, but you are. The series is completely individual and
original. You inject your personal energy in every frame.
JK : Yes, myself and the other creatorsJim Smith, Bob Camp,
and originally Lynne Naylor all have had major input, though
Lynne Naylor and I originally founded the company, developed the characters, and did the original cartoon that sold
the series. We did the styling and everything.
WWD : Which networks turned down Ren and Stimpy?
JK : ABC, CBS, NBC, all three of them.
WWD : What were their reactions?
JK : Well, I would go into the studios and pitch the stuff at them.
I bring in a lot of drawings, storyboards, and act it out and
scream and jump around and sweat a lot. Id throw myself on
the tables and stuff. Their reaction was justHow do we get
this guy out of the room without getting hurt?
WWD : So how did you get hooked up with Nickelodeon?
JK : Well, they were looking for small studios who were producing cartoons. They didnt want to go to Hanna-Barbera, Disney, the big studios, the same old stuff. They wanted something inspired by the animators themselves. They wanted to
get the animators vision onto the screen.

We heard about this. I didnt believe it for a second. So I

went down to meet Vanessa Coffey of Nickelodeon in her
hotel room. She was here from New York. So I did the same
thing Id done for the majors. I jumped all over, screamed,
sweated all over, flailed myself against the wall, and instead
of phoning the police, she rushed me to New York, and I had
to do it again for all the executives at Nickelodeon. They
went for it.
WWD : You must have felt totally vindicated after working so
many years on other peoples stuff.
JK : I didnt really believe it at first. Even when they gave us the
money to produce the pilot, I still didnt quite believe it.
WWD : Did you always want to be an animator when you were
growing up?
JK : Except for a brief stint when I wanted to be a rock star. I
guess everyone goes through that.
WWD : Did you have particular directors you admired? Tex Avery?
JK : Not so much Avery. My favorite is Bob Clampett . . . to this
day, I will swear that Bob Clampett was the greatest cartoonist who ever lived, and everyone else was just a cheap imitation of him. Avery was good, but he doesnt compare to
Clampett. He just didnt have the subtlety of Clampett. He
didnt have the many shades of expression that Clampett put
in his work.
WWD : What about Rod Scribner?
JK : Hes the best animator that ever lived.
WWD : Scribner and Clampett were
JK : an unbeatable team. Absolutely.
WWD : Yes, I love Daffy Duck, for example, as drawn by Scribner
in Draftee Daffy. So the takes [exaggerated reactions by
the characters] are more from Clampett than Avery?
JK : No, no, no. Forget the takes. Takes are cheap shots. Anybody
can do a goddamned take. Look at [Who Framed] Roger Rabbit[?]ninety minutes of takes; makes me want to throw up!
You dont have to be a genius to draw a take. Its emotionthe
full range of emotionsthat works in Clampetts cartoons.
The acting is some of the most convincing acting of any cartoons ever made. His ideas were amazing. He had new idea
after new idea. For a string of about four years, he made nothing but great cartoons. You take the other guys and the best of

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Kricfalusi

90
Creating
Ren and
Stimpy

them, Chuck Jones and Tex Avery, look at their whole history,
twenty, twenty-five years worth of stuff, and they dont have
as many great cartoons as Clampett did in four years.
WWD : Ive never been a big fan of Chuck Jones.
JK : Chuck is definitely a great director.
WWD : But hes so long on story . . .
JK : Well, they lean towards pomposity. Thats for sure.
WWD : Do you admire Rocky and Bullwinkle?
JK : Not in the least.
WWD : Why?
JK : Theyre just illustrated radiomoving radio.
WWD : Whats the long-range game plan with Ren and Stimpy?
JK : Well, I dont have a long-range game plan with Ren and
Stimpy. Nickelodeon does. They want to make them as long
as they are popular. They want to make millions of them and
sell them around the world. Put them in syndication. Make
them American icons.
WWD : It seems that they havent been overmerchandised as of
yet. Is that a conscious decision?
JK : Yeah, I think so. Nickelodeon wanted to be sure that the
characters were popular first and lived on their own. Now
they are. Its a big hit. Now Im hoping that they do blitz the
market with merchandising because, when I was a kid, I
loved having toys and comic books and all that stuff with
cartoon characters that I really liked. I didnt want them
forced upon me. But if you like cartoon characters, of course
you want to play with false idols of them.
WWD : What about the possibility of a feature film with Ren and
Stimpy?
JK : Theyre talking with us about it. Id love to do one. Were
really cramped up by this eleven-minute format. We have so
much raw emotion happening that theres never enough time
to play it out.
WWD : Some would argue that the narrative drive couldnt be
sustained in a cartoon for ninety minutes, but you dont think
that would be a problem?
JK : Well, thats because they think that all cartoons are like
Tex Avery cartoons, where you have ninety minutes of takes.
We would have to cover a whole broad range of emotions.
There[re] many types of humor. Not all cartoon humor is

just about having bugged-out eyes and tongues flying out of

peoples heads.
WWD : Did your mother and father support your work while
growing up?
JK : Not really, no. Thats normal, though. All cartoonists are
taught Youll never make money drawing funny little men
. . . get a real job.
WWD : What do your parents do?
JK : They both worked for the Canadian government. I was born
in Canada.
WWD : How old are you?
JK : Thirty-six.
WWD : So you didnt make Super-8mm cartoons as a kid?
JK : No. I did flip books. Id take courses with the biggest books.
Like history books. Id fill them with drawings and make flip
books constantly.
WWD : Do you have any favorite films that influence your work
live-action films?
JK : Ive always loved John Hustons The Maltese Falcon. I like
Charles Laughtons only film as a director, The Night of the
Hunter. Thats my favorite film. Kirk Douglas: I love Kirk
Douglas. Kirk Douglas was one of my biggest influences. Hes
so great in Young Man with a Horn, Champion, and especially
Detective Story. Hes a rat with a heart. With remorse. The
great thing about Kirk Douglas is not just his intense acting.
Its the remorse after the intensity. The burst and then the
letdown. Its just incredible.
The influence on the acting in our cartoons is obviously
not from other cartoons. Its more from movies and real life.
Our characters have real-life experiences thrown into a surreal world. Ren and Stimpy act like people. They dont act
like funny animals. They look like funny animals. But they act
like human beings.
WWD : Do you ever plan to remake any old classic cartoons with
the Ren and Stimpy characters?
JK : No, no. All these homages always pale in comparison to the
originals.
WWD : What other influences do you have?
JK : I love the Three Stooges. I think they, along with Monty
Python, did some of the greatest comedy ever.

91
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Kricfalusi

What did you think of Disneys new version of Beauty and

the Beast [1991]?
JK : I didnt even go and see it. It just looked so horrifying. I cant
believe its a hit. Why? I just think its the greatest hype machine in the world.
WWD : Well, its a return to the past. Theyre trying to get back to
their old style, like Snow White [and the Seven Dwarfs] [1938] or
Cinderella [1950].
JK : Forget it. They cant touch the classic cartoons they once
did, even stuff only ten years ago.
WWD : College kids love your show because it goes for the edge.
Its not just a safe old rehashing of the past.
JK : But its not just the college kids. Let me make this clear: Ren
and Stimpy really is a childrens show. It was made for kids.
Im not putting anything in there that I dont think a kid can
watch, or should watch. Its completely a kids show. It really
surprises me that adults watch it. It has a huge adult following. I think its just because we dont hold back on entertainment value; with almost everything today, whether its a
movie, a series on TV, a novel, whatever, they hold back on
the entertainment. I dont want to give them any messages or
anything. I dont want to bullshit them. I dont want to show
them that Im a genius or an artist. Give them entertainment!
Give them a solid half hour of entertainment. As many ideas
as you can cram into it. Old cartoons did that. Old movies
did that. Thats what we do.
And the show is a combined vision. The four key people are
Jim Smith, the key designer, director, and an unbelievable
artist; Bob Camp, who is also a great artist and the head
writer. He and I have come up with most of the stories. Lynne
Naylor is no longer with us, but she developed the characters
and drawing style with me. And then theres me. Im the
ringleader. [Laughs.]
WWD : Where does the name Spmc come from, incidentally?
Why do the Danes call it quality, as you say at the end of
each show?
JK : Well, its a weird coincidence. The word spm is the word for
quality in Danish. But its actually named after Raymond
Spm, the guy who invented animation in 1856.
WWD : How many cartoons are you working on at once?
WWD :

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JK :

You have to jump back and forth. Youre working on the story
for one, the storyboard for another, the layouts for one, the design for another one. Then youre directing voices for another
one. They all overlap. We work on maybe six at a time.
WWD : Are Ren and Stimpy coming out on video?
JK : Eventually, yes.
WWD : Why are Ren and Stimpy always outsiders? Theyre always out of a job, for example.
JK : I dont really think about it. If I did, maybe Id say they represent average folks. Theyre real people with real problems.
Thats probably why people identify with them. We are not
making an idealization of their characters. Ren and Stimpy
are not The Care Bears. Theyre not these unreal characters
that are nonmotivated. They have the same motivations that
we have, that real people have, only theyre exaggerated.
WWD : If I had to sum up the appeal of Ren and Stimpy, it seems to
me that you always do what the audience doesnt expect.
JK : Thats my biggest rule at the studio! Try not to repeat
yourself. Try not to go for the obvious.
WWD : I remember in Robin Hoek, for example. Robin climbs
up the maidens hair, and it turns out to be her nasal hair . . .
JK : Well, thats a joke upon a joke. The first joke was, well, Let
down your golden hair, and one hair comes down, so you
would think thats enough of a payoff. No, that not enough.
Lets give them something more. Weve surprised them
once, I said, lets give them another one.
WWD : How many hours a day are you working? Do you drive
yourself into the ground?
JK : During the peak of our season, yes. When were doing layouts, for example. The drawing is the most important part,
the hardest part. Most cartoons today are run by writers.
Everything you see on television is controlled by writers!
If you want to print something thats really true, print this:
the drawing in animation should always take precedence.
When writers control it, writers who cant make it in the
field of writing that theyd really like to be infailed novelists, failed sitcom writers, failed movie writers, whatever
they all gravitate towards the animation business and then
write the most terrible stuff in the world that cant be produced, and thats why its all so bad.

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But at Spmc, all our writers are artists. We know what

you can and cant do. The writing is actually the easiest part.
We can write a story in an afternoon, and I think our stories
fare with some of the best in animation. But the hard part is
to make the stories work. That takes drawing skill. Real hard,
sweating drawing skills that very few people have. Thats
what makes our cartoons work.

When Im Sixty-Three

Jonathan
Miller

When the name Jonathan Miller is mentioned, most people think

first of his productions of William Shakespeares plays for the BBC
or his most recent work staging operas in Salzburg, New York,
Vienna, and London, but in fact, Jonathan Miller is very much the
Renaissance man. Having first trained as a medical doctor (he received his degree from St. Johns College, Cambridge, and University College, London, in 1959), Miller has been, by turns, a satirist
(in his work with the Beyond the Fringe review, where he co-starred
with Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, and Alan Bennett), a critic, a
writer, a stage director, an opera director, a producer, and a filmmaker. This last part of Millers career is often obscured by his
other accomplishments, but it forms a fascinating and, I would
argue, crucial portion of his overall accomplishment as an artist.
I first met Dr. Jonathan Miller during a lecture he gave at Rutgers University in New Jersey in the spring of 1968. He was there
to present his feature-film version of Alice in Wonderland (1966),
shot in 35mm black-and-white as a BBC telefilm and never released
theatrically due to legal problems with actors clearances (mores
the pity). The huge ensemble cast included John Gielgud, Peter
Sellers, Ralph Richardson, Malcolm Muggeridge, and Anne-Marie
Mallik as Alice. To my mind, Millers version is the very best adaptation of Lewis Carrolls oft-filmed classic, and its lack of
public approbation is thus all the more unsettling. In addition,
Miller also presented two shorter films, Oh Whistle and Ill Come to
You (1968), a ghost story based on a short story by Henry James,
and The Drinking Party: Platos Symposium (1965), both also made for
the BBC and running about an hours length each. At a symposium
after the screening, we began talking and became friends.
When I lived in London in the summer of 1968, I stayed at
Jonathans house. He was unfailingly kind, introducing me to the
New Arts Lab in Drury Lane (then the hub of independent-film
production in the United Kingdom) and drawing me into debates
in the basement kitchen of his Gloucester Street home (where he
still lives today) on every imaginable topic under the sun, from pop
music to politics. I was impressed then, as I still am now, with his

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candor, his concise and cutting use of language, and his unfailing honesty and good taste in all things, particularly film. Since
Millers filmic work has been so little distributed in the United
States, and since so few people are aware of this aspect of his
career, I decided that it would be a good idea to engage him in a
dialogue on his film work. This conversation took place on 31
July 1997.
In 1968, you had just finished Alice in Wonderland in 35mm
black-and-white, and you were very much opposed to the use
of color, and also to videotape, in your work at that time.
Now, of course, youve done a lot of tape with your work in
the Shakespeare plays and also as a director-producer of
opera for the BBC. How have your views changed since then?
JM : Well, I was really only opposed to the use of color in Alice
in Wonderland because I was trying to recreate a Victorian
film, a film of the early cinema, with the effect of Victorian
photography. I wasnt trying to recreate the [John] Tenniel
drawings because there was no way you could do that on
film, so I went for a much more naturalistic approach, but I
wanted to get the effect of Victorian photographs, the sort of
thing that Carroll himself would have taken. Im still rather
opposed to color under those circumstances. Making Alice in
Wonderland was an absolutely delightful experience because
it wasnt a standard commercial production. I simply called
up all my friends in the theater and told each of them that
the other was going to do it, and so in the end they all agreed,
and the film was, I think, quite successful.
There are certain films that I think would always look better in black-and-white. Alice in Wonderland was one of them.
If I was going to do a film about the 1940s, there are certain
black-and-white photographs that look much better and convey the spirit of the era with greater accuracy. But as my son,
who is a photographer, keeps on saying, Its a lie because
these events were, in fact, in color. For example, Steven
Spielbergs Schindlers List [1993] was sort of a lie because of
that. I also didnt like the way he threw in little splashes of
color to direct your attention where he wanted it. But it was
primarily a lie because, as Roman Polanski said, I remember
those events in color.
WWD :

WWD :

You were also quite opposed to videotape at that point in

your career.
JM : That was only because, in those days, videotape was an extremely crude optical device; it gave very undifferentiated
results. The range of blacks and whites and grays was not
nearly so full as it is now, and with increasing technological
developments, and particularly with the introduction of
digital videotape [DVT], I really now have very little against
it. Ive shot lots of things on tape subsequently and been very
pleased with them.
WWD : But dont you feel theres an essential difference between
film and tape, the feel, the look, the essential characteristics
of the two mediums?
JM : Yes, of course there are differences, and of course you cant
satisfactorily project it on a big screen, although that day is
coming. I think by and large that gradually the distinction
between the two is getting less and less, and that, as my son
just pointed out, you couldnt tell the difference between film
and video in Peter Greenaways Prosperos Books [1991]; the
whole thing was, in fact, shot on digital videotape and then
transferred to film.
I think now that any objections one might have had to digital tape are very small, and from the point of view of convenience and speed and instant playback, and just the manipulability of video machines, its so much greater than film. When
it comes to these big widescreen productions, then obviously
you would want to use massive, big-format film for these
projects, but I suspect that massive, big-format digital tape
will also become available for these productions in the future.
WWD : Are you suspicious of these big widescreen productions,
or to put it another way, are you suspicious of spectacle?
JM : No, Im not suspicious of spectacle, I quite enjoy it, when its
there. But I dont think there are really many wonderful films
which are ever great spectacles. Often times, these films are
by definition great spectacles and thats it. Theres nothing
else to them. And in certain films, like John Fords westerns,
if you couldnt see Monument Valley in its entirety, it would
detract considerably from the overall success of the work.
Thats the best kind of spectacle because its a marriage of
thematic concerns with a sense of the broad sweep one needs

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in these kind of films. But if youre talking about films where

the spectacle becomes the whole text of the narrative, then
thats of no interest at all.
What I prefer are small, intimate films about real people.
And often, for these projects, you could do them just as well
on digital tape, and obtain some wonderful effects in the
process. You can light things now for tape that are wonderful; you can do things with much greater subtlety than it was
ever possible to do before. Ive just got a new series coming
out on the production of opera, which was shot in a very peculiarly moody warehouse, and it doesnt look that different
from Reservoir Dogs, and yet the entire project was conceived
and shot on digital tape. I think the day is rapidly approaching, if it hasnt already arrived, when the distinction between
film and video will disappear altogether.
WWD : Why did you abandon commercial filmmaking altogether
after the production of Take a Girl Like You [1970], a feature
film for Columbia which starred Sheila Hancock, Noel
Harrison, Ronald Lacey, Hayley Mills, and Oliver Reed? I
thought it was quite successful.
JM : Well, not from my point of view. As far as I was concerned,
Take a Girl Like You was such a catastrophe, and I had such a
bad experience doing it, working with stars and working
with the conventional studio system, that I simply didnt
feel inclined to go on in that direction. Nor did I want to go
through the labor with studios of packaging projects, putting
together this star with that story, getting properties, going
to meetings, and the like [so] I thought it much easier to go
on directing plays and operas and television documentaries.
If the system had been more congenial, perhaps it would
have turned out differently.
WWD : What can you tell me about your involvement as director
in Whats Going on Now, a film documentary that you did in
conjunction with WNEW TV in New York in 196263? Was
that a series of telefilms?
JM : We only did one, which I directed, a full-length thing on the
arts in New York at that time, and then we did some short
shots on The Ed Sullivan Show, which he rapidly became impatient with because they were too subversive for that old
Irish cop.

What led to production of your teleseries The Body in

Question, which you wrote and appeared on but didnt direct? That was shot on film, a thirteen-part series for the
BBC in 1977. Wasnt this a rather gargantuan task to take on,
an entire series about the concerns and conditions of the
human organism?
JM : It was a very large and very difficult project, very long,
arduous, and elaborate, but I had always wanted to do something on the history of medicine. But actually, as the production got under way, I found that I was not so much interested
in the history of medicine as in the history of ideas and that
this was a very good framework for showing what became
the history of the mind. The body became a sort of pretext
for showing this interior landscape of the mind.
WWD : Then in 1979, you were appointed as head of another
remarkably ambitious project, the complete Shakespeare
series for the BBC, [on] which you served as executive
producer . . . for the entire series, as well as directing many
of the plays yourself.
JM : Well, I only served on the project for three years, from 1979
to 1981. I took it on because it was an opportunity to do more
Shakespeare, and that was the main attraction for me. It
wasnt that I was interested in the mechanics of the entire
production process at all, but I was deeply attracted to the
opportunity to do as much of Shakespeare as possible, in
versions that would appeal to contemporary audiences. So
we used people like John Cleese of Monty Python, and Roger
Daltrey, who had been the lead singer with the pop group
The Who. Altogether, I did seven of my own productions of
Shakespeare. I wasnt really attracted to the administrative
end of the business, I can assure you!
This wasnt my first time directing Shakespeare for television; Id done a version of King Lear on tape in 1975 for the
BBCs Play of the Month series. But the experience with doing
so many of these Shakespeare productions peaked for me
with my direction of Othello in 1981, which I was able to
shoot on tape in a way which is almost indistinguishable
from film. We used multiple cameras and did live visionmixing [known as live-switching in the United States] for
Othello, but I was able to light it in such a way that it had real
WWD :

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depth and intensity, and I feel it was every bit as good as

film, and again, I feel thats becoming an increasingly artificial distinction.
WWD : How do you go about doing the blocking of the actors for
film or tape? Do you do a lot of storyboarding? Is there a
difference in your mind when you consciously set about to do
something for the stage, as a theatrical experience, versus
something for film or tape?
JM : Well, for a film or video production, I rough it out visually,
not with storyboards but during the rehearsals with the
actors. I start very early on with the head cameraman, saying,
Look, well take this part of the speech up to here on that
shot, and then well cut round to the other one on that. So
its very much a process of discovery, and by the time weve
got round to the last rehearsals and were ready to go into the
studio, weve got a shooting script.
WWD : In footage Ive seen of you directing actors, you seem very
much concerned with what I might call externals, mannerisms and gestures which might reveal the interior state of the
performers consciousness through his facial expressions and
the use of her/his body as a performer.
JM : Well, youre quite right. Im very interested in the minute
details of human behavior. Most of the time, I find that as a
director Im reminding people of things theyve known but
forgotten. Im just not given to these sort of massive introspections when Im dealing with actors; you hope that these
people will come with sort of an idea as to what these internal emotions are, and then things will spring out of them
quite naturally as they start playing the part. To merely utter
the lines usually puts them in the frame of mind that will be
appropriate for them; they discover themselves in the part
through the language in the text.
We talk about peoples states of mind, but most of the
time, we know nothing about peoples states of mind except
through what they do. And so the best thing to do as a director is to keep on reminding the actors of this fact, and
then theyll deliver the sort of performance that one wants. I
always find its best to go from outside in; to start with the
exterior gestures and mannerisms, and they take them inside
to find out why they seem appropriate to the actor.

Working with each individual actor is unique. Each person

has a particular way of working, and its mad to try to impose
a way of working on them from the outset. Nevertheless,
they come to recognize that I have a way of working as a
director, in which I put tremendous emphasis upon subliminal human details, which actually are part and parcel of the
daily actions of the body.
WWD : In both your films and your video productions, it seems
to me that you feel comfortable acknowledging the essential
theatricality of your presentations, and you dont try to artificially break through the fourth wall in your films or
videotapes. You seem to set it up as a given, the act of performance, and take it from that point. At the same time, your
setting of costumes and props is very pared down to the essentials of the piece, and you keep concentrating the audiences attention back on the visuals and the performers
bodies and speech as the essential elements of the work.
JM : Yes, I like great simplicity in all my work. I dont like lots
and lots of florid detail, and I want my film and video works
to be recognized by the audience as theatrical presentations,
or constructs, whether one is doing a project for the cinema
or for television. Its much better to simplify, always, rather
than elaborate.
WWD : What are your feelings about the current crop of period
productions that are very popular now of Henry Jamess and
Jane Austens novels, films such as Sense and Sensibility, Emma,
and Portrait of a Lady?
JM : Well, I hate them all. I hate them because theyre utterly
false. First of all, I have a basic objection to very elaborate
settings, but secondly, when it comes to Jamess and Austens
work, these works have their primary existence as novels,
and it is in their prior existence as novels that they have their
plenary existence. To put in what the author doesnt mention
is actually to abuse the work. As for Jane Campions Portrait
of a Lady, I think its terrible. Im not against updating, but if
youre going to take that particular novel, everything that the
novel is concerned with is contained in the prose that expresses those ideas. A person is not in the novel in the way
that a person might be said to be in Birmingham, Alabama. A
person is in the novel because theyre made out of the text. And

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the text is in fact irreplaceable. And if you wrench the people

out of the text which describes them, youve actually done
away with them. Thats the basic mistake these films make.
WWD : I couldnt agree more. What are your feelings about more
commercial contemporary British filmmaking, things like
Four Weddings and a Funeral? When the film was such an
enormous success, there was a huge critical backlash against
it in the British press, when it seemed to me that it was really
nothing more or less than a very minor, modern Ealing
comedy and didnt pretend to be anything else.
JM : Well, I didnt love it or hate it. I thought it was just a perfectly funny little sort of television comedy. It was just the
teleseries Friends, English style. I wouldnt even say it was an
Ealing comedy, even a very slight one. It was Friends. It was a
feature-length sitcom. As for the critical backlash, one might
really call it more or less a category mistake. I mean, you
might as well attack Frasier.
WWD : Most recently, youve moved most of your attention to
live opera, which was prefigured by such projects as your
1985 version of Cos fan tutte for the BBC, which you directed
specifically for television. What led to this shift in direction
from staged theatrical presentations, along with film and
video, to live opera?
JM : Well, it wasnt a conscious plan. I just got more and more
opportunities to direct opera, and as I fell more and more out
of fashion in the English theater, I tended to move the sphere
of my operations abroad, and the only thing one could work
in outside of ones own language is something where language doesnt take priority, and thats opera. So now I work
almost exclusively in Europe and occasionally in the United
States, and it so happens that if you work outside your own
country, operas the best thing to work in.
WWD : What are your feelings about this whole falling-out-offashion process you just alluded to? You started your career
in the 1960s, when your contemporaries were people like
John Osborne, Harold Pinter, and Tony Richardson.
JM : Well, weve all grown out of fashion. I dont deconstruct,
and I dont like the French salon philosophers of the moment, such as [Jacques] Derrida or [Jean] Baudrillard. I like
Daniel Sperbers work a good deal, but the others seem to me

to be rather fashionable without much real depth. That said, I

think probably that my productions are as modern as anyone
elses at the current moment. But there are certain adherences that I have still to the classical tradition, which make
me in the eyes of some people slightly out of date. I occasionally update, but on the whole I have a certain sort of classical
austerity which is not regarded as fashionable now. And, as
always, the press is very interested in the latest thing. And
when youre sixty-three, youre not the latest thing.
This happened to Nol Coward and Terence Rattigan, and
then subsequently their works were rediscovered, and they
had a sort of critical renaissance. But they were writers, and
Im a director, and as a director, ones work is more evanescent. One cant reconstruct my live productions because once
theyre completed, theres no record of them. Directors dont
undergo revivals. I mean, Im as busy as I ever was and, in
some senses, busier, but not busy in the theater. I did a rather
good production in London last year of Midsummer Nights
Dream, a very updated version set in the 1930s, which was
extremely beautiful but much disliked by the critics. They
said Id lost my magic or something, whatever that means.
But one thing I must say: my work is very much my own. I
dont pay very much attention to whats going on in the theater; I do it, but Im not involved in that world as a spectator.
Because of my classical adherences, Im busier than ever. Ive
just done two operas, one in Florence and one in Salzburg,
and this coming Sunday, I fly to New York to supervise the
lighting on a new production at the Metropolitan Opera of
The Rakes Progress.
WWD : In the 1960s, it seemed that there was a great atmosphere
of communal enterprise, and class and social barriers seemed
to be crumbling. Then under the [Margaret] Thatcher government, it seems that all of this was built back up again, and
this has had a very deleterious effect on the arts in Britain.
Would you agree with this?
JM : Yes, I would. I think we went through a very bad eighteen
years; it didnt rebuild class structures, but it built up new
elitist structures based on economic inequality and racism.
WWD : How did this affect your work during this period?
JM : Well, I didnt work very much in England, thats all. There

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were more adventurous projects being done elsewhere, and so

thats where I went.
WWD : Are you a supporter of Tony Blairs new Labour government?
JM : Not very enthusiastically. I mean, its better than the other lot
of crooks weve just gotten rid of. But what we now have is a
lot of rather boneless conservatives. Blair had a party last night
with Noel Gallagher and all these famous people from the
theater, and I think hes like Bill Clinton; he just wants to be
popular. Hes sort of spuriously liberal, and theres something
disgustingly Christian about him as well.
WWD : Whats your favorite film recently?
JM : Well, the film that Ive hated more than any Ive ever seen, I
think, is Anthony Minghellas The English Patient [1996]. Just awful. It struck me as a combination of Biggles, which is a series
of 1930s boys stories about a daring English pilot, and Barbara
Cartland, who writes all those romance novels which are so
dreadfully popular. Its just piffle, like a Ralph Lauren commercial. My favorite film of late is Doug Limans Swingers [1996].
Its a bleak, quite funny sort of little movie. Its completely
unpretentious; sort of like a series of Second City sketches.
And it was made for nothing because Liman was not only the
director but he was also the director of photography. You see,
thats the sort of stuff that movies ought to do more often.
On the whole, I like small, personal films and documentary
films, like Steve Jamess Hoop Dreams [1994], or the films of the
Maysles brothers, like Grey Gardens [1975], or Frederick Wisemans The Store [1983], and things like that. Documentaries are
really my favorite films; they seem to have the greatest accessibility and the least amount of pretension. For narrative films, I
prefer low-key, low-budget movies about real life with a certain sort of satiric edge. Im fond of the work of Hanif Kureishi,
although I dont like Stephen Frearss work, which strikes me
as trendy rather than genuinely interesting.
Movies shouldnt be limited to spectacle; they do the simple
things so much better. They should try to present real life in
the simplest way possible and be as unpretentious as possible.
When they do that, theyre successful. Films dont need to cost
a fortune to be entertaining. They do need an interior sensibility and intelligence, which is really the most important thing
that a film can have.

The Director as Journeyman

Ralph
Thomas

On 3 February 1995, I conducted an interview with the British film

director Ralph (pronounced Rafe) Thomas, the older brother of
the late Gerald Thomas, both of whom were film directors during the Golden Age of British cinema. Ralph and Gerald specialized in genre films, particularly comedies, and both attained some
measure of international success. Ralph Thomas was born on 10
August 1915 in Hull, England, and began working as a clapper boy
in 1932. Through a long and broken path of career advancement
(described in detail in this interview), Ralph Thomas, apprenticed
to David Lean as an assistant editor, eventually got the chance to
direct films from producer Sydney Box in 1949 with the feature
film Once upon a Dream.
Ralph Thomass most prominent features as director include
The Clouded Yellow (1950), The Venetian Bird (1952), and the many
comedy films in the Doctor series, beginning with the smash hit
film Doctor in the House (1954), starring Dirk Bogarde, which pretty
much set the tone of his career. As Thomas admits, he then bargained with the studios by doing films he wanted to do (such as A
Tale of Two Cities in 1958) in exchange for directing additional installments in the Doctor series, which remained popular with cinema audiences into the early 1970s with Doctor in Trouble (1970).
Ralph Thomass last film as a feature director was A Nightingale
Sang in Berkeley Square (1979).
Gerald Thomas, who died in 1994, directed the films in the famous Carry On series, which featured the late British comedian and
dramatic actor Sidney James as their nominal star, with a stock
company that included Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan
Sims, Hattie Jacques, and other occasional members. The Carry On
films were all produced by Peter Rogers, who was married to Betty
Box, Ralph Thomass producer. Gerald, born 10 December 1920,
began in the British film industry in the early 1940s in a variety of
menial capacities and, by 1946, was working as an assistant cutter. In 1950, he became a full-fledged editor, and in 1956 he was
given his first film as a director, Circus Friends. Of the Carry On

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as Journeyman

films, my own favorites are Carry On, Nurse (1959) and Carry On,
Cleo (1964); Gerald Thomas also directed the satire on Summerhillian methods of schooling, then in vogue, in the gentle farce No
Kidding (released in the United States as Beware of Children), made
in 1960. His last films, including Carry On, Emmannuelle (1978) are
really pale imitations of the best of his earlier work; Gerald Thomas was a director for the British comedy in the 1950s and 1960s,
one of its brightest periods of flower.
Ralph Thomas spoke about his own work in the cinema and that
of his brother from his home in Beaconsfield, Bucks, England. As
we conversed, I was struck by his modesty, his good humor, and
his affection for the now-defunct British studio system, which had
served him well during his career as a director. Ralph Thomas, to
borrow the title of one of Derek Jarmans final films, may indeed
be one of the Last of England in the era of studio filmmaking;
as he observes in this interview, without rancor but perhaps with
a touch of resignation, the cinema has now become an international business. I was glad we had this chance to talk, for Ralph
Thomas died on March 17, 2001.
Ephraim Katz [in his Film Encyclopedia] lists you as being
born on August 10, 1915, in Hull, England
RT : Thats right.
WWD : and educated at Middlesex University College
RT : Yes.
WWD : and you are the older brother of Gerald Thomas
RT : Right.
WWD : and Gerald, unfortunately, is recently deceased.
RT : Gerald died just over a year ago, yes.
WWD : Gerald mostly stayed in the comedy genre as a director,
am I right?
RT : Yes, he did, and we both got into the business by rather
roundabout methods. I was going to be a lawyer, and he was
going to be a doctor. And we both went into the army. And
when we came out of the army, I went back into the movies,
where Id already been working before the war. And Gerald
didnt want to be a doctor anymore, so he came to our cutting rooms, and we took him on.
WWD : Now, taking this back a bit, you started working as a
clapper boy in 1932?
WWD :

RT :

Yes, I was attending Middlesex University College, and I

started working as a clapper boy during summer vacation.
And then immediately the day after I left the university, instead of going off into a lawyers office to be a clerk and learn
my business, I became an apprentice at Shepperton Studios,
and they kept me on as a clapper boy for a while before I got
into the cutting room. And I did a lot of work between 1932
and 1934 on what we used to call quota quickies, and so one
got a lot of experience very quickly.
Actually, I worked as a clapper boy for a very short time. I
used to go into the cutting rooms every night to help match
up the boards [or slates] to the sound [known as syncing the
dailies], and I got very interested in that. This was in the
very early days of sound, of course. When I joined the studios, I promised to work in four departments, and so I worked
in the camera department, the sound department, which I
loathed, and then I worked in the art department for a little
while, and then I worked in the cutting room, which I loved.
And then I stayed in the cutting room until I went into the
army in 1939, when World War II was declared in Europe.
WWD : What sort of sound method were they using when you
were in the sound department: optical or disc?
RT : All optical; disc was gone by the time I came in. It was terribly clumsy to work with, really difficult, very complicated,
and you used to learn to cut movies by running the sound
and picture separately; then wed run them together through
the picture head of the synchronizer, and you learned almost
to read the track, either a variable-area or variable-density
track, I worked on both. The variable-area track was the
Western Electric method, which seemed to me to yield better
results. But it was still no fun, and I loathed it.
WWD : Who did you work in the cutting room with?
RT : David Lean. He was great to work with, and we became
great friends, and we worked on a lot of films together. Then
he went off to greater things, and I became an editor. I cut a
lot of films, about nine altogether during this period, but then
I took a strange sort of detour and went into journalism for a
while, but I didnt succeed at it because I dont think I was
very good. One didnt have tape recorders then, of course,
and I didnt take very good shorthand, but I liked it, I learned

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a lot, and then I went back into the business and stayed there.
But it was fun trying to be a journalist for a time. I worked for
the Bristol Evening World.
I got into it because the firm I was working for, PremiereStafford, went broke. They were working with RKO in Britain. I worked for the Bristol Evening World for a year and a bit,
and then I went back to Shepperton Studios and shuttled
back and forth between Shepperton and Beaconsfield Studios
for a time. It was during this period that I edited films like
Soft Lights and Sweet Music, Alibi, and a lot of others. So up
until 1939 I was working only as a cutter, and I was also in
our voluntary reserve in the 9th Lancers. When war was
declared, I rose to major in the Lancers as part of the tank
regiment. And then I went on staff as the senior armaments
instructor of our military college.
WWD : What sort of action did you see in World War II?
RT : I was at Alamein; I was at the evacuation from France; I was
there all through the desert war, all the advances and the retreats, and I was in Italy.
WWD : So you were quite actively involved?
RT : [With great modesty.] Yes. I was awarded the Military Cross.
Then I was mustered out in 1945 and went back to work as an
assistant editor because there wasnt a job for an editor. By
1947, I had landed a plum assignment, working as an assistant
cutter on a picture called Odd Man Out, directed by Sir Carol
Reed. And shortly after that, I started making [film] trailers.
Id been a writer, and the Rank Organisation was getting very
big and very busy and making all sorts of pictures, and so I
seemed to be the right choice. I was pleased because it was
the first job that paid me very well, and so I took it. And
eventually I became the head of the Rank trailer department,
and I made a lot of trailers. It was wonderful, great training,
and I was very lucky because I was able to watch everybody
elses work and get paid for it.
WWD : How did you construct the trailers for Rank?
RT : Well, wed run the whole film and take notes, and then wed
say, Well, well take this bit and that bit and put them all
together. And then youd write the script, and in those days,
you needed a string of rather sensational and corny captions,
as indeed you do today, and I found I was good at that. So I

did a lot of trailers, and I made several for producer Sydney

Box, and one of the trailers I made was for a picture called
Miranda [1948, directed by Ken Annakin]. Sydney liked that
trailer enormously and complimented me on it; he was really
taken with it. And then he was about to produce a picture
and the director had fallen sick, and so Sydney called me and
said, Rafe, weve been watching your work. Would you like
to direct a picture? And that was Once upon a Dream. And
then I worked with Sydney a lot, and then I worked eventually with Betty Box, who was Sydneys sister. And we made
something like twenty-three, twenty-four pictures together,
which she produced.
WWD : How was Betty Box as a producer?
RT : Betty was a wonderful housekeeping producer; she was
very good at budgets, very good at seeing that things worked
when they were supposed to; she saw your facilities arrived
on time, and she was very helpful in the script area too. She
was a jolly good working producer, a hands-on producer. She
wasnt any good at raising money or those sort of things, but
we didnt have to do that in those days. At first we worked
with Sydney raising the money, and then Betty and I left Sydney and went under contract to Rank and made The Clouded
Yellow, with Trevor Howard and Jean Simmons in it. That
was a detective thriller, and I quite enjoyed making it. And
we were still very young, and we made two or three pictures
a year from then on until the 1970s.
WWD : Ill just mention some of your films with Betty and run
the titles by you to get your reactions: lets start with Doctor
in the House [1954].
RT : Great fun to make, loved it. It was very cheaply made and,
oddly enough in retrospect, we were begged not to make it.
They said, Nobody goes to see hospital movies, and you
cant call it Doctor in the House. They kept cutting the budget.
Id never made comedies before, but I reckoned I wanted to
make it both real and funny, and so I wouldnt deal with comedians. And since it was so cheaply made, we had to do it
out of house cast, whomever Rank had under contract. They
didnt really have any funny actors to work with; they were
all straight actors. Dirk Bogarde, the star of the film, had
never played a funny line in his life. But I was very lucky with

