EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema

emi films and the limits of british cinema

Paul Moody

EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema

Paul Moody

EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema

Paul Moody Brunel University London London, UK

ISBN 978-3-319-94802-7    ISBN 978-3-319-94803-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94803-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018954345 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: StudioCanal Cover design: Fatima Jamadar This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

This project began several years ago, and I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to the many people who have shared their comments and wisdom with me over this period. Of all the varied support I have had throughout the research and writing process, special thanks go to the following people, without whom this book would not have been possible. The advice, warmth, and enthusiasm of Joanna Hughes of the EMI Archive Trust was vital at the initial stages of the project, when the idea formed out of work I was conducting on early sound on film experiments at EMI; Massimo Moretti enabled me to take the project further with access to StudioCanal’s archive, and with his willingness to share his comprehensive knowledge of obscure EMI films over coffee at Pinewood; Louise Hilton, Jenny Romero, and the staff of the Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles provided me with access to Bryan Forbes’ private papers; Jonny Davies and the staff of the BFI Library and Special Collections Department patiently provided access to the wealth of resources at the BFI; Jacob Smith and Edward Lamberti arranged for me to access the files on every EMI film held by the British Board of Film Classification; Andrew Riley and Natasha Swainston provided access to the Bryan Forbes papers held by the Churchill Archives Centre; Phil Wickham provided access to the Don Boyd and Gavrik Losey papers held at the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, generously funded by its visiting researcher stipend scheme; my employer, Brunel University London, funded several research trips related to the project; Julian Petley provided many helpful comments on an early draft; and last but not least, Lina Aboujieb and Ellie Freedman of Palgrave Macmillan agreed to publish the v

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results of this labour and provided generous support throughout the production process (and the occasional deadline reminder when necessary!). Finally, none of this would have been possible without the support and love of my wife, Helen, who was subjected to some of the worst excesses of 1970s and 1980s British cinema during the research for this book.

Contents

1 Introduction   1 2 And Soon the Darkness  11 3 Elstree Falling  37 4 Mr Forbes and the Pen-Pushers  57 5 All the Way Up  83 6 The Likely Lad 103 7 Trick or Treat? 125 8 American Adventure 143 9 Honky Tonk Filmmaking 161 10 Memoirs of a Survivor 181

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Contents

11 Conclusion 205 Selected Bibliography 209 Index 213

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 5.1

Fig. 6.1

Fig. 7.1

Olga Georges-Picot and Roger Moore waiting to start filming a scene for one of EMI’s inaugural releases, The Man Who Haunted Himself. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd Lionel Jeffries directs the crowd of assembled extras during the final scene of EMI’s first commercial success, The Railway Children. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd Joseph Losey and Julie Christie on the set of The Go-Between, EMI’s first unanimous critical success. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd Bryan Forbes crouches pensively on the beach during the filming of The Raging Moon. His resignation would follow a few months later. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd Reg Varney gets his comeuppance at the hands of a fleet of new female bus drivers in On the Buses, EMI’s most commercially successful film that year and endemic of its perceived new low-brow direction under Nat Cohen. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd David Essex pulls a nonchalant rock star pose for a publicity still for Stardust, a film that would confirm to the EMI board that success in Britain alone was not a profitable commercial strategy. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd The set of Murder on the Orient Express, the film that confirmed EMI’s future transnational production strategy. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd

34 41 61 77

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Fig. 8.1

Michael Cimino directing Robert de Niro on the set of The Deer Hunter, which confirmed the critical and commercial success of Deeley and Spikings’ new international co-production policy. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd Fig. 9.1 The car crash at the end of Honky Tonk Freeway; an apt visual metaphor for the calamitous effect of the film on EMI’s ambitions. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd Fig. 10.1 Headmaster Brian Stimpson (John Cleese) leaves the assembly hall in disgrace in the final scene from EMI’s last release, Clockwise. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