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them all; they were wonderful to work with. Dirk was a graduate of the Rank Charm School, and he was very happy to
get the part; the whole thing was an enormous success, although no one expected it to be at the time. The total budget
was one hundred nine thousand pounds. Nothing. It paid for
itself in two weeks. It was the first British picture, the first
purely British picture without any foreign involvement, to
make a million pounds profit within two years.
WWD : Were you afraid it was going to type you as a director of
comedies?
RT : Well, it did. Earl St. John, who was running the show then
for Rank, said to Betty and me, Well, Im very sorry for you
two. Its come too early in your careers. And of course it
hadnt really; we were both journeyman filmmakers, we
werent auteurs or anything like that, and we reckoned that
we would like to turn our hand to everything. And I figured
that this would give us the chance to do it. We had a hit on
our hands, we knew how to do it; now we could do what we
wanted, as long as we also did a Doctor film for them every
now and again. And after the first two or three Doctors, I
thought they were not very good, and we used to make them
as a bribe when we wanted to make No Love for Johnnie [1961]
or something like that. Wed make a deal: one Doctor film for
something we really wanted to do. And we were able to do
that for quite a long time. We did Doctor at Sea [1955] and
Doctor at Large [1957], and they were all right. But then they
gradually went downhill. We tried harder and harder, and
they became more and more farcical and very labored. Desperate, actually.
WWD : Tale of Two Cities [1958]?
RT : Well, that, I thought, was very self-indulgent because I
wouldnt listen to advice. Its dangerous to have fashion and
power, and I was fashionable then. I had always been a great
[Charles] Dickens fan, and I said, Look, this was written in
black-and-white, and its got to be made in black-and-white,
and of course by doing this I denied them a lot of revenue. I
enjoyed making it; I had very good actors, particularly Dirk
Bogarde and Cecil Parker. But they only budgeted three hundred twenty thousand pounds for the film, and I had to work
fairly fast. We went to the Loire Valley on location because

it was the only place without telegraph poles that we could

shoot. And then we got lucky because we were near the
American base at Orleans, and they loaned us three thousand
servicemen who hadnt got much to do. And on their days
off, they would dress up as French revolutionaries and give
us a great deal of production value that we wouldnt otherwise have been able to afford. We had six weeks to shoot it.
The only way we were able to finish a film this ambitious on
such a modest budget was by using a regular crew, so there
were no fights, we just tackled it and went on until the finish.
WWD : Who was your favorite director of cinematography?
RT : Geoffrey Unsworth.
WWD : And how do you plan a production beforehand? What
sort of preplanning method did you use?
RT : Well, I used to use my own quick, very bad sketches of every
shot in the film as a guide. And then right before the picture
started, I would have a definitive and detailed conference
with all the various departments on the payroll before the
picture started, and we would go over shot one in the picture,
shot two in the picture, right through all the way to the end.
But truthfully, I didnt have a complete storyboard. I would
have a general setup for each scene, the master, so to speak,
and then the general movement within the scene, whether it
was going from left to right or right to left. You have to remember that we had very heavy equipment then, and we had
to lay tracks, and it all took a great deal of time.
If you wanted to work fast, you really had to decide in advance your actual movements, and then your tracks would be
laid, and youd try to design your general movements to fit in
with what youd already organized. So Id start with the master shot, and then Id do the rest of it by the seat of my pants,
and I have to tell you honestly that every director does this, I
dont care what they say, they have to. But as an old cutter, I
never shot the whole master scene; Id shoot just what I
needed, maybe the beginning or the end, and then Id shoot
only the other materials I needed. Otherwise, it would have
been an extravagance. I would make very detailed script
notes, and I only had four continuity persons in my whole
career, and I only used a few camera operators, which is, of
course, very important. Bob Thompson was my favorite oper-

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ator. A great man. He was very good and very ruthless; he

gave me a hard time, but he was nearly always right.
WWD : Tell me about Upstairs and Downstairs [1959].
RT : Upstairs and Downstairs was a light comedy which I liked
very much, about a series of au pair girls. I had a great cast in
that one: Michael Craig, Anne Heywood, James Robertson
Justice, and Claudia Cardinale. For its period, it was a very
effective, very small little comedy, which I think was really
very funny.
WWD : Im almost afraid to ask: Why did you remake The 39 Steps
[1959]?
RT : Well, Rank owned it, and I was under contract, and they
asked me to do it. So I talked to Alfred [Hitchcock] about it,
and he said, Well, if youve got chutzpah to do it, you go
ahead, my son, and do it. You wont do it as well as I did it.
And I said, No, of course I wont, but what Ill do is try and
make it funny. To which Alfred replied, It was a comedy,
boy. And of course, he was right. His film was a wonderful
picture. I think mine was a piece of effrontery that didnt
come off, and on the whole I rather regretted it. Don Sharp
directed another version of it in 1978; I like Don, but I think
he took it too seriously. But theres no way you can top the
original. You just cant.
WWD : Agent 8 3/4 [1964].
RT : Well, that was a spy comedy, a takeoff on James Bond,
starring Dirk Bogarde, and actually it was shown on television today here in England, oddly enough. It was a comedy
thriller, a mild sort of spoof. Robert Morley was in it, and
Sylva Koscina. That was made because I thought the script
was quite funny, and I loved working with Dirk. It was still
during the period when he was doing roles like that very
well.
WWD : Deadlier Than the Male [1967].
RT : Well, that was sort of the same thing, with Sylva Koscina
again and Richard Johnson, Nigel Green, and Elke Sommer.
It was, believe it or not, yet another film in the very long
running Bulldog Drummond series. It was really made as the
pilot for a television series that didnt go. [Pause.] Do you
want the truth?
WWD : Sure.

RT :

I made it for greed. I had three months; they gave me a lot of

money; I had a lot of fun, and I enjoyed making it. It was a
great location, and the picture looked gorgeous. Thats it.
WWD : The High Commissioner [1968], also known as Nobody Runs
Forever?
RT : This was another project for ABC [Associated British Corporation], starring Rod Taylor, Christopher Plummer, Lilli
Palmer, Franchot Tone, Camilla Sparv, Daliah Lavi, Leo
McKern, and Clive Revill, so again, I had a very good cast.
It was made in this country as a coproduction with Rank,
and I was a hired hand. It was a thriller; it was OK.
WWD : Doctor in Trouble [1970].
RT : Well, Dirk had left the series by that time, of course, and
this one had Leslie Phillips, James Robertson Justice, Irene
Handl, and Robert Morley, among others, in the cast. This
was still for Rank, of course, but the unit was getting desperate, of course, and the title says it all; but it still, fortunately,
continued making money, but I couldnt bear to make any
more films in the series. And so Rank said, Well, right. Would
you allow us to dispose of your interest as a television series?
And I said, Yes, Id love you to, and so they did. And the
series lasted five seasons, although it was less effective as a
series than it was as a series of theatrical films. It was like a
lot of your sitcoms.
WWD : A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square [1979]?
RT : Well, this one had a really superb cast: David Niven, Elke
Sommer, Hugh Griffith, and Gloria Grahame. I was quite
fond of it. I didnt do it as well as I should have done because
by the time we started it David was already sick, and so we
had to do the best we could as quickly as we could, and it
didnt come off as Id hoped. But it was still a fun film, and
we enjoyed making it.
WWD : Could you tell me something about your brother, Gerald?
RT : Well, we were great friends; we lived close to each other,
although we didnt see each other as often as I would have
liked. We both worked too hard for most of our lives to spend
as much time as we could together. The last year before he
died he came and spent a lot of time in our house in Cyprus.
We were always quite a close family, and theres actually a
theatrical history behind us. Victor Saville was my uncle.

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WWD :

What are your memories of Peter Rogers?

Well, of course, Betty Box was married to Peter Rogers.
Peter was a staff writer at Gainsborough [Studios], and after
a while, he got on very well with Gerald, my brother, and
Betty and I were able to help them start up on a small picture
called Timelock [1957]. The story was about a banker who accidentally locks his son in a huge safe at the bank and how
they have to get him out before he suffocates. It was a very
neat little thriller, and after that, they went on to make comedies. Actually, after we finished making the Doctor pictures,
Betty and I gave them two unmade scripts, which became
two films in the Carry On series. They changed them because
our films were never quite as broad as theirs, but thats where
they got those two scripts from. But when you make those
sort of comedies, the first ones are always the best. I liked
Carry On, Nurse the best of all of them. Then they get worse;
they get desperate. Its inevitable.
WWD : Do you have any thoughts on Sidney James, the actor who
starred in so many of the Carry On films?
RT : Well, I loved Sidney. I used him in many films, as a straight
actor. He was deeply underrated. He worked with me in a
film called The Venetian Bird, also known as The Assassin [1952].
We shot the film in Venice. Sidney played an Italian undertaker, believe it or not, and he was marvelous in the part. He
didnt realize it, but he played the part with a Bronx accent!
He was a brilliant man; he was a good actor, a fine comedian,
and a lovely man, and he wrote very nicely too. He died too
young. Unfortunately, he fed the bookies. He was a great one
for the horses.
WWD : Are there any projects you didnt get to make that you
wanted to make?
RT : [With great feeling.] Thats a very intelligent question. The
best scripts that I ever had I never made. They were The Red
Hot Ferrari, The Undertakers Man, and a marvelous terrorist thriller that we never got a title to. They were three
really good scripts, which were fully financed, but then Rank
went out of production. There was also a novel by Rumer
Godden, who wrote The River for Jean Renoir, that I wanted
to do, and another script called The Persian Ransom. Apart
from the films that we actually made, Betty and I, we develRT :

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oped another twenty or thirty properties during our career

together, and Im sure that in many cases they were actually
better than some of the films we finally did! While we were
at it, I also think that the first draft of the script of every
movie we ever made was always better than the final draft
that we actually shot. Too much interference, too many cooks.
Rank shut down in the early 1970s, and that, unfortunately,
was that.
WWD : Could you tell me something about your family?
RT : I have a son and a daughter, and theyre both in the business.
Jeremy Thomas is my son, and he produced The Last Emperor
[1987], which was directed, of course, by Bernardo Bertolucci,
and The Sheltering Sky [1990]. Hes in Los Angeles right now.
Hes very much brighter than his daddy. [Laughs.] Hes much
more talented. Hes not a journeyman picture maker; he makes
the films that he wants to make. Hes also the chairman of
the British Film Institute, now that Dick Attenborough has
retired as chairman. My daughter, Jill Thomas, now Jill
Purdom, has been married to an American animator named
Dick Purdom for fifteen years and has an animation business
here with him; hes an ex-Disney animator. They mainly do
commercials and titles, but occasionally they get to do segments and small feature things. Dick worked with Richard
Williams in an animation thing over here, and then he struck
out on his own. They have a studio in Soho.
WWD : What do you think of the state of the British film industry today?
RT : Its a disaster.
WWD : What do you attribute this to? In the 1960s, it was booming.
RT : Well, for the first thing, weve had a rather Philistine government that has always discouraged filmmaking, mainly the
Conservatives, actually. Labour have always tried to help.
Even when we made a picture, No Love for Johnnie [1961],
which knocked the Labour Party terribly, they were enormously supportive, and half the cabinet came to the premiere. But the world has become very international. At one
time, we could make movies which worked well everywhere
in the English-speaking world, except in America, except that
occasionally one would work by accident. When we could

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make pictures economically and well because were good

craftsmen, we could make pictures for our own market, make
our money back, and stay in business. Now pictures have got
to be very much larger, very much wider in scope, very much
less inhibited, and much more violent, Im sorry to say, if
they want to be international pictures. And were not very
good at that, although we export the nastiest yobbos in the
world. Were just not very good at violence, extreme violence,
on the screen.
You see, we made pictures for the joy of it. It was a lot of
fun. There was very little difference in status on the set; we
made pictures as a team. And when we finished work, and we
went to talk about the next days work, wed do it at the pub
at the studio, and people didnt charge you overtime. They
stayed until theyd finished chatting. When you got on the set
the next day, you picked up from there, and it was fun. And
that went gradually, as the world changed, and money became more important. We were doing it because we loved it.
Now, its business. In the 1960s, also, it was fairly cheap to
live in England.
WWD : I know. I was there in 1968, and it was remarkably inexpensive. This was before decimalization, when all the money
was revalued and everything shot up in price nearly 240 percent overnight.
RT : Well, theres that, but theres also the fact that, as a country,
I think were going through a phase. Were running out of
steam, in many, many ways. We tried to be a big power for a
long time after we were, which is an expensive operation, financially and emotionally.
WWD : What do you think of current work being done in film
criticism, deconstructionist film criticism, and work of that
nature?
RT : Well, of course, its destructive in nature. But its intended
to be destructive, and perhaps occasionally it helps. It helps
one to see things as they are and as they have been made into
films. Ive never resented criticism; Ive never been able to.
Ive had such a lot of it. And Ive benefited from it. But I do
think that criticism now has become a very pleasant method
of destroying things generally. Its no longer generous. Criticism used to have a measure of creative input, in addition to

standing aside and being objective. That spirit of generosity

is gone, it seems to me; critics dont evaluate things as well
today, I think.
WWD : Roy Ward Baker suggested to me that perhaps criticism
has taken the place of film production in England today.
RT : Well, its very easy to make a picture that the critics will like.
Its very difficult to make a picture that the critics will like
and that the audience is going to like as well.
WWD : For example, I interpret your brothers film No Kidding
[Beware of Children, 1960] as a gentle critique of A. S. Neills
Summerhill method of schooling, which was popular during
that period, in which children of all racial, social, and economic backgrounds are gathered together in a classless environment of literally unfettered freedom in a school located
in a run-down mansion in the British countryside? Do you
think this is stretching it too far?
RT : I think thats a very wise interpretation of the film because it
did reflect something that was happening at that time; youre
quite right. The script came out of the newspapers, really.
Summerhill was a fad then. That sort of thing was very fashionable to discuss in the nontabloid papers, like the Times.
Education at that time was very much in the news, and families, and broken families, and yet its not something that was
there intentionally. But it was there.
WWD : Are there any directors working right now whom you
admire?
RT : There are a lot of directors working now I admire: Bernardo
Bertolucci for one. Hes got a great sense of historical perspective, and I like the way he shoots movies, his visual style.
I dont like his taste in subjects always, but I like the way he
does em. I think his best picture was The Conformist [1970]. I
also admire Nagisa Oshima in Japan enormously, particularly
Cruel Story of Youth [1960], and I like Mike Newell a lot, who
directed Four Weddings and a Funeral [1994]. Hes a good commercial filmmaker. Its a very popular picture, and hes a good
storyteller. Hugh Grant is fine in it; and I think its lovely
that the film has been such a worldwide success. He also directed Enchanted April [1993], which I enjoyed. There are lots
of good directors working today.

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Roger The Orson Welles of the Z Pictures

Corman

118
The
Orson Welles
of the
Z Pictures

On 21 April 1986, I invited producer-director Roger Corman to the

University of Nebraska for a detailed public question-and-answer
session as part of a week-long retrospective on Cormans career as
a filmmaker. Born on 5 April 1926, Corman spent several years in
the navy, then he landed at Twentieth CenturyFox as a runner
before temporarily abandoning his filmic career to pursue graduate studies in English literature at Oxford University. Returning
to the United States, Corman became a freelance literary agent and
eventually directed his first feature film in 1955. Cormans output
as a filmmaker and producer is legendary; he has directed such
classic films as The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Wild Angels
(1966), and The Trip (1967), often on shooting schedules of ten days
or less. In addition, Corman discovered most of the people who
today make Hollywoods mainstream cinema, including Francis
Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson, Monte Hellman, Martin Scorsese,
Peter Bogdanovich, giving them directorial or acting assignments
when no one else would take a gamble on them. Apart from his
work as a director, Corman produces and distributes numerous
films, first through New World, his first company after leaving
American-International Pictures (AIP), and now through ConcordeNew Horizons, with studios located in Venice, California.
Before Corman spoke to the audience, Ingmar Bergmans Cries and
Whispers, which Corman coproduced, was shown. Our interview
actually began in the cellar of the theater where we were screening Cries and Whispers; a tornado siren sent the entire audience
under cover, and ever conscious of time and money, Roger insisted
that we begin the interview then and there.
WWD :

One of the films that were running here in the retrospective, Little Shop of Horrors [1960], was shot in two days and
one night. You were shooting roughly forty-five pages of
script a day. You used two cameras on that film?
RC : Yes.
WWD : Is that unusual for you?
RC : Yes. Its the only time I ever did that during dialogue scenes.

We simply had to; we had no time. Its customary to use several cameras during action scenes, if youre going to cover it.
But on that film, if I had a dialogue scene, Id have a camera
over on the left photographing one actor and a camera over
there on the right photographing the other actor, and I might
eventhis is before the widespread use of zoom lensesbe
on a dolly. Now Id probably use a zoom. I might start on an
over-shoulder shot, going into a close-up, and then an overshoulder shot on the reverse angle, dollying into a close-up,
so I would have effectively four different angles to cut on the
scene. It saves time.
WWD : How much rehearsal did you actually have with the
actors?
RC : I had a fair amount of rehearsal because what I didthis
was a standing set at the studioI made an arrangement to
use it for two days; but I got the head of the studio to give me
the set, use of the stage, not to shoot on for three days but to
rehearse. You have to know the union rules. Screen Actors
Guild charges more if you hire an actor for a day: if you do
that, it costs more than one-fifth of a weekfor obvious
reasons. So I hired the actors for a two-day shoot on a fiveday week. I hired them for five days, rehearsed for three, and
shot for two.
WWD : Were they presold to the theaters with deficit financing
[presales to theaters]? How did AIP generate the cash to
make these films?
RC : It was a complicated matter, different for every film. Sometimes they were presold to the theaters, that is, to the theater
circuits. Sometimes they were financed out of cash flow. AIP,
although a small company, was rather successful. Their budgets were limited because of the money available, but they
always did seem to have some money available.
WWD : Did AIP put out two black-and-white films on one double
bill so they would control the entire double bill, so they
wouldnt have to give away the top or bottom half to another
film?
RC : Sometimes they did that. That wasnt the regular practice,
but in a period of time, it became normal procedure.
WWD : What led into the production of the color films, such as
the later Edgar Allan Poe cycle?

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The first Poe film, The Fall of the House of Usher [1960], had
about a $250,000 budget. I was making black-and-white films
generally on an 8-, 9-, or 10-day schedule for about 70, 80, 90,
sometimes $100,000, and they would put them together as a
kind of theme double bill, two horror films, two sciencefiction films, something like that. And it was rather successful. Then AIP came to me and wanted two more black-andwhite horror films, and I was simply growing a little bit tired
of this. And also I felt that we were beginning to repeat ourselves and that other people were beginning to copy the concept. So I suggested that, instead of doing two black-andwhite films on a ten-day schedule, that I do just one film on
a fifteen-day schedule in color, and I suggested The Fall of the
House of Usher as the property. After some period of discussion, they agreed, and it was something of a breakthrough for
them because they had never spent two hundred fifty thousand dollars for a film, and I never had a fifteen-day schedule.
I felt I was, to a certain extent, in the big time with that. The
film was something of a critical success and was commercially the most successful film they ever had. So it was a
move forward for both AIP and for me.
WWD : And it was also the first film that AIP made that didnt
have a monster per se in the film. You had a difficult time trying to convince Sam Arkoff, the head of AIP, that the house of
Usher was the monster.
RC : Sam said, Whats a horror film without a monster? And I
said, Sam, the house is the monster. And when we were
shooting, theres one line where Vincent Price says the house
lives. He didnt know what this was all about. I explained
this to him, and he immediately understoodit really made
the film.
WWD : The Pit and the Pendulum was the next film?
RC : Yes. And it was very successful, both critically and commercially.
WWD : And then you shot The Raven [1963]. The Raven gave birth
to a very peculiar sort of side-bar film, as it were. I understand
that you finished The Raven two days early and then went
home and whipped up a script for a film that became known
as The Terror [1963], which was shot on the existing sets of
The Raven in two days, with the services of Boris Karloff.
RC :

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RC :

Thats vaguely correct. This story got a little distorted over

time. The Raven had the normal fifteen-day schedule, and
after the first two weeks we had one more week to go. I was
going to play tennis on a Sunday afternoon, and it rained.
And I was sitting around the house, and I thought, You know,
these sets are pretty good. In fact, they were very good. I
thought I could do another film on them, so I started fooling
around, and I wrote a story outline that afternoon. The next
day on the set, we had Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and Peter
Lorre, and I suggested to Vincent that I might come back and
do another one. But Vincent, who is something of an art
critic, was going on a lecture tour and was unavailable. So I
spoke to Boris, and Boris said, fine, hed do it. So I made a
deal with Boris to shoot two days. The two days seemed to be
my standard. I figured you cant do anything in less than two
days. And I got this guy who was a friend of mine, Leo Gordon,
and we worked from the outline Id written. We wrote only
those scenes that Boris was in for two days. I got my good
friend Jack Nicholson to come along, and Jack came for the
two days. I told Jack, Boris will work the two days with you,
and Ill write the rest of the picture, and youll be the star of
the picture. Jack thought that was great. And thats exactly
what we did.
WWD : Jack Nicholson, at the time, was not a very well known
actor.
RC : No. He got a little less then than he gets today. And we did
indeed shoot all that in two days. Then I shut down and wrote
the rest of the picture. I calculated that I was financing this
by myself and didnt have enough money to finish doing it
because I was tied to the Directors Guild and a number of
other things. The only way to finish the film was to go nonunion. I couldnt do this as a member of the Directors Guild,
so I got my ace assistant, Francis Ford Coppola, to come
along. I told Francis to go out and shoot the rest of this thing,
and he said, Fine. He went up to Big Sur and shot a portion
of it with Jack, and then he came back, and he was offered a
contract at Warners to direct a film called Youre a Big Boy
Now. He came to me and said, Look, I got a great deal here at
Warners. This is the start of my career. I said, Okay, and
then I had Monte Hellman for a little bit. There were four or

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five directors, and finally Jack came to meand we had one

more day of shootingand Jack said, with some justification,
Every idiot in town has directed part of this film. Let me
direct the final day. I said, Fine, Jack, you do it. So Jack
directed the final day. We then cut all this together, and the
film did not make a great deal of sense. It also wasnt particularly interesting, but by that time I was working on another
Poe film. I had some sets again, so I asked Jack and Dick Miller
to help me finish it. I told them, When I finish shooting one
day, Im going to hold the crew over, and you guys come to
the set around seven oclock at night, and were going to shoot
a couple of new scenes fast and tie all this together. So we
shot the sequence in which Dick played Boris Karloffs assistant or manservant or something, and Jack was the young
officer who had taken refuge in the castle. So Jack grabs Dick,
throws him against the wall and says, Ive been lied to ever
since Ive come to the castle. Tell me whats going on. And
Dick told Jack the entire plot, tying all of this stuff together.
The picture didnt have much of a twist at the end. Boris,
according to the original story, had played Baron von Leppe.
In order to get a little bit of a twist in my final rewrite, I decided that Boris was an impostor who had killed the Baron
von Leppe and taken his place. That became the story Dick
told Jack against the wall of the set. Weirdly enough, this film
was fairly successful.
WWD : In the middle of all of these films for American-International, you went off on your own and, with your own money,
on location, you made a film called The Intruder [1961].
RC : It was a film I wanted to do. At that time, things were going
very well, and I had never had a failure. I think I directed
seventeen or eighteen films, and they were all successful. So
at that point, any idea I came up with independent distributors would back me on. We never missed, so I bought this
novel having to do with integration of schools in the South.
This is around 1960. And I prepared the script with Chuck
Beaumont, the writer of the novel. And to my great surprise I
was a little more naive than I am now. All the companies that
had agreed to back me on any kind of idea I came up with
turned me down on this one. So I decided to back it myself,
and its one of those things that sounds as if its very logical,

but it wasnt logical. I only worked with a couple of professional actors. Almost everybody in the film were local townspeople, and I wanted to shoot in the Midsouth, which was
where most of the integration problems were taking place.
But I didnt want to be in a southern state. I wanted to have,
in my own mind, the protection of a midwestern state and
the laws there. Looking at a map of the U.S., I found whats
called the bootheel of Missouri, which runs along the Mississippi River in a little kind of wedge south of Missouri proper,
between Arkansas and Tennessee or Kentucky, something
like that. There I was able to get a southern look and southern accents for the townspeople. All of that worked right.
But I was thrown out of two towns with flat-out threats from
the sheriff of one county and the chief of police in another.
Being in Missouri really didnt make any difference. The
sheriff actually told me, If youre in town when the sun sets,
youre in jail. And dont ever come back. The final sequence
of the film took place in a schoolyard, and we had shot in
East Prairie, Missouri. The first day or two days of this final
sequence went OK, and then the sheriff told me to get out of
town. We couldnt go back, so I shot some swings in a park
in Charleston for half of the next day, and the chief of police
kicked me out of Charleston, and we ended up shooting at a
country schoolyard. It was summer, and we were out in the
country, where there were no police or anybody to see that
we were there, and we finished the sequence. Nobody has
ever noticed, but the size of the swings varies slightly from
shot to shot because they were in three different areas. Luckily people were more interested in the scene itself.
WWD : There is a great sequence in that film where William
Shatner, as Adam Cramer, an avid racist, delivers an impassioned pro-segregation speech, which really stirs up the
townspeople. You told me that many of the people who were
at that rally were really pro-segregation, and they thought
Shatner was the hero of the film.
RC : Oh, they loved him! They believed him! I recruited these
guys out of the public park. They had great faces, and I said,
This is the man who is coming to town, and I want you to be
part of this group. When Shatner said This country shall be
free and white, they cheered, and they believed him all the

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way. Some of them were heartbroken at the end of the film

when they realized that Cramer was the bad guy. It was a
great shock to them.
WWD : You continued working for American-International as the
Poe cycle ended. AIP wanted you to make additional Poe films,
but you decided to opt out, feeling that the series had run its
course. Then you made The Wild Angels, which was one of the
first Hells Angels motorcycle pictures, then The Trip, which
was one of the very first drug pictures. And then after Gas-s-s-s,
which you made in 1969, was totally recut by AIP, you left the
company. You had lots of interference on that, I understand.
AIP eliminated the main character called God. Gas-s-s-s has
never really been released in this country, if Im correct.
RC : It had some limited release but not a major release. I was
very unhappy with what AIP did to it.
WWD : Then you went over to Twentieth CenturyFox and did
The St. Valentines Day Massacre [1967].
RC : Yes.
WWD : How was it working for a major studio after you had
worked for AIP?
RC : I really didnt have any problems. At that time, Dick Zanuck
was running Fox, and I got along fairly well with Dick. There
were a couple of differences. One, the ease of production was
much greater. There was more money, and I had a very good
crew. On the other hand, the crews worked slower. I became
a little bit impatient at the slowness of the pace, but it wasnt
a major factor. There was a little bit more interference in the
casting. I did not get the cast I wanted.
WWD : Is it true that you wanted Orson Welles to play Al Capone?
RC : I had him! I wanted to do a gangster film with a very distinguished cast, so I wanted Orson Welles to play Al Capone and
Jason Robards to play Bugsy Moran. Essentially, I had them,
and Dick Zanuck rightly or wrongly said, Nobody can work
with Welles. You just cant. Hell scream and yell and try to
take over. Hes driven every director hes ever worked with
crazy. The only time he works is when he directs himself. If
he isnt the director, hes going to be the director by the second day. So we switched and moved Jason to Al Capone,
and Ralph Meeker played Bugsy Moran. They were quite
good, but Jason really was better fitted for Bugsy Moran, and

WellesI had made a deal with him through his agent without meeting him. I met him later on, and he said he was very
disappointed he had not played this part.
WWD : After a brief period then at Twentieth CenturyFox, you
decided to set up your own company, New World, which
was the most successful new studio and distribution outfit
launched in the 1970s in the United States. A lot of people at
that time were saying that you were never going to get it off
the ground. Could you briefly describe why you decided to go
into this, with such an enormous amount of risk involved,
building up a studio and a distribution network as well?
RC : I was really just tired of directing. I had directed so many
films. I directed something like fifty or sixty films in thirteen
or fourteen years, something like that. The last film I did was
for United Artists, a picture called Von Richtofen and Brown
[1971] in Ireland. We were shooting in an airport outside of
Dublin, and I was living in an apartment in that city. And
each day I would drive out to the airport, and the road would
fork. One road would go to the airport, and the other would
go, I think, to Dingo Bay on the west of Ireland, and every
day I was tempted to go the other way and just drive through
the rest of Ireland. I barely made it through the film. I was
exhausted. So I just felt that I would stop directing for a year.
I would quit and take a sabbatical, save a little bit of money,
and start my own distribution company, work on it for a year,
and then turn it over to somebody else and go back to directing. I started the company, and the first film, Student Nurses
[1970], was very successful. And the second film was a success. We did three pictures in six months, and they were all
successful. And we just kept going, and I never got back to
directing. I couldnt really find anybody to run New World in
what I thought was an efficient manner, so I just stayed with
the company.
WWD : You work with your wife, Julie, on many of your projects.
How does the responsibility break down? Do you ever coproduce?
RC : On the films my wife produces, she is a total producer, doing it herself. She has complete charge of her own films and
functions as an independent producer. I do the same on my
films. Julie started producing in the early 1970s.

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As New World moved along, you began to develop an

enormous amount of new talent. Thats something youve
done throughout your career. At AIP, you discovered Francis
Ford Coppola and gave him his first chance to direct with
Dementia 13 [1963] on a twenty-thousand-dollar budget, for
an ax-murder movie shot in Ireland.
RC : It grew a little bit over twenty, but Francis was pretty close
to the budget.
WWD : And when you started New World, you picked up people
like Joe Dante, who went on to direct Gremlins, and numerous
other people. How did you continue to find or develop these
people? Would you watch student films, or go to local playhouses? How did you manage to keep on top of this?
RC : I watched some student films, and some people applied to
the company. Others are recommended by certain people,
people whose opinion I trust. Having been a writer and a
director myself, I might be a little more qualified to judge
on writers and directors. We had a kind of training program
that not everybody goes through, but Joe Dante is a good
example. Joe started as an assistant editor, went on to be a
trailer editor, then a feature editor, then a second director,
and finally a director. So by the time he was a director, he
had learned our style of work.
WWD : Was his first film Hollywood Boulevard?
RC : Yes, he and Allan Arkush, also a good director, codirected
that. Jon Davison was the producer. I was the executive producer, or whatever. They were all from the NYU Film School.
For a little while, everyone came from UCLA, USC, and NYU.
WWD : Recently you sold New World. Now youre setting up an
organization called New Horizons, which is the production
company, and Concorde, which is the distribution arm. What
are your projects now? Do you foresee a return to direction?
RC : I will not direct this year, but I am thinking about directing
again next year. [Corman eventually returned to directing
with Frankenstein Unbound in 1990.] Just as Ive gotten tired of
directing, now Im getting a little tired of sitting behind a
desk. But it wont be until next year, if I direct. The pictures
will probably start to be a little bit bigger. Were finding that
the very low budget films that were working for us very well
in the 1970s are not working as well now. Theyre doing all

right, but the theater public seems to want bigger films, and
thats understandable. So well be starting with some of the
bigger films.
AUDIENCE MEMBER : Do you think it would be as easy today to
start a new independent film distribution company as it was
in the early seventies, when things were a little bit tougher
for the major studios?
RC : Its a somewhat complicated answer. Overall, its easier. For
theatrical distribution, its a little bit tougher, however, because as I say, the lower budget pictures arent doing as well.
However, with the rise of videocassettes its easier because
you can get most of your money back from video alone today.
So its a somewhat safer investment and an easier operation.
WWD : You told me you were adopting a pattern for New Horizons
where you would have two groups of pictures. One would go
straight to the theaters, and one would bypass theaters and
be sold directly on videocassette.
RC : Yes. I havent done this as yet, but I think its going to be the
plan. Well have two different types of films.
AUDIENCE MEMBER : Is one of the reasons low-budget films arent
doing so well the demise of the drive-in theaters?
RC : Its partially that. Its a number of other things. Its very
difficult to get somebody to spend five dollars or six dollars
a ticket to see a one-hundred-thousand-dollar, or even a
million-dollar film, when they can wait and see it on television for nothing, or for the same five dollars they can see a
twenty-million-dollar film, or for one or two dollars a night
they can rent a videocassette. The economics are working
against low-budget films, and the demise of the drive-in is
part of that. But these other factors are as important or more
important. That doesnt mean that there wont be any successful low-budget films. There will always be, at least for the
near future, somebody whoeither out of luck or skill or
bothwill break through with a low-budget film. But as a
regular program of successful films, I think its extremely
difficult today.
AUDIENCE MEMBER : Does it concern you as a producer that the
cost of film stock and getting everything done has risen so
much in film? Do you think students are better off shooting
in 16mm color negative, or is video perhaps the way to go?

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RC :

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Video might very well be a way to go if youre not aiming directly for theaters. If you feel your film is going to television
or to videocassette, I would recommend that you go video.
Its clearly cheaper and faster. Youve got it right there. It
doesnt have to go to a lab. You can do your opticals, your
effectsnothing against the camerabut it can be done very
quickly. If you stay with film, do what I do, and go to a lab in
Canada. Theyre cheaper and will undercut the American
labs by quite a bit.
AUDIENCE MEMBER : You worked with Richard Matheson a lot on
the Poe films. How closely did you work with him on writing
the scripts? A lot of them didnt follow the Poe stories too
closely.
RC : I worked reasonably closely with Dick. One of the reasons
that the scripts didnt follow the Poe stories faithfully was because many of those stories were no more than ten or twelve
pages long; they were really short stories. In a sense, they
were fragments, and there wasnt really enough there for a
feature script. We would very often take the Poe story and
use it as a climax. For instance, in The Pit and the Pendulum,
Poes story took place entirely in the room where the pit and
the pendulum were located. It was the experience of the man
under the pendulum, and we invented a story, which became
the first two acts of the film, to get us to that point. Later on,
we started taking even greater liberties. The Raven became a
comedy. And at that point, I said, Weve done enough Poe
films. Its time for something new.
AUDIENCE MEMBER : What do you think of special effects in todays
movies? And with the audience of network TV shrinking,
dont you think it would be more profitable if you did a series
for, like, WTBS for HBO or something like that and not NBC
or one of the traditional networks?
RC : In regard to the first part of the question, special effects are
getting better, and theyre also becoming more expensive. But
the audience expects them now. I think really the turning
point was Star Wars. Ive done science-fiction films all my
working life. We had a certain level of technical expertise,
which was acceptable at the time. But Star Wars really moved
everything onto a different level, and since Star Wars, the audience will not accept the simpler type of special effects. So

were forced, really, into more expensive films. This touches

on an earlier thing I mentionedto spend more money and
get better special effects to get an audience into the theater. I
have my own special-effects facility, and I find that works
very well.
Regarding the second part of the question, it is indeed true
that the percentage of the viewing audience held by the networks is diminishing. But its diminishing at a very slow rate.
Its easing 1 percent a year or maybe 2 percent a year. So for
the near future, the big money in television will continue to
be with the networks. Public television is a possibility, and
pay cable services, such as Showtime and HBO are possibilities, but theyre shrinking more than the networks. The most
important medium in the last couple of years is the rise of
home video. And the segment thats been hurt most by home
video has been pay television. Motion pictures have been
hurt a little bit; free television has been hurt a little bit, but
pay television, pay cable, has been hurt dramatically. People
can go and rent whatever they want: Why should they use a
pay cable service?
AUDIENCE MEMBER : Would you like to go back to the old days of
double features? Is that completely uneconomical, or is it to
do with audience concentration, or perhaps the cultural shift
towards TV viewing at home?
RC : All of the above. It is, to a certain extent, economic. The cost
of films is so great today that you really cant go with double
bills. You cant afford to divide up the box-office dollar. Youve
got to take the entire amount of money to survive. In the few
places where they do show double bills, the second feature
has to be just that. It has to be clearly a second feature, a failed
film that tried to be a first feature, or a reissue of a first feature. As Thomas Wolfe said, You cant go home. Times
change. Its probably better now to concentrate on the one
film and try to do one film better.
AUDIENCE MEMBER : What are some of your secrets for producing
a film so quickly? I imagine other people arent able to do
things as quickly as youre doing them.
RC : The main secret is preproduction. Its not particularly a
secret. Preproduction planning is the core of everything. If
youre going to move quickly and efficiently, you have to be

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as prepared as you possibly can be going in. And even if youre

going to move slowly on a big budget, its better to go in with
full preproduction planning. Now, I might add that you must
be flexible. You never shoot the picture exactly the way it was
planned. About the only director who had a reputation for
shooting exactly as planned was Alfred Hitchcock, who had
planned every single shot beforehand and almost never varied,
although maybe he occasionally would change a shot. My
technique is to plan as much as I can and then vary it a little
bit during shooting. Sometimes something I shot as planned
simply wont work. And you have to change it. Or you may
get a better idea on the set. But at least if it was planned and
done in advance, you have the core of it. You have something
the skeleton, as it werethat you can move a little bit from.
AUDIENCE MEMBER : We just saw Cries and Whispers, which you
distributed and coproduced, and its a film that obviously
you were attracted to for a number of reasons. Im just wondering how you can make the shift from Bergmans Cries and
Whispers to something like the Wasp Woman [1960], which
you directed. When you make a Wasp Woman, do you think,
Oh, Im just making another B movie and throwing it out
into the world, or do you care about what youre making, as
a film, and perhaps as a work of art?
RC : Thats a multipart question, and Ill try to deal with it as well
as I can. First, you find from experience that certain films
and certain genres, as it were, work best at the box office. We
referred earlier to The Intruder. When I made that, I had never
made a film that lost money. With The Intruder, I did a film
that I believe was very good, and it got wonderful reviews.
One of the New York papers called the film a major credit to
the entire American motion picture industry. It won a number
of film-festival awards, but it was the first film that I ever
made that lost money, which taught me something. The public
simply didnt want to see that particular kind of film. So you learn
fairly early on that, unless you are as good as a Bergman or a
[Federico] Fellini, you cant do what you please. I think I was
a pretty good director, but I had no illusions that I was working on that level. Unless youre that good, you have to stay
fairly close to a commercial subject. After The Intruder, I tried
to do a film that would work on two levels. This is really the

core of my filmmaking philosophy, without getting too grandiose about it. On the surface level would be an entertainment film, a genre film, an exciting film of a certain type,
and on a deeper subtextual level would be a film that would
have some meaning to me. It didnt always work out that
way. Sometimes it has a meaning to me, but nobody else will
find any meaning in there at all. But at least for me there was
something there, and that type of filmmaking seemed to be a
type of filmmaking that worked for me and was successful.
So I got some satisfaction out of it, and the films themselves
were a commercial success.

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Roy Ward Twilight of the Empire

Baker

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Roy Ward Bakers career is a somewhat curious one, in that he

worked very successfully within the British studio system after a
long and arduous rise to the top (detailed here fully for the first
time) and the production of a feature fiction documentary for
the Royal Army Kinematograph Service during World War II, in
addition to his work as an assistant director for Alfred Hitchcock.
However, in the early 1950s, he gravitated to the States and worked
quite successfully for Twentieth CenturyFox, directing Tyrone
Power, Marilyn Monroe, Robert Ryan, and other American stars
in some of their most interesting and challenging projects. However, Baker never really felt at home in America, although, by his
own admission, everyone (including Twentieth CenturyFox studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck) was very kind to him during his stay
in Hollywood. He soon found himself back in England, directing
such superb films as A Night to Remember (1958), arguably the best
film about the Titanic disaster ever made, and concluding his career with some fine Gothic horror films, such as The Vampire Lovers and Asylum (1970 and 1972), for Hammer and Amicus, and was
responsible for the direction of a number of television series episodes, including ITCs The Saint and ITVs The Avengers.
In his elegantly appointed home, Baker relaxed in a cushioned
chair in his study and answered questions for more than three
hours during this December 1994 interview, discussing with a clear
and detached eye what has made his career as a filmmaker so successful. British to the core, he obviously belongs to a time when
the studio system in Britain flourished, and he remembers the
Golden Age of British filmmaking with great affection but without sentimentality. As we talked in the afternoon and the light
through the window turned golden in the twilight, Baker seemed
relaxed, confident of the quality of his work and his accomplishments in general, and absolutely up to date on current happenings
in the industry (see his remarks in the interview on the film
Indochine [1992]). What follows is a rare chance to hear a polished
studio professional discuss his work with honesty and winning

self-effacement and a look at a system of filmmaking that is now

all but gone in the United Kingdom.
WWD :

Most brief biographies of your career, such as the entry

on your life and work by Ephraim Katz in his excellent Film
Encyclopedia, state that you were born in 1916 and received
your schooling in France and England. Could you expand
upon this early period of your life?
RWB : Well, I started out in British schools, of course, but eventually I went to Rouen, which is in Normandy, France. I was
sent there largely because my father was initially very keen
that I should go to a school in London, but I had had a very
erratic education up to that time, which was when I was
about ten or eleven, I should suppose. I was interviewed
by the St. Albans school in London, which is a very good
school, and it turned out that I didnt have any schooling in
French at all, which was one of the requirements for entry
(as was Latin, by the way), so I couldnt get in.
But my father was a man of action. He said to me, The
only place to learn French is in France. And there were other
family circumstances that made the whole idea work, and I
was packed off to Rouen, where I went to school. I was very
young; I still dont understand how I got into secondary
school there at such a young age, but there it was. I stayed
there for a year or so, and then when I came back to London,
I went to the St. Albans school, and I stayed there until I left.
WWD : And then after your schooling, Ephraim Katz, in his Film
Encyclopedia, has you joining the British film industry as an
assistant director [AD] in 1934. Did you really just make the
jump straight into film as an AD?
RWB : Oh, no, no, no, no, thats not true at all. No, I was a gopher,
a tea boy, a general dogsbody. I started at a studio in Islington
in 1934, which is now defunct; sadly, it hasnt worked as a
studio since 1939 when the war broke out. When that happened, I was still there, moving up the ladder, so to speak,
and the whole operation was moved to the Shepherds Bush
studio of Gaumont British because the company, which was
called Gainsborough, was part of the Gaumont British empire. I dont know why; I suppose it was decided to concentrate all their work in one place as an economy move, per-

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haps. Or maybe just to consolidate things for safety. Nobody

had any idea what was going to happen with regards to production because of the war, or air raids, or whatever. We expected air raids, of course. At first we didnt get them, and
then, of course, we did.
Yes, I started as a gopher, a tea boy, and I was very fortunate to get the job. I dont know why I got the job in the first
place. You see, talking pictures came into this country in 1929,
so 1934 was only five years after that. And so I thought, at
first, that I would like to have something to do with sound. I
was very interested in wireless, and I built shortwave sets and
things like that. The sound system used in this country was
the best, it was the American one, Western Electric. There
were systems developed in this country, of course, but they
had a long way to go to beat the Western Electric system. So I
wanted to get involved with sound in films. It fascinated me.
A gopher was the only job they could offer me in 1934. Id
been bombarding studio managers with letters and getting
interviews and all that stuff, and indeed I didnt go straight
into the film studio; I went to work for what was called then
the Columbia Gramophone Company, which later was part
of HMV and EMI. And then I got the job as a gopher at Islington. And it wasnt a jump to assistant director, I can tell
you. It was a long struggle. The wages were terrible. In those
days, this particular operation, Gainsborough, was a small
studio. It was originally a pickle factory! It was bought by
Paramount in the early 1920s soon after the First World War
because the British government decided that there should be
a quota system applying to all cinemas in the U.K., that they
must show a certain percentage of British product during any
twelve months. Well, this, of course, created a market for
rubbish. All these government decisions always work out
wrong, you know. Otherwise, they wouldnt make them!
Youd never make one that would work out right. So several
of the American companies, the big five of those days, decided that they better have an operation, a toehold, so to
speak, in the U.K. to take advantage of the coming production demand for what became known as quota quickies.
So Paramount bought the pickle factory and turned it into
a studio in the silent days, 1922 or 1923, something like that,

and that was what later became Gainsborough Studios. There

were only two stages, and one was up on the second floor. So
you had to have a huge lift, which was half the size of this
room, to get the bits of set up to the second floor because
everything was shot on sets, of course, because of the problems with early sound and, of course, the problems we have
with British weather. So everything was shot on sets; location
work was frowned upon. It cost too much money. And that
was a great pity; we boxed ourselves into the studios early on
and never really got out of the habit, and everything looked
setty. It was a free and easy life though, in a way, because
there were no unions. The electricians had a union, and some
of the plasterers and carpenters had a union, but they didnt
take any notice of what was going on. It was only a tin-pot industry anyway, at the time. So you could do what you like[ed]
on the floor; you took whatever job needed to be done.
I made a nuisance of myself everywhere because the great
piece of luck that I had was not, oddly enough, being put in
the sound department. This was why I got involved in the
first place, as I told you, to work with sound, but they put me
straight on the studio floor. They had all the people they
needed in the sound department, but they did want somebody,
an extra pair of hands, because at the time I applied, they
were making one or two great big pictures, and they needed
extra help. Now, the great virtue of being a gopher is that you
can get around everywhere on the set, and its still true today.
Youve got a complete passport to go and interfere in anybodys business and find out what they do. So I spent a bit of
time in the cutting rooms. I used to hang around in the art
department quite a lot. I took still photographs as a location
scout, when there were locations; I was sent out to see what
was suitable for shooting. And I quite enjoyed that, the traveling about, you know. I was an early location manager, I
suppose. I didnt even think of calling myself that! I was just
young Baker, wholl do this job for you, no matter what the
job was. So I got a great deal of experience out of it, and it was
a great education for me. I got to see all sides of the business.
During all this time, from 1934 to 1939, I never did a whole
picture as a first assistant director. I was a second assistant
director for some time, until about 1937, but it was all pre-

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empted by the war. During that time, 19341939, I never had

any status higher than second assistant; but I was doing production-manager work here and there, and assistant production manager, location manager, all sorts of jobs.
WWD : Even at this early stage, were there any directors or cutters whose work you particularly admired, whom you enjoyed working with, who may have had an influence on your
later work?
RWB : Oh, yes, tremendously. There again, I was extremely lucky
because we had some good directors and editors. I did one
picture with Alfred Hitchcock; I was second assistant director on that: The Lady Vanishes [1938]. And that was a great
education. In ten weeks, you had a short course in how to do
it, from start to finish. Because by that time, he was an extremely experienced man. Hed been a director since the
early twenties, in silents; he made his first few pictures in
Germany because no one in this country would give him a
job! [Laughs.] Why this was, I dont know!
WWD : Did Hitchcock really storyboard everything down to the
last detail, even at that time?
RWB : Well, not down on paper. He storyboarded it in his mind.
He always claimed that he had already seen the film when he
was shooting it; thats why he got bored with it during production. He was a fascinating man, of course. He was extremely rude and arrogant. He wasnt very charming, and he
didnt bother to be.
WWD : Hitchcock shot only what he needed, am I right? Nothing
else?
RWB : Oh, yes. He shot precisely those angles he needed, nothing
else. He knew exactly what he wanted, and thats all he did.
Why bother with stuff you wont use?
WWD : Were there any cutters who particularly influenced you?
RWB : Well, David Lean was already cutting at this time; he was a
cutter before the war. He was already editing big pictures by
193738. But he didnt work for Gainsborough; nevertheless, I
admired his work. I had two other directors I worked with
who were absolutely top people: one was Sir Carol Reed. He
did about three or four pictures that I worked on as a secondunit director. One was called A Girl Must Live [1939], and
another was Night Train to Munich [released in 1940], which

was meant to be a sort of sequel to The Lady Vanishes. But I

had to go and join the army before they finished the picture!
WWD : What branch of the army did you join?
RWB : The infantry.
WWD : Were you in the Signal Corps?
RWB : No, no. Ordinary infantry.
WWD : But I have information that you made a number of documentaries during this period; how could you do this if you
werent in the Signal Corps?
RWB : Well, thats quite right. I did make a number of documentaries during the war, but it didnt happen right away.
WWD : You werent associated with John Grierson, or the GPO
[General Post Office], or Len Lye, or any of these people in
any way?
RWB : No, no, no, but there were connections, of course, because
the documentary world, so to speak, is a very tiny one, and
everybody knows everybody else. But what happened to me
was that I joined the army in the infantry, and I was trained
and selected for a commission and then commissioned, and
I joined a regiment and all that. But the day I was commissioned, I reported to the adjutant of the regiment at the depot,
and I said, somewhat foolishly, because I was all of twentytwo or twenty-three, There has been a note sent round from
the War Office needing people who have experience in motion picture production, and Ive just done six years in that,
so perhaps you might want to consider me for one of those
positions. And the adjutant said, Oh, forget all that, youre
in the army now! And so the matter rested. And so I joined a
battalion, and by that time the war was getting on to a boil
then, and until about 1943 or 1944 I stayed with the battalion
and thought no more about it.
But then in late forty-three or early forty-four, the War
Office bulletin came round again. And this time, I went to
my commanding officer, who was a very nice man, and I said,
This is the second time this bulletin has come round, and
quite frankly I dont think Im indispensable as a regimental
officer. And I wasnt, I can tell you! So I said, What do you
think? And he said, Well, if youd like to go, I wont stop
you. And I said, Fine. And that was it. I started working in
the army Kinematograph Service.

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I did about six or eight documentaries for the army Kinematograph Service, not more than that. This was not combatant stuff; that was a separate thing called the army film
unit. These were training films. How to use your rifle and
things like that. Tank tacticswe did miles of tank tactics!
How to handle a twenty-five-pound gun, all sorts of technical
stuff. I reported to the unit, and they made me a production
manager straight away. And I cant remember the details of
the first training film I was production manager on for them.
But very shortly, there was a picture to be made on street
fightingbasically, how to clear the enemy out of a small
village or a section of a town, supposing theyd occupied it
and theyd gone or were going, and you had to help them on
their way, get rid of them, which meant searching houses and
finding booby traps and mines and all that kind of stuff. This
was to be around eighty minutes, eight reels, and there was
nobody to direct it. And so I said, Oh, well, Ill volunteer for
that. And I had no idea what I was talking about, of course,
but it was a great chance. And so I went off and did it. And
that was the very first film I ever directed, a feature. And I
was all of twenty-seven. It was called Town Fighting or
something like that. Its been so long ago. But it was a wonderful experience.
WWD : Fascinating. So your first job of direction was actually a
fiction film, a documentary that was entirely staged, sort of
like It Happened Here [1964, directed by Kevin Brownlow and
Andrew Mollo], in which the Nazis successfully invade
Britain, or Peter Watkinss The War Game [1966], in which a
fictional nuclear attack is staged in a documentary manner.
RWB : Yes. It was supposed to look real, of course, but we staged
every bit of it. But the documentary connection, because there
was one, was because the man who had started the whole
production unit for the army had been brought out of Ealing
Studios, and this was Thorold Dickinson, who was a very
nice man and knew all about the business of fiction films and
documentaries, I can tell you! Very experienced, very academic. So my film was documentary in the sense that it was
all meant to be absolutely realistic. I mean, these were the
conditions that you might face. But none of it was real; it was
all recreated. It was quite a challenge. As far as I can recall,

we shot the whole thing in Birmingham of all places because

theyd had a very, very bad air raid, and so it was a wonderful
set for the production.
WWD : How long did you have to shoot it?
RWB : Six weeks. It was a pretty good schedule. A pretty ambitious project, I should think. Quite a long time. But this was
a good project for me and gave me some visibility, and its
funny that my first film as a director should be a feature, so
to speak. It really helped. But after that film, the unit was
told to start doing more background subjects, and I did
one about the state of the army records system because they
were finding by that time that mothers were losing touch
with their sons because the sons werent writing any bloody
letters! The point of the film was to simply say Write a letter to your mother!
It sounds rather funny and trivial now, but it was a morale
thing back then, and it was terribly important. So we did the
film, and then they gradually became more and more like
propaganda pictures. After that, I made one that was entirely
about the press. It was written by two newspapermen, and it
was based on the idea that you have, say, the Times and a middle-of-the-road paper like the Daily Mail and a tabloid like the
Daily Mirror. And in the film, there is a fuss in some small
British town like Birmingham, where the local council gets
very upset because theres a girl doing a striptease act in the
local theater. And so, of course, the Times ignores it or puts
two lines at the bottom of a page, and the Mail does a paragraph, and the Mirror has a big picture on the front page and
all that. And it had nothing to do with the army, but it was to
try to educate soldiers that you cant believe everything you
read in the papers, that you must read these different papers
intelligently and not just believe everything you read. And
that film was a modest success and got some notice.
Because by that time, Eric Ambler, who had been a gunner
in the war, was assigned to the picture as a writer. Along with
Sir Carol Reed and Peter Ustinov, hed been writing a recruitment film for the army, which later became a feature picture.
I got to know Eric very well. Eventually, he became the head
of production of the unit, and we got on extremely well. We
worked on so many of these projects together, and then by

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the time we got to 1945, we could see the end of it; the war
was finally going to be over. So I said to Eric, What are you
going to do? And Eric said to me, What are you going to
do? And I said, Well, I dont want to go back to being a
second assistant! [Laughs.]
WWD : And so you directed your first commercial feature, The
October Man [1947], which Eric Ambler wrote and produced,
for Two Cities films under Filippo Del Guidice.
RWB : Quite right.
WWD : John Mills is in that, and youve worked with John Mills
so many times in your career; are you personal friends, or is
this just a coincidence?
RWB : No, were not really personal friends, but hes an excellent
actor, and I was very glad to have him. Joan Greenwood was
in it, and she was delightful. Erwin Hillier was the director
of photography. It was a suspense film about a man who is
falsely accused of killing a model, played by Kay Walsh, after
he has a head injury and cant remember anything about it. I
liked it a lot; it turned out very well. It was sort of a psychological thriller. A good debut.
WWD : Then came The Weaker Sex [1948], another Two Cities
film. What can you tell me about that?
RWB : Well, it was based on a quite successful play, called No
Medals. The play ran during the war for a long time, something like two years. It was a small play, with just a few characters and a couple of sets, but it ran in the West End for a
very long run indeed. Very successful. It was about how the
housewife, the mother, who was the pivot of the home, keeps
the whole house going while one sons off in the navy and
another ones in the air force, and the daughters gone into
the ATS [Auxiliary Territorial Service], and the fathers also
involved in war work, and it was a very good script. Cecil
Parker was in it, and he was lovely, a marvelous man; a real
gentleman too. But the problem was that we werent making
the film until 1948, and so the whole point of the play was
over. The war had been over for three years, and nobody really wanted to be reminded about it.
WWD : Next you directed Paper Orchid [1949].
RWB : Paper Orchid, yes, thats a curiosity. That was written by a
hard-boiled newspaperman, a little, small, sparrowlike man

who was very tough, who also wrote a book called It Always
Rains on Sunday, which was filmed very successfully. There
were several other books he wrote as well. And this film was
about newspapers as well. Sidney James was in it; he played
the hero! Hy Hazell was also in it. Hugh Williams was also in
it; he played the hard-boiled city editor.
WWD : By this time, youve done three features. And this is my
own assessment, so you tell me if you think its correct or
not. You work very closely with the actors, and thats one of
the most important things for you. Getting the proper performance out of the actor is essential for you, over any other
technical considerations.
RWB : Always. Always. Youre quite right.
WWD : And then you use the camerawork at their service, so
to speak?
RWB : Yes. Youre absolutely correct about that.
WWD : It really seems to me that, in all your films, youre concentrating on making the artists as comfortable as possible,
and then the crew more or less adapts to what theyre doing.
Youre not trying to impose yourself or the style of the film
on the actors.
RWB : Well, I dont know why, but the ultimate sort of showoff director, I suppose, was Hitch. Although theres a lot of
competition in that area now! But I felt that it was wrong. I
think, to a certain extent, I paid the price in that area for not
putting myself about more, for not making myself more
famous. I dont give a damn now, of course, it doesnt matter.
But in those days, I certainly felt very strongly that the
audience should not be aware of the director at all. They
never see him anyway! Except in a Hitchcock film! [Laughs.]
Thats how I started making films, and I never seriously
changed my opinion.
WWD : Now we come to Morning Departure [1950], which was
released in the United States as Operation Disaster. John Mills
is again in this film, along with Nigel Patrick. William Fairchild wrote the script. The basic plot is of a submarine on
routine patrol hitting a leftover mine, sinking to the bottom;
a few men survive, and its such a claustrophobic film . . . it
works so well. Theres a great deal of personal feeling in this
film. Was this a project that particularly attracted you?

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RWB :

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Well, the producer who did that had two stories, one of
which was Morning Departure. And I told him, If you want my
opinion, the one to do is Morning Departure. Its not just an accident; its not just melodrama; its a serious tragedy, and I
think that it cannot fail. So we went ahead and made it. Now,
however, theres one extraordinary fact connected with the
making of that film that changed the public reception of it
entirely. Wed completed the film, and the premiere was
scheduled in two weeks time. And one evening, a submarine
was coming up the Thames with four men on the deck, on
the conning tower. They werent submerged; they were just
cruising up the river. And there was a Dutch freighter coming the other way. There was a collision; the four men were
thrown off the deck before anyone could do anything about
it, or even sound the alarm, so the submarine went down
with the conning tower, the hatch, open. And everybody was
drowned. There were about seventy-four hands lost. Well,
after that, everyone connected with the film thought, Well,
thats it, thats the end of our film; its all over. No one will
want to see this. But the film had been made with cooperation of the Royal British Navy, and extremely good they were
about it; they were a marvelous bunch of fellows all through
the production, which was very difficult, as you can imagine.
So we took our problem to them, and they said, immediately,
No, no, no, you show it. Then people will know exactly what
these fellows are up against; that its a dangerous job, that
something like this can happen. And that, I think, was a contributory factor to the films success. I mean, it was a damn
good picture anyway, but it was that accident, which even
now makes my blood run cold, that I think made it such a
talked-about picture. People went to see it in droves!
WWD : Now we come to a film called Highly Dangerous [1950],
with Margaret Lockwood and Dane Clark. Margaret Lockwood played a scientist, and Dane Clark played an American
reporter, looking for top-secret information behind the Iron
Curtain.
RWB : Thats the general idea, yes.
WWD : Was this a U.S.-U.K. coproduction? The presence of Dane
Clark suggests this.
RWB : No. It was a Rank film, not a Two Cities film, though with

Sydney Box as the executive producer. It was a good film but

not one of the best films Ive done. It was pretty much formulaic stuff. Dane Clark was never very successful; Highly
Dangerous wasnt very successful either.
WWD : Just a thought: Did you ever work for the Rank subsidiary Highbury, which was part of Ranks training program for
younger British actors and directors?
RWB : No, I never went there, and I have no direct knowledge of
it whatsoever. It was a tiny little studio
WWD : Almost a garage, Ive heard . . .
RWB : Yes, thats right. I think it may have been revived, possibly,
in the 1960s for television commercials and rock videos, but
Im not even sure of that.
WWD : Now I have a film called The House in the Square [1951],
which was known in the States as Ill Never Forget You. This
was your first work with Twentieth CenturyFox, if Im not
mistaken, with Tyrone Power, Ann Blyth, and Michael Rennie top lining the film. The House in the Square was based on
the play Berkeley Square, and it has a slight science-fiction feel
to it; the plot concerns a man who returns to the eighteenth
century and relives the life of one of his ancestors, falling in
love with a woman from that time. What was it like working
with such a high-powered cast? How was Ty Power to work
with? How did you make it over to Hollywood?
RWB : Well, what propelled me to Hollywood was the fuss over
the success of Morning Departure. Darryl F. Zanuck saw the
picture and said, Find out who he is and get him. So by that
time, right after Morning Departure came out, I was already
halfway on my way to Hollywood. The funny thing is that
The House in the Square was an old warhorse. The picture was
based on another Hollywood film that had been made by
Fox, as it then was known, long before the war, with Leslie
Howard and Heather Angel [Berkeley Square, 1933, directed by
Frank Lloyd]. The first house I rented in Hollywood was
owned by Heather Angel, funnily enough. And that 1933 film
was based on a stage play written by John L. Balderston,
which in turn was based on a short story written by Henry
James! So by the time we got to my end of it, it was a bit of a
muddle. I think the intentions were good and all that. Ty
Power was absolutely wonderful; I mean, he was one of the

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nicest people youd ever wish to meet, he really was. Perfect

manners, an absolute charmer. And so nice and funny and
extremely helpful when working on the film.
WWD : Was Tyrone Power prepared when he came to the set?
Did he know his lines and behave like a professional in that
regard?
RWB : Oh, totally. Totally. Never any temperament; always right
on time, always knew his lines through and through. Never
any problems. Ann Blyth was very professional as well. Wonderful. The only unfortunate thing was (and its slightly
farcical, really) that I went to Hollywood, and then the first
thing that came up was this. And then it was decided that
the film would have to be made in England! Well, one of the
reasons was that Tyrone was spending one of those two- or
three-year stints abroad, out of the United States, for tax
reasons. So that was one of the reasons it had to be made in
England, and I found myself back here for about eight months
making that picture. So it was rather odd. And the film was a
modest hit but nothing special.
WWD : Then you went back to the United States and directed one
of your best-known films, which is revived constantly because of a young starlet who has a part in it, Marilyn Monroe.
Thats Dont Bother to Knock [1952]. The inevitable question:
What was it like working with Marilyn Monroe?
RWB : [Sighs.] Ah. Well, its always a very difficult question to answer because . . . well, the short answer is delightful. And I
absolutely adored her, and I would have done anything for her,
and did. I certainly put her on the road. I dont think she really
liked me; well, it was very unfortunate, in a way. She could
never trust anybody, except the people who were going to do
her harm. She was awfully good at that. She always picked the
wrong ones. Of course, they were principally bent on making
money out of her; thats all they were looking after.
Ive never worked with dialogue coaches, or dialogue directors, or whatever they call themselves; I dont regard them
as necessary, at least not to me. If an actor goes to drama
classes and all that kind of stuff in between pictures or when
hes not doing anything, then thats absolutely fine by me.
But to try and take advice while youre actually shooting a
film, for which you have already got the script, costumes, and

everything else, if youve got a director, you dont need anybody else. Marilyn wrote to Zanuck because I fired the coach;
well, I didnt fire her, but I barred her from the set, which is
the same thing.
Oh, there was a terrible fuss. I didnt know I could do this,
but somebody came to me and told me, you know, If this
ladys bugging you, you know, youve got the power, boss.
Oh, I have? I said. So anyway, I plunged in and did it; well,
you know, it was just an intolerable situation; it was just
damned silly. Dont Bother to Knock was an extremely contemporary movie. It was also a very slight story, but its quite a
good script. Dan Taradash wrote the script, and afterwards,
he said rather rude things about it, but I think hes wrong.
There was nothing wrong with the picture.
WWD : Did you use the first take with Marilyn? Ive heard that
she was best on the first take, and then she would kind of go
downhill . . .
RWB : No, I didnt really notice that; no, not particularly. I never
do many takes, you see; I never do more than four or five.
And I never do master scenes.
WWD : You never do master scenes? How do you do it then?
How do you break up your coverage [the sum total of all the
camera anglesmasters, close-ups, two-shots, inserts]?
RWB : Well, you break it up the same as Hitch broke it up. You
just break it up in your mind.
WWD : So you do it exactly like that, like Hitchcock?
RWB : Oh, yes.
WWD : You never do masters, then singles, and that sort of
coverage
RWB : No, no, no.
WWD : You precut the whole thing . . .
RWB : Thats the old-fashioned Disney technique, I mean . . .
[Laughs.]
WWD : Yes, I agree, thats a very dull way to make movies. But I
dont think anyone knows that about your work, that its
totally precut in your mind before you go on the floor, so Im
glad we brought that up. So your technique is to cover the
scene shooting only the material youre actually going to use,
and then in the editing you just cut out the clapper boards,
put the film together, and youve got it.

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Thats right, yes. Just cut the numbers off, dear, thats all.
Well, its not like that, really, because Ive had a lot of help
from some very good cutters in my time, so Im not antieditor. But the real editorial problem is always that the editor
is limited by the material that he gets from the director. As
an editor, if you dont have the coverage you need, youre in
trouble. You can go back and do retakes later.
WWD : But thats a way of keeping control for the director; if you
only shoot it one way, you can only cut it one way.
RWB : Well, yes, I developed this style partly because I didnt
want to suffer a lot of extraneous interference from people
who didnt know what they were talking about. Or at least
they werent talking about it the way I was talking about it,
which is the same thing.
WWD : Fair enough. To get back to Dont Bother to Knock, you had
Richard Widmark in that picture.
RWB : Yes, and he was marvelous. Very professional to work with,
although [laughs] Marilyn drove him crazy, of course! Come
on, will ya for Christs sake! hed say to her, and all that
went on. And I said, Do people always do this? [Laughs.]
WWD : And Anne Bancroft?
RWB : Well, she was a revelation; I mean, its unbelievable, she
was so good. She came from nowhere. There was a test of
her; her name was Anne Marno. The casting director had a
test on her for another picture that was never made, and he
showed it to me. Will you look at it? he said. I really think
shes got something, and shes going to be good. So I saw the
test, and I thought she was all right. And then she got the
part, and she was more than all right . . . she was very, very
good indeed.
WWD : Its a great film, no doubt, but Im curious as to why its
only seventy-six minutes long. Why is it cut so tight?
RWB : Well, two things. One, it was written that way; its one
of the few pictures which takes place in real time. There are
no dissolves, no lapses of time, no fade outfade insits all
straight cuts. Everything is happening as you see it. Secondly,
in those days, pictures were getting longer, and some of Zanucks bigger pictures were running to 110 minutes and things
like that. But in the preWorld War II days, most features ran
about 73 to 76 minutes, 90 at the most. Because the normal

program was a classic double-bill situation, with the main

feature, the second feature, the organist, the coming attractions, the shorts, the newsreels, a Laurel and Hardy comedy,
a cartoon or two, and that was a program that lasted four or
five hours. Today, its one long film, and theyre getting longer
but not necessarily better. I was on the jury for BAFTA this
year and I saw this Chinese film Farewell, My Concubine, and I
saw Indochine, a French film about the end of French rule in
what is now Vietnam . . .
WWD : Yes, I saw Indochine, and I cant say I particularly cared for
it. It seemed endless . . .
RWB : Yes, I was afraid it was never going to stop! Catherine
Deneuve really walked through that one. I mean, how many
more Paris frocks has she got? She must have had a planeload flown out for the filming! And she gave the greatest
nonperformance Ive ever seen! I think I saw her breathing
once or twice but not doing much else.
WWD : Tell me about Night Without Sleep [1952], with Linda Darnell, Gary Merrill, and Hildegarde Neff. Gary Merrill was
married to Bette Davis at the time. This was another noirish
thriller about a psychotic man driven to murder. What was it
like working with Gary Merrill?
RWB : Gary and Bette were very great friends of mine. When I
arrived in New York after making The House on the Square, my
first American film for Twentieth CenturyFox, which was
actually shot in Britain, as weve discussed, Fox had just finished a new picture, and they had a gala premiere, and so I
was on the guest list, and I went along to the premiere. And
the man who was in charge of Twentieth CenturyFox publicity in New York at that time was a man I had met here
during the war and become very good friends with: David
Golden. Charming man. Earlier in his career, he had been
head of publicity for Alexander Korda. He was always on the
slightly classy level; he wasnt just a flack. And so since David
was in charge of this premiere, he introduced me to the other
honored guests, who were Bette Davis and Gary Merrill. We
were all going out to Hollywood the next day, and my family
and Bettes family were all going to travel in what was then
the Super Chief. Id elected to travel by train because I wanted
to see something of America. Anyway, when you get to the

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end of a journey like that, youre either great friends or great

enemies. And so we all became great mates during that trip
. . . we had a wonderful time. And then the next thing you
know, were thrown together on the same project, Gary and
I, which was Night Without Sleep.
WWD : Gary Merrill plays a rather unbalanced man in the film; it
was really a rather straightforward thriller. Was Bette Davis
ever on the set during the filming?
RWB : Oh, no. Oh, never. She stayed away. That wouldnt have
been professional. She did come and visit once, Im sure
whether I invited her or not, but it was some kind of a publicity state visit, and she came for a half an hour and then
she went.
WWD : What was Linda Darnell like to work with?
RWB : Oh, charming. By that time, she was extremely experienced; she really knew what she was doing. And Hildegarde
Neff . . . she was really trumps, that one. She was terrific. I
rang her up and said, Look, were going to do this thing, and
so lets have lunch. So she came to the studio canteen, and
we sat down and looked at the menu. Were both studying
the menu, and she looked around at the writers, producers,
and the other actors, and sniffed. Everyone was eating salads,
lettuce, all these light garden sort of meals. What are you
going to have? she asked me. Steak, I said. Good! she
replied. Id rather have this than all that rabbit food. And
everyone else was eating cottage cheese and salad, you know.
So we hit it off very well, and she was really fine in the film.
A really good actress.
WWD : And now we come to a film which plays on American
television all the time, a really good film, a rather brutal sort
of survivalist western: Inferno [1953], with Robert Ryan,
Rhonda Fleming, and William Lundigan. Not only was this
shot in a rather garish, burned-out color scheme, to convey
the heat and danger of the Mohave Desert, but it was also
shot in 3-D, the Natural Vision process, which requires two
cameras, two projectors, and two separate sets of prints interlocked to achieve the 3-D effect. It must have been murder
to shoot this film on location in the summer, and particularly
in the desert. Ryan played a multimillionaire who is left to
die in the desert by his two-timing wife, Rhonda Fleming,

aided and abetted by her adulterous partner in crime, played

by Lundigan. Ryan makes it out by the skin of his teeth, and
most of the film is told in voice-over as we hear Ryans interior voice as he talks himself through his ordeal.
RWB : Yes, we used two slaved cameras interlocked to shoot the
whole thing, and we pretty much made up a lot of it as we
went along. The technicalities of it were indeed murderous. I
dont want to bore you with all the details, but it made the
filming of even the simplest dialogue scenes extremely difficult. The unique thing about it was that it was done by
polarization of light not by having opposing colors, the redand-green-glasses sort of thing used in black-and-white 3-D
films. This was in color, as you mentioned, and it was really a
very complex and delicate method in which to work. Everyone in the audience wore polarized glasses. What you saw on
the screen was in fact two prints, one on top of the other,
running in two projectors simultaneously. The two prints had
to be exactly color balanced or it wouldnt look right . . . well,
it was impossible commercially to do it. But, of course, if you
saw it under ideal conditions like I did, at the Fox theater in
the studio, it was just unbelievable. You were not looking at a
cinema screen at all; the curtains opened, and you were sort
of looking through a hole in the wall. There was no cinema in
it. It was just a big hole in the wall into another world, and it
was all happening, it all seemed real. It was impossibly cumbersome to do on an everyday basis, but I dont think anything like it has ever been achieved that has such a perfect
illusion of depth. It was absolutely extraordinary.
WWD : I agree. I was lucky enough to see House of Wax [1953] in a
true Natural Vision 3-D two-print screening at a revival theater in New York, and also Hitchcocks Dial M for Murder
[1954], and the effect was really riveting. People who have
only experienced black-and-white 3-D or the more recent 3D films like Andy Warhols Frankenstein [1974, also known as
Flesh for Frankenstein] really dont know what theyre missing.
RWB : Not many people have had that opportunity. And we shot
the whole film, Inferno, on location in the Mohave Desert not
on the back lot. Well, we did some close-ups later and that
kind of thing, but the principal photography was all done in
the desert itself. Lucien Ballard was the DP on the picture; he

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was excellent. He shot all of my films for Fox. A great man

and a wonderful fellow; he really was a joker, that one. Very
funny man and great support on such a complex picture from
a technical standpoint. Most exciting. In the end, I thought it
was a good picture, I must say. I grabbed at it when it was
offered to me. Robert Ryan was very good in it, and so was
Henry Hull, who had a small part in the picture. And there
were several other things that affected me about that film.
First off, I felt that I was coming to the end of three years in
Hollywood, and I didnt think that I was going to stay. This
seemed like a good film to close up shop with. Because, you
see, I didnt think I was going to stay in America.
WWD : Why not?
RWB : I dont know why not. There was no particular reason. I
didnt hate the place or the people. I was treated extremely
well and really well looked after by all sorts of monsters like
Zanuck and the other executives at Fox. They were very nice
to me, and thats all I can say. But I felt that my boy was growing up, well, he was really only four at the time, but I felt that
my roots were in England, and I wanted to go home. When I
went to Hollywood, I think I was too old. If you can get there
when youre in your twenties, or even your early thirties, then
youre OK. I was in my late thirties, if not a bit older than that.
There was no particular reason for me to leave, just ordinary
reasons, family and all that, and I guess I looked upon the
whole thing from the outset as a three-year stint, and that
was all. I was very lucky to work at Twentieth CenturyFox,
which at that time was the best studio in Hollywood, in my
opinion, and I was very lucky to work with Zanuck, who was
at that time also the best, although he was starting his decline, and the whole movie industry was changing rapidly.
Everybody was frightened to death of television, and it was a
period of real turbulence. Everyone was very scared. So I
sensed it was time to leave. Thats all I can say.
WWD : And appropriately enough, your next picture was Passage
Home [1955].
RWB : Yes! [Laughs.] But it wasnt very good. It had a remarkable
cast: Peter Finch, Diane Cilento, and all kinds of people whom
youd never heard of before but now theyre all household
names; I cant remember them all. The script again was writ-

ten by William Fairchild, the man whod written Morning

Departure. It was a blond-in-the-bomb-locker story. It was
about a girl who was marooned in Algeria or somewhere and
has got nothing, and she has to get back to England, with only
one suitcase and a handbag, you know. She sort of talks her
way onto some sort of small tramp steamer, a cargo steamer,
and the captain agrees to take her on, and of course shes the
only woman on board, and all the men start going raving mad,
and theres a storm, and all that, and its all pretty formula
stuff. Not very good.
The only interesting thing about it was that the old-fashioned back-projection system was going out at the time, and
the new blue-backing system was coming in, with yellow
light on the foreground, and it was a whole new technology.
Of course, blue backing again has been superseded by more
recent developments in digital computer graphics. But anyway, Passage Home depended almost entirely on this bluebacking system because of the storm sequences, all the scenes
at sea. About 60 percent of the film was shot using the bluebacking process, which is an awful lot. And I enjoyed the
challenge, and I like solving these technical problems, I must
admit, but once Ive solved them, then they mustnt intrude
on the film itself. Thats the reason I take so much trouble to
solve them in the first place. Then you can get on with doing
the proper business of working with the actors and the camera and all that. Actually, the whole film should have been set
in 1885 on a sailing ship. It was sort of a Victorian film. It just
didnt work as a modern-day film.
WWD : Next we come to Jacqueline [1956], which I must admit I
dont know very much about.
RWB : Well, I dont know very much about Jacqueline either!
[Laughs.] It was a monstrous farrago, and I played the innocent all the way through. I really didnt catch up with what
was going on until the whole picture was all over and done
with. It takes place in Belfast, and we went there to shoot it.
This was before the present troubles, you see, and everything
was sort of quiet, although it was boiling like mad underneath;
you could tell there was trouble coming. But the troubles in
Belfast were never referred to. The story, really, should have
been heavily Catholic; but it had nothing to do with the