And how will we be judged by history—God knows. I suppose they will think it was a sort of renaissance and—it’s the fate of revolutionaries to be absorbed of course—and I expect to be absorbed. If it’s a success I will be absorbed. If it’s a failure you are more likely to stand out. People remember failure more than they remember success in the long run.1 —Bryan Forbes, October 1969

Speaking at the start of what would become the most challenging chapter of his career, Bryan Forbes was sanguine about how his efforts would be viewed by history. If it worked, he expected to be mostly forgotten, but if he failed, he knew that this would probably mark the end of his involvement in British filmmaking. This is a book about the company Forbes worked for as Head of Production, EMI Films, and its impact on the British film industry of the 1970s and 1980s. From 1970 to its eventual demise in 1986, EMI would release many of the key works of 1970s and 1980s British cinema, ranging from popular family dramas like The Railway Children (Lionel Jeffries, 1970) through to arthouse oddities like Britannia Hospital (Lindsay Anderson, 1981), and was the largest film production and distribution company in Britain during these decades. However, EMI’s role in these productions has been recorded only ­marginally, as footnotes in autobiographies or general histories of British  Forbes, B. (30 October 1969) Transcript of unpublished interview with Bryan Forbes. Columbia/EMI/Warner Collection, Item 16. London: BFI. 1

© The Author(s) 2018 P. Moody, EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94803-4_1

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cinema. Like the company’s films, this book traverses many themes; it is a cultural history of EMI Films but also raises broader questions about the processes involved in the creation and the definition of a ‘national culture’. In so doing, it will also provide the first comprehensive analysis of the company’s output, assessing its contribution to British culture and asserting its position as a key part of British film history. That the need for this overview arises at all is the result of a critical neglect of the company and its films from most histories of British cinema. Therefore, taken at face value, it would appear from Forbes’ comments at the start of this chapter that he was a success—EMI Films has been, to use his phrase, mostly ‘absorbed’ into broader debates about filmmaking, with most of the attention paid to its films neglecting to mention the company or its involvement at all. EMI was not an Ealing, a Gainsborough, or a Hammer studios, British companies that are synonymous with the films they produced and have an established niche in the history of British filmmaking. EMI is an entirely different prospect, a film company that has not been included with these names because, firstly, it lacked an easily definable identity due to not being associated with a single genre and, secondly, over time, it was perceived to be making films that had more in common with Hollywood than they did with British culture and society. In many ways, it was a company that always struggled to define itself, and this book is an attempt to understand how and why this happened, and to aim to relocate it within the British filmmaking canon. There is a long history in British cinema studies of the neglect of certain genres, filmmakers, and aesthetics, the identification of which can be traced back to Alan Lovell’s 1972 article, ‘The Unknown Cinema of Britain’,2 and Julian Petley’s ‘The Lost Continent’3 in 1986, both of which, coincidently, neatly span the majority of the period that EMI was operating as a film company. Both articles in their own ways sought to expand the critical gamut of British film studies, moving away from what had, until then, been a conception of British cinema that associated it primarily with a tradition of realism and opened up critical approaches to British genre and fantasy films for the first time. But as John Hill warns in ‘Revisiting British Film Studies’, in reference to these two works:

 Lovell, A. (1972) ‘The unknown cinema of Britain’. Cinema Journal, 11(2), pp. 1–8.  Petley, J. (1986) ‘The lost continent’, in Barr, C. (ed.) All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema. London: BFI, pp. 98–119. 2 3

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The identification of the rhetoric of the ‘lost’ and ‘unknown’ with only certain kinds of British films … is now in danger of becoming an exhausted critical manoeuvre with very little actual purchase on what might legitimately be held to be ‘unknown’ or ‘undervalued’.4