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Protestant-Catholic conflict or any of the Irish problems. It

was simply the story of a man who was a rigger in a shipyard,
and he has to go up to these fantastic heights on these ships
and put rivets in the masts and all that stuff, and he starts to
get nervous, and then he starts to drink. And then it turns
into The Face on the Barroom Floor from then on in. And
of course the man has a little daughter, who is a sweet angelic
little thing, and she brings daddy back home and saves him
from drink, and thats the end of the picture. John Gregson
was the lead; the angelic tyke was an unfortunate little girl
who was lumbered into it, didnt want to do it, but she had
an ambitious mother, I think, who was also an actress, and I
sort of inherited the film in a way, and I did the best I could.
The man who was originally going to do it, didnt.
WWD : Who was that?
RWB : Brian Desmond Hurst.
WWD : Thats wild. I love his work. He was a very interesting
director and did some really fine films.
RWB : You see, he would have done it much better because he was
Irish, for one thing, and Im not! And what we had, in the end,
was what was meant to be a kind of Protestant story, a story
about Protestant people, but of course it was entirely played
by Catholics! And there is a difference, you know! [Laughs.]
And I havent seen it for years, but seeing it recently, years
after, you know, its hilariously funny, really, because it just
doesnt stick together! [Laughs.]
WWD : Next is Tiger in the Smoke [1956].
RWB : Well, Tiger in the Smoke was a detective story written by a
woman named Margery Allingham. And she was one of the
great ladies of that genre, and I adored her. She was a lovely,
huge, fat lady with an enormous house in Essex. She only
ever gave one party every year, just one, and there would be a
complete fairground, with a carousel and everything all done
up just right. Great lady. So Id read all her books, and I was
dying to do one of them, and so I did this one. It was only a
half success. Malcolm Arnold did the music. It was beautifully photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth, who photographed
nearly all my movies at that time. All these films were Rank
at Pinewood. I spent all told about seven years at Pinewood.
But the cast was the problem. We wanted, or at least I wanted,

Jack Hawkins or Stanley Baker. You have to have people you

can believe in on the screen in the proper parts, or a film just
wont work. It was the story of a juvenile delinquent, about
fourteen or sixteen, whos been getting into trouble and all
that kind of stuff, and all that happens before the story really
starts. He has disappeared, or been in jail or something, and
he suddenly reappears as an adult, and hes got a sort of gang
of cronies round him; one or two are crippled, and theyre all
ex-soldiers who dont know what to do with themselves after
the war. They cant find any way to make it in the world;
theyre all poverty-stricken.
And this grown-up juvenile delinquent and his pals come
back into everyones life, and they go on the hunt for an immensely valuable piece of church treasure, and eventually the
man finds it. But the real problem was the casting of the
man, the grown-up delinquent, who had to be really frighteningly dominant, keeping all these other bums in line with a
whip, a real tough customer. And the man at Rank who was
then getting seriously interested in production was John
Davis, and there again, I got on with him extremely well, but
he insisted absolutely, there was no question, that a man
called Tony Wright should play the part, and that was it. He
got the role.
WWD : Ive never heard of Tony Wright.
RWB : No, and you never will, you see, because unfortunately
sometimes people get picked up for a part, a star part, in a
good movie, and theyre just not right for it, and they cant
do it, and it ruins them for the rest of their lives. It blows it
completely for them. Tony Wright did do, in fact, a lot of
work after that, but he never really caught on as a major
personality. It happened to me on one other occasion; I cant
remember who the other fellow was, and that in itself tells
you something. Its too bad, and it wrecked the film, and it
wrecked this poor mans career.
WWD : Now we come to a film which is much more successful,
The One That Got Away [1957], which starred Hardy Krger as
an arrogant World War II German flying ace who tries to
escape from a prison camp.
RWB : Colin Gordon was in that, and a whole cast of really good
people. There was no star part, other than Hardy Krgers

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role, and it was a bit of immense luck that I got Hardy for
the picture. I didnt know anything about him. There again,
it was an accident that he got involved with the film at all.
In those days, I had a good friend who ran a bookshop in
Piccadilly, and I was in there one day, and he said, Ive got
two books for you. And one was The One That Got Away, and
the other was A Night to Remember, which became my film
about the Titanic. So I said, Right, and I took them home
and read them. The following Thursday I went down to the
studio at Pinewood, and there was a lunch. When I got there,
everybody else was ill or away on location or disappeared,
so it was John Davis and me. So we got on extremely well
he went to the same school as I did, incidentally . . . he died
last year, poor guy, Ill miss himso John Davis said, Well,
come on, what do you want to do? And I said, Well, Ive
just read these two books. And he said, Well, thats good,
cause we own them! Theyd just bought them. That took
my breath away. So Davis said, Do you really want to do
them? And I said, Yes, and he said, Well thats all right,
then, well do them.
But then the problems started. Davis said, I will not do
The One That Got Away with a German in the leading role. I
cant do it. Absolutely impossible. So I said, I dont know if
that will work; the idea of an Englishman doing one of those
German accents, well, I dont fancy that at all. And Davis
suggested Dirk Bogarde. Well, you know, Dirk is a lovely
fellow but not for that, of all things. Anyway, the following
Thursday a meeting at Pinewood was organized for our distributor friends in Europe, you know, our man from Rome,
our man from Paris, and our man from Hamburg. And I buttonholed the man from Hamburg, and I said, Ive got a problem here, and I told him everything that Ive told you. So he
said, Ill think about it and give you a ring and do what I
can. In the meantime, one or two other German names were
being bandied about; I cant remember their names, either of
them. One of them was very famous. He was a real Nazi too; I
would have never got on with him! [Laughs.] Oh, he was an
absolute sod!
But sure enough, the man from Hamburg came through
and went to John Davis, and I said, Looking at this fair and

square, I think I should go over to Germany and have a look

at some of these jokers. So I went over to Munich and Hamburg, and when I got to Hamburg, my newfound friend had
arranged a lunch with this young actor called Hardy Krger.
And we got on very well straight away. I liked him because up
to that time hed been playing comedy parts and that sort of
thing, which is all very good training, but the upshot was that
I did a test, and I managed to convince John Davis, much
against his will, to use Hardy. We got a lot of stick for it; a lot
of people criticized usstill do to this day. But you see the
point was the film was made in 195657; well, thats almost
exactly ten years after the war, isnt it? So thats quite close,
and the memory of the Blitz and all that was still very fresh
in everyones mind. And the film was made to show that the
Germans, who had been shown in British films up to that
time as either beer-swilling Krauts or homosexual Prussians,
were really much more complex than these cartoon type of
characters. A proper German, so to speak, is a much more
formidable character. They nearly won the war. There is no
question about that. On at least two occasions, they very
nearly won, against all the odds. I mean, they were crazy to
take it on in the first place. I dont have any respect for them;
they took six years out of my life. Why should I like them?
But nevertheless, we got a lot of criticism for it.
Ill tell you another story. I was making a picture much
later, at Shepperton. And I was in the canteen having lunch,
and I was walking to my table when a man stopped me. He
had been sitting having lunch on his own; I didnt know him,
he was obviously an American. And he said, Mr. Baker?
And I said, Yes, and he said, Im Stanley Kubrick. Im doing this picture here, and I saw your film The One That Got
Away. He said, I must congratulate you. I think its the
finest, the most accurate portrayal of the German character
that Ive ever seen. So this was wonderful. And I felt it justified all my work on the film and my attitude toward the
casting of Hardy Krger. But you cant sell it to a lot of other
people, thats for sure.
WWD : Well, theres still an enormous amount of anti-German
feeling, and quite justifiably so, I think, in this country, which
we dont have over in the United States so much. But then

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again, we werent bombed every night by the Germans for

several years during the Blitz, so theres the difference.
RWB : Well, thats not the only difference. I mean, America is
such an amalgam of all different peoples that youve learnt
not to have these sort of tribal prejudices; youve got much
more tolerance, I think, from the three years that I was there,
and thats a long time agoit was the 1950svery different
from what its like now, as it is everywhere, but still, I dont
think theres the same degree of prejudice like this in the
States. But Ive never tried to defend myself about this picture; I dont see why I should. It was a damned good film. And
of course, the other reason I wanted to make it was because it
was a chase picture, and I love chase films . . . theres lots of
room for suspense and action.
WWD : Now we come to A Night to Remember, which is perhaps
your best-known film and certainly the best film ever made
on the Titanic disaster. Such a superb cast: Kenneth More,
Honor Blackman, David McCallum, and all told, several hundred speaking parts in the film. Superb use of miniatures,
which holds up really well today. Variety called your direction of the film superb and masterly and noted the neardocumentary look of the film, remarking that the film takes
only thirty-seven minutes less than the time of the actual disaster. There [are] scenes in that film Ill never forget: towards the end, a man clutching a young child and telling the
child that your mother will soon be along, when he knows
theyre both just about to die; the arrogance of the upperclass passengers; the superb night work in the film throughout. I thought it was a really trenchant examination of the
entire British class system.
RWB : Well, everyone was in it; they were fighting to be in it. Eric
Ambler did the script. Geoffrey Unsworth shot it. And the
miniature work was good for its time, wasnt it? I saw it
again last September or October; there was a film festival in
France, and they devoted this film festival to British films. I
cant imagine anyone in England doing a festival of French
films, but there you are. This countrys dead as far as the movies are concerned. They only like to bloody fiddle with them
[i.e.; work in critical theory], which is terrible. Anyway, I had
seen A Night to Remember, obviously, several times on televi-

sion since I made it, but I made it, after all, in 1958. And since
that time, Id never seen it on a big screen. Now, at this festival, they were running a retrospective of my work, seven or
eight of my pictures, and this was one of them. And the effect
of seeing it again on the big screen, after all this time, it shows
you the whole difference between movies and television.
WWD : Its the whole scale. When you chop it down to television
size, it de-intensifies it.
RWB : You see, when you see a film on television on a small screen,
youre not in the film at all. You inspect it. You can look at it.
You can enjoy it to a certain extent, but youll never be involved in it. You can judge it; you can say, Well, that was a
good movie. But its an entirely objective judgment; its not
subjective because youre not being subjected to the film.
WWD : This must have been a tough picture to shoot.
RWB : Well, it was scheduled for twenty-one weeks, and it took
twenty-two. There were ten weeks of night locations. Not all
in one lump, which spread it out. We built sets on rockers
and hydraulics, and there again, the technical considerations
were fascinating, so there was a lot of that. And I enjoyed it.
It was a challenge. But I liked to get that technical stuff done,
over with, and then I can get on with the actors. Kenneth
More, of course, was absolutely marvelous because he pulled
the whole thing together, he had the central character, and
he was very good in working with all the other actors in the
film. Of course, he served in the navy during the war, so he
was very much a naval man.
Frank Lawton was great in it . . . such a nice man, who
was at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for a long time, you know,
one of those British actors who worked for them before the
war. He played the managing director of the White Star Line,
the villain of the piece. Wonderful, wonderful performance
that is, because he was full of bonhomie and all that stuff at
the beginning; you know, Were going to beat the crossing
record, and all that sort of thing, and then when it starts to
go wrong, he gets distraught and hysterical. At the end, when
he gets into a lifeboat himself, with one of his officers, if you
think about it, you realize that the reason he got into the
lifeboat was because he knew that he would have to go back
and face the music because he was responsible. In real life,

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the managing director of the White Star Line subsequently

withdrew into a house in southern Ireland, where he went
slowly mad. [Sighs.]
WWD : Next is The Singer Not the Song, which you also produced,
in 1961. The film stars John Mills and Dirk Bogarde; the plot
concerns a priest who tries to reform a bandit in Mexico.
Mills plays the priest; Bogarde is the Mexican bandit, which
seems a rather unlikely bit of casting. The script also seems a
bit long, and your heart really doesnt seem in this project,
particularly after the Titanic film. What happened here?
RWB : I hated it.
WWD : What happened?
RWB : John Davis happened. That was the one bad turn he did
me. After Id made A Night to Remember, he said to me, and in
front of rather a lot of people too, Well, what do you want to
do? You can have the top brick off the chimney. I didnt
know that expression in those days; I didnt know what he
meant. But I said, Well, I want a bit more control, a bit more
money, all that, and so I started to look for subjects. This
was at the premiere of A Night to Remember, and I was very
pleased, of course, with the film, and Bette Davis was there,
and so it was quite a grand occasion. So I felt great, that great
things were going to happen for me. But then John Davis
started looking around for projects too. And the first thing
that he came up with was this book, The Singer Not the Song.
And I said, I cant do it. Its hopeless. I dont understand it;
its got nothing to do with me at all; I dont think its even a
very good book. If anyones going to make it, the man you
should go to is Luis Buuel, who would have been perfect for
it. It would have made a damned good movie if Buuel had
been directing it because he had a connection to this sort of
material. Whos he? Davis said.
WWD : God.
RWB : So, there you are. Then for a while they let the matter drop,
and I bumbled on for something like fifteen months, and
every subject I put up they didnt want to do. I wanted to
make The Long [and] the Short and the Tall, which was given to
Leslie Norman in 1961 and was a very successful picture, with
Laurence Harvey and Richard Harris; I wanted to make The
Grass Is Greener, which Stanley Donen got to direct in 1960

with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, and I wanted to make

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning a lot . . . I really wanted to
do that. Karel Reisz got to make that in 1960, with Albert
Finney, Shirley Anne Field, and Rachel Roberts, and Freddie
Francis as DP. But they said no. I proposed all these projects
first, but they said no every time.
WWD : Why? After promising you the pick of the litter, so to
speak, why did they do this?
RWB : I dont know. Well, The Long and the Short and the Tall was
initially turned down because it had too many swearwords
in it. But on Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, quite frankly
I think they missed the bus with it because the original producer who first got his hands on it was Joseph Janni, and he
was working at Pinewood at the time. But then the picture
wasnt made for Pinewood; it was made for Woodfall-Bryanston. So one way or another, I got a feeling that it sort of
slipped through their hands some way. I think perhaps Joe
took it away because he thought it was going to be ruined and
took it to Tony Richardson, but I dont know. But Singer Not
the Song was a disaster; it didnt work at all.
WWD : Next is Flame in the Streets [1961], an interracial love story,
very 1960s, with Johnny Sekka, Sylvia Syms, and John Mills
again. The plot revolves around a young white girl who wants
to marry an African mandid the subject matter interest
you? Again, you served as the producer of the film.
RWB : Well, Sekka was a very interesting person. He was born in
Dakar; he was bilingual, spoke perfect French and English.
John Mills was good casting, which is why he was in it, for
marquee value. I produced it because I wanted to get more of
a handle on things. Its not a bad film; I have seen it since.
Certainly, as a document of that particular era, its a very
good picture of life as it was in Nottinghill Gate, which is a
district to the north of Kensington in London. Nottinghill
Gate was populated mostly then by immigrant blacks who
came from the Caribbean because they were told that the
mother country [England] didnt have enough bus drivers
and bus conductors and all that sort of thing, and the immigrants really did believe, when they came to this country,
that they were going to be accepted into British society. And
of course that didnt happen. They didnt even have over-

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coats when they came over; they didnt even know what the
weather was like here at all! No one had told them. So it was
very sad.
It was written as a play originally by a man called Ted
Willis, who was a famous playwright and Labour politician.
He finished up a peer when he was in the House of Lords.
And he wrote a play called Hot Summer Night, which became
the basis of the film. And when it came to scheduling it for
filming, we found we couldnt get it off the ground until November! So I had the brilliant idea of suggesting that we call
it Cold Winter Night! [Laughs.] Because it would be much
better, since they were all shivering in the cold anyway! So
everybody laughed about that, but its actually not bad; its
really rather well done. It was really a teleplay, in a sense,
because theres no ending. See, all television drama has two
acts. Theres never a third act. Anybody can write a first act,
and most people can write the second, but nobody can write
the third. Always remember what George Bernard Shaw said
about [Henrik] Ibsen; he said, Ibsen starts his plays where
the others leave off. Thats written on my heart. Would you
like some more tea?
WWD : Yes, Id love some, thanks. Let me ask you about this film,
which Im sure is not one of your favorites: The Valiant, an
Italian-British coproduction from 1962, codirected with one
Giorgio Capitani. How did this come about?
RWB : Well, I dont know what happened there. Its a picture I
should never have made, thats for sure. I was crazy, but I
cant remember how I got into it, and John Mills got into it as
well, and the two of us tried to do something with it. It was
originally a French play, and it was adapted for filming by
Keith Waterhouse and his then partner; I cant remember his
name. It was all to do with the Italian miniature submarine
fleet during World War II. They were awfully good at using
these submarines in battle. We had some people doing it, but
really it was the Italians who developed the thing in the first
place. It was a very small underwater vehicle, and you could
get two men sitting in it. And you could go round the mines
that were there and stick mines onto the hulls of enemy ships.
And this was basically the plotits a true storybut one of
our very large battleships got mined, and I was somewhat

ambivalent about doing the story. The British, in the film,

manage to fish out two of these Italian submariners and say,
What have you been up to? But the Italians would only
give their name, rank, and serial number, and because of that
they were the valiant.
WWD : Why did you codirect it?
RWB : I didnt. I directed the whole thing. The picture was made
at Shepperton and also a lot of it in the south of Italy. Theres
a big naval base there, and we shot a lot of stuff for the film
there, and then we went back to Shepperton to do the interiors. But the Italian financiers wanted to release the picture in Italy with an Italian name on it, so they added this
other mans name to the credits! I dont even know if the
man exists! It might just be a name, you know. But I didnt
care by that time; I was fed up with it. Robert Shaw was in it.
WWD : Then we come to Two Left Feet, made in 1962, which you
again produced and directed.
RWB : Two Left Feet was a picture I made myself for British Lion.
Michael Crawford was the lead, whos now very famous as
the Phantom of the Opera, of course, and who did The Knack
and How to Get It for Richard Lester in 1965. He was twentyone at the time. And Nyree Dawn Porter was in it as well.
And David Hemmings. And Julia Foster. It was a great cast.
Wilkie Cooper shot that; I wrote the screenplay for it with a
man named John Hopkins and produced it with Leslie Gilliat.
It was about the trials and tribulations of a young man, in
London, trying to make it with the girls, I suppose, really. So
it was sort of an early swinging London kind of film, that
sort of thing. I thought it was very funny. It was sneak-previewed and it was hilarious, and the audience really fell about;
that was a sneak in Kings Cross.
But, for some reason, I fell into the middle of one of those
periodic battles between British Lion and the circuits, and I
never found a circuit release for it. So it was never properly
shown. It was shown, of course, but it never got a fair hearing. The picture was also postponed during shooting for
about six months, and I felt then that I should have said, All
right, dont lets do it, lets abandon it, because in another six
months itll be too late. It was very much a contemporary
picture; it wasnt like A Night to Remember, which could go on

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being shown for a hundred years. It was something of the

moment; I still have great affection for it. Its neat and with a
very good cast, of course, excellent performances. So I wish it
could have had the chance to find its proper audience.
WWD : Between 1962 and 1967, I have a four-year hiatus from
features. And then, suddenly, you sort of switched to horror
and science-fiction films for Hammer and Amicus. So what
was going on? What happened here in your career?
RWB : Well, as you said, there was a long gap, which I spent
mostly doing television. I directed The Avengers, some of the
episodes with Diana Rigg and Patrick MacNee. I enjoyed
doing The Avengers; it was great fun. Of course, it was a fantasy, a constructed myth, which took place in limbo. Beautifully designed and beautifully dressed; everything was perfect, and of course the two leads were superb, just right for it.
Patrick MacNee was completely professional to work with,
absolutely on his marks, always knew his lines, delightful
man to work with. Diana Rigg was wonderful, very good
indeed. We had in those days about nine days or ten to shoot
each hour-long episode. Its now got to eleven and twelve.
WWD : On some American hour-long nighttime television
dramas today, theyre knocking them out in five, six days. But
theyre basically mostly indoor dialogue sequences with a few
establishing exterior shots, and thats it. The Avengers had lots
of action, lots of plot twists, good characterizations, excellent
and inventive camerawork, whereas something like Melrose
Place or Beverly Hills 90210 is just set it up and shoot it . . .
RWB : Our stuff, British television shows, if you analyze them,
are really well crafted, and we put a lot of time and work into
them. American stuff always seems rather static, very stagey,
and not very engaging. We worked very hard on those shows,
and you can see it in the finished work. Especially in the
black-and-white days, before color came in and took a lot out
of the budget, which used to go for sets and costumes and
the like. Suddenly, that money had to go for the expense of
shooting and developing the color film, and a lot of production values were lost. The Avengers episodes with Diana Rigg
in black-and-white were, of course, the best of the series and
one of the high-water marks of British escapist television
fare. All told, I directed six or seven of those episodes. Brian

Clemens was the mainstay of the whole series. And it went

downhill immediately after Diana left the show.
WWD : What other television series episodes did you direct? You
did [almost] all your work, I believe, for ITC.
RWB : Yes, thats right. Well, I did a number of episodes of The
Saint, starring Roger Moore in his pre-Bond days. As an actor,
Roger is Roger, you know? Hes entirely self-sufficient. He
doesnt need to have a range of any kind because he always
plays himself. Hes done everything from his early teleseries
Ivanhoe to The Saint to the James Bond films, but hes always
Roger Moore. He always proudly said, Theres no use asking me to act because I dont know about acting, because
Im not doing acting. But television is really easy to do; the
characters are set, the scripts are there, and you shoot it. Its
hard work, mind you, but not that much of an intellectual
challenge.
WWD : But then you got back into features with a very interesting film, one of the Quatermass series of science-fiction films,
Quatermass and the Pit, known in the U.S. as Five Million Years
to Earth [1967]. This was your first film for Hammer, the great
British Gothic studio, starring Andrew Keir as Professor
Quatermass, with James Donald and Barbara Shelley. Bernard Robinson, Hammers great art director, did the sets
with Ken Ryan; it was shot by Arthur Grant, who many have
described as the absolute fastest lighting cameraman in the
business. It seemed a quality project all the way round, do
you agree?
RWB : Yes, I would. Well, Hammer was then based at Elstree;
they had left their studios at Bray. But on that picture, we had
an enormous piece of luck because just before we were going
to shoot the picture, Elstree suddenly said, Oh, were terribly sorry, but were very busy, and we cant accommodate
you. So instead of shooting it at Elstree, we went up the road
to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which was the best studio in the
country, perhaps in the world, at that time, at Boreham Wood.
The film had such a beautiful color design; most of it was
shot in the studio, and it was heavily stylized, to good effect, I
thought. Bernard Robinson was terrific to work with, and
Arthur Grant! Well! He was a lovely man. He was, as you
said, incredibly fast on the floor, amazingly fast, but I dont

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know how he did it. He was quite short, rather stocky, and he
spoke with a slightly country accent, as if hed come from
Somerset or somewhere.
Much later, I wanted Arthur Grant very much to do a picture for me, Asylum, and he agreed to do it, but hed been ill.
And he came to me one day, and he said to me, Before we
start, I think I have to say to you that Im really not well
enough to do this for you. I said, Oh, come, dont be silly.
Its not a difficult picture; its very straightforward stuff.
And he said, No, I dont want to let you down, guvnor; I
dont want to take the risk. And sure enough, within about
three months he died, poor soul. Arthur could set up shots
and make them look good in a matter of minutes. I dont
know how he did it; I mean, nobody does. He was so quiet
and so unobtrusive, but so effective.
But suddenly I was working with the whole Hammer crew.
It was all quite accidental that they took me on; to this day, I
dont know why, but they rang me up and said, Weve got a
picture here, and they told me roughly what it was about,
and I said, Send the script. So they did, and it was a very
good script by Nigel Kneale. Its a cult picture in France, they
adore it; they show it every week in France, practically, and
its good, theres no doubt about that. Im quite proud of it.
And again, its got some very good performances in it. Andrew Keir, James Donald, and Barbara ShelleyI think shes
highly underrated. But there you are. Some things pass unnoticed. Shes very, very good.
WWD : And then you continued on with Hammer to do The Anniversary [1968] with Bette Davis, which you took over from
Alvin Rakoff for some reason. What happened there?
RWB : Well, theres a full description of what happened in Mother
Goddamm, one of Bettes books. And she tells the story probably better than I could. Alvin Rakoff is a Canadian, actually,
although hes lived here for many years. Its none of my
business what went on, but apparently things werent working out.
WWD : Did you inherit the picture because of your personal
friendship with Bette Davis, because she knew your work
and liked and trusted your judgment?
RWB : Well, not so much that because she wasnt the sort of per-

son to do that sort of thing. She was highly professional, separating work from social life almost entirely. She loved to
work, and she was very serious about it. So she wouldnt have
made a decision on that basis. What happened was that she
couldnt get on with Alvin Rakoff, and he couldnt get on with
her, I suppose, so Jimmy Sangster, who was producing the
picture, realized hed got to do something about it. I had already made Quatermass and the Pit for Hammer, and of course
they were raving about it because it was a big success; it made
a fortune for them. So I was very popular with Hammer at the
time, and so the first person I suppose they thought of was,
Well, what about Roy? And then when they went to Bette
and said, Weve been in touch with Mr. Baker, what do you
think about that? She said, Oh, Ive known him for twentyfive years, dont be silly! And so thats how it happened. It
was meant to be a dark, rather black sort of comedy, and all
things considered, I think it worked out rather well.
WWD : Now we come to Moon Zero Two [1969], which I havent
seen
RWB : Oh, God.
WWD : which is supposed to be some sort of space western
or something like that. It starred James Olson, Catherine
Schell, and Adrienne Corri. Another Hammer film, though
not, I suspect one of their best. I dont know; Ive never
seen it.
RWB : Dont bother.
WWD : Tell me about it.
RWB : Well, theres nothing to tell you, really. I mean, the idea
was a very good one. It was meant to be a lighthearted spoof
of the western, which all happens on the moon. So. Thats
fine. But in the first place, the script was pretty terrible, but
the real problemwhich nobody really faced up to and nobody really understood in those early days of trying to make
space pictures; there was only one other science-fiction film
that was any good at that time, and that was Stanley Kubricks
picture, 2001[: A Space Odyssey, 1968]was that there was no
really effective way to do the special effects, unless you had a
fortune to spend on the project. Its very, very difficult to
create weightlessness and to stage the scenes that you wanted
to do with the characters floating in space. I mean, if youre

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chasing a man over the moon, people jump in enormous

great leaps and bounds because theres so little gravity.
So we thought about how we could do it. Id thought of
getting some acrobats to dress up as the actors and then put
them on a series of trampolines. And I thought I had a place
we could do this for the film as well. There is a huge abandoned zeppelin hangar that still exists, which was used to
house the old R101 and R100 British zeppelins we used to
make over here, before one of them crashed and that was the
end of that. Funnily enough, we built the zeppelins again because we were going to beat the crossing record, like the
Titanic; we were going to be the first to cross over to India,
which was then still British. So the government had to build
an enormous great shed for these huge zeppelins, and its still
there. Cardington, its called; its somewhere near Cambridge,
actually. And I thought of taking that, which was a huge enclosed area, the biggest you could find, and filling it with
trampolines [laughs], but there just wasnt enough money. I
mean, you couldnt expect anybody to put up enough money
to do it. I mean, it was not yet the day of the forty-milliondollar picture. If anybody went over four or five million dollars, everybody shot themselves or jumped out of windows!
WWD : Now we come to another Hammer film, but a better one
and one of the last really polished Hammer films, in my opinion, The Vampire Lovers [1970]. This was one of the Karnstein films [so called because they dealt with the vampiric
Karnstein clan], one of a series of lesbian vampire films Hammer mounted with varying degrees of success in the early
1970s. Ingrid Pitt was in it, and Pippa Steel, Madeline Smith,
George Cole [best known as Flash Harry in the St. Trinians
comedies], and Peter Cushing in what was a very brief, almost cameoesque role. He starts off the film but then drops
out after the first twenty minutes or so, only to return at the
end very briefly. This was all very loosely based on Sheridan
Le Fanus Carmilla and has acquired something of a cult reputation over time. How did it feel to step into a whole new
level of graphic violence and nudity on the screen . . . lightyears away from your work in the 1950s and sixties? Yet, I
must say, I think you handled it very tastefully. It doesnt
look at all like an exploitation film.

RWB :

Working with Peter Cushing is always good fun; he can

take the most absolute rubbish and make it sound absolutely
believable. Hes very, very good indeed. Absolutely professional. As for the film itself, I dont really know how I felt. By
that time, Id sort of drifted into the Hammer orbit, and I
suppose I became their principal director because I directed
practically everything they did at that time. So I drifted into
it, but its not a picture that I should ever have made because
Ive got no taste for such things. I really dont have any affinity for this sort of material. But the project started life as
something that was meant to be a sensational exploitation
picture; it was going to be absolutely [with great sarcasm]
wonderful. Hammer said, Weve done everything youve
ever heard of with vampires, but we havent yet done it with
vampire women, and secondly, we havent done it with vampire women who are also lesbians! Ho, ho! Well, thatll get
em! [Shakes his head.]
Well, I nearly got fired over it. It was loosely based on
Carmilla, as you said, a story I read when I was, God, sixteen.
But I was doing it too carefully, with too much style and
taste. And I didnt make a sensational picture. Hammer were
quite happy with the end result, but the producers, who were
two men who had come in from outside of Hammer with
the original idea, Harry Fine and Michael Style, they felt that
it was all being watered down; the whole thing was a disaster, you know, and so on and so forth, but they couldnt fire
me simply because Hammer didnt want me fired. Hammer
was quite happy with what was going on. I think that [Hammer executive] Jimmy Carreras was a bit brighter about it,
you know.
Anyway, the upshot was that we showed the picture, and
the critics liked it. They accepted it. Because I had made it
acceptable. And theres a very simple key to the whole problem of doing something like this: dont make the characters
look ridiculous. Take it seriously. Handle it with restraint,
style, and taste. You should never make any character look
ridiculous. If hes a lunatic or a bank robber, or no matter
what she or he is, never make the character ridiculous. Particularly if the character is a lesbian or a homosexual, you
have to take it very seriously, and never make anyone look

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ridiculous on the screen. You cant camp it up. Thats demeaning. And we did some quite nifty things in that picture,
[things] that we did for real. When one of the characters
throws a dagger at Ingrid Pitt, who plays the main character,
the chief lesbian vampire, as the dagger hits her, she suddenly
becomes transparent and disappears, and the dagger falls on
the table behind her. That was done by winding back in the
camera on the studio floor; it wasnt an optical effect at all.
Quite a risk, but it looked better; there was no generational
loss. The film grain matched all the other material in the
film, so it looked real and didnt look like a second-generation optical effect. So it was more effective. It worked.
WWD : And now we come to The Scars of Dracula [1970], with
Christopher Lee. Dennis Waterman was in it, better known
for his work in British television cop shows. What were your
thoughts on the film? Chris Lee almost seemed to have a
cameo role in the film; he seemed clearly very bored with
the series by this point in time, dont you think?
RWB : Well, there again, its not really a picture I should have
made. But I did the simple thing, being a simpleminded English lad, and I went back and read the book, Dracula, by
Bram Stoker, to see what ideas I could get out of it. Thats a
good idea, dont you think? [Laughs.]
WWD : Yes, when in doubt, always read the source material.
[Laughs.]
RWB : Well, anyway, I discovered in the book something that, as
far as I could recollect, had never yet been done in a film of
Dracula. In the book, when Jonathan Harker looks out of the
bedroom window in Draculas castle when hes being held
prisoner, straight down the side of the castle wall to the
ground sixty feet below him, he suddenly realizes that Dracula is coming out of a window in the castle, and hes climbing
down the wall head first, like a fly. Its in the book. But it had
never been done because people could never find a way to do
it, or it cost too much money, or whatever their excuse may
have been. But there are several things in that picture that
are magic. And I think that the only defense I can make for
any of the stuff that Ive done in the horror genrewhich I
have no particular taste for at all, I looked at it just as a piece
of workwas injecting a bit of magic into it. I did the effect

with the wall by building a sloping set, thats all, and picking
the camera angle, so it was very simple to do, actually, when
you think about it. But you have to figure these things out in
advance; they require thought and preparation.
In that same picture, Christopher Lee had to pick up a
young woman and carry her from one room into another. So
Christopher Lee came to me and said, Unfortunately, and
as you know, hes very, very grave, very serious, sadly, the
unfortunate thing is that I have got a weak back, and Ive
always had this problem. Hes a very tall man. Well, thats
no problem, I said. You dont have to pick her up; thats all
right. Ill deliver her to you on a trolley. Which I did; we just
moved the trolley in, and he put his arms out, and the effect
worked perfectly well. Oh, he said. Thats marvelous. But
theres only one problem. How do I get through the door?
How do I open the door if Im carrying this young woman
about? I said, Dracula doesnt open doors! Doors open for
Dracula. And its just a man with a piece of string, but its
magic, and the people look at it, and they think, My God,
this is great. So its fun. But I never really cared for this sort
of film.
WWD : Next is Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde [1971], with Ralph Bates,
whom I think is a very underappreciated actor, and Martine
Beswick. Brian Clemens, the brains behind The Avengers,
wrote the script. It was photographed by Norman Warwick.
RWB : Well, of course, the really clever thing about it was invented by Jimmy Carreras, it wasnt any of us. Because the
producers and myself, we were shopping around for whos
going to play the girl; wed already got Ralph Bates for the
Dr. Jekyll role, and very good for it, a convincing performer.
And it was Jimmy Carreras who said, The girl youve got to
have is Martine Beswick. We hadnt really heard very much
of her, didnt know anything about her, so everybody was
frightfully doubtful. But of course, the trick was that the two
of them look exactly alike. Same height, same coloring, which
was what the whole story was about. There was one unfortunate technical problem, Ive always thought, in the writing of
the script, which Brian Clemens entirely agreed with. You
see, the whole thing started as a joke, as a lunchtime joke in
the canteen at Elstree. There were four or five of us sitting

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round, and Brian was there, and the conversation was What
the hell are you going to do with Dracula next? or What
the hell can you do with Frankenstein? or Doctor Jekylls
been done fifteen times; what can we do now?all that sort
of thing. And Brian suddenly lit up and said, I know. I know
what happens. He drinks the magic potion and turns into a
beautiful woman! And everyone said, Very funny, and
then Brian went away and wrote it. Then, the problem is
that if Dr. Jekyll drinks the potion and becomes Mistress
Hyde, or Sister Hyde, theres only one body between the two
of them. You see, you havent got two bodies. Theyre not
separate people, theres one that changes into both personalities. And that means that you could never really have a
scene between the two of them. The only time you ever see
the two of them separately in the same scene is when one is
reflected in a mirror, or something like that; you know, Dr.
Jekyll looks in the mirror and sees Sister Hyde, his alter ego.
So this limited us.
It was a shame, really, because the whole business of transsexuality and this kind of thing, which I dont understand at
all, but Im very good at it on the screen [laughs], well, the
key to all of that is never to get too involved with it on the
screen, and then it comes off. Take the characters seriously,
and dont make them look ridiculous, as Ive said, but keep a
distance, yourself, from the material, and then you can get
some sort of objectivity about it and make it look real, even if
you dont believe it yourself. Once you start down the path of
analysis of what youre going, then you wind up with Sigmund
Freud and Carl Jung and a whole lot of other people, when all
youre doing is simply telling a story in a straightforward
manner, so that people believe what youre saying.
WWD : Next is Asylum, a horror film for Amicus, and once again
with a marvelous cast: Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom, Richard
Todd, Barbara Parkins, and a Robert Bloch script. This was
an omnibus picture, a magazine picture, very much like Dead
of Night [1945], which is the grandfather of all these multipart horror and suspense films. What are your thoughts on
this film?
RWB : Well, Amicus was made up of two producers, Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky. They left me alone, I must say.

Max was always off in America raising the money to make

the films, and he only came over once, I think, during the
making of the film. Milton Subotsky was a very good friend,
I enjoyed him very much. We got on very well together. The
extraordinary thing about Milton was that he was always
about two or three years ahead of anybody else; he got involved with sword and sorcery long before that was popular;
he bought the rights to some Stephen King short stories
when he was a virtual unknown as a writer, which provided
him with a comfortable annuity for his old age. He registered
a company called Sword and Sorcery, Ltd., years before anyone else had even heard of the idea. Milton never even came
on the set; he never interfered with my work. But there was
one thing: he liked to fiddle about in the cutting room afterwards. Well, given my usual procedures, which Ive described,
there wasnt very much he could do. He enjoyed fiddling and
puttering about in the cutting room, but in the end, it all
came out the way I planned, so it didnt matter.
Asylum was the first film I did for Amicus and far and away
the best. Its a good picture. Nobody worked in the film for
more than three or four days; the whole thing was shot in
thirty days. Its a good piece of clockwork. Its mechanical,
but it works. Herbert Lom has a part of a man who is a mad
professor or a mad surgeonI cant remember, and it really
doesnt matterbut we shot his scenes all in one day. I guess
its wonderful what people will do for a free lunch. But Herbert came and did his work, and although the script was
entirely ridiculous, he was utterly convincing. You believed
him! And all shot in one day. All those Amicus films had
schedules so that certain people would only work a few days,
and then wed get everything we needed on them, and that
would be it. Herbert and I had earlier done a lot of work
together in a very dreary television series called The Human
Jungle, in which he played a psychiatrist. So every episode
was one or two of his case histories. And there was another
situation like the Amicus films where we had all these wonderful actors, like Flora Robson, who would come in for a day
and do all their lines and then leave, and we got everything
we needed just like that. Theres no substitute for professionalism like that.

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Vault of Horror [1972] followed this, with another superb

cast of genre artists: Daniel Massey, Anna Massey [brother
and sister in real life], Terry-Thomas, the famous gap-toothed
comedian of the sixties British films, Glynis Johns, Curt
Jurgens, Denholm Elliott, Dawn Addams, a really stellar cast.
What did you think of this film?
RWB : Well, working with Terry-Thomas was very sad, really,
because he was already so ill; he was ill for a long time. He
suffered for two or three years, and when we made this film,
you could already tell he was doing badly. It was Parkinsons
disease, I think, and it eventually killed him and left him almost bankrupt. I never had the chance to work with him
before this film, which was also sad, although I used to go
and see him all the time. Originally, he started out as a vaudeville act. Glynis Johns was all right . . . I knew her from the
time I was making Highly Dangerous, when she was married to
Antony [sometimes Anthony] Darnborough, who produced
that film. But she was never a close friend or anything, but
we sort of swam in the same seas sort of thing, and we ran
into each other from time to time. . . . And Denholm Elliott
was in it, as you said, and that was all Miltons casting. He
was an absolute artist at it. I dont know how he got these
people to do it, but he did, and it was amazing.
WWD : Now we come to your final feature to date, And Now the
Screaming Starts [1973], with Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom,
Patrick Magee, Stephanie Beacham; another horror film. Your
thoughts on this?
RWB : Well, it was quite good, actually, in spite of that horrible
title, which was invented by Max Rosenberg, which turned a
lot of people off. Stephanie Beacham really gave a marvelous
performance; she was the star of the show, and all the others
had very little parts in it. It was a ghost story, really, a haunted
house in the countryside, and I made the film in a very delicate and thoughtful manner. It relates to a much earlier terrible tragedy in the local village some two hundred years
before, and theres a curse that hangs over the mansion in
which Stephanie Beachams character lives . . . the usual
Gothic plot. We had a marvelous mechanical severed hand
that walked all through the picture, which was a lot of fun to
work with. So that was great fun.
WWD :

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WWD :

Do you have any favorite directors, classical directors

whose work you really admire?
RWB : Oh, yes; Ive always admired Billy Wilder, for instance.
Some of his things are not really regarded as highly as [they]
should be. And Luis Buuel, one of my favorites. I used to
be very fond of Ren Clairs films, the earlier ones, like Sous
les toits de Paris, Le Million, and A Nous la libert. But my taste
is rather erratic. The other day, I was talking with someone
about a film Ive seen recently, Un Coeur en hiver, which I
thought was superb. So some of the newer films are really
quite remarkable. Beautiful film. And I said to my friend at
the screening, You know, the only films that I can really say
I admire are the ones I wish Id had my name on, you know?
If you like it that much that you wish it was your work, then
thats my test of a really good picture. Of course, that doesnt
happen very often.

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Wendy Subverting the British Studio System

Toye

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In 1992, Wendy Toye was awarded the Order of the British Empire and directed a touring company of The Sound of Music. Though
she has not been able to direct a feature film in some time, she still
enthusiastically pursues her individual creative vision. I was fortunate to have the chance to interview Wendy Toye on 6 June 1992
and found her very chirpy and full of life, as my friend Nigel
Arthur commented. It was Nigel who introduced me to Wendy
Toye and thus made this conversation possible. If Wendy Toye
seems somewhat sad about what might have been in her career as
a filmmaker, she still does not dwell in the past. Clearly, what she
relishes most is the challenge of film and theater producing and
directing, and it is this work that she continues to tackle with zeal
and good humor.
WT :

Its an awful thought having to talk about myself. Ive done

so many things and started so young. I am bored with talking
about myself. I think to myself, Oh, God, do we have to go
all through that? You know? But youre here now, and Im
here, so lets talk.
I came into movies through dancing, in a very roundabout
way. I started dancing when I was very little, three years old,
and because I suppose I was fairly good, I was suggested to
appear at a performance at three and a half at the Albert Hall
in London. And so I did a solo dance there and was almost
immediately named by the press the pocket wonder because I was so small. And then I went on to doing various
different charity shows with very famous variety artists.
One of them, a man called Hayden Coffin, was a very famous musical-comedy star in those days. He was very impressed with me and asked if my mother would let me be his
stooge, or assistant, on stage. So I did a lot of work with him,
but it wasnt what you would strictly call professional because I was only about five years old. I just went on doing
all sorts of things as a child and winning millions of competitions and cups and medals. In the end, other schools

wouldnt let their children in the competition if I was in it. It

got as bad as that! [Laughs.]
WWD : Did you actually choreograph a ballet at the Palladium
when you were ten years old?
WT : Nine. It was a ballet that I had the idea of myself, and I had
to use a lot of children. It came out of the school I went to,
where I danced with the great ballerina Ninette de Valois.
She was always encouraging me because she had seen dances
that I had arranged when I was a child. I called the dance the
Japanese Legend of the Rainbow.
I knew nobody would take much interest in it if it was
just a story by me, so I just sort of added on the Japanese
legend part! The idea was that when flowers die, their colors
all got to heaven to make rainbows. The music that I chose
was [Giuseppe] Scarlatti, which was a rather funny choice
for a child.
WWD : The first film that I have you as an actor in is Anthony
Asquiths Dance Pretty Lady in 1931.
WT : Oh, my goodness, yes, thats right! I was a member of a
ballet company at the time, and we all worked in the film,
and thats how I got involved in that.
WWD : How did you make the jump into films?
WT : Well, there were many jumps in between because I was an
actress, as well as a dancer. I was in serious ballet, but my
mother always insisted on me doing everything else as well
modern stuff, tap, and the likewhich upset the ballet companies that I was with, but while I was in the ballet with
Ninette de Valois at Covent Garden, I was also dancing in
cabaret with a man named Frederick Franklin. He was my
partnerwe danced together.
We danced at the very famous Caf de Paris and in lots
of musicals in London. And we went on together until the
MarkovaDolin Ballet company was formed, and we were
both in that. I choreographed ballets for them as well. I did a
lot of commercial shows as well. Wherever I could get work,
money! And then at about eighteen, I was quite ill with appendicitis, and I wasnt allowed to dance for quite a while, so
I choreographed. I needed the work, I need to work. I started
choreographing dances in commercial showslike at the
Palladium with the Crazy Gang.

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WWD :

Was your mother a dancer as well?

No, nothing to do with the profession at all. Nor was my
father. But my mother was a very clever lady. She loved
dancing herself. I think she would have loved to be a dancer
herself. She was a good violinist but not a professional one
because, in those days, there were very few professional
women of anything. So she took me to a very good school to
start with, and the lady who played the piano for us there
was Glynis Johnss mother. And Glynis Johns was in the class
as well!
But in the second school I went to, they suggested that my
mother should take me to the [Sergei] Diaghilev ballet company, the Ballet Russe, when they were in London to [do] the
rehearsals. So when I was about eight or nine, I was watching
the rehearsals of the Diaghilev company in London. I was
really very lucky to get all that kind of experience.
WWD : Did you run into [Jean] Cocteau during this period?
WT : Yes, during the Diaghilev rehearsalsCocteau was there.
Constantly talking. He was brilliant. Many years later, he was
the chairman of the council that was judging the films in
Cannes, and he awarded me a prize for my film The Stranger
Left No Card.
So I went from dancing/acting to choreographing all these
different shows, and I learned a lot that helped me to choreograph dances in films. I was actually in the films as well. I
was in a film, which theyve just shown in London within the
last week, called Invitation to the Waltz. It was a ridiculous film
actually, but it was extremely lavish.
WWD : Yes, Invitation to the Waltz (1935), directed by Paul Merzbach. Were you picking up technical information during this
period, when you were on the set?
WT : Well, not exactly that. But I used to go into the cutting room
all the time. I was really very interested in the way they made
films, and I was always watching what happened in the camera. And I loved being in the cutting room, seeing how they
put it together. I did learn technically what you must not do
because, when you are choreographing something, you have
to learn about camera angles and coverage in the same way as
if you are directing a film. If youve got suggestions for camera angles for the director, you have to know a bit about it.
WT :

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So I suppose I did try to learn as much as I could because I

was interested.
I remember one film I worked on, and there was one
section of the film that was in color. It was a terrible mime
sequence which I had staged for them. And it wasnt good
because the leading lady, Steffi Duna, wasnt a very good
dancer and didnt move very gracefully; it simply wasnt
working out. So the director was very unhappy, and he asked
me if we could work together to improve it. He said, Will
you watch this, Wendy? Just watch the cameras and see that
weve got the covering shots because Ive got to watch the
lights and the color and see what happens on that side. And
so there I was, about fourteen years of age, actually in control
of one of the whole scenes of the film.
WWD : Can you remember any of the particular technicians
whom you worked with?
WT : I knew you would ask me that. The very first person I
worked withwhen Alexander Korda put me under contractwas Georges Prinal, the lighting cameraman. And
it was quite extraordinary because he was a hero to me. My
mother had taken me to see all the Korda films when I was
a child, and I couldnt believe that I was working with this
same legend of a man.
WWD : He photographed Cocteaus Blood of a Poet as well.
WT : The one Georges Prinal shot for me was In the Picture,
one of the episodes of the omnibus film Three Cases of Murder
[1953].
WWD : Did you run into David Lean in the cutting room when
you were a choreographer?
WT : Oh, yes. He was the editor of a film that I did the dances
for, called The Young Mr. Pitt. He gave me a lot of help, a lot of
pointers. I met a lot of people on that film, and they were all
very nice to me. People like Dickie Attenborough, who was
just starting out and certainly turned into a great success later
(I met him again several years ago in New York when he was
directing A Chorus Line), and Ronald Neame, who was the
camera operator, and Carol Reed, the director.
Then there was Robert Morley, who was acting in the film,
and Ronnie Taylor, who was also in the camera department
and has since gone on to be a director of photography him-

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self. And David Lean was the cutter! What a lot of talent that
was! It was all shot at the Gainsborough Studios. In fact, I
was the one who introduced Attenborough around to the
members of the company on his first day on the set . . . he
was applying for a job as a runner or something!
WWD : Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, [whose production company is] known as the Archers, wanted to work with
you, I understand.
WT : Yes, they did. I was very flattered. Emeric had seen The
Stranger Left No Card, and probably one or two other things,
and I think Sir Malcolm Sargent introduced us to one another, and we used to go to the opera together, the four of us.
And Emeric was very keen for me to do some work for him.
I would have loved to have done it, but it just never worked
out. When they were doing something that I could have
perhaps been involved inlike The Red Shoes, or A Matter of
Life or DeathI was doing some other film, or I was busy
doing something in the theater. Its too bad. It would have
been fun.
WWD : On The Stranger Left No Card [1952], your breakthrough
film, how did you get the financing?
WT : Well, I did during the war a show called Skirts for the American Eighth Army Air Force. The show was produced by a
man named George K. Arthur. He went to all the different
stage producers then working in London, like George Black
at the Palladium, asking advice for somebody to choreograph
this show for him. They all said, Use Wendy. So George
came to me one day and said, Would [you] do this? And I
said, It sounds very interesting, indeed. Yes, I would love to
do it, and so I did.
We stayed in touch, and then when I went to America in
1949 and directed Peter Pan with Jean Arthur and Boris Karloff on the stage, and when I returned, I remet George Arthur
and his wife. He said he was going to form a company to
make short films. He got the rights to three good stories. I
particularly liked one of them, Stranger in Town.
I read it and thought it was a most wonderful story, but
then I forgot all about it because how often do these things
get off the ground, really? I came back to England in May,
and a year later George came over and said, Well, Ive got

the script all finished. Who do you suggest ought to do it?

So I suggested David Lean to direct because it was such a wonderful story, and the leading man, the designer, the person to
write the music, everything. So George said, Thank you,
and went away.
After a week, he came back. Ive got everybody, Wendy,
he said, but I dont have David Lean. I want you to do it.
Now, I hadnt ever thought of directing a film in my life.
WWD : Youve been quoted as saying, It was never one of my
major ambitions to become a film director. Is that true?
WT : Well, yes. Ive never had any real major ambitions at all. I
just like doing what Im asked to do and doing what I choose
to do. You know what I mean? Ive never had any tremendous
ambition to be something. I cant say that I had a great ambition to directnot really. I suppose my only ambition when
I was young was to choreograph well. And then that sort of
left me after a bit because I got offered jobs as a director.
WWD : You certainly jumped in and made the absolute most of
the opportunity.
WT : Well, I chose very good people to work with, didnt I? We
did it in thirteen days, and it cost something like three thousand pounds. We didnt have any money. We got expenses,
plus minimum wage, and that was all. I got a fifty-pound gold
coin as a bonus for finishing on time, which Ive still got.
Almost the whole of The Stranger Left No Card Id worked
out to music before we went to shoot it. And in those days,
we couldnt afford audiotape for the playback on the set, so I
had a little windup gramophone on all the location sets. And
we had to do it with a metronome because I knew exactly
what bits of music I wanted to fit into the shots. It was all
very planned out. Ren Clair was certainly an influence; I
loved A Nous la libert. Im really controlled by music. I think
the tempo of music is something that influences the structure
of all my films.
Then George had to sell the film, which wasnt easy because it was a two-reel short subject. George went with a
copy under his arm to America to try and sell the rights, and
there was one copy which we gave to London Films, Kordas
distributor, just to see what he thought. We never thought
theyd take it.

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Well, we didnt hear anything. I went on working and did

another theater show, and I really thought no more about it.
I thought, One day it will be shown in America, and I will
hear about it if Im lucky. And then suddenly, one of Alexander Kordas employees, a guy named Bill, rang me up and
said, Youve made a great hit, Wendy, with my boss. And I
said, What do you mean?
Well, he said, Alex rang me up the day before yesterday
and said he was going to show a new feature film of his to a
big party of people. He asked me to find a short film to go
with it. So I went through all the short films lying around at
London Films and came across The Stranger Left No Card. I
looked at it and liked it and sent it along to Kordas house.
That evening, down came Alex Korda with all his glamorous guests, and they ran The Stranger Left No Card before
this film Korda had just finished. It caused such a sensation
with the audience that Korda got Bill to ring me the very
next day because he wanted to send it to the Cannes Film
Festival. And so it went to Cannes under Kordas banner,
London Films. And that got me in with Alexander Korda,
under contract.
WWD : How did your next film, The Teckman Mystery [1954], come
about?
WT : Well, this was a pretty straightforward mystery. I really
didnt want to do it, but I had said no to so many subjects
that Korda had asked me to do. Actually, I was quite frightened of him. I mean, I was pretty young, and I was scared
of him.
WWD : He was a rather domineering person, from what I gather.
WT : Absolutely, absolutely, yes. Even with his children. One of
the excuses I used was that I thought I wasnt experienced
enough to do that subject. I didnt think I could do it in six
weeks. But he insisted, so I jumped in. I had a lovely cast because Korda let me have who I wanted. Margaret Leighton
played the lead. So I said yes to that at last and shot it, and
thats why I did that. But it really wasnt my kind of film
really and truly. I always liked to do things that were slightly
fantasy, very popular and light and admired. And in those
days, nobody would touch fantasy.
WWD : However, in your later films, you shifted into comedy.

That happened, really, because I did Raising a Riot [1955] under Kordas banner, but the producer of that was a marvelous, marvelous man called Ian Dalrymple. Hes a wonderful
man. I owe him so much. I owe so many men so much because they laid their head on the line for me. If I hadnt done
it alright, they would have been in real trouble.
Ian found the story for Raising a Riot and liked it and showed
it to me, and said, Do you think you could get Kenneth More
to play in this? I said, Well, I dont know. Do you mean with
me directing? He said yes. Well, I said, I doubt it. Ive only
made one or two films before. Why should he bother with
me? So I had lunch with Kenny, who I didnt know at all at
the time. I admired him a lot. But he knew of me, and said
yes straight away.
And so that was one of the last films made under Kordas
banner. But it was a slightly different sort of film than the
ones I did after that, which were much more straight comedy.
Then Korda died. And my contract went to J. Arthur Rank.
And they did wonderful films, but they were slightly broader
films than Kordas. It was a much larger organization, and
it certainly didnt have the family feel. And of course widescreen started and CinemaScope. We all went through all
kinds of lectures and things, trying to get into these new
techniques.
WWD : With All for Mary [1955] and True as a Turtle [1956], it really
seems that you stayed in the comedy vein. Did you want to
do more fantasy? Was this just not a possibility?
WT : Very much, yes, yes, youre quite right. But Ive never been
very good at selling people on things that I want to do. Im
not a good seller of either myself or what I want to do. Partly
because, I suppose, Im not ambitious. I know that sounds
silly or overly modest, but I think you have to have a searing
ambition to barge in on people and say, I must do this, and
I want to do that, and all the rest of it. I just timidly went
along doing everything I was given, really. Because I was
really very grateful to be doing it, and it was fascinating. And
I had lovely casts.
I love filmmaking. All the crews were so wonderful. And I
think one of the reasons that they were so good to me was
because of my work as a choreographer. I think I was sensiWT :

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tive to people. I knew how to place them, how to move them,

how to keep things moving on the screen. A lot of people ask
me now, As a woman, did you find it very tricky in those
times? I didnt at all. Some of the women who worked in
films in BritainI mean, even Muriel Boxshe hated every
minute of what she was doing. Where I had a blazingly happy
time in my career and absolutely enjoyed every moment of it,
she really had a rotten time. And she was brilliant. Shes a
very good writer.
WWD : Yes, no question.
WT : But because she had come from the writing side of films
and hadnt gotten a career outside of films, I think the crew
decided to give her a bad time of it. Or not respect her as much
as they should have done. You know. Perhaps she didnt have
enough experience working on the floor with actors. When
you come from the editing or the writing room, that is the
one thing that you miss out on. And of course I was so lucky
in that way because I had worked with actors a lot.
WWD : Would you say that later in the 1950s and up to your last
film, The Kings Breakfast in 1963, you were, more or less,
typed as a comedy director against your will?
WT : Oh, yes, I would think so. Im also typed in the theater.
I mean, Ive done a lot of straight things, but most of the
things that Ive done have been amusing. I enjoy comedy. I
think people think of me as more comedy than not. I dont
mind that.
WWD : To what degree do you inject your own personal commentary into your comedies?
WT : Im not aware of it at all. But Ive got a play on tour at the
moment, a very old comedy called See How They Run. It was
at a theater that I work at a lot, the Watermill Theatre, which
is just outside of London. And I thought I had just done a
fairly workmanlike job of it. It was very funny, and the actors
were very good; they were enjoying themselves. Then one of
the regular theatergoers happened to see me in the bar one
evening.
He came over and said, Oh, Wendy, I would have known
you had directed that anywhere! I said, Now. nowcome
on! He said, Well, I dont know, but just the chases and
everything was so funny. There was no question that you had

done it. So I suppose without knowing it at all you do leave

your mark a little bit.
WWD : Youve also been doing a lot of television. You did a
remake of The Stranger Left No Card for Anglia Television in
Britain in 1981.
WT : I did, and I didnt want to. I really didnt want to.
WWD : Was that shot on videotape?
WT : Yes, with Derek Jacobi. The man who bought the rights to it
rang me up because were old friends. He said, Will you do
it? And I told him, I dont want to do it again. I dont think
I would ever do it as well as it was done originally. And its
better in black-and-white. Thats one of the qualities of it.
Well, he said, Im going to do it. Do think about it for a
few days because, if you dont do it, somebody will. So I
thought, Well, I must do it. I cant let somebody else do it.
WWD : What are your feelings about shooting on film versus
tape?
WT : I dont really like it. But I think that, in a funny sort of way,
its much more practicaltape. You can see it right back,
and the editing seems to go easier, but the thing about tape
to me is that it strips everything down visually. It seems
almost too real.
WWD : Do you think that critics who discuss your films today
read things into them that really arent there?
WT : No, I dont think they could have done that. They were too
simple, my films. Theres a subtext in Raising a Riot in a very
jokey way, isnt there? Its simply that, in domestic matters,
a man doesnt cope with it all quite as well as a woman, but
thats because he hasnt had to do it for so long. Its not any
stronger than that. And I think nowadays its very old-fashioned. I think it is so outdated because I think men do help
with everything now.
WWD : Yes, but dont you think that those films helped influence
society, pave the way, shape things?
WT : Well, I like to think so. I like to think that, because I did my
job, not necessarily very brilliantly but well, and never went
over budget (which is probably very unimaginative of me,
but I didnt), I paved the way for other women to work in
film. I thought I had a job to do, and I had to stick to it. I
like to think that, because of that, perhaps I did help other

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women get jobs. People say, Youve never been a feminist, and
you never fight for women. Well I dont, really, but I think
an example of doing something and getting on with it and
not being a crashing bore about things is probably better than
getting onto a platform and making some speech about it all.
By being didactic, you alienate a large part of your audience.
WWD : Do you miss the old studio system? Was the demise of
the studio system the reason that you stopped directing films
in 1963?
WT : No, not at all. I think they just didnt want me. I wanted to
do my own projects and not what they wanted me to do. If I
had stuck in with it and done one or two of the things that
were offered to me at the time, instead of going back to the
theater to do things I wanted to do, I might still be working
away. In the sixties, I took on a television show called Chelsea
at Nine, which I produced for a year. So that was a whole year
out of it. And what with that and with stage shows and operas and thingsyou knowI didnt get around to it again.
I think if Id stuck with films, I could have been quite a good
film director, eventually. But Ive always been so interested in
so many different things that Ive left films and gone back to
the theater. I think if Id stuck to films, I probably would have
had a much better career. But Ive had a lot of fun.

The Long Day Closes

Terence
Davies

Born in 1945, Terence Davies survived a terrible childhood composed of equal parts economic and social privation and beatings
at the hands of a brutish and uncomprehending father. A child of
the Liverpool blitz era, Daviess strongest memories of his childhood are those of escape: escape to the cinema, to a sing-along at
a pub, to brief holidays away from home. Subjected to a vigorously
Catholic upbringing, Davies originally trained to be an accountant
but soon drifted into theater as a way to express the alienation of
his own existence.
In a series of 16mm shorts begun in 1976, Davies created a fivepart autobiography, tracing his life up until his most recent film,
The Long Day Closes, completed in 1992. By that time, Davies was
working in 35mm with a budget of $1.75 million; his first film had
a budget of eight thousand pounds. The first three shorts, Children
(1976), Madonna and Child (1980), and Death and Transfiguration
(1983), all financed by the BFI Production fund, led to the production of his first film in 35mm, Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), which
won numerous international awards and established Davies as a
major figure of the modern British cinema.
Daviess work is spare and austere; his framing recalls the
minimalist rigor of Jean-Marie Straub or Daviess own contemporary, Derek Jarman, although, as he notes, Daviess sensibility is
very much his own. Having come up in the ranks of the BFIs Production program, Davies is now at work on the script of a contemporary thriller set in New York, to be financed by a combination
of British and French production funding. Quiet, reserved, and yet
very definite in his views, Davies consented to this 23 July 1992
telephone interview while he was at a small cottage in the English
countryside, where he was completing the screenplay for his new
film and listening to Saint-Sans.
Davies is privileged in that he has never had to work on a project
that was not wholly personal, self-scripted, designed to meet his
expectations alone. Although his childhood and early professional
career informed the structure and content of his first five films,

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he is now moving toward the thriller genre as a vehicle for his ideas
rather than having started out as a genre artist who longs to create an entirely individual project. Like Eric Rohmer, who continues to turn out gorgeously personal (and, it must be said, resolutely
noncommercial) films, Davies absolutely refuses to sacrifice any
aspect of his personal vision to the whims of executive producers
and/or distributors, while he simultaneously remains resolutely
practical in the matter of budgets and shooting schedules, in the
manner of any journeyman filmmaker.
Yet for all his individuality of vision, Davies is deeply concerned
with the publics reception of his work, and the personal pain that
he exorcises in his films is never far from the surface of his discourse. Although the grim physical world of Distant Voices, Still
Lives is punctuated with a series of seemingly inappropriate show
tunes that simultaneously mirror and offer sardonic commentary
on the bleak lives of Daviess protagonists, in his lush pictorial
continuity, severely sculptural lighting, and deeply felt sense of
color, Davies sees mundane life as something that continually
seeks release and transmogrification through the redemptive quality of escapist entertainment. Theres nothing wrong with Tootsie,
you know, he admonished me at one point in our conversation.
Davies, then, seeks to please both himself and his audience, no
matter how much the precise crafting of his films belies this fact.
Davies continues his work to this day: in 2001, he scored a substantial international success with his version of The House of
Mirth, starring Gillian Anderson.
WWD :

Where do you see yourself in the continuum of British

cinema?
TD : I dont see myself in it at all, really. Its very difficult to say,
really, because I was brought up on the American musical.
Thats what my sisters took me to see when I was a child.
Real sorts of films, Hollywood films, were made by people
who didnt come from my background. Im from a large
working-class Catholic background. People in England who
were making films were all middle class, and theyd all gone
to university, and I never thought Id get the chance to make
films myself. I still cant quite believe that I doyou see what
I mean?
WWD : Your films offer a much more honest and certainly a dif-

ferent vision of working-class life in Britain than has previously been shown. Could you speak a little bit on that?
TD : Well, Im trying to be truthful to the audience in my background. My background was very similar to that of lots of
people in this country, and certainly of my class. It was, in
many ways, a very constricted culture but a very rich one. All
we had was the radio and the cinema, the pub and the dance
hall, and for men, the football match on a Saturday. But that
culture was very rich because you had to make your own entertainment, which was why, when you went to the pub, you
sang, and then, when you came back to the house with some
beer, you sang again, and then you listened to some records,
and they were always American pop records.
American popular music was dominant in Britain, you
know, up until the early sixties. So that was the way it was
when I was growing up, and I tried to be truthful to that.
What was extraordinary, for me anyway, was that so many
people said that the vision in my films was sort of universal.
I tried to be honest to that background and to my family
because they are films about my family and about that culture, which is really long gone now. I mean, the England of
the mid fifties, to modern young British men and women, is
as remote as ancient Egypt. Its completely gone.
The downside of this life was that, if you were born in the
working class, you were brought up to know your place and
to touch the forelock, metaphorically speaking. It kept you in
your place, and that was wrong. But there was a lot more social discipline than there is now, for instance, and that was a
given. If you were told by someone in authority what to do or
that this was the way it was, you accepted what they said.
They were in authority, and you believed them. Thats not
necessarily a good thing. I tried to be absolutely honest to the
experiences of myself and my family, which was what I think
I achieved. What was extraordinary for me, as I say, was people all over the world saying their lives were like that. That
was astonishing. It was my life, and my films came out of that,
but somehow it seems that Ive touched a chord that transcends national boundaries.
WWD : You were born in 1945. When did you close in on the fact
that it would be possible for you to make films? Many people

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here in America say that theyve wanted to make films all of

their lives. Was this true of you?
TD : Well, absolutely not. I grew up, as I say, on the American
musical, and I never thought Id get a chance to do one of
my own. My first film, which I saw at seven, was Singin in
the Rain. Then I saw the first CinemaScope film ever made,
which was The Robe, made in 1953. The bloke who played
Caligula in The Robe was fabulous. He had all the best lines! It
was terribly camp, and I thought he was wonderful, and so I
immediately wanted to be an actor. My sisters had encouraged me from when I was seven or eight to dance and sing
with them, so now I really wanted to act. Then I left school
at fifteen in 1960. I began to act with amateur companies in
Liverpool, and I also started to write, mostly prose.
It wasnt until I was twenty-seven, when I was still working as an accountant, which I hated, that I got into drama
school. That was 1973. I had written the first part of my trilogy, Children. I took it all over England, and everybody had
turned it down. I still dont know where that script came from,
so to speak, because that wasnt specifically what I wanted to
do. But I wrote it, and I kept sending it out.
I sent it off to the British Film Institute Production Board.
A year later, I was told to go down to London. There I was
told that I had eight and a half thousand pounds, not a penny
more, to do the film, and I was to direct it. I said, Well, Ive
never directed before. And the head of the Production Board
said, Now is your chance, and thats how it happened.
WWD : What was your response to the Tony Richardson and
Karel Reisz kitchen sink films of the early 1960s? Did you
find them utterly inauthentic because the people who were
making them were doing it from the outside of the culture
rather than the inside?
TD : You didnt realize that back then. Youre right, of course, but
they looked authentic at the time. The one that looked most
authentic at the time, which now looks least authentic, is A
Taste of Honey [1961]. For the first time in a film, people were
speaking with Northern accents. Up to that time, established
British stars wouldnt do accents, in case their fans might
think they talked like that in real life! These films started out
as plays, plays or novels, and they were made into films, shot

on the real locations, with people doing proper accents for

that particular part of Manchester, or whatever, and that was
a revelation.
But you look at them now and you realize just how contrived they are. At the time, they seemed rather legendary; it
seemed like a huge change was going to happen. What is sad
about them is that there isnt an ounce of sentiment in any of
them. Perhaps the best one is This Sporting Life [1963], simply
because of Rachel Robertss performance rather than that
terrible sub-Brando performance that Richard Harris gave
in the lead role. But what these films did for the first time,
like what [Samuel] Beckett and [Harold] Pinter did for the
English stage, was open up areas which never, never had been
looked at in English cinema or English theater. Most British
films then were drawing-room comedies with a French window in them; these feeble middle-class comedies, which were
just terrible.
Yet the era between 1944 and about 1956 was the best era
for British screen comedy because we had the best actors.
We had people like Margaret Rutherford, Alastair Sim, Alec
Guinness, people like that. And we had them in depth, even
the minor characters, like Cecil Parker and Richard Wattis;
they were just deeply gifted. The wonderful Terry-Thomas,
people like that. The films of the late fifties and early sixties,
which are now called kitchen sink, did seem rather revolutionary. But if you look at them now, you realize that they are
drawn from the middle-class point of view. And theyre relentlessly dreary. Those constant shots of canals with stuff
floating in them. Working-class life was difficult, but it had
great beauty and depth and warmth.
WWD : Having seen your most recent film, The Long Day Closes,
the visual style is very elegant, and the color is very muted
and yet deeply saturated. It almost seems like youre copying
the look of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburgers films
for their production company, the Archers.
TD : Well, content always dictates form. A film will tell you how
it wants to be made and, therefore, how it wants to be shot
and, therefore, what sort of color to use. In the recreation of
the fifties, what you cant use is modern color because modern color is not right for it. Its too garish. Actually, what I

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was trying to reproduce were two things: one was threestrip Technicolor, and in one or two scenes weve actually
achieved that, though its very difficult to reproduce. But
what I also wanted to do was to shoot the film in tonal ranges
of brown, sort of muted colors. That means that you have to
make sure that you light it in a certain way and use certain
filters because otherwise primary color will change drastically. Reds will go purple or black, that kind of thing, and
black will lose all texture in it.
For The Long Day Closes, I saw some still photographs which
had been taken in Manchester in the late fifties and early
sixties. There were some beautiful color ones; they have this
wonderfully rich, but quite restricted, tonal range. Thats
because a lot of them were made before the Clean Air Act, so
theres a lot of soot in the air because of people burning coal
fires. Everythings actually seen through a haze of coal smoke,
or its backlit through the sun. Thats what I was trying to
recreate.
WWD : So its somewhat like fifties Kodachrome, in a sense.
TD : Well, not Kodachrome exactly. Youd have to see the photographs because they are absolutely unique. Id have to say the
look of The Long Day Closes was a combination of those photographs and the film The Red Balloon [1956], which is a wonderful use of Technicolor, and of course all the great Technicolor musicals as well. Take Young at Heart [1954], for example.
Look how glowing that is.
WWD : How did you arrive at your style of camerawork? It seems,
in all your films, that the action proceeds as almost a dreamlike series of still-life compositions, as opposed to having the
camera move more aggressively about the set. Theres something very sculptural and austere about the way that the camera is used in your films. Do you agree?
TD : Well, I dont know, because its very difficult to talk about
style. I dont know how style evolves. I think it has to evolve
from content dictating form, as I said. Content always dictates formnever the other way aroundand so I see the
images in the film in that way. But Ive no idea where my
style comes from! Ive not studied painting; Ive not studied
sculpture; its all just visual intuition, learning by doing. I
mean, Thats how it looks right to meyou know? Thats a

pretty feeble answer, I realize, but thats the best I can come
up with.
WWD : Do you feel a link to the work that Derek Jarman is doing
in Caravaggio?
TD : No, I dont. I feel his style is completely different. I think his
films are much more overtly painterly, I think. Mine arent.
At least I dont think so, but then Im the last person to know
because its very difficult to actually analyze ones style. Yet I
think theyre different. I mean, as beautiful as I think Caravaggio is, its much too florid for my taste.
WWD : With your films, you have been very fortunate, it seems to
me, because youve been able to do exactly what you wanted
to within certain economic constraints. Rather unusual,
wouldnt you say?
TD : Its very unusual, but when I started out, I didnt realize how
unusual it was, to be truthful. But by the same token, if you
write the script and say, Thats what Im going to do, and
they give you the money for it, whether that money is adequate or not, thats what you do, thats what you shoot. And
I make a point of doing that, sticking completely to the script,
just as I make a point of coming in on budget and on time.
Those are things that are your moral obligation. Its not
your money, its somebody elses. I guess thats my Catholic
working-class background coming out.
I am lucky. But at the same time, I do say, Look, this is
the way Im going to do it. If it takes a year for me to write a
script, youll have to wait until Im done with it. Every track,
every pan, every bit of dialogue, everything is in it, and thats
what I shoot. I dont improvise at all. I mean, I may add an
odd close-up here or a pickup shot there, but thats very rare.
This process gives me a great degree of control. People
know exactly what theyre getting, and if they turn around
and say, You cant do that, you say, But, Im sorry, its in
the script. I told you I was going to do that. And with it being so detailed, I can say, I will track on these days; I will
crane on those days; on that day we need twenty extras; on
this day we only need four. I mean, you can do all that then.
I never do a storyboard, you see. But you dont need to if
everythings all written out.
WWD : What is your feeling about shooting in the studio versus

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shooting on location? The studio gives you so much more

control over lighting, and it seems you use that beautifully. Is
that why you shoot inside so much?
TD : Well, the area that you dont have any control over, because
this is England and not California, is the bloody weather!
Sometimes it just rains the very day you want it to be sunny,
and when you want it to rain, its sunny! Completely unpredictable! So we have great problems with the weather, terrible
problems. In The Long Day Closes, we had one and a half days
of sunshine in eight weeks of shooting. But you learn to adapt.
And if you shoot inside, you can make it do anything you
want. So its economic and aesthetic. In one of the scenes in
the film, it was supposed to be a bright and sunny sports day
outside, with children gamboling around in the sunshine like
frisky little lambs. Well, they cant gambol around in weather
that looks like something out of Tennessee Williams! But we
have to keep going, so we shot it anyway.
WWD : On The Long Day Closes, you used Mick Coulter as your director of photography, as opposed to William Diver, who shot
all of your earlier films. Is there any particular reason for that?
TD : William wants to edit, and I think hes a brilliant editor, but
also there were problems with the union. They wouldnt
allow someone to be director of photography and then edit it
as well. They just wont allow it, and that was all there was to
it. And also, by the time I got to The Long Day Closes, there was
the other disadvantage of William not being that experienced
as a director of photography. Hes really only shot my films,
nobody elses, and obviously if people are putting up $1.75
million, they want someone with a name and more experience, which is fair enough. I was lucky enough to find someone as gifted as Mick Coulter.
WWD : Yes, he did a superb job with it.
TD : He was fabulous.
WWD : And Christopher Hobbs, the production designer, was
just marvelous.
TD : Hes a genius. Im very lucky to be working with people like
that. Hobbs also worked on Derek Jarmans Edward II [1992],
incidentally.
WWD : Are there any directors today whom you particularly
admire?