Despite this note of caution, there is strong evidence that EMI has been elided from British cinema history, genuinely ‘lost’ from this debate and ‘unknown’ to most cinema scholars, despite producing work that would comfortably sit within both realist and fantasy traditions. Part of this neglect is due to the time in which these films were produced, with the 1970s being, until very recently, an ‘unknown’ decade in British cinema history. There has been a resurgence of interest in 1970s British cinema over the past decade, although this has been focused primarily on general overviews of notable productions or themes, such as Seventies British Cinema (Shail, 2008); British Culture and Society in the 1970s: The Lost Decade (Forster and Harper, 2010); Don’t Look Now: British Cinema in the 1970s (Newland, 2010); British Film Culture of the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure (Harper and Smith, 2011); Censoring the 1970s: The BBFC and the Decade that Taste Forgot (Barber, 2011); British Films of the 1970s (Newland, 2013); and The British Film Industry in the 1970s: Capital, Culture and Creativity (Barber, 2013). Robert Shail, in his pioneering 2008 work, Seventies British Cinema, argued that the reasons for the critical neglect of the decade up until that point included the fact that the ‘popular perception of the 1970s as “the decade that taste forgot” … includes a broad critical consensus that British cinema of the period was “generally of little interest apart from a few isolated films”’.5 Shail locates this neglect within the wider context of 1970s Britain, arguing that ‘a good deal of the turbulence that beset British film-making in these years can be related directly to the political and economic climate of the decade’,6 a view shared by many of the authors listed earlier. However, many of the specific problems that affected British filmmaking during this decade can be traced back to the 1960s. In 1968, 43 out of 49 British first features were wholly or partly US financed, but by 1970

4  Hill, J. (2010) ‘Revisiting British film studies’. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 7(2), pp. 299–310. 5  Shail, R. (2008) ‘Introduction’, in Shail, R. (ed.) Seventies British Cinema. London: Palgrave, p. xii. 6  Shail, R. (2008), p. xii.

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the figure was only 29 out of 44.7 Significant American investment had a long history in British filmmaking, since at least the 1930s, but the main driver for US interest in the industry was the establishment of the British Film Production Fund, more commonly known as the Eady Levy, in the 1950s. This tax on the price of cinema admission by what was initially a quarter of a penny per seat was directed back into a production fund for British films, and by 1967, it was generating $12.37  million per year.8 Films registered as British were eligible to apply to the fund for a rebate in proportion to how successful the film was at the box office, with the qualifying criteria resting mainly on the nationality of the majority of the cast and crew. Thus, many films funded by Hollywood qualified and were able to claim support from the fund.9 Structurally, it favoured commercially successful entertainment, and thus was appealing to Hollywood investors who could use this to support their British subsidiary companies. In addition, this incentivised Hollywood companies to make their films more appealing to British audiences, as films that were more successful in Britain would generate higher returns on investment.10 This, coupled with the explosion of interest in all things ‘London’ and the start of the ‘swinging sixties’, meant that Britain became a haven of American money, with Hollywood producers keen to capitalise on the zeitgeist of ‘cool Britannia’, exemplified by work such as the Beatles vehicle A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester, 1964), made with money from United Artists. As Margaret Dickinson and Sarah Street argue, ‘after 1961 it became increasingly difficult to define any part of the industry as British rather than Anglo-American’.11 But while this US investment provided a lot of work for British film crews in this period, it was fraught with danger. This was confirmed when, in 1969, after the major US studios suffered huge losses—MGM recording a loss of $35  million, Fox $36.8  million, and Warners $52  million12—it 7  Smith, J. (2008) ‘Glam, spam and Uncle Sam: Funding diversity in 1970s British film production’, in Shail, R. (ed.) Seventies British Cinema. London: Palgrave, p. 69. 8  Stubbs, J. (2009) ‘The Eady Levy: A runaway bribe? Hollywood production and British subsidy in the early 1960s’. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 6(1), p. 3. 9  Street, S. (2002) Transatlantic Crossings: British Feature Films in the USA. New York: Continuum, p. 169. 10  Stubbs, J. (2009), p. 7. 11  Dickinson, M. and Street, S. (1985) Cinema and State: The Film Industry and the British Government, 1927–1984. London: BFI Publishing, p. 238. 12  Murphy, R. (1986) ‘Under the shadow of Hollywood’, in Barr, C. (ed.) All Our Yesterdays. London: BFI, p. 65.