Well, there are one or two films by people that I like. But
Im not really an auteur. I like individual films far more than
individual directors. I know hes not making films anymore,
but I couldnt live without Fanny and Alexander, and I think
that Ingmar Bergman is one of the greatest directors who ever
lived. I do like Derek Jarmans War RequiemI think its his
best. I love My Life as a DogI think theyre all lovely, just
lovely. But then, you see, Id also say that, I think, as a piece
of entertainment, Tootsie is terrific. Theres nothing wrong
with Tootsie, you know. Its like When Harry Met Sally, which
is another good film. Theyre not great art; they do nothing
for the art of cinema, but theyre just bloody good pieces of
entertainment, and you come out thinking, Ive had a really
good time! Thats no bad thing. Sunday in the Country I think
is wonderful and parts of Alain Resnaiss Providence. I dont
think Providence works as a whole, but sections of it are superb.
WWD : Derek Malcolm has said of your work, If there had been
no suffering, there would be no films. Do you think now that,
with The Long Day Closes, the autobiographical section of your
work has come to a conclusion? You end the film in 1956, so
it could conceivably go forward. Will you pursue this?
TD : Well, no, thats the last bit of my autobiography. I shant do
any more. Ive said it all now. But I do think its true that, if
there hadnt been all that misery in my life and in my familys
lives, there would have been nothing to write about. I suppose one is the product of ones background. I cant conceive
writing about something which is just simply happy. Its very
difficult to write about that; I just dont think that way. I do
think that its true; without all that suffering, there wouldnt
have been any films, cause I wouldnt have anything to say.
But I dont want to do any more autobiography. Ive done
enough. Ive been doing it for eighteen years, and its an awfully long time.
WWD : Your first film, Children, made in 1976, was forty-six minutes long. The next part of the initial trilogy, Madonna and
Child, was thirty minutes in length. Death and Transfiguration
was twenty-five minutes long. All of these films were shot in
16mm, as opposed to 35mm. How were they shown? How did
you get these films out before the public? Was it through BFI
Distribution?
TD :

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Well, they took ten years to make, and they were shown at
the ICA here in London to tiny audiences, literally very tiny
audiences, and that started it. Then they were taken for the
New York Film Festival, and they showed them, and then
they got little showings here and there and started to win
prizes. But they werent shown on a massive scale. Not only
are they 16mm black-and-white but theyre also incredibly
depressingthere isnt a gag anywhere in them! They were
my apprentice work, and you can tell.
WWD : What are you working on now?
TD : Well, on my table right at the moment, Im writing a thriller
set in New York, in the present-day.
WWD : Thats surprising. Do you see yourself now doing genre
films?
TD : Well, I shouldnt think so, but I will do this particular story.
I mean, thriller is a very loose term. When I think of thrillers,
I think in terms of film noir of the late forties, particularly
Gilda and Laura, which are my touchstones. I dont think of
modern thrillers. Theyre rather boring, it seems to me.
WWD : Is this going to be produced by the BFI?
TD : No, but weve got some money from two companies, one in
England and one in France. Weve only got development
money at the moment. Im just starting to write the script. I
shall be going to New York in September, just to stay in New
York and get the feel of New York. I also want to get a feel for
the rhythm of American English because its not the same as
British Englishit has its own rhythm, and one has to listen
to that.
WWD : Can you tell me anything about your new film?
TD : Well, its very difficult to talk about because its still in embryonic form, but its basically about someone driven by
intense loneliness. That doesnt tell you very much, but I
really dont know myself whats going to happen. But thats
the broad theme.
WWD : Are there any actors that you would particularly like to
work with?
TD : Well, there are some American actors Id like to work with.
I think that even bad American actors are so much better than
English actors because they always know what to do with
their eyes! I like quirky actors. I like people like Christine

Lahti, Pamela Reed, and Aidan Quinn. I think Jeff Bridges is a

wonderful actor. But its difficult to know who youll be able
to get. Jeff Bridges is a big star, for heavens sake!
But, no, its just that American actors always do little things
with their eyes, or other bits of business, that are always interesting for a director. The drawback to American films for
me, as an Englishman, is that so much of the time the acting
and indeed the films are ruined by this dreadful sentimentality, where everyone cries all the time and tells each other
that they love one another, and this is supposed to mean something. I do find that kind of sentimentality really quite repellent. Its very tedious, I must say. And the crashing music
cues that tell you when to emote, thats another weakness.
So I dont know what the new film will be, but I guarantee
you it wont be like that! Thats not the sort of film I want to
make. Im after something altogether different. It will be
interesting to see what happens.

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Vincent Alternative Screen Identities

Price

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In December 1991, I wrote Vincent Price a brief letter asking him

for an interview. Weeks passed, and nothing happened. In his last
years, Price was asked to do a number of interviews, but he politely
and firmly declined to participate in each case. As with so many
actors, Price was firmly typed, in his case as a Gothic villain. Understandably, he grew tired of continually discussing his work with
Roger Corman, William Castle, and other Gothic directors, all of
which has been covered extensively elsewhere, when so much
other work remained to be examined. In my letter, then, I stressed
my desire to do an interview covering Prices nonhorror work.
In view of Prices reticence, I was delighted when he finally responded in late January 1992 with an enthusiastic handwritten
note, giving me his phone number, and inviting me to call him for
a talk. In the letter, Price said that he had been ill recently and
apologized for taking so long to respond. I called him, set up an
interview time, and two days later, we had our talk.
This transcript of our telephone conversation of 2 February
1992 centers on Prices work as a contract player for Twentieth
CenturyFox in the 1940s, as well as some of his later nonhorror
roles. He seemed pleased to talk about some of his lesser-known
roles, including his work in Fritz Langs While the City Sleeps and
Cecil B. DeMilles Ten Commandments. He also had great affection
for such early films as Dragonwyck and Leave Her to Heaven, as well
as the various actors and technicians with whom he worked. As
the interview went on, Price was also willing to talk about some
of his Gothic films, particularly his experiences working with the
late Michael Reeves on the film Witchfinder General (known as The
Conqueror Worm in the United States) in some detail.
WWD :

Its nice to talk with you, Mr. Price, but from your letter
to me, you sounded as if you havent been too well lately.
VP : Ive been ill for about five years.
WWD : Whats the matter?
VP : Mainly old age! [Laughs.]

Let me ask you about Edward Scissorhands [1991]. How did

that come about? Did you enjoy working on that film?
VP : Well, you know, I acted in one of the first films that Tim
Burton [the director of Edward Scissorhands] ever did. It was a
little short film for Disney called Vincent [1982]. It was about
a little boy who wanted to make my kind of movies. It was
animated. I did the narration for it, and it was a really nice
little film. Tim was about twenty years old at the time, and
when he started to get really big, he did a lot of interviews
and talked about how much I had meant to him as an actor.
Then he asked me to do the cameo in Scissorhands and, naturally, I was delighted to be in the film.
WWD : It was a very effective role for you, wasnt it?
VP : Yes, it was. It was really actually just one scene, but Burton
spread it out throughout the picture, so it seemed to be more,
and it really built the part up. It worked very well, didnt it?
WWD : I thought it was one of the best performances in the film.
That took about a week to shoot, didnt it?
VP : It was less than that, actually. It was a really short piece.
WWD : Well, Id really like to discuss your early work, particularly the nonhorror films. What can you tell me about Leave
Her to Heaven [1946], the great film with Gene Tierney?
VP : You know, I did a lot of pictures with Gene Tierney. I did
Laura [1944], Leave Her to Heaven, Hudsons Bay [1940]a
bunch of films. She was always one of my favorite actresses.
WWD : What was it like working in early Technicolor? When you
see Leave Her to Heaven today, the colors are just electric, they
bounce off the screen. But the equipment was very bulky,
wasnt it?
VP : Yes, the picture looks wonderful. But it took a long, long
time to get it right. Leon Shamroy was the cameraman. He
was the best cameraman that there was at the time for Technicolor. I did a lot of pictures with him, like Wilson [1944] . . .
He shot that one too. Shamroy was absolutely brilliant as a
cameraman. He knew what to do with color and with design,
and he worked effectively with the set decorators to make it
all come out right in Technicolor. Shooting Technicolor
wasnt easy; the lights were very hot, and the camera was
very bulky. But Shamroy got the very best results out of it
that you could.
WWD :

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I thought your portrayal of Russell Quinton, Tierneys

jilted suitor in Leave Her to Heaven, was very understated.
You werent on screen that much, but you pretty much stole
the picture.
VP : Well, in that film, I was working with John Stahl, a director
I was very fond of, and we worked very well together. To answer your question, I did underplay it a bit: it was a rather
subdued role. The director is very important in this, though;
you really look to the director to see what he wants.
WWD : So you liked Stahl?
VP : Yes, indeed. He directed one of the best films I ever made,
The Eve of St. Mark [1944].
WWD : That was a very odd filmbased on Maxwell Andersons
play, which had a very successful run on Broadway. Were you
in the play version?
VP : No, no, I was just in the movie. I think the role of Marion in
that film was one of my favorite roles; its one of the best
parts I ever had and one of the best performances I ever gave.
It was one of the first times that I was allowed to play a contemporary person, you know?
WWD : Along with the character of Shelby Carpenter [in Laura].
VP : Yes, exactly. It was a challenge; I really liked that film.
WWD : Before you became so closely identified with horror films
in the early 1950s, you did a comedy with Ronald Colman
about radio quiz shows, Champagne for Caesar [1950]. It was
quite ahead of its time, but I understand that nobody got paid
for that picture.
VP : We got paid, but we didnt get fully paid. I think they charged
off the profits of that picture on to another picture that lost a
lot of money.
WWD : What was Ronald Colman like to work with?
VP : Wonderful! I did his last two pictures with him.
WWD : Yes, this and Irwin Allens The Story of Mankind [1957].
That wasnt as good a film, though, was it?
VP : It was just terrible. It was a shame; it could have been good,
but it just wasnt worked out properly. We all tried our best,
but . . .
WWD : In 1950, you also appeared in Samuel Fullers The Baron of
Arizona.
VP : Yes, that was one of Sammy Fullers first pictures.

WWD :

What was Fuller like to work with at this point?

He was really a very flamboyant character, very much like
an old-time director. He wore puttees and a megaphone and
everything. But I thought he was very good as a director. I
thought that, for someone just starting out, he did a wonderful job on the film . . . we had no money and no time, and still
it looked pretty good. It was made right at the beginning of
television, and almost right after it was shown in theaters it
was released to television, when none of the other studios
would think of doing anything with television. And because
of this, it was shown on television all the time because it was
one of the few features they could run!
WWD : What can you tell me about His Kind of Woman [1951]?
This was a very odd film because it started out as a drama,
but then Howard Hughes really built your part up, and it sort
of threw the whole picture out of balance.
VP : Yes, Mark Cardigan, my character in the film, was pretty
much a takeoff on the Errol Flynn type of character. And the
film was made at RKO, as you know, and Howard Hughes
just loved that character so much that, long after the filming
was done, he brought me back and we built up my part long
after the rest of the picture was finished! About six months
later, he built that set of the boat in which I go down and
sink in the mud, when Im trying to rescue Robert Mitchum,
you remember?
WWD : Yes. Youre leading the charge in this utterly over the top
fashion. The local cops are following you.
VP : [Laughing.] Well, what can I tell you? Howard Hughes just
loved that character, and he built it way up. He could afford
to do what he wanted, thats for sure!
WWD : You have never commented on a film you did called Pictura [1952]. This was a documentary made by Pictura Films,
attempting to bring great works of art to the screen in cinematic terms. It had a rather amazing list of directors: E. A.
Dupont and Alain Resnais were among the names involved.
VP : Yes, I narrated the section on Hieronymus Bosch. It was
one of the first attempts to explore art with the use of the
camera.
WWD : You have quite a large collection of art yourself, dont you?
Have you been collecting over the years rather assiduously?
VP :

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Well, Ive been collecting, at any rate. But in a very minor

financial way. I have a very interesting collection, though. Its
more a personal collection, really.
WWD : Who are your favorite artists?
VP : Well, I wrote a book called A Treasury of American Art. I love
Arthur Dove. Of the contemporary artists, Richard Diebenkorn. I bought pictures of his when he was just getting started,
so I was able to get some things very reasonably.
WWD : Do you care much for pop art?
VP : Nah, not so much. But I was stunned when Andy Warhol
had his show at the Museum of Modern Art a few years ago.
I really hadnt appreciated his work until I saw it all together.
I think he was a great influence and force in modern art.
WWD : I guess this is an unavoidable question: You have made
many, many horror films, and there was a period when you
were typed as a horror actor almost exclusively. You later
reestablished yourself as a straight actor with your hosting
chores on Mystery [the long-running mystery anthology series
on PBS], but for a while, you were simply Vincent Price, the
horror man. How do you feel about that period of your life
now? Was it rather dreary after a while doing all those horror films?
VP : Well, I really didnt do all that many horror films, actually.
But I guess I did enough. I think out of all the more than one
hundred feature films I made, only about twenty-five are
horror films. And even then, some of the horror films are
awfully good.
WWD : Theatre of Blood [1973], for example.
VP : Theatre of Blood was wonderfully campy. Then there were
the Phibes films, of course, The Abominable Dr. Phibes [1971]
and Dr. Phibes Rises Again [1972]. I also think that Roger Cormans The Tomb of Ligeia [1965] was a pretty good adaptation
of Poe.
WWD : That was the only Poe film shot on actual locations.
VP : Yes, in East Anglia [in England]. It was the most faithful of
the lot.
WWD : Do you have a preference for comic roles?
VP : All the time I was doing horror films I was doing many
shows with Red Skelton, Jack Benny, and Milton Berle. Sort
of sending up my own persona, you know? Making fun of the

character who became known as Vincent Price. I think, in

this way, I got away with itmore than most people who got
stuck with a persona and couldnt make fun of it. You know,
everybody out here gets stuck with one certain type of role or
another; you just cant get away from it.
WWD : What was it like working with Lindsay Anderson on The
Whales of August [1987]? Was Bette Davis as hard to work
with as everyone says? It was a beautiful film, at any rate.
VP : The film was good, and he was a really terrific director. Very
sympathetic, let us take our time. It was a very unusual film
all around. I knew Bette very well and liked her very much.
She was a difficult person but only because she was a perfectionist. So that was a bit difficult, but Lillian Gish was marvelous. I really enjoyed the filming . . . it was a lot of fun and
a good piece of work too.
WWD : And what a superb role for you.
VP : Yes, wasnt it? It was so great to get away from the horror
stuff. You know, one of the things I did over the years was to
become probably the most popular lecturer in the country,
particularly on the subject of art. I met so many people that
way that I counteracted the typecasting that audiences saw
on the screen. Everybody gets typecast, especially if their
films make money! But I feel I was able to overcome it in
this way.
WWD : You made a film recently entitled Backtrack [1991]? What
happened to that?
VP : That was directed by Dennis Hopper, and its been shown
on cable a few times, but it hasnt come out yet on videocassette. But I havent even seen it yet! Im not sure what happened with it; theres been a lot of rumors. Anyway, I played
the godfather of a crime family in it. Its an unusual film. I
hope it comes out.
WWD : Jumping back a bit, I wanted to ask you about Dragonwyck
[1946]. I thought the role of Nicholas Van Ryn was a very
juicy one for you.
VP : Yes, it was. I won the Cine Swiss Award for that. I think that
was one of the most important roles I ever had in the movies.
That was another film I did with Gene Tierney. It was really
sort of a shocking film. I fall into ruin, seclude myself in this
lonely tower, turn to drugs. It was a very atmospheric film,

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and the black-and-white production values were terrific. It

was Joseph L. Mankiewiczs first film as a director, and he
wrote the screenplay as well. Hed done a lot of other work
before then but never as a director. Arthur Miller was the
cameraman.
WWD : What was it like being under contract to Twentieth CenturyFox?
VP : For the most part, I loved being under contract because they
tried to protect you and build your career. There were, however, times when they asked you to do things that you didnt
want to do.
WWD : Like Shock [1946]?
VP : No, I thought Shock was a pretty good picture, actually. It
took place mostly in a sanatorium, a private mental institution, and I played a rather villainous character, a psychiatrist
named Dr. Cross. Shock was an experiment, actually. The
studio was spending too much money on films and taking
too long to make them. Something had to be done to boost
output and cut down on costs. So they asked me and Lynn
Bari if we could make a film in twenty days and still have it
look like a first-class production. Aubrey Schenck was the
producer; Alfred Werker was the director. I read the script
and thought it was pretty good. I said, Certainly, we can do
it, if you dont change the script and louse it up for us. And
so they agreed, and we went ahead and shot it, in exactly
twenty days.
WWD : There are some beautiful camera moves in that film. Im
thinking particularly of one tracking shot on the exterior of
the sanatorium during a lightning storm, as the camera
travels up the side of the building to discover a particularly
deranged patient, Mr. Edwards, played by John Davidson,
cowering in his cell.
VP : Yes, that was a great scene, and the film did very well at the
box office, so Twentieth was very pleased.
WWD : What did you think of Song of Bernadette [1943]? Henry
King directed you in that.
VP : You know, a lot of people have knocked that film, but I
thought that was a wonderful film. Jennifer Jones was great
in that picture, and I always knew shed go on to do some
really fine work later in her career.

WWD :

How about some films youre not so happy with?

[Laughs.] Well, I did one called Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile in
1961, that was just terrible! [Laughs.] It was an Italian film,
really cheap. The whole thing was dubbed later. You know,
sometimes you have to take pictures just to eat! You cant do
everything you want to do, and sometimes, you have to do
things you dont want to do at all. But Ive always felt that its
better to keep working, to keep your face before the public.
WWD : What about The Last Man on Earth [1964]? That was another Italian film, although it was directed by Sidney Salkow,
who also did Twice-Told Tales [1963] with you the year before.
VP : Actually, I thought that wasnt too bad. The only trouble was
that it was meant to be in Los Angeles, and Rome just doesnt
look like Los Angeles!
WWD : Recently, I saw Scavenger Hunt [1980], directed by Michael
Schultz, in which you did a really short cameo in the beginning
of the film. There were many other stars in that film, including Robert Morley; did you get to work with any of them?
VP : No, its too bad. I know them all well, of course, but all my
scenes were shot in one day, if that, and so I just didnt get to
see any of them. Its like that, sometimes.
WWD : What did you think of working with director Fritz Lang
on While the City Sleeps [1956]? I love Langs films so much,
and I wondered if you felt the same way.
VP : [With great emotion.] I loved Fritz. The film itself was an allright film, but it wasnt up to Fritzs usual standard. He was
sort of at the end of his career, and the script just wasnt as
good as it could have been. It was all about greed and manipulation at a big New York newspaper, tied into the story of a
serial killer, played by John Barrymore Jr. But Fritz was such a
wonderful man. Charming, cultured, a really intelligent man.
An artist. I knew him very well and loved him.
WWD : Lang had to shoot that film very quickly, didnt he?
VP : Yes. It was designed to get the greatest number of stars in
the film in the shortest possible shooting schedule. Ida Lupino was in that, Sally Forrest, Thomas Mitchell, George
Sanders, Dana Andrews. It was shot very, very quickly. And,
as I said, it still came out pretty well.
WWD : I like the film a lot.
VP : Well, it had a good premise. I was the spoiled younger son of
VP :

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a newspaper tycoon who had just died; I played everyone else

off against each other for control of the newspaper. There
were a few nice touches in the film that were very much in
the Fritz Lang style, particularly the chase in the subway tunnels at the end, but it couldnt live up to the great Fritz Lang
pictures, like Scarlet Street [1945], by a long shot.
WWD : Lang ultimately died in Los Angeles, didnt he?
VP : Yes, he did.
WWD : Peter Bogdanovich did an interview with Lang shortly
before [Lang] died in which Lang expressed the desire to
make a film about young people and their involvement with
psychedelic drugsthis was in the 1960sbut his eyesight
wasnt strong enough, and he had to give the project up.
VP : Yes, Fritz was always interested in current trends. He was a
remarkable man.
WWD : What can you tell me about The Ten Commandments [1956]?
Directed, of course, by Cecil B. DeMille.
VP : I think all of usyou know, Eddie Robinson, myself, Judith
Andersonwe all really wanted to be in a DeMille picture.
We really felt that you couldnt call yourself a movie actor
unless you had been in a DeMille picture! So we all took
these sort of small but rather arresting parts. Eddie played a
villain named Dathan; I played Baka; Judith played Memnet.
But DeMille was a wonderful director to work with, unlike
any other in the business.
WWD : In what way?
VP : He was 100 percent visually minded. Really, his stories were
very thin, but the visual effects he pulled off were marvelous.
WWD : Did he give you much character direction? Or would he
more or less give you the script and say, Get on with it?
VP : Well, he worked on the script, and he worked from the script,
of course, but the script was of secondary importance to him.
What he was interested in was what was on the screen.
WWD : The compositions, the use of framing, the use of crowds . . .
VP : Yes. The use of crowds particularly. He was really fond of
putting hundreds, even thousands of people in a shot and
then pulling it off. Spectacle! That was DeMille.
WWD : House of Wax [1953].
VP : That was a very good picture, I thought, but it was a very
difficult picture to make. There was a tremendous amount of

pressure on all of us, cast and crew, to make a good film out
of it because it was the first major studio film in 3-D, the Natural Vision process. It was so difficult. There was so much
pressure; it took so long to set up the shots, and the makeup
took about four hours to put on each day . . .
WWD : And shooting with two cameras [for the Natural Vision
3-D] must have complicated matters.
VP : Two cameras in one blimp, youre absolutely right! It took
forever!
WWD : As an actor, do you prefer a director to work with you on
the interpretation of the character, or do you really prefer to
give it your own interpretation first and then consult with
the director?
VP : I think you work mutually. You know, youre cast in any
film because they want you in that part, the way you look
and speak and what the public expects of you, so youre way
ahead on that score. Then you try to bring what the director
wants and then add what you can give and sort of marry the
two approaches together.
WWD : You worked with Reginald LeBorg on Diary of a Madman
[1963]. What was he like to work with?
VP : He was all right. That was another picture with a very short
schedule. I really dont remember him that well at all.
WWD : Tell me about working with director Michael Reeves in
The Conqueror Worm [also known as Witchfinder General, 1968].
VP : That was a very sad experience. He was a boy who had a lot
of problems. Terrible problems, which nobody seemed to
know about. He was very unstable . . . difficult but brilliant.
He was about twenty-seven when he committed suicide. He
was very difficult to work with because he didnt know how
to tell an actor what he wanted. It was sad.
WWD : How did he communicate with you?
VP : Well, all I can tell you is that he communicated the wrong
way, and he rubbed everyone the wrong way. But we all knew
he had a tremendous talent, so we tried to overlook it. We
tried to do it our way and yet do what he wanted us to do. Its
hard to explain, but he was a very difficult man to work with.
WWD : Did he give you line readings?
VP : Almost. I remember he came up to me one time and said,
Dont shake your head. I said, Im not shaking my head.

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He responded, Well, your body is moving, so that means

youre shaking your head. I mean, what can you say? Maybe
that gives you some idea . . . he just wouldnt tell you really
what he wanted.
WWD : Any final thoughts for this interview?
VP : Well, I was very pleased last week when the Los Angeles
Film Critics [Circle] gave me a career achievement award.
WWD : Well, you certainly deserve it.
VP : It was very exciting. Everybody was there. It was their annual awards luncheon, and they gave me a standing ovation.
It was very touching. Its pretty nice to be remembered when
youre eighty years old!
WWD : Are you going to be hosting any more of the Mystery series
episodes on PBS?
VP : No, I did it for eight years, but I had to quit, largely because
of my health. Diana Rigg has taken over and is doing a fabulous job.
There is one final thing Id like to say: I love Nebraska. My
mother was from Hastings, Nebraska, you know. She wasnt
actually born there, but she was brought up there. And theres
one other thing: In some of my biographies, it says that I attended Nuremberg University. It isnt so. I went to the University of London. I was an exchange student in Vienna and
Nuremberg because my work at the University of London
was on art, so I visited many museums in Germany. I was
introduced by the British Museum to the various different
museums in Austria and Germany, but I never attended the
University of Nuremberg.
WWD : Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.
VP : My pleasure. Its always nice to talk about my other films!

Digital Animation

Sally
Cruikshank

Sally Cruikshank is an animator with a long history of film and

video production. Her animated cartoons Ducky, 1971 (five minutes), Fun on Mars, 1972 (five minutes), Quasi at the Quackadero, 1975
(ten minutes), Make Me Psychic, 1978 (ten minutes), Quasis Cabaret
Trailer, 1980 (three minutes), Face Like a Frog, 1987 (ten minutes,
with music by Danny Elfman), Your Feets Too Big, 1994 (two minutes), and From Your Head, 1996 (two minutes, with music by Betty
Carter) display an arresting and bizarre visual sense that is akin
to the old Betty Boop cartoons of the 1930s blended with Cruikshanks own unique sensibility. Starting out in traditional animation, Cruikshank has recently moved into digital animation on the
web, pursuing her craft in a new medium with astonishing virtuosity. Cruikshanks work has been honored with a retrospective
at the Museum of Modern Art, and Cruikshank received the Maya
Deren Award for Independent Film and Video in 1986.
Cruikshank has also done animation and main titles for commercial films, including Twilight Zone: The Movie (1982), Top Secret!
(1984), Anijam (1984), Ruthless People (1986), and numerous other
films. It was during this period that Cruikshank switched from
traditional, cel animation (using multiple drawings, an overhead
camera to photograph them, and single-frame photography) to
digital animation, essentially teaching herself as she went along.
Using this new technology, during the 1980s and 1990s, Cruikshank animated and produced many childrens music videos for
the long-running teleseries Sesame Street and in 1997 contributed
to Elmopalooza, a Childrens Television WorkshopCBS primetime special. For the program, Cruikshank created an animated
music video using a Macintosh PC computer, featuring music by
Jimmy Buffett. In 1999, Cruikshank began what she considers her
most ambitious project to date, an extensive animated web site for
her principal charactersAnita, Quasi, Snozzy, and Rollostarring in two adventures, Charbucks at Sea and Titanic II. I interviewed Cruikshank on her life and work in the spring of 1999; she
began by talking about her most recent work in digital animation
for the web.

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SC :

208
Digital
Animation

Well, this is actually the most exciting stuff Ive ever done, I
feel. I dont think you can find anything like this anywhere
on the web right now. And its sort of like the first days for
me of independent films because Im able to just do whatever
I want and tell a whole story in this case. It doesnt cost me
any money, and I can do it and then change it. I can do all
these crazy things and put it up on the web, so anybody who
wants to see it can see it.
WWD : Tell me a bit about your past.
SC : Well, I was born in New Jersey in 1949. My sister was an
extremely talented painter who was never recognized. She
was talented as a child, so I was shadowed by her as an artist
growing up. She died seven years ago. Initially, I wanted to be
a writer. I loved her artwork, was not jealous of her ability,
but it inspired me. My father worked as an accountant in New
York. He was very smart and very quiet. Phi Beta Kappa from
Duke [University]. He loved classic cars, Packards. Both my
parents were southerners. His parents had both been teachers; his mother, my grandmother, was the president of St.
Marys College in Raleigh, North Carolina, a very old school
[1842] and an unusual job for a woman, I think.
My mother is a very creative and original woman, a strong
personality who brightens any situation she enters. She is very
observing and funny but kindhearted and outgoing. There
were many difficult and sad situations in my family during
my childhood and adolescence, which pointed me to an
artists life as a way of dealing with them. My parents both
encouraged me; I have always been fully confident in my
abilities as a student, a writer, and as an artist. I believed
(naively in retrospect) that as many opportunities were open
for a woman as for a man.
I collected postcards of amusement parks for many years,
in particular, Coney Island at the turn of the century. Fantasy
in architecture, the structures built were incredible because it
was high craft, high quality, but [Georges] Mlislike in sensibility. I looked at those cards a lot in designing Quasi at the
Quackadero. I always liked amusement parks. The tawdriness
appeals to meand the excitement.
Ive always liked music from the twenties. We had a seventy-eight-RPM windup phonograph in the basement when I

was little, and the family-famous embarrassing story is that

my little friend and I used to wind up My Bonnie Lies over
the Ocean and dance around naked to it while my brother
and his friends watched through the window! I became quite
a collector of seventy-eights for a while. The lonely, dreamy
feeling of the music, the sweetness appeals to me. I still love
it. I just never really liked rock music. I was not a hippie and
not a drug user either, although the dean at Smith [College]
once called me into her office, convinced I took drugs because of my artwork!
My junior year in college I was chosen from many art students to go to Yale Summer Art School in Norfolk, Virginia.
This was significant. All the art students there were chosen
based on slides and talent. It was free, fun, and crazy! A close
friend ever since, Warner Wada is the person who suggested
I try animation. I was quite a compulsive drawer, and there
were many ducks in my drawings. So when I got back to Smith
that fall, I decided to teach myself animation. Im entirely
self-taught in animation.
On the more personal side, I met my husband Jon Davison
[a Hollywood producer whose credits include Airplane! and
the more recent film Starship Troopers] when I was looking
for a producer for Quasis Cabaret. We married in 1984 and
have one daughter, Dinah, who is ten.
Im very involved in my new work on the web and am beta
testing an extraordinary program that makes my new Titanic
II pages easy to make. I really feel this is breakthrough material, unlike anything anyone else is doing. I also feel this is
one of the most creative periods of my life. Of course, Im
always finding myself in media that have no dollar signs in
their future, but I am so excited to be at the forefront of a
new medium before its been all developed.
On my digital animation for the Childrens Television
Workshop [CTW], From Your Head was particularly hard to
visualize because the concept was just so abstract, with the
theme that thoughts come from your head, so I was pleased
with its specificness in the end. The arrhythmic jazz track,
with vocal by Betty Carter, was an intriguing challenge for
me, since I usually use such pronounced rhythms.
WWD : Well, you started out on the East Coast, but then you

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Cruikshank

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Animation

made the jump to San Francisco in the early 1970s. Why did
you move to San Francisco?
SC : Actually, one of the reasons I went to San Francisco was
because when I first saw R. Crumbs work I was so stunned.
It just seemed so great and like nothing Id seen before. And
then I heard there was this underground cartoonist movement. I thought, Well, this has got to be the place to be.
And then I fell into the most extraordinary job, working for
a man named Gregg Snazelle, after I created a short film
called Chow Fun [1973]. Snazelle looked at it and offered me
the most extraordinary job, which I had for ten years, where
they paid me to do whatever I wanted.
WWD : Thats just utterly amazing.
SC : I know. Once in awhile, Id do a commercial, but years
would go by and I wouldnt do anything, yet he continued to
keep me on salary. Oh, it was incredible. We werent close or
anything. It was a very baffling situation the whole time. He
was so professionally devoted to me, and yet he didnt seem
very interested in my work. And thats when I made things
like Quasi at the Quackadero and Make Me Psychic. But then I
got stuck, after the Quasis Cabaret Trailer. I dont know what
it was. Im not a very good salesperson. But I wrote scripts,
had storyboards, but I had a lot of meetings, and nothing
ever happened. And then I wrote another script that was
really wild. It was called Love That Makes You Crawl,
which was R rated. Joe Dante was going to direct the live
action. But then it didnt pan out. It was at the same time as
Roger Rabbit, and then that happened, and my project didnt.
WWD : So how long did Quasi at the Quackadero take to make?
SC : It took me about two years. And I worked on it all the time,
sixteen hours or more every day, I worked on weekends, and
I painted so many cels . . . it was really a labor of love.
WWD : So how much was the budget on that?
SC : I added it up at the end. It may have been around ten thousand. Something like that. Today, a four-minute traditional
animated cartoon would cost at least fifty or sixty thousand
dollars.
WWD : So how did you make the jump to The Twilight Zone?
SC : Well, because I came down to Hollywood, looking for work
and trying to sell these features. Everything was kind of

leading this way. I met my husband, Jon Davison, and he was

producing an episode of The Twilight Zone movie with Joe
Dante. So basically, thats how I got the work for Twilight
Zone and Top Secret! Then came Ruthless People, which was
really fun to do. The filmmakers were hard to work for because they wanted every joke to be the perfect joke. So they
pushed me much harder than I was ever pushed myself.
WWD : But also during this period youre working for Sesame
Street.
SC : Yes, Id been working for them pretty steadily since 1990.
But now Ive switched to computers. Im totally digital. The
funny thing is I was very anti-computer, as are most people.
But I was hired to come up with ideas for a top-secret computer game a couple of years ago because a friend of mine
was president of the company for a while. I had to learn how
to use the computer overnight! So I broke into the computer
world through that. And then about two years ago, I got
another CTW job for an animated video. They were doing
Elmopalooza, and I animated a Jimmy Buffet music video for
that, using Photoshop and Premiere, and was able to color it
all in myself. It didnt take nearly as long as if Id done it in
the traditional manner. Then I did another Sesame Street job
this fall, using all the same procedures. I really feel that Im
breaking into a new area thats never been really explored.
WWD : I thought your pages were really clean, well designed, and
really beautiful. And the Cha-Cha-Cha page is funny as hell.
SC : You have to adopt a slightly different approach to animation
because you cant use imagery in the same way. You have to
use loops, small bits of animation that repeat, and you have
to think in segments rather than in large chunks. You have to
have smaller files that are switching off with other smaller
files.
WWD : Where do you think your future work is headed now, in
what direction?
SC : I think you often see, in retrospect, new movements in the
arts predicted by things that came before, but you dont see it
until you have the benefit of hindsight. And I had always felt
that independent animation all occurring around the same
time was an indication of something that was coming ahead,
that there was a new format coming, even if I couldnt figure

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Cruikshank

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Animation

out what it was. And now I feel like this could be what Ive
always felt it was heading towards. I think animation is really
key to the Internet. I think it will get easier and easier for
people to deal with, and animation will really explode on the
web in the coming years.
WWD : So are you going to try and make a feature again?
SC : I dont think so. Theres too many meetings, and too many
people have to work on it, and they want to change everything that you do. With my new work on the web, I can do
any darn thing I want. The characters can say anything they
want, and they can do whatever they want. And I can change
or alter it at any time, so its always a work in progress. Plus,
it doesnt cost me any money, so no one can tell me that this
isnt commercial or something; it makes me the final and
only authority on what will happen on the screen. And theres
another factor: when I put something on the web, it gets immediate distribution, and that intrigues me. So theres a lot
of things to consider; its a whole new medium. Right now,
Im doing a digital animated video for the musical group
Mannheim Steamroller; it was a pretty complicated shoot in
Omaha, Nebraska, with several hundred dancers, and so that
should be fun to animate.

The Tradition of New Zealand Cinema

John OShea

Although his work is universally revered in his home country, the

films of John OShea are almost entirely unknown outside his
native country of New Zealand. OShea was born on 20 June 1920
in New Plymouth, New Zealand, educated in Wanganui, and then
sent to Canterbury Teachers College in 1941. He received his
masters degree from Victoria University in 1947 and eventually
a doctorate in literature from the same institution in 1978 (see
Churchman 60). But in between these two dates, John OShea
conducted a single-handed campaign to bring feature filmmaking
to New Zealand, a country that produced, astonishingly, only five
feature-length sound films between 1936 and 1970 while the rest
of the world was engaged in a veritable avalanche of cinematic
production. Along with fellow countryman Rudall Hayward (1901
74), John OShea and his production company, Pacific Films, were
nearly the sole creators of all films within New Zealand, and both
created their films with only the most sporadic government support. Worse still, despite the numerous recent successes of New
Zealand cinema, including Jane Campions Angel at My Table (1990),
and Piano (1993), Alison Macleans Crush (1992), Lee Tamahoris
Once Were Warriors (1995), Peter Jacksons Heavenly Creatures (1994),
and numerous other films, John OSheas work is unavailable for
viewing outside the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington even
though, as most contemporary New Zealand filmmakers will
readily admit, his trailblazing work set an example for all of the
younger generation to follow. Indeed, the actor Sam Neill got his
first professional job working in one of OSheas productions, as
did Jane Campion, who even lived with the OShea family for a
brief period early in her career. At long last, OSheas autobiography, Dont Let It Get You, was finally published by Victoria University Press in 1999, and while OShea is semiretired from the business, he still takes an active interest in events in the world of
cinema. But why is OSheas work so marginalized? Why had there
been so little feature filmmaking in New Zealand for the first
three-quarters of the twentieth century? To answer these questions, one must look at both the cinematic history and the politi-

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214
The
Tradition of
New Zealand
Cinema

cal history of New Zealand, and the resulting conclusions that one
draws are both powerful and disturbing.
Cinema in New Zealand got off to a promising start with the
work of A. H. Whitehouse, a barnstorming professional showman
who purchased a camera abroad and began filming Lumiresque
actualities in December 1898, when he photographed The Opening
of the Auckland Exhibition. By late 1899, Whitehouse had photographed ten short films (one minute each in length) and presented
them at the Paris Exhibition in 1900 (see Churchman 49). Other
pioneering filmmakers followed, including Joseph Perry, W.
Franklyn Barrett (who specialized in short narrative films), and
James M. McDonald, who created a series of travelogue documentaries between 1907 and 1923, photographing Maori dances,
a canoe race, and various newsworthy events (Churchman 49).
In the meantime, George Tarr produced Hinemoa (1914), the first
feature film shot entirely in New Zealand, based on a famous
Maori legend of two lovers whose match is opposed by their respective parents. Shot in eight days in Rotorua, New Zealand, on
a total budget of fifty pounds (see Churchman 49), Hinemoa is lost
today (due to archival neglect and nitrate deterioration), although
some publicity stills survive in the New Zealand Film Archive.
Photographed with an all-Maori cast, Hinemoa was well received
at the box office, and feature filmmaking in New Zealand seemed,
finally, to be under way.
Other feature films followed in rapid succession, all the work
of independent filmmakers creating their productions on the proverbial shoestring budget: Rawdon Blandfords Test (1916), Raymond Longfords Maori Maids Love and Mutiny of the Bounty (both
1916), Beaumont Smiths Betrayer (1921), Harrington Reynoldss
Birth of New Zealand (1922), Rudall Haywards My Lady of the Cave
(1922), George Tarrs documentary feature Ten Thousand Miles in
the Southern Cross (1922), Henry J. Makepeaces Romance of Sleepy
Hollow (1923), James R. Sullivans Venus of the South Seas (1924, starring champion swimmer Annette Kellerman), Rudall Haywards
Rewis Last Stand (1925, which Hayward would remake as a sound
film in 1940), Beaumont Smiths Adventures of Algy (1925), Edwin
Coubrays Carbines Heritage (1927), Gustav Paulis Romance of HineMoa (1927, a beautiful color-tinted version of the Hinemoa legend,
of which one 35mm reel survives in the New Zealand Film Archive), Rudall Haywards Te Kooti Trail (1927) and Bush Cinderella

(1928), Edward T. Browns unreleased Romance of Maoriland (1930,

which was to have been New Zealands first feature-length sound
film until various technical and production difficulties intervened), Romantic New Zealand (1934, a black-and-white and color
staged sound documentary of New Zealand life and culture),
Stewart Pitts Down on the Farm (1935, a melodramatic romance of
which only a few fragments survive), Alexander Markeys Hei Tiki
(1935), A. L. Lewiss Phar Laps Son (1936, a racing drama), and J. J.
W. Pollards Wagon and the Star (1936, of which only one reel of
completed footage and some outtakes still exist). (See Martin and
Edwards, 2348, for more detailed information on these titles.)
With the exception of the travelogues, which were specifically
designed to showcase New Zealands undeniable scenic splendor,
all of these films were made without government support or intervention; all were modestly budgeted independent productions
with significant technical and/or artistic defects; and, sadly, only
a few of these films survive intact today. For the rest, a few reels
of footage and some promotional materials and still photographs
are all that remain. What does exist is housed in the New Zealand
Film Archive. In the summer of 1999, I was able to visit the archive
and view the remaining fragments of these films firsthand, and I
was struck at once by their raw intensity, fierce determination, and
desire to succeed against all oddsincluding commercial indifferencein the creation of a viable industry for the production of
feature films in early-twentieth-century New Zealand.
However, the makers of all of these films also had to deal with
the difficulties imposed by New Zealand censorship, which began
as early as 1909 with the censorship of boxing films (see Churchman 33); soon D. W. Griffiths Intolerance (1916) and other films
were coming under attack from various church and civic groups.
In January 1921, G. J. Anderson, the newly appointed minister of
internal affairs, tried to force through legislation that would outlaw any film that featured theft, robbery, murder or suicide
(Churchman 35). Although this directive was not followed, by
1930, 3.9 percent of 2,626 films submitted to the censor (or a total
of 102 films) were rejected outright as being unfit for exhibition
in New Zealand in whole or in part, including Lewis Milestones
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), which the chief censor of that
period, W. A. Tanner, dismissed as anti-war propaganda (Churchman 35). After several appeals, the film was passed with one alter-

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John OShea

216
The
Tradition of
New Zealand
Cinema

ation, but the stringent censorship imposed on films imported into

New Zealand surely hampered domestic production as well. Laslo
Benedeks Wild One (1954) was rejected by the government censorship board, then chaired by former film critic Gordon Mirams,
three times (1954, 1955, and 1959), and this ban remained intact
until 1977, long after the international production of such films as
Stanley Kubricks Clockwork Orange (1971), a much more violently
graphic film by any standard of judgment (see Churchman 40). In
fact, New Zealand censorship remained remarkably stringent and
inflexible throughout the 1960s and seventies, banning outright
such films as Richard Lesters Knack and How to Get It (1965) and
Petulia (1968) and Lewis Gilberts Alfie (1966), all of which were
shown to nearly universal critical acclaim throughout the rest of
the world (see Watson and Shuker 50).
The chief censor during this period, Doug McIntosh, was a
career civil servant whose previous connections with the cinema
had been limited to the administration of film licenses for the Department of Internal Affairs (Watson and Shuker 46). McIntoshs
regime, which lasted from 1960 until his death in 1976, was perhaps the most repressive creative atmosphere in which a filmmaker could possibly function. McIntosh was enamored of such
films as Robert Stevensons Mary Poppins (1964), Robert Wises
Sound of Music (1965), Blake Edwardss Great Race (1965), and Ken
Annakins Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), all
of which passed without cuts and played to record business throughout New Zealand (see Churchman 29). He was less impressed with
Sam Peckinpahs Straw Dogs (1971), Arthur Penns Bonnie and Clyde
(1967), and even Norman Jewisons In the Heat of the Night (1967),
all of which suffered heavy cuts before their eventual release (see
Watson and Shuker 46). In perhaps his most bizarre decision,
McIntosh ruled that Joseph Stricks version of James Joyces Ulysses
(1967) could be passed for public exhibition only to sexually segregated audiencesmen could see the film in one theater, women
in another. In smaller towns and at university screenings, a rope
was stretched from the back of the auditorium to the front of the
house, to keep the sexes apart during the screening (see Watson
and Shuker 48). Even after McIntoshs death, such films as Terry
Gilliams Monty Pythons Life of Brian (1979) and Denys Arcands
Jesus of Montreal (1989) still attracted considerable controversy, in
large part because a film could be judged (according to the then-

current code) detrimental to the public welfare if it denigrated

any particular class of the general public by reference to the colour, race, or ethnic or national origins, the sex, or the religious beliefs of the members of that class (qtd. in Watson and Shuker 52),
thus affording the censor exceedingly wide grounds for objection.
Although more relaxed in subsequent regimes, this attitude and
reliance on government censorship to protect the citizens of
New Zealand from potentially injurious material persists to the
present-day and remains a stumbling block for younger New
Zealand filmmakers. When John OShea began making feature
films in the early 1950s, the atmosphere was about as rigid as one
can imagine. During my trip to New Zealand in the summer of
1999, I interviewed OShea about the production of his three feature films during that era, Broken Barrier (1952), Runaway (1964),
and Dont Let It Get You (1966). Because of the twin exigencies of
governmental neglect (a lack of commercial incentives for filmmakers) and interference (censorship), New Zealand produced between 1936 and 1973 only seven feature films, one of which, Rudall
Hayward and Ramai Haywards final work, To Love a Maori (1972),
was shot in 16mm. In addition, because of the paucity of native
production, New Zealands cinemas were overwhelmed by a plethora of British and American films, which enjoyed a virtual monopoly at the box office. All during this time, the New Zealand
Film Commission continued to produce newsreels and travelogues
aimed at local viewers. Apart from these innocuous and highly
manipulated short subjects (and the occasional feature-length
travelogue, or staged documentary), what New Zealand filmgoers
saw was not a reflection of their own culture but rather a series of
colonialist constructs created in England and Hollywood that bore
little relation to the circumstances of their daily lives. Such homegrown short films as Black Magic (1928), a two-reel film about coal
mining; Bottled Health (1926), a documentary concerning the manufacture and bottling of milk in Auckland; Rug Making (1929),
whose contents are self-explanatory; The Magic Collar Box (1927),
which demonstrates how celluloid shirt collars are made; Journey
for Three (1949), which seeks to encourage British citizens to migrate to New Zealand; Cowie Family Holiday (1953), a how-to film
involving vacation preparation; Golden Shears (1961), a documentary covering the 1961 Golden Shears sheep-shearing competition
in Masterton; along with innumerable issues of the carefully cen-

217
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The
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New Zealand
Cinema

sored newsreels Pictorial Parade, Maoriland Monologues, New

Zealand Soundscenes, and New Zealand Mirror, add up to a rather
bleak cinematic landscape of mind-numbing banality, punctuated
solely by narratives from Hollywood and the United Kingdom that
were designed to please the greatest number of viewers.
Issues of New Zealand national identity were discreetly swept
under the rug, and New Zealand audiences existed in a land of
escapist visual imagery on all fronts. Domestic production was
purposefully bland; foreign films were simply imports without
local cultural significance. It was in this rather stultifying atmosphere that John OShea began his work in the cinema, first (ironically) as assistant to the chief censor in 195051 (see Churchman
60) and then, in what he terms a gesture of colossal impudence
and profound ignorance (Churchman 60), as founder and head
of Pacific Films, which was launched in 1952 and still exists to this
day. During his formative years as a filmmaker, OShea wrote film
criticism for the Wellington Film Societys Monthly Film Bulletin,
where he had some scathing comments, worthy of a young Franois Truffaut, concerning the quality of programming then being
offered to New Zealanders, whether in public cinemas or in private film-screening societies. In the Monthly Film Bulletin of April
1950, OShea wrote of Paul Rothas City Speaks, in part,
A City Speaks was, in our opinion, the dullest film that has ever
been presented by the Film Society. Its deficiencies were accentuated by the poor print, bad recording, and the atrocious sound
system of the Public Librarys projector. . . . [Rothas] vices are
those of most run-of-the-mill British (and New Zealand) documentary filmmakers. Concentrating on institutions, public affairs,
and the working classes, [he has] lost [his] sense of proportion and
good cinema. [We] would do well to prune our programmes of the
drab footage that comes from the dull wastes of documentary.
(Qtd. in OShea 37)
It was in this cinematic atmosphere of colonialist discourse and
Hollywood-narrative dominance that OShea produced his first
feature film, Broken Barrier, working with codirector Roger Mirams
(not to be confused with censor Gordon Mirams). As OShea described the genesis of the film to me during our interview of 5
August 1999, Roger Mirams originally approached OShea to propose yet another documentary on Maori life and customs. OShea

instantly responded that the idea was boring beyond belief and
counterproposed a narrative feature film about an interracial relationship between a Pakeha (white) man and a Maori woman, an
extremely daring topic for the time. OShea was becoming fed up
with studying films and wanted to try something groundbreaking and ambitious. Broken Barrier seemed to fit the bill, and the two
men began to collaborate on the project.
They had almost nothing to work with. OShea told me that they
used two 35mm silent Arriflex cameras with six two-hundred-foot
(or two-minute running time) magazines to shoot the film, which
was produced entirely on location without sets of any kind. Lip-synchronized, or sync-sound, shooting was out of the question, so
OShea and Mirams had to rely on music, sound effects, and a series of character voice-overs to tell their story. The plot was simple:
Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back, as OShea described it to me. The script, such as it was, was made up as shooting progressed, but OShea told me that he felt that, as long as we
stuck to the basic narrative format and kept the running time down,
we couldnt go far wrong. At sixty-nine minutes in length, the film
is a compact revelation, and apart from Rudall Haywards Rewis
Last Stand (1940), which documented a furious battle between colonial settlers and Maori natives, it offered the first fairly honest
view of a problem that underlies and informs the very fabric of New
Zealand society, even to this day: the relationship between Maoris
and the colonists who appropriated their native land. As OShea
recalls the production of Broken Barrier in his autobiography,
Having suffered the boredom of some recent British documentaries, I agreed to write the Maori film for Roger [Mirams] only if it
was to be a feature drama and I could co-direct it with him. He
agreed. I took long-term leave from my job and we started. We had
little money between us, but we did have two mute 35mm 200foot-load Arriflex cameras. One camera was on loan from Movietone News, for whom Roger was the New Zealand correspondent.
The other was picked up, allegedly, from a dead German in the
Western Desert and sold to us for 200. Roger had a rickety camera dolly and some lights cobbled together from scrap metal. We
set off in Rogers Vauxhall with as much film stock and gear as we
could load into it. (OShea 39)
As postproduction proceeded, new problems emerged.

219
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The
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New Zealand
Cinema

The laboratory facilities of the National Film Unit were closed to

uswe were, perish the thought, private enterprise. Though the
Labour Government lost the elections at the end of 1949, the private enterprise National Government under Sid Holland only had
strength to question but not to command the instruments of the previous governmentfor which the National Film Unit was a leading
but pallid propagandist. Were we not making a film for money
that despicable wordhoping to sell it to audiences?! (40)
In the social and political climate of the time, such an endeavor was
not only unthinkable, it was revolutionary. OShea and Mirams
called upon their friends at Fox Movietone News to assist them
in the final completion of the film; they were not disappointed.
OSheas friends came to the rescue again:
Much later in the year of its making, we shot more for Broken
Barrier on money friends lent us. In Sydney, mates at Movietone
News rallied round, thanks to Roger. The newsreels editor did a
fine-cut of our edit and matched the negative at night in his
kitchen. We just had enough money to record a score in Sydney,
then some sound effects and a number of voices when we returned
to Wellington. With Ian C. A. Houston running track-laying, we
had all optical prints in 1951. Ian was able to manufacture a
soundtrack with only two sync and eight wild tracks hustled together on non-sync recorders. The mix was finished at 2.30 A.M. on
10 December 1951. [The] world premiere of Broken Barrier was
held on 10 July 1952 with the Governor-General, Sir Bernard
Freyberg present, hordes of black ties and evening dresses, a brass
band, floodlights, marching girlsand a packed house. (41)
Surprisingly, given that the topic was so inherently controversial (or perhaps because of it), the film was an enormous commercial success and became a landmark in the nascent New Zealand
cinema. Spyros Skouras of Twentieth CenturyFox saw the film
and offered OShea and Mirams a trip to Hollywood, with an eye
toward a possible production deal, but OShea, angered over the
House Un-American Activities CommitteeJoseph McCarthy hearings then under way in the United States, declined the offer, just
as he had also passed up a graduate assistantship position at
Princeton University in New Jersey a number of years earlier for
much the same reasons (see OShea 42). OSheas heart and mind
were firmly rooted in the culture and soil of New Zealand, and he

had no intention of leavingrather, he wanted to press on with

the production of more feature films. For the moment, however,
both men went back into the service of Fox Movietone News,
while OShea kept Pacific Films alive as a sideline. Working as a
team, OShea and Mirams photographed Queen Elizabeths 1953
royal tour for Movietone, Path, Visnews, and Telenews simultaneously by shooting with three 35mm movie cameras mounted on
a single tripod, to create three individual negatives for each newsreel concerna sharp bit of ingenuity (OShea 43).
It was not until 1964 that OShea would have a chance to create another feature, Runaway, which is arguably his best film and
one of the most telling New Zealand films concerning the relations
between Pakeha and Maori culture. Runaway, shot for twenty-eight
thousand pounds, again without synchronized dialogue (but this
time dubbed in after the fact so flawlessly that the absence of direct sound recording is hardly noticeable), tells the story of a young
man, David Manning (Colin Broadley) who has been living above
his means and must now pay back a considerable debt. His mother
and father are harsh and unsympathetic, and so Manning hits the
road to escape his problems and perhaps find a meaning for his
increasingly difficult existence. He hitches a ride with Laura Kossovich (Nadja Regin), and the two engage in a brief but tempestuous love affair, which is interrupted when David shows a passing interest in Isobel Wharewera (Kiri Te Kanawa), a young Maori
woman whose values seem more in keeping with his own. After a
fight, David steals Lauras car, leaving an angry Laura on a muddy
strip of beach vowing revenge. Now on the run from the police for
car theft, David abandons Lauras car and hitches a ride with a
particularly obnoxious businessman with a heart condition, who
reveals himself as a virulent racist and viciously opportunistic
capitalist during their increasingly tense conversation. To prove
how little he cares for others, the businessman deliberately swerves
to run over a hedgehog crossing the road. David is appalled and
grabs the steering wheel to wrest control of the car away from the
businessman, but the strain proves too much, and the man dies of
a heart attack (in a scene eerily reminiscent of Edgar G. Ulmers
Detour [1945]).
Taking the businessmans papers, David continues on alone
until he meets Diana (Deidre McCarron), who offers him both reassurance and a renewed sense of hope. Their idyll is ended, how-

221
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The
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New Zealand
Cinema

ever, when a passing trapper, Clarrie (Barry Crump), invades the

small shack the couple are hiding in. Clarrie turns David in to the
police for the reward, and David is forced to flee again, this time
into the snow-covered mountains, with Diana at his side. At length,
David tells Diana to go back and surrender to the police; he will
go on alone. The police abandon the search as being too dangerous, and David is last seen hiking further and further up the mountain, to certain death. The film is both concise and evocative;
David Manning is the perfect existential 1960s antihero, and the
films crisp, melancholy black-and-white cinematography (by
Anthony Williams) and cool, detached musical score (by Robin
MacOnie) effectively convey David Mannings alienation and hopelessness through a Pinteresque landscape of despair and compromise. Indeed, OShea told me during our interview that he screened
the early work of Michelangelo Antonioni nearly every night during shooting on a portable 16mm projector to keep the crew in
the right mood for what we were trying to do. But although OShea
undeniably achieved his goal with the film, both the public and the
government found his vision of life in bourgeois New Zealand
unsettling and depressing.
Although praised by the critics, Runaway was a hit only with a
select few, and in its initial engagements the film was a resounding commercial failure. To add insult to injury, the film was exported to England, cut from 102 minutes to 80 minutes, and released on the bottom half of British double bills as Runaway Killers,
the version that most widely survives today. The complete, uncut
version of Runaway is available only at the New Zealand Film
Archive, where I screened the film shortly before interviewing
John OShea. It is a remarkable film, recalling the best of Joseph
Losey, Tony Richardson, and Karel Reisz, and deserves a place in
the international canon of film history alongside such films as
Loseys Accident (1967) and Servant (1963), Richardsons Loneliness
of the Long Distance Runner (1962), and Reiszs Saturday Night and
Sunday Morning (1960). Although the film has now attained the
status of a cult classic, particularly among younger New Zealand
filmmakers, the commercial failure of Runaway plunged OSheas
Pacific Films deep into debt, and OShea was forced to make industrial films and commercials for some fourteen years to pay off
the films modest production cost.

While Broken Barrier had made back its initial production cost
with ease, perhaps because of its more compassionate and optimistic outlook, Runaway marked OShea as a troublemaker and
left general audiences both angry and confused. As OShea commented in his autobiography,
For a start, Broken Barrier was about a white male, Tom Sullivan, who according to the poster was in love with a Maori girl.
The white women seen in the film are all middle-class and very
bourgeois. Some, like his sister, with a budgie on her shoulder, are
a little bizarre. They clearly indicate their distance from the Maori
women of that time. Toms father is rather more typical of the New
Zealand male of that era: stern, forced to accept foolishness all
around himhis daughter smoking, his son carrying on with a
Maori girl, his wife fussing around and trying to be nice to everyoneclearly, in his eyes, a rather stupid woman.
The young man in Broken Barrier seems to me now to be more
of a simpleminded idealist, not so much searching for identity as
chancing across a romantic entanglement that leads him to a
greater understanding of the Maori people around him once he
gets out into the countryside. No solution was found in the city, in
journalism, or in studiesbut in an unlikely rural and unexplored
prospect.
However, through it all, the Maori knew who they werewhich
was more than you could say for the typical Pakeha of the time.
Like Tom Sullivan, he barely knew where he was going or what he
was buying into if he married a Maori girl. Actuallyand ironicallythe film was made as Maoridom was about to be plunged
into wholesale urbanization which was to radically alter their
whole way of life.
For the young man in Runaway, a dozen years later, there was
more definition about identity. He did display that nascent spark
of enquiry starting to mark Pakeha New Zealanders, the conscious
search for identity that had run through the literature of the previous two decades, notably with the poetsCurnow, Mason,
Glover, Fairburnand the novelists Frank Sargeson and John
Mulgan.
In Runaway, young David Manning was very consciously trying to find out what it was all aboutand this time he knew neither an ordinary Kiwi city girl nor a Maori girl were for him. Lured

223
John OShea

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The
Tradition of
New Zealand
Cinema

by the seductive if superficial enticements of a European woman,

he got singed by the flame of her deception in much the same way
the country was finding Britains links with Europe were going to
damage the countrys trade and prosperity.
Wed made a film about New Zealand and the [European Economic Community] before the screenplaythough not the concept
for Runaway was written and the allegory was, we thought, fairly
direct. So few people got the point I wondered myself whether Id
missed it. (44)
Following the commercial debacle of Runaway, OShea needed
to find a way to put Pacific Films back on an even financial footing. Ironically, it was an angry conversation with Sid Odell, head
of the National Film Unit at the time, that provided the spark for
OSheas next project, the musical Dont Let It Get You (1966). Furious at the pessimistic picture of New Zealand life shown in Runaway, Odell promised OShea at a meeting to discuss future
projects, Youll never make another feature film in this country.
Never! (OShea 46). Furious, OShea vowed that his next film
would be both a commercially viable film and a film that would
further the cause of race relations in New Zealand. The result was
a pop musicalreminiscent of Richard Lesters Hard Days Night
(1964)full of flash, flair, and cheerfully upbeat pop performances, from a thoroughly racially integrated cast. When one
considers that it was not until 1970 that New Zealand television
allowed Maori and white performers to appear in the same television commercial (for Greggs Coffee, a commercial made by Pacific Films and directed by Runaways cinematographer, Tony
Williams), this in itself was a considerable accomplishment.
But the toll on OShea was inexorably mounting. While directing Dont Let It Get You, OShea still had to postproduce and write
sponsored documentaries at night to keep Pacific Films financially
afloat, and he began falling asleep on the set in the middle of takes
from sheer exhaustion. The fact that one of the industrial films
that he was producing at the time was about cancer did little to
aid his already shaken morale. As a result, when Dont Let It Get You
completed production and OShea found that he had no money for
a wrap party for his cast and crew, he decided that he could no
longer produce and direct feature films on such perilous financial
footing. And so, with three feature films as a director, Broken Bar-

rier, Runaway, and the slight but enjoyable Dont Let It Get You
(which, predictably, was an enormous commercial success), John
OShea ceased to direct feature films and went back to cranking
out promos, advertisements, and sponsored films to make a living,
although he subsequently served as producer on several New Zealand films in the 1980s. Pacific Films was now a commercial production house, and an era was over. It was not until 1977 and Roger
Donaldsons Sleeping Dogs that the New Zealand feature film again
began to flourishand then only because of lucrative tax breaks
that made investing in films attractive to the financial community.
As for John OShea, in addition to the three feature films he
directed, he produced five more features in later years while directing and producing more than two hundred documentary films,
as well as producing and/or directing countless commercials and
promotional spots. In 1990, OShea was awarded the Order of the
British Empire, and in 1992 he was honored with the New Zealand
Film Commissions first Lifetime Achievement Award. His children have followed him into the business. Kathy, his daughter, is
a much sought after film and commercial editor in Britain; his son
Pat is a cameraman for the BBC; his other son, Rory, works in the
United States as a director of photography (see Churchman 60).
And yet John OShea still exerts considerable influence within the
New Zealand cinematic community, and his opinions of contemporary cinema are often quite acerbic.
In our interview, OShea told me that he laments
the Americanization of the world, which looms as an ominous
thing. Todays film audiences are used to opulence and special
effectsHollywood bedazzles the world and seduces the innocents, the teenagers and children, with this confection. [This can
only lead] to indigestion and early heart attacks. Morals are
corrupt. People look up to the wrong people. Power is all. We
cant emulate Hollywood, and thank God we cant, but we can
offer them something different.
That something different is what John OShea strove for in all
his work, and by any measure of achievement, he had brilliantly
discharged his obligation to society. John OShea is New Zealands
John Ford; tough, irascible, very much his own man. He made his
films despite government interference, lack of financial backing,

225
John OShea

and without the support of studios or distributors. In doing so,

OShea demonstrated that one can function as a genuinely independent filmmaker within society and make a crucial difference in
the way people view the world.
226
The
Tradition of
New Zealand
Cinema

Works Cited
Churchman, Geoffrey B., ed. Celluloid Dreams: A Century of Film in New
Zealand. Wellington: IPL, 1997.
Martin, Helen, and Sam Edwards. New Zealand Film 19121966. Auckland:
Oxford UP, 1997.
OShea, John. Dont Let It Get You. Wellington: Victoria UP, 1999.
Watson, Chris, and Roy Shuker. In the Public Good? Censorship in New
Zealand. Palmerston North: Dunmore, 1998.

Index

A & E (television network), 53

ABC Television U.K. (production company), 54
Abominable Dr. Phibes, The (1971), 200
About Mrs. Leslie (1953), 41
Academy Awards, 73, 75, 78, 79
Accident (1967), 222
Actors Studio, 36, 37, 41
Addams, Dawn, 172
Adventures of Algy (1925), 214
Agent 8 3/4 (1964), 112
Air Cadet (1951), 39
Airplane! (1980), 209
Akerman, Chantal, 7
Albino Alligator (1996), 7
Alfie (1966), 216
Alibi (1931), 108
Alice in Wonderland (1966), 95, 96
Alland, William, 44
Allen, Herman, 3
Allen, Irwin, 198
Allen and Company, 3
All for Mary (1955), 181
Allied Filmmakers, 65
Allingham, Margery, 152
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), 215
Ambler, Eric, 139, 140, 156
America, Paul, 29
American Film Institute, 7
American-International Pictures (AIP),
118, 119, 120, 122, 126
America OnlineTime Warner, 10
Americas Funniest Home Videos (television
series), 3
Amicus (production company), 132
Anders, Allison, 7
Anderson, Gerry, 56
Anderson, Gillian, 186
Anderson, G. J., 215
Anderson, Judith, 204
Anderson, Lindsay, 201
Anderson, Maxwell, 198
Anderson, Sylvia, 56
And Now the Screaming Starts (1973), 172
Andrews, Dana, 203

And Soon the Darkness (1970), 47, 51, 57

Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual
Arts (Pittsburgh), 33
Andy Warhols Frankenstein (1974), 149
Angel, Heather, 143
Angel at My Table (1990), 213
Angeli, Pier, 65
Angry Silence (1960), 59, 65
Anijam (1984), 207
Anka, Paul, 44
Annakin, Ken, 109, 216
Anniversary, The (1968), 164
A Nous la libert (1931), 173, 179
Ansen, David, 15
Antonioni, Michelangelo, 15, 222
A*P*E (1976), 46
Araki, Gregg, 7
Arcand, Denys, 216
Archie (cartoon), 87
Arkoff, Sam, 120
Arkush, Allan, 126
Arnold, Malcolm, 152
Arthur, George, 178, 179
Arthur, Jean, 178
Arthur, Nigel, 174
Artisan Releasing, 16
Asquith, Anthony, 175
Assassin, The (1952), 114
Associated British Picture Corporation,
48, 52, 113
Asylum (1972), 132, 164, 170, 171
Atkinson, Michael, 5
Attenborough, Richard, 59, 60, 64, 65, 115,
177
Austen, Jane, 101
Avalos, Stefan, 16
Avengers, The (television series), 47, 50, 51,
5256, 58, 132, 162
Avery, Tex, 82, 83, 89, 90
AVID editing system, 8
L Avventura (1960), 15
Baby and the Battleship, The (1956), 64
Backtrack (1991), 201
BAFTA (award), 48

227
Index

228
Index

Baker, Carroll, 47, 50

Baker, Roy Ward, 1, 51, 54, 56, 58, 117, 132
73
Baker, Stanley, 153
Bakshi, Ralph, 88
Balderston, John L., 143
Baldwin, Alec, 9
Ballard, Lucien, 149
Ballet Russe, 176
Bancroft, Anne, 146
Barker, Lex, 50
Baron, The (television series), 47, 55
Baron of Arizona, The (1950), 198
Barrett, W. Franklyn, 214
Barrymore, John, Jr., 203
Barwick, Tony, 56
Baudrillard, Jean, 102
BBC, 48, 95, 96, 99, 102
Beacham, Stephanie, 172
Beaconsfield Studios, 108
Beat the Devil (1954), 73
Beaumont, Chuck, 122
Beauty and the Beast (1991), 92
Beaver Films, 65
Because of You (1952), 40
Beckett, Samuel, 189
Benedek, Laslo, 216
Bennett, Alan, 95
Benny, Jack, 200
Beresford, Bruce, 78
Bergman, Ingmar, 1, 118, 130, 193
Berle, Milton, 200
Berlin, Brigid, 29
Bertolucci, Bernardo, 115, 117
Beswick, Martine, 169
Betrayer (1921), 214
Better Late Than Never (1982), 72
Beware of Children (1960), 1056, 117
Beyond the Fringe, 1, 95
BFI Distribution, 193
Big Brother (television series), 3
Bigelow, Kathryn, 7
Birth of New Zealand (1922), 214
Black, George, 178
Black Glove, The (1954), 42
Black Knight, The (1954), 63
Black Magic (1928), 217
Blackman, Honor, 52, 53, 59, 156
Blair, Tony, 104
Blair Witch Project (1999), 16
Blandford, Rawdon, 214
Bloch, Robert, 170

Blockbuster Video, 5
Blood of a Poet (1930), 177
Bloody Mama (1970), 45
Blyth, Ann, 143, 144
Body in Question, The (television series), 99
Boetticher, Budd, 3940
Bogarde, Dirk, 105, 109, 110, 112, 113, 154,
158
Bogdanovich, Peter, 118, 204
Bond, James, 112
Bonnie and Clyde (1967), 216
Booth, Shirley, 41
Bosch, Hieronymus, 199
Bottled Health (1926), 217
Bounce (2001), 10
Box, Betty, 105, 109, 110, 114
Box, John, 66
Box, Muriel, 182
Box, Sydney, 105, 109, 143
Boyd, William, 60
Boyer, Charles, 70
Brain, The (1962), 73
Brando, Marlon, 37
Brauner, Arthur, 50
Breedlove, Paul, 12, 13
Brian, David, 41
Bridges, Jeff, 195
British Academy of Film and Television
Arts (BAFTA), 48, 147
British Film Institute (BFI), 74, 115
British Film Institute Production Board,
188
British Lion, 161
Broadley, Colin, 221
Broccoli, Albert (Cubby), 63
Broken Barrier (1952), 217, 218, 219, 220,
223
Brooke, Hillary, 42
Brown, Clarence, 71
Brown, Edward T., 215
Brownlow, Kevin, 138
Bryce, John, 54, 55
Brynner, Yul, 59, 70
Buchanan, Edgar, 41
Buffett, Jimmy, 207, 211
Bugs (television series), 47, 56, 57
Bulldog Drummond series (film), 112
Bumstead, Henry, 76
Buuel, Luis, 158, 173
Burgess, Anthony, 30
Burr, Raymond, 39, 42, 52
Burton, Richard, 59

Burton, Tim, 197

Bush Cinderella (1928), 215
Caine, Michael, 59, 68, 69
Camp, Bob, 88, 92
Camp (1965), 30
Campbells Soup Can series (Warhol), 25
Campion, Jane, 7, 101, 213
Cannes Film Festival, 16, 180
Cannon Films, 72
Cape Fear (1991), 7475, 76, 80
Capitani, Giorgio, 160
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974), 47, 51
Caravaggio (1986), 191
Carbines Heritage (1927), 214
Carbunkle Studio, 85
Cardiff, Jack, 69
Cardigan, Mark, 199
Cardinale, Claudia, 112
Carillo, Tosh, 31
Carmilla (Le Fanu), 16667
Carney, Art, 72
Carnival Films, 56
Caron, Leslie, 59, 67
Carreras, Jimmy, 167, 169
Carroll, Lewis, 95
Carry On, Cleo (1964), 1056
Carry On, Emmannuelle (1978), 1056
Carry On, Nurse (1959), 1056
Carry On series, 42, 105, 114
Carter, Betty, 207, 209
Cassidy, Jack, 44
Castle, William, 196
CCC Filmkunst, 50
CD-ROM format, 8
Celebration (1998), 8
Chaffey, Don, 45, 56
Challis, Chris, 69
Champagne for Caesar (1950), 198
Champ for a Day (1953), 41
Champion (film), 91
Champions, The (television series), 47, 55
Chandler, Raymond, 57
Chaplin (1992), 59, 60
Charbucks at Sea (web cartoon), 207
Chechik, Jeremiah, 55
Chelsea at Nine (television series), 184
Chelsea Girls, The (1966), 31, 32, 34
Children (1976), 185, 193
Childrens Television Workshop (CTW),
207, 208, 211
Chow Fun (1973), 210

Christmas Carol, A (1951), 52

Churchill, Winston, 60
Cilento, Diane, 150
Cinderella (1950), 92
Cinecitta Studios, 42
Cinecomm Digital Cinema, 13
Cinema Journal, 6
CinemaScope, 74, 80, 181, 188
Cine Swiss Award, 201
Circus Friends (1956), 105
City Speaks (1950), 218
Clair, Ren, 173, 179
Clampett, Bob, 83, 89, 90
Clark, Dane, 142, 143
Clayton, Jack, 79
Cleese, John, 54, 99
Clemens, Brian, 4758, 16263, 16970
Clinton, Bill, 104
Clockwork Orange, A (Burgess), 30
Clockwork Orange, A (1971), 216
Clouded Yellow, The (1950), 105, 109
Cockleshell Heroes (1956), 59, 63
Cocteau, Jean, 176, 177
Coffey, Vanessa, 89
Coffin, Hayden, 174
Cohen, Martin, 11
Cole, George, 166
Collins, Lewis, 56
Colman, Ronald, 198
Columbia Gramophone Company, 134
Columbia Pictures, 9, 51, 98
ConcordeNew Horizons (production
company), 118, 126, 127
Conformist, The (1970), 117
Connery, Sean, 48, 55
Conqueror Worm, The (1968), 196, 205
Conte, Richard, 38
Conway, Tom, 48
Cook, Peter, 59, 68, 95
Cooper, Wilkie, 54, 69, 161
Coppola, Francis Ford, 118, 121, 126
Corman, Julie, 125
Corman, Roger, 1, 15, 35, 45, 49, 51, 11831,
196, 200
Corri, Adrienne, 165
Cos fan tutte (opera), 102
Coubray, Edwin, 214
Coulter, Mick, 192
Courtneidge, Cicely, 67
Coward, Nol, 103
Cowie Family Holiday (1953), 217
Craig, Michael, 65, 112

229
Index

230
Index

Crawford, Michael, 161

Creative Artists Agency, 3
Crichton, Charles, 54, 56, 58
Cries and Whispers (1972), 1, 118, 130
Cruel Story of Youth (1960), 117
Cruikshank, Sally, 20712
Cruise, The (1998), 8
Crumb, R., 210
Crump, Barry, 222
Crush (1992), 213
Curry, Tim, 8
Cushing, Peter, 54, 166, 170, 172
Cutrone, Ronnie, 33
Daffy Duck (cartoon), 89
Dahl, John, 57
Dalrymple, Ian, 181
Daltrey, Roger, 99
Daly, Robert, 3
Dance Pretty Lady (1931), 175
Danger Man (television series), 4950
Dante, Joe, 126, 210, 211
Danziger brothers, 47, 4850, 51, 64
Darnborough, Antony, 172
Darnell, Linda, 147, 148
Dash, Julie, 7
Dauphin, Claude, 70
Davidson, John, 202
Davies, Terence, 18595
Davis, Bette, 47, 51, 147, 158, 164, 165, 201
Davis, John, 153, 15455, 158
Davison, Jon, 126, 209, 211
Dawn at Socorro (1954), 41
Deadfall (1968), 69
Deadlier Than the Male (1967), 112
Dead of Night (1945), 170
Dearden, Basil, 59, 65
Death and Transfiguration (1983), 185, 193
De Carlo, Yvonne, 38
Deibert, Bert, 6
Del Guidice, Filippo, 140
de Lint, Derek, 72
Dementia 13 (1963), 126
DeMille, Cecil B., 196, 204
Deneuve, Catherine, 147
De Niro, Robert, 45
Dergarabedian, Paul, 11
Dern, Bruce, 45
Derrida, Jacques, 102
Detective Story (1951), 91
Detour (1945), 221, 222
de Valois, Ninette, 175

Devane, William, 52
Diaghilev, Sergei, 176
Dial M for Murder (1954), 149
Diary of a Madman (1963), 205
Dickens, Charles, 110
Dickinson, Thorold, 138
Dickson, Paul, 64
Diebenkorn, Richard, 200
digital video tape, 2, 97, 98
Disaster series (Warhol), 25
Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), 185, 186
Diver, William, 192
Doctor at Large (1957), 110
Doctor at Sea (1955), 110
Doctor in the House (1954), 105, 109
Doctor in Trouble (1970), 105, 113
Doctor series (film), 105
Donahue, Troy, 25, 27
Donald, James, 163, 164
Donaldson, Roger, 225
Donen, Stanley, 158
Donovan, 28
Dont Bother to Knock (1952), 14446
Dont Let It Get You (film), 217, 224
Dont Let It Get You (OShea), 213
Douglas, Gordon, 42
Douglas, Kirk, 91
Dove, Arthur, 200
Down on the Farm (1935), 215
Dracula (Stoker), 168
Dragonwyck (1946), 196, 201
Dreamworks SKG, 11
Drinking Party: Platos Symposium, The
(1965), 95
Driving Miss Daisy (1989), 78
Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), 47, 51, 169
Droopy (cartoon), 87
Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972), 200
Dr. Phibes series (film), 50
Dr. Terrors House of Horrors (1964), 73
Drunk (1965), 31
Duchamp, Marcel, 25
Ducky (1971), 207
Duna, Steffi, 177
Dune (1985), 73, 77
Dupont, E. A., 199
Dutchman (1966), 67
DVD format, 2, 3, 8
Dyall, Valentine, 54
Dylan, Bob, 27, 29
Eagle Lion (production company), 41