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became clear that investment in British production was an easy option to jettison for companies that were seeking extensive reduction in expenditure. MGM’s closure of its studios in Borehamwood and Universal’s closure of its British production programme were just two examples of the malaise that the British industry was now under, with the film technicians’ union, the Association of Cinematograph, Television, and Allied Technicians (ACTT), announcing in August 1969 that 70 per cent of its 12,000 members were either unemployed or under-employed.13 In the latter half of the 1960s, American investment in the British film industry was about £19 million per year, but after this mass withdrawal of investment, American capital counted for only £6 million per year on average throughout the 1970s.14 To rectify this, the Board of Trade enabled the National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC), which was funded by the Eady Levy, to increase its loans to producers from £6  million to £11  million. But by the end of 1971, the Conservative government decided to phase out the public funding of the NFFC, which had provided support for many of the films that the Americans did not want to touch, as well as encouraging the Americans to invest in the films they were interested in by providing co-finance.15 In future, the NFFC would have to fund productions from either the profit made on films it had supported or private investment partners, which changed its direction and approach to funding films significantly. As Andrew Higson argues, ‘State support for the commercial film industry in the 1970s was thus minimal and ineffective’,16 and as a consequence, the ‘British film economy could no longer support the production of popular films for the domestic market alone, which meant in effect that indigenous popular cultural forms no longer had a space in the public forum of cinema’.17 This was the context into which EMI arrived on the scene, with Forbes determined to mark a resurgence of an industry that had been used and then left to wither by its former US investors. Despite this abandonment, mainstream cinema in 1970s Britain was still ‘primarily character-

 The Annual Register (1970), p. 442.  Dickinson, M. and Street, S. (1985), p. 240. 15  The Annual Register (1971), p. 436. 16  Higson, A. (1994) ‘A diversity of film practices: Renewing British cinema in the 1970s’, in Moore-Gilbert, B. (ed.), The Arts in the 1970s: Cultural Closure, London: Routledge, p. 226. 17  Higson, A. (1994), p. 226. 13 14

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ized by its relationship to Hollywood’,18 and how EMI navigated this relationship fluctuated throughout the decade. EMI in the 1970s can perhaps best be viewed as a close equivalent to the Rank Organisation in the 1940s, which between 1941 and 1947 financed half of the films made in the UK and had a vast exhibition and distribution empire. It also paved the way for American co-production, by securing a 25 per cent stake in Universal Studios.19 EMI would have an even greater hold over the industry, producing over 70 per cent of the films made in Britain in the 1970s, and controlling the largest exhibition and distribution chain in the country. In addition, by the end of the decade it had become much more embedded in American co-productions than Rank had ever been able to. Of the top box office titles of the 1970s, EMI featured in almost every genre, and had at least one feature in the top 20 films at the UK box office each year. In 1971, 5 of its films featured in the top 20: On the Buses (Harry Booth, 1971), Percy (Ralph Thomas, 1971), The Railway Children (Lionel Jeffries, 1971), Tales of Beatrix Potter (Reginald Mills, 1971), and Up Pompeii (Bob Kellett, 1971); in 1972, Steptoe and Son (Cliff Owen, 1972), The Go-Between (Joseph Losey, 1971), Mutiny on the Buses (Harry Booth, 1972), and Up the Chastity Belt (Bob Kellett, 1972) all featured; in 1973, Lady Caroline Lamb (Robert Bolt, 1972), That’ll be the Day (Claude Whatham, 1973), Fear is the Key (Michael Tuchner, 1973), and Love Thy Neighbour (John Robins, 1973); in 1974 Stardust (Michael Apted, 1974); in 1975 Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet, 1974) and Stardust (again); in 1976 It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet (Eric Till, 1976); in 1977 Sweeney! (David Wickes, 1977); in 1978 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977), The Deep (Peter Yates, 1977), Convoy (Sam Peckinpah, 1978), and Warlords of Atlantis (Kevin Connor, 1978); and in 1979 The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978) and Death on the Nile (John Guillermin, 1978).20 In addition, Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile also featured in the top 20 British films at US cinemas in this decade, making $19.1  million and $8.8 million, respectively. It was a behemoth, but as these titles suggest, near the end of the 18  Newland, P. (2010) Don’t Look Now: British Cinema in the 1970s, London: Intellect, p. 14. 19  Macnab, G. (1993) J Arthur Rank and the Rise of the British Film Industry, London: Routledge, pp. 19–20. 20  Harper, S. and Smith, J. (2013) ‘Social Space’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (ed.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 269–274.