Ealing Studios, 138

Eat (1963), 29
Ed Sullivan Show, The (television variety
show), 98
Edwards, Blake, 216
Edward Scissorhands (1991), 196
Edward II (1992), 192
Elephant Man, The (1980), 73, 77
Elliott, Denholm, 50, 172
Elmopalooza (television special), 207, 211
Emerson, Eric, 32
EMI, 55, 59, 134
Emma (Austen), 101
Emmott, Basil, 69
Empire (1964), 29
Enchanted April (1993), 117
Endless Game, The (1990), 72
English Patient, The (1996), 104
Eraserhead (1977), 77
Evans, Clifford, 54
Evans, Edith, 59, 67, 70
Evans, Maurice, 3637
Eve of St. Mark, The (1944), 198
Everett, Anna, 6
Everybody Go Home! (1961), 44
Executioners Song, The (1982), 73
Exhibitor Relations, Inc., 11
Face (1965), 31
Face Like a Frog (1987), 207
Face the Music (1954), 42
Fairchild, William, 78, 141
Fall of the House of Usher, The (1960), 118,
120
Fanny and Alexander (1982), 193
Farewell, My Concubine (1993), 147
Farrow, Mia, 47, 51
Father Dowling Mysteries, The (television
series), 48
Feagin School of Dramatic Art (New
York), 36
Feet of Clay (1960), 48
Fennell, Albert, 51, 53, 54
Ferrara, Abel, 7
Ferrer, Jos, 59, 6364
Field, Shirley Anne, 159
Fiennes, Ralph, 55
Figgis, Mike, 14
Filmation Studio, 87
Film Encyclopedia (Katz), 1056, 133
Filmmakers Cinmathque (theatre),
28, 33

Filmmakers Cooperative, 28
films: action, 6; animated, 20712; comedy, 1056, 109, 112, 180; computergenerated, 910; detective, 109; digital, 1215; distribution of, 2, 4, 8, 14,
15, 16; documentary, 104, 132, 13738,
199, 214, 218; downloading of, 67;
editing of, 8; exploitation, 166; foreign, 2, 6; gangster, 124; horror, 2, 73,
120, 132, 162, 170, 172, 200; IMAX, 16;
independent, 2, 4, 46; interactive, 4;
lesbian vampire, 16668; low-budget,
7, 15; monster, 2; niche, 7; production
of, 4; projection systems for, 1011;
science fiction, 64, 162; short, 6, 178,
214; and sound methods, 107, 134; and
special effects, 128, 129; and spectacle,
15, 97, 204; suspense, 58, 140; thriller,
112, 114, 140, 18586, 194; war drama,
62, 64; and western genre, 35, 97
Final Fantasy (2001), 9
Finch, Peter, 150
Fine, Harry, 167
Finney, Albert, 59, 72, 159
Fisher, Gerry, 51, 69
Fisher, Terence, 35, 42
Five Branded Women (1961), 42, 44
Five Million Years to Earth (1967), 163
Flame in the Streets (1961), 159
Fleeman, Michael, 12
Fleischer, Richard, 51
Fleming, Rhonda, 148
Flemyng, Gordon, 54
Flesh (1968), 24, 33
Flesh for Frankenstein (1974). See Andy
Warhols Frankenstein (1974)
Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, The (2000),
4
Fonda, Henry, 3738
Fonda, Jane, 27
Fonda, Peter, 27
Forbes, Bryan, 50, 5972
Ford, Charles Henri, 26, 27
Ford, Henry, 60
Ford, John, 41, 58, 69, 97
Foreman, Carl, 65
Forrest, Sally, 203
Foster, Julia, 161
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), 102,
117
Fox Movietone News, 220, 221
Francis, Freddie, 18, 7381, 159

231
Index

232
Index

Frankel, Cyril, 56
Frankenstein Unbound (1990), 126
Franklin, Frederick, 175
Frear, Stephen, 104
Freeman, Al, Jr., 67
French Lieutenants Woman, The (1981), 73
Freyberg, Bernard, 220
From Your Head (1996), 207, 209
Fuest, Robert, 50, 51, 54
Fuller, Samuel, 19899
Fun on Mars (1972), 207
Furie, Sidney J., 69
Gainsborough Studios, 114, 133, 135, 136,
178
Gallagher, Noel, 104
Gandhi (1982), 60
Garnett, Tay, 63
Gas-s-s-s (1969), 124
Gaumont British, 133
Gielgud, John, 95
Gilbert, Lewis, 216
Gill, Mark, 13
Gilliam, Terry, 216
Gilliat, Leslie, 161
Gilligans Planet (cartoon), 87
Ginsberg, Allen, 27, 32
Girl Must Live, A (1939), 136
Gish, Lillian, 201
Glory (1989), 75
Godard, Jean-Luc, 3
Godden, Rumer, 114
Golden, David, 147
Golden Shears (1961), 217
Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The (1974), 47, 51
Goldfinger (1964), 53
Goldman, William, 60
Goldsmith, John, 56
Gordon, Colin, 153
Gordon, Leo, 121
Gough, Michael, 54
Gould, Elliott, 72
Grahame, Gloria, 113
Grant, Arthur, 16364
Grant, Cary, 159
Grant, Hugh, 117
Grass is Greener, The (1960), 158
Great Day in the Morning (1956), 42
Great Race (1965), 216
Green, Guy, 59, 65
Green, Nigel, 54, 112
Greenaway, Peter, 97

Greene, Graham, 67
Green Grow the Rushes (1951), 63
Greenwood, Joan, 140
Gregson, John, 152
Gremlins (1984), 126
Grey Gardens (1975), 104
Grierson, John, 137
Griffith, D. W., 215
Griffith, Hugh, 113
Guest, Val, 59
Guffey, Burnett, 6869
Guillermin, John, 59
Guinness, Alec, 189
Gunfighters of Casa Grande (1964), 45
Guns of Navarone, The (1961), 65
Hamilton, Guy, 59
Hammer Films, 42, 47, 51, 64, 77, 132, 163,
16466
Hancock, Sheila, 98
Hancock, Tony, 68
Handl, Irene, 113
Hard Days Night, A (1964), 224
Harker, Jonathan, 168
Harlot (1964), 29
Harris, Richard, 158, 189
Harrison, Noel, 98
Harryhausen, Ray, 47, 51
Hartley, Hal, 7
Harvey, Laurence, 6667, 79, 158
Harvey, Tony, 67
Hathaway, Henry, 59, 66
Hawke, Ethan, 15
Hawkins, Jack, 65, 153
Hawtrey, Charles, 105
Hayek, Salma, 14
Hayman, Gordon, 75
Hayward, Rudall, 213, 214, 217, 218
Hayward, Tamai, 217
Hazell, Hy, 141
Heat Wave (1955), 42
Heavenly Creatures (1994), 213
Hecht, Ben, 48
Heckle and Jeckle (cartoon), 87
Hedy the Shoplifter (1965), 31
Heflin, Van, 38
Hei Tiki (1935), 215
Hellman, Monte, 118, 121
Hemmings, David, 161
Hendry, Ian, 52
Henreid, Paul, 59, 7071
Hepburn, Katharine, 58, 59, 67, 70

Her Alibi (1989), 78

Herko, Freddie, 27
Hess, Rick, 7
Hessler, Gordon, 51
Heywood, Anne, 112
H. G. Wells The Invisible Man (television
series), 47, 50
High Commissioner, The (1968), 113
High Jump (1958), 48
Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), 47
48, 52
Highly Dangerous (1950), 14243, 172
Hill, James, 50, 54
Hillier, Erwin, 140
Hill in Korea, A (1957), 73
Hinemoa (1914), 214
His Kind of Woman (1951), 199
Hitchcock, Sir Alfred, 53, 58, 112, 130, 132,
136, 141, 145, 149
Hobbs, Christopher, 192
Holland, Sid, 220
Hollywood Boulevard (1976), 126
Holm, Ian, 72
Holt, Seth, 50
Holzer, Baby Jane, 29
Homer (1970), 45
Homolka, Oskar, 70
Hoop Dreams (1994), 104
Hopkins, John, 161
Hopkins, Tony, 71
Hopper, Dennis, 27, 201
Horse (1965), 31
Horsemasters, The (1961), 78
Hough, John, 51
House of Mirth, The (2001), 186
House of Wax (1953), 149, 204
House on the Square, The (1951), 143, 147
House Un-American Activities Committee, 220
Houston, Ian C. A., 220
Howard, Leslie, 143
Howard, Trevor, 64, 109
Huckleberry Hound (cartoon), 87
Hudson, Rock, 38
Hudson Hawk (film), 7
Hudsons Bay (1940), 197
Hughes, Howard, 199
Hughes, Ken, 42, 66
Hull, Henry, 150
Human Jungle, The (television series), 171
Hume, Alan, 54
Hunter, Holly, 14

Hurst, Brian Desmond, 52, 152

Huston, John, 70, 91
Ibsen, Henrik, 160
Ideal Husband, An (1999), 13
Ill Never Forget You (1951), 143
Imi, Tony, 69
Immortal Beloved (1994), 14
Indochine (1992), 132, 147
Inferno (1953), 14849
Informer, The (1935), 69
Innocents, The (1961), 73
Inspector Calls, An (1954), 59, 64
International Velvet (1978), 71
Internet, 2, 4, 6
In the Heat of the Night (1967), 216
Intimate Palmers Green (repertory company), 61
Intolerance (1916), 215
Intruder, The (1961), 122, 130
Invitation to the Waltz (1935), 176
Ipcress File, The (1965), 69
It Happened Here (1964), 138
ITV (television production company), 47
Ivanhoe (television series), 47, 50, 163
ivansxtc (2000), 15
I Was Montys Double (1958), 59, 69
Jackson, Gordon, 56
Jackson, Peter, 213
Jacobi, Derek, 183
Jacqueline (1956), 151
Jacques, Hattie, 105
James, Henry, 101, 143
James, Sidney, 42, 105, 114, 141
James, Steve, 104
Janni, Joseph, 159
Jarman, Derek, 1056, 185, 191, 192
Jarmusch, Jim, 7
Jenkins, Henry, 6
Jessie (1980), 72
Jesus of Montreal (1989), 216
Jetsons, The (cartoon), 87
Jewison, Norman, 216
Johns, Glynis, 172, 176
Johns, Jasper, 24
Johnson, Laurie, 53
Johnson, Richard, 112
Jones, Chuck, 83, 90
Jones, Freddie, 54
Jones, Jennifer, 202
Jones, LeRoi, 67

233
Index

Journey for Three (1949), 217

Jovanka i laltre (1961), 43
Joyce, James, 216
Jurgens, Curt, 172
Justice, James Robertson, 66, 112, 113
J. Walter Thompson Advertising, 48

234
Index

Karloff, Boris, 120, 121, 122, 178

Kartozian, William, 13
Katz, Ephraim, 1056, 133
Kaufman, Philip, 72
Kaye, Danny, 70
Kazan, Elia, 37
Keir, Andrew, 54, 163, 164
Kellerman, Annette, 214
Kennedy, John F., 33
Kerr, Deborah, 159
Kidder, Margot, 8
King, Henry, 202
King, Stephen, 171
King Kong (1933), 57
King Lear (Shakespeare), 99
King Rat (1965), 59, 67, 69
Kings Breakfast, The (1963), 182
Kinski, Klaus, 52
Kiss (1963), 29
Kitchen (1965), 31, 32
Knack and How to Get It, The (1965), 161,
216
Kneale, Nigel, 164
Korda, Alexander, 147, 177, 17981
Koscina, Sylva, 112
Kricfalusi, John, 1, 8294
Krger, Hardy, 15354, 155
Kubrick, Stanley, 155, 165, 216
Kureishi, Hanif, 104
Kwan, Nancy, 50
Lacey, Ronald, 98
Ladd, Alan, 63
Lady Vanishes, The (1938), 136, 137
Lahti, Christine, 19495
Lambert, Christopher, 48
Lang, Fritz, 196, 2034
laser discs, 2, 4, 6
Last Broadcast (1998), 16
Last Emperor, The (1987), 115
Last Man on Earth, The (1964), 203
Last Word on Paradise, The (2000), 15
Laughton, Charles, 91
Laura (1944), 197, 198
Laurie, Piper, 41

Lavi, Daliah, 113

Lawton, Frank, 157
League of Gentlemen (1959), 59, 65
Lean, David, 59, 105, 107, 136, 177, 178,
179
Leave Her to Heaven (1946), 196, 19798
Leaver, Don, 54
Leaving Las Vegas (1995), 14
LeBorg, Reginald, 205
Lee, Christopher, 168, 169
Lee, Jack, 62
Le Fanu, Sheridan, 166
Lehmer, Robert, 11, 13
Leighton, Margaret, 70, 180
Lester, Richard, 161, 216, 224
Leverhulme Scholarship, 61
Lewis, A. L., 215
Lewis, Jay, 64
Liberace, 4142
Lichtenstein, Roy, 24
Life of Juanita Castro, The (1965), 30, 31
Light in the Piazza (1962), 65
Liman, Doug, 104
Lindsay-Hogg, Michael, 56
Linich, Billy, 28
Lion in Winter, The (1968), 67
Little Shop of Horrors (1960), 1, 118
Lloyd, Christopher, 8
Lloyd, Frank, 143
Lockwood, Margaret, 142
Lom, Herbert, 170, 171, 172
London, Jerry, 52
London Films, 17980
Lone Hand (1953), 40
Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962),
222
Long Ago Tomorrow (1971). See Raging Moon,
The (1971)
Long and the Short and the Tall, The (1961),
158, 159
Long Day Closes, The (1992), 185, 18990,
192
Longford, Raymond, 214
Look in Any Window (1961), 44
Lorre, Peter, 86, 121
Los Angeles Film Critics Circle, 206
Losey, Joseph, 222
L-Shaped Room, The (1962), 59, 67, 69
Lucas, George, 11, 12, 13
Lucasfilm, 11
Lundigan, William, 148, 149
Lupino, Ida, 203

Lye, Len, 137

Lynch, David, 73, 77
Maas, Willard, 2526
MacLachlan, Kyle, 14
Maclean, Alison, 213
MacNee, Patrick, 47, 52, 53, 162
MacOnie, Robin, 222
Madonna and Child (1980), 185, 193
Madwoman of Chaillot, The (1969), 59, 69, 70
Magee, Patrick, 54, 172
Magic Collar Box, The (1927), 217
Make Me Psychic (film), 210
Makepeace, Henry, 214
Malanga, Gerard, 1, 2434
Malcolm, Derek, 193
Mallik, Anne-Marie, 95
Malone, Dorothy, 42
Maltese Falcon, The (1941), 82, 91
Man from Laramie, The (1955), 41
Man in a Suitcase (television series), 47
Mankiewicz, Joseph, 202
Mann, Anthony, 35, 41
Mann, Danny, 41
Mannheim Steamroller, 212
Man with a Million (1953), 63
Maori Maids Love (1916), 214
Markey, Alexander, 215
MarkovaDolin Ballet company, 175
Mark Saber (television series), 47, 48, 49
Marriage International Style (1961), 44
Martin, Steve, 54
Mary Poppins (1964), 216
Masina, Giulietta, 70
Massey, Anna, 172
Massey, Daniel, 172
Matheson, Richard, 128
Matter of WHO, A (1961), 45
Maurice Evans theater company, 36, 37
Maya Deren Award for Independent Film
and Video, 207
Mayo, Virginia, 42
McCallum, David, 156
McCallum, Rick, 11
McCarron, Deidre, 221
McCarthy, Joseph, 220
McDarrah, Fred W., 31
McDermott, John, 31
McDonald, James, 214
McGoohan, Patrick, 47, 49
McIntosh, Doug, 216
McKern, Leo, 113

Medwin, Michael, 72
Meeker, Ralph, 37, 124
Meet Danny Wilson (1952), 39
Mekas, Jonas, 27
Menken, Marie, 26, 30
Mpris, Le (1963), 3
Merrill, Gary, 147, 148
Merzbach, Paul, 176
Mszros, Marta, 7
Metropolitan Opera, 103
Meyer, Ron, 3
MGM Studios, 48, 71, 157, 163
Midnight Cowboy (1969), 50
Midsummer Nights Dream (Shakespeare),
103
Mighty Mouse (cartoon), 8788
Milestone, Lewis, 215
Miller, Arthur, 202
Miller, Bennett, 8
Miller, Dick, 122
Miller, Jonathan, 1, 95104
Miller, Ron, 51
Million, Le (1931), 173
Million Pound Note, The (1953), 63
Mills, Hayley, 64, 65, 98
Mills, John, 59, 68, 140, 141, 158, 159, 160
Mine Own Executioner (1947), 73
Minghella, Anthony, 104
Ming-Na, 9
Miramax, 13
Mirams, Gordon, 216, 218
Mirams, Roger, 218, 220
Miranda (1948), 109
Mission in Morocco (film), 50
Mitchell, Thomas, 203
Mitchum, Robert, 199
Moby Dick (1956), 73
Molinaro, douard, 71
Mollo, Andrew, 138
Monroe, Marilyn, 25, 132, 14445, 146
Montez, Mario, 30
Monty Python, 91, 99
Monty Pythons Life of Brian (1979), 216
Moon Zero Two (1969), 165
Moore, Dudley, 59, 68, 95
Moore, Roger, 72, 163
More, Kenneth, 156, 157, 181
Morley, Robert, 59, 112, 113, 177, 203
Morning Departure (1950), 14142, 143, 151
Morris, Ernest, 48
Morris, Oswald, 66
Morrissey, Paul, 24, 32, 33

235
Index

236
Index

Mother Goddamm (Davis), 164

Motion Picture Association of America, 35
Mr. Roberts (play), 3738
Muggeridge, Malcolm, 95
Mulvey, Laura, 5
Mummy, The (1999), 13
Mussolini, Benito, 42
Mutiny of the Bounty (1916), 214
My Hustler (1965), 29, 31
My Lady of the Cave (1922), 214
My Life as a Dog (1985), 193
Myrick, Daniel, 16
Mystery (television series), 200, 206
My Wife Next Door (television series), 48
Nair, Mira, 7
Nakano, Desmond, 7
Naked Face, The (1984), 59, 72
Name, Billy, 27
Napster, 7
National Association of Theater Owners
(NATO), 13
National Film Theatre, 74
National Velvet (1944), 71
Natural Vision 3-D, 14849, 205
Naylor, Lynne, 88, 92
Neame, Ronald, 63, 177
Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile (1961), 203
Neff, Hildegarde, 147, 148
Neill, A. S., 117
Neill, Sam, 213
Neuwirth, Bob, 29
New Arts Lab, 95
New Avengers, The (television series), 55
Newell, Mike, 117
New Elstree Studios, 47, 48, 50, 64, 169
Newman, Nanette, 66, 68, 70, 71
Newman, Sydney, 47, 52
New World (production company), 118,
12526
New York Film Festival, 194
New Zealand, 21326
New Zealand Film Archive, 213, 214, 215,
222
New Zealand Film Commission, 217, 225
Nicholson, Jack, 118, 12122
Nickelodeon (television network), 82, 83,
84, 8889, 90
Nicol, Alex, 1, 3546
Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, A (1979),
105, 113
Night of the Hunter, The (1955), 82, 91

Night to Remember, A (1958), 132, 156

Night Train to Munich (1940), 136
Night Without Sleep (1952), 147, 148
Niven, David, 113
Nobody Runs Forever (1968), 113
No Kidding (1960), 1056, 117
No Love for Johnnie (1961), 110, 115
Norman, Leslie, 158
Novak, Kim, 66
Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, The (2000), 4
OConnor, David, 3
October Man (1947), 140
Odd Man Out (1947), 108
Odell, Sid, 224
Of Human Bondage (1964), 59, 66
OHara, Frank, 28
OHara, Maureen, 40
Oh Whistle and Ill Come to You (1968), 95
Oldman, Gary, 14
Olivo, Bob. See Ondine
Olson, James, 165
Once upon a Dream (1949), 105, 109
Once Were Warriors (1995), 213
Ondine, 28, 29, 31, 33
ONeal, Tatum, 71
One That Got Away, The (1957), 153, 155
On Golden Pond (1981), 38
Opening of the Auckland Exhibition, The
(1898), 214
Operation Disaster (1950), 141
Operation Murder (1957), 47
Osborne, John, 102
OShea, John, 1, 21326
Oshima, Nagisa, 117
Othello (Shakespeare), 99
OToole, Peter, 67
Outcast of the Islands (1951), 73
Pacific Digital Imaging, 15
Pacific Films, 213, 218, 221, 222, 22425
Palmer, Lilli, 113
Paper Orchid (1949), 140
Paramount Pictures, 134
Paranoiac (1962), 73
Paris Exhibition (1900), 214
Parker, Cecil, 110, 140, 189
Parkins, Barbara, 170
Passage Home (1955), 15051
Pat and Mike (1952), 58
Patrick, Nigel, 141
PBS (television network), 72, 200, 206

Peckinpah, Sam, 216

Peking Medallion, The (1967), 50
Penn, Arthur, 216
Prinal, Georges, 177
Perreau, Gigi, 44
Perry, Joseph, 214
Perry Mason (television series), 48, 52
Peter Pan (theater production), 178
Peters, Brock, 67
Petulia (1968), 216
Pevney, Joe, 39
Phar Laps Son (1936), 215
Phillips, Leslie, 113
Piano, The (1993), 213
Pictura (1952), 199
Pinewood Studios, 159
Pinter, Harold, 102, 189
Pistoleros de Casa Grande, Los (1964), 45
Pit and the Pendulum, The (1961), 118, 120,
128
Pitt, Ingrid, 166, 168
Pitt, Stewart, 215
Pleasence, Donald, 59, 70
Plummer, Christopher, 59, 71, 113
Poe, Edgar Allan: adaptations of works
by, 118, 11920, 122, 124, 128, 200
Point of Terror (1973), 45
Polanski, Roman, 96
Polk, Brigid, 33
Pollard, J. J. W., 215
Pollyanna (1960), 64
Poor Little Rich Girl (1965), 30, 31
Porter, Nyree Dawn, 56, 161
Portman, Eric, 69
Portrait of a Lady ( James), 101
Powell, Michael, 61, 69, 178, 189
Power, Tyrone, 132, 14344
Presley, Elvis, 25, 29
Pressburger, Emeric, 61, 178, 189
Price, Dennis, 54
Price, Vincent, 1, 50, 120, 121, 196206
Priestley, J. B., 64
Prisoner, The (television series), 49
Professionals, The (television series), 47, 56
Prosperos Books (1991), 97
Protectors, The (television series), 56
Providence (1977), 193
Pulp Fiction (1994), 7
Purdom, Dick, 115
Quasi at the Quackadero (1975), 207, 208,
210

Quasis Cabaret (film project), 209

Quasis Cabaret Trailer (1980), 210
Quatermass and the Pit (1967), 163, 165
Quatermass series (film), 64, 163
Quatermass II (1957), 59
Quick Draw McGraw (cartoon), 87
Quinn, Aidan, 195
Raging Moon, The (1971), 69
Raising a Riot (1955), 181, 183
Rakes Progress, The (opera), 103
Rakoff, Alvin, 16465
Rampling, Charlotte, 54
Randall and Hopkirk (television series), 47,
55
Rank, J. Arthur, 181
Rank Organisation (production company), 108, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 142,
143, 152, 153
Rattigan, Terence, 61, 103
Rauschenberg, Robert, 25
Raven, The (1963), 120, 121, 128
Reccardi, Chris, 85
Red Ball Express (1952), 39
Red Balloon, The (1956), 190
Redhead from Wyoming, The (1952), 40
Red Rock West (1992), 57
Reed, Carol, 59, 67, 68, 108, 136, 139, 177
Reed, Lou, 27
Reed, Oliver, 73, 98
Reed, Pamela, 195
Reeves, Michael, 196, 205
Regin, Nadja, 221
Reisz, Karel, 159, 188, 222
Relph, Michael, 65
Remington Steele (television series), 48
Ren and Stimpy (cartoon), 1, 8294
Rennie, Michael, 143
Renoir, Claude, 69
Renoir, Jean, 114
Reservoir Dogs (1992), 58, 98
Resnais, Alain, 193, 199
Revill, Clive, 113
Rewis Last Stand (1925), 214
Rewis Last Stand (1940), 218
Rey, Fernando, 50
Reynolds, Harrington, 214
Rhames, Ving, 9
Ricard, Ren, 32
Richardson, Ralph, 59, 68, 95
Richardson, Tony, 102, 159, 188, 222
Rifkin, Arnold, 7

237
Index

238
Index

Rigg, Dame Diana, 47, 53, 55, 162, 163, 206

Risi, Dino, 71
Ritt, Marty, 37, 42, 44
River, The (1951), 114
RKO Studios, 108, 199
Robards, Jason, 124
Robe, The (1953), 188
Roberts, Rachel, 159, 189
Robinson, Bernard, 163
Robinson, Eddie, 204
Robson, Flora, 171
Rocky and Bullwinkle (cartoon), 90
Rogers, Peter, 105, 114
Rohmer, Eric, 186
Roman, Ruth, 42, 44
Romance of Hine-Moa (1927), 214
Romance of Maoriland (1930), 215
Romance of Sleepy Hollow (1923), 214
Romantic New Zealand (1934), 215
Room at the Top (1958), 73, 79
Rose, Bernard, 14
Rosenberg, Max, 17071, 172
Rosendahl, Carl, 15
Roszema, Patricia, 7
Rotha, Paul, 218
Rowland, Roy, 45
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA),
61, 63
Royal Army Kinematograph Service, 73,
132, 137
Rubin, Barbara, 27
Rugby Rep (repertory company), 61
Rug Making (1929), 217
Runaway (1964), 217, 221, 22324
Run with the Devil (1961), 42
Rutherford, Margaret, 189
Ruthless People (1986), 207, 211
Ryan, Ken, 163
Ryan, Robert, 41, 132, 14849, 150
Saint, The (television series), 132, 163
Sakaguchi, Hironobu, 9
Salkow, Sidney, 203
Snchez, Eduardo, 16
Sanders, George, 48, 203
S & H Green Stamp series (Warhol), 2425
Sangster, Jimmy, 165
Sargent, Sir Malcolm, 178
Sarris, Andrew, 18
Satellite in the Sky (1956), 64
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960),
73, 77, 159, 222

Savage Guns, The (1962), 45

Saville, Victor, 113
Scardino, Don, 45
Scarlet Street (1945), 204
Scars of Dracula, The (1970), 16870
Scary Movie (2000), 4
Scavenger Hunt (1980), 203
Schell, Catherine, 165
Schenck, Aubrey, 202
Scherick, Edgar, 69
Schindlers List (1993), 96
Schlesinger, John, 50
Schneer, Charlie, 51
Schultz, Michael, 203
Scorsese, Martin, 7475, 76, 80, 118
Screaming Skull, The (1958), 36, 42
Screen Actors Guild, 119
Screen Tests: A Diary (Warhol/Malanga), 27
Scribner, Rod, 89
Sea Devils (1953), 63
Sance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), 65
Secret Agent (television series), 47. See also
Danger Man (television series)
Sedgwick, Edie, 30, 32
See No Evil (1971), 47, 5051
Segal, George, 59, 72
Seiter, William, 41
Sekka, Johnny, 159
Selleck, Tom, 78
Sellers, Peter, 59, 68, 95
Sense and Sensibility (Austen), 101
Servant, The (1963), 222
Sesame Street (television series), 207, 211
Shakespeare: television productions of
works by, 95, 96, 99
Shamroy, Leon, 197
Sharp, Don, 112
Shatner, William, 123
Shaw, George Bernard, 160
Shaw, Martin, 56
Shaw, Robert, 161
Sheldon, Sidney, 72
Shelley, Barbara, 54, 163, 164
Sheltering Sky, The (1990), 115
Shepherd, Dick, 71
Shepherds Bush (film studio), 133
Shepperton Studios, 107, 108, 155, 161
Sherman, George, 38, 40
Shock (1946), 202
Shockwave (1996), 7
Sholem, Lee, 35, 40, 45
ShoWest Convention, 12, 13

Sim, Alastair, 189

Simmons, Jean, 109
Sims, Joan, 105
Sinatra, Frank, 39
Sincerely Yours (1955), 41
Singer Not the Song, The (1961), 158, 159
Singin in the Rain (1952), 188
Sir Francis Drake (television series), 50
Skelton, Red, 200
Skouras, Spyros, 220
Skull, The (1965), 73
Sleep (1963), 29
Sleeping City, The (1950), 38
Sleeping Dogs (1977), 225
Slocombe, Douglas, 69
Small Back Room, The (1949), 61
Smart, Ralph, 49, 50
Smith, Beaumont, 214
Smith, Jack, 30
Smith, Jim, 88, 92
Smith, Madeline, 166
Snazelle, Gregg, 210
Snow White (1938), 92
Soft Lights and Sweet Music (1936), 108
Solanas, Valerie, 33
Sommer, Elke, 50, 112, 113
Song of Bernadette (1943), 202
Sonnabend Gallery (Paris), 31
Sons and Lovers (1960), 77, 78, 79
Sony Pictures, 14
Sotto dieci bandiere (1961), 44
Sound of Music, The (1965), 216
Sous les toits de Paris (1930), 173
Spacey, Kevin, 7
Sparv, Camilla, 113
Speed (1994), 58
Sperber, Daniel, 102
Spielberg, Steven, 12, 96
Spooner, Dennis, 55, 56
Spm, Raymond, 92
Spmc (animation company), 82, 92, 94
Squire, Tony, 50
Stack, Robert, 42, 50
Stahl, John, 198
Stark, Ray, 66
Starship Troopers (1997), 209
Star Wars (1977), 128
Star Wars: Episode OneThe Phantom Menace (1999), 11, 12
Station Six Sahara (1963), 47, 50
Steel, Pippa, 166
Steiger, Rod, 72

Stein, Elliott, 5
Stepford Wives, The (1975), 59, 69
Sterngold, James, 10
Stevens, Mark, 38
Stevenson, Robert, 216
Stewart, Jimmy, 41
St. John, Earl, 110
Store, The (1983), 104
Story of Mankind, The (1957), 198
Straight Story (1999), 73
Stranger Left No Card, The (1952), 176, 178
80
Strategic Air Command (1955), 41
Straub, Jean-Marie, 185
Straw Dogs (1971), 216
Strick, Joseph, 216
Student Nurses (1970), 125
St. Valentines Day Massacre, The (1967),
124
Style, Michael, 167
Subotsky, Milton, 170, 171
Suicide (1965), 30
Sullivan, James, 214
Sunday Lovers (1980), 71
Survivor (television series), 3
Sutherland, Donald, 8, 9, 54
Swift, David, 64
Swingers (1996), 104
Sword and Sorcery, Ltd., 171
Syms, Sylvia, 159
Take a Girl Like You (1970), 98
Tale of Two Cities, A (1958), 105, 110
Tamahori, Lee, 213
Tanner, W. A., 215
Taradash, Dan, 145
Tarantino, Quentin, 7
Target Unknown (1951), 38
Tarr, George, 214
Taste of Honey, A (1961), 188
Tavel, Ron, 29, 30
Taxicab Confessions (television series), 3
Taylor, Gilbert, 54
Taylor, Ken, 48
Taylor, Rod, 113
Taylor, Ron, 78, 79, 177
Teckman Mystery, The (1954), 180
Te Kanawa, Kiri, 221
Te Kooti Trail (1927), 214
television, 2, 18, 40, 162, 163, 183; cable, 2,
4, 128, 129; network, 88, 128, 129; pay
per view, 3; public, 128, 129; satellite, 4

239
Index

240
Index

Ten Commandments, The (1956), 196, 204

Tenniel, John, 96
Ten Thousand Miles in the Southern Cross
(1922), 214
Terror, The (1963), 120
Test (1916), 214
Thatcher, Margaret, 103
Theatre of Blood (1973), 200
Then There Were Three (1961), 44, 45
Third Man, The (1949), 67
Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys, The (1964), 29
39 Steps, The (1959), 112
This Sporting Life (1963), 189
Thomas, Gerald, 105, 113, 114
Thomas, Jeremy, 115
Thomas, Jill, 115
Thomas, Kristin Scott, 72
Thomas, Ralph, 1, 10517
Thomas, Terry, 45, 172, 189
Thompson, J. Lee, 64, 65
Thorson, Linda, 54, 55
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), 216
Three Cases of Murder (1953), 177
Three Stooges, 82, 91
Thurman, Uma, 55
Tierney, Gene, 197, 201
Tierra Brutal (1962), 45
Tiger Bay (1958), 64
Tiger in the Smoke (1956), 152
Time Code (2000), 14
Timelock (1957), 58, 114
Timestalkers (1987), 52
Time Without Pity (1957), 73
Titanic II (web cartoon), 207, 209
Todd, Richard, 170
To Love a Maori (1972), 217
Tomahawk (1951), 38
Tom and Jerry (cartoon), 87
Tomb of Ligeia, The (1965), 200
Tone, Franchot, 113
Tootsie (1982), 186, 193
Top Secret! (1984), 207, 211
Torture Garden (1967), 73
Tourneur, Jacques, 35, 42, 43
Toye, Wendy, 1, 17484
Tracy, Spencer, 58
Trainspotting (1996), 58
Trash (1970), 24, 33
Treasury of American Art, A (Price), 200
Trent, John, 45
Trip, The (1967), 118, 124

Tripplehorn, Jeanne, 14
True as a Turtle (1956), 181
Truffaut, Franois, 218
Truth Lies Sleeping (Forbes), 63
Tucker, Forrest, 52
Turpin, Gerry, 54, 68, 69
Tutti a casa (1961), 44
Twain, Mark, 58
Twentieth CenturyFox, 118, 124, 125,
132, 143, 147, 196, 202, 220
Twice-Told Tales (1963), 203
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1982), 207, 210
11
Twist, Derek, 62
Two and Two Make Six (1962), 73
Two Cities Films, 140
Twohy, David, 7
Two Left Feet (1962), 161
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), 165
Ulmer, Edgar, 221
Ulysses (1967), 216
Unbearable Lightness of Being, The (1988),
72
Un Coeur en hiver (1992), 173
Under Ten Flags (1961), 44
United Artists, 125
Universal Studios, 40, 41, 60, 63, 76
Unsworth, Geoffrey, 111, 152, 156
Upstairs and Downstairs (1959), 112
Ustinov, Peter, 139
Valiant, The (1962), 160
Valid for Single Journey Only (television
play), 48
Vampire Lovers, The (1970), 132, 166
Vaughn, Robert, 56
Vault of Horror (1972), 172
Venetian Bird, The (1952), 105, 114
Venus of the South Seas (1924), 214
VHS format, 8
Via Margutta (1961), 42, 44
Victim (1961), 65
videocassettes, 6, 8
Villiers, James, 68
Vincent (1982), 197
Vinterberg, Thomas, 8
Vinyl (1965), 3031, 33
Von Richtofen and Brown (1971), 125
Wada, Warner, 209
Wagon and the Star (1936), 215

Wald, Jerry, 79
Walken, Christopher, 8
Wallace, Edgar, 57
Walsh, Kay, 140
Walsh, Raoul, 63
Walt Disney (studios), 51, 197
Walters, Thorley, 68
War Game, The (1966), 138
Warhol, Andy, 1, 2434, 200
Warhol Factory studios, 2633
Warner Brothers, 3, 55, 121
War Requiem (1989), 193
Warwick, Norman, 169
Wasp Woman, The (1960), 130
Watcher in the Woods (1980), 47, 51
Waterhouse, Keith, 160
Waterman, Dennis, 168
Watkins, Peter, 138
Weaker Sex, The (1948), 140
Weiler, Lance, 16
Welles, Orson, 67, 124
Wellington Film Society, 218
Werker, Alfred, 202
Whales of August, The (1987), 201
Whats Going on Now (television series),
98
When Harry Met Sally (1989), 193
While the City Sleeps (1956), 196, 203
Whisperers, The (1966), 59, 67
Whistle Down the Wind (1961), 59, 64, 65,
68
Whitehouse, A. H., 214
White Mans Burden (1995), 7
Who, The, 99
Wicking, Chris, 56
Widmark, Richard, 146
Wild Angels, The (1966), 118, 124
Wilder, Billy, 173
Wilder, Gene, 71

Wild One, The (1954), 216

William Morris Agency, 7
Williams, Anthony, 222
Williams, Hugh, 141
Williams, Kenneth, 105
Williams, Richard, 115
Williams, Tony, 224
Willis, Bruce, 7
Willis, Ted, 160
Wilson, Ian, 50
Wilson, Jimmy, 49
Wilson (1944), 197
Winters, Shelley, 39, 45
Winterstein, Frank, 50
Wintle, Julian, 53
Wise, Robert, 216
Wiseman, Frederick, 104
Witchfinder General (1968), 196, 205
Woman in the Rain (1976), 46
Wooden Horse, The (1950), 62
Woodfall-Bryanston Studios, 159
Woods, James, 9
Woolf, James, 79
World in His Arms, The (1952), 63
World Wide Web, 2, 6, 10
Woronov, Mary, 33
Wright, Tony, 153
Writers Guild, 60
Wrong Box, The (1966), 59, 68
Young, Gig, 38
Young at Heart (1954), 190
Young Man with a Horn (1950), 91
Young Mr. Pitt, The (1942), 177
Youre a Big Boy Now (1966), 121
Your Feets Too Big (1994), 207
Zanuck, Darryl, 132, 143, 145, 146, 150
Zanuck, Richard, 124

241
Index

Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Professor of Film, chair

of the Film Studies Program, and a professor of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. In addition, he is editor-in-chief of
the journal Quarterly Review of Film and Video and editor for the
State University of New York Presss Cultural Studies in Cinema/
Video series. His most recent books are The Second Century of Cinema: The Past and Future of the Moving Image (2000) and Film Genre
2000: New Critical Essays (2000).