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decade its financial success took it in a direction that was unique for a British film company at that time—financing and producing large-budget American films. It is because of this that EMI, of all British film companies, is especially problematic when attempting to locate it within a national cinematic tradition. When conceptualising national cinema, several arguments commonly have been put forward to define it. First, and most frequent, could be termed the industrial arguments, in that they focus on specific, factual data relating to the economic and production origins of a specific film, such as the proportion of the workforce that can identify as British, or the nature of the film’s financial arrangements. This is a useful starting point, as it provides easily verifiable data and has most often been the key determinant in any government-funded support schemes or tax breaks. But there are several issues with this, most notably the inability to assess the film’s content via this measure. As John Hill argues, if this approach is followed to its logical conclusion, it is ‘quite possible to conceive of a British film industry, making films in Britain and employing British nationals, which is none the less not making recognizable British films’.21 For Hill, this objection means that the main determinant of a national cinema is therefore an assessment of a film’s cultural complexion; in other words, whether it engages with British stories, culture, and society.22 Referring to My Beautiful Launderette (Stephen Frears, 1985) and Passion of Remembrance (Maureen Blackwood & Isaac Julien, 1986), Hill argues that it is quite possible to conceive of a national cinema, in the sense of one which works with or addresses nationally specific materials, which is none the less critical of inherited notions of national identity, which does not assume the existence of a unique or unchanging ‘national culture’, and which is quite capable of dealing with social divisions and differences.23

He therefore opens up the possibility for a plurality of approaches to what may constitute a ‘national’ cinema, incorporating many different stories, styles, locations, and languages, amongst other aspects, which together paint a richer picture of British cinema. This is where a company 21  Hill, J. (1992) ‘The issue of national cinema and British film production’, in Petrie, D. (ed.) New Questions of British Cinema. London: BFI, pp. 10–11. 22  Hill, J. (1992), p. 11. 23  Hill, J. (1992), p. 16.

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like EMI, which adopted several different strategies and styles throughout its existence, can start to find its position within the wider history of British filmmaking. But while this approach is satisfactory for films that have obvious connections to ‘Britishness’, even if existing on the margins of what would commonly be accepted as part of the ‘national’ culture, EMI remains problematic because of its long tradition of financing films made in America, which primarily focused on American stories, locations, and characters. One of the questions posed by this book is whether we should regard this as a fissure in EMI’s connection to British cinema, or whether it is possible to conceive of this period as part of a continuation of the company’s broader output, even considering it as a contribution to British filmmaking. Andrew Higson offers one potential way out of this conundrum. Criticising the overreliance on the text as the primary signifier of a film’s connection to national culture, he argues that ‘the parameters of a national cinema should be drawn at the site of consumption as much as the site of production of films’24 explicitly bringing into contention the role that audiences play in the construction of this culture. He therefore rejects the top-down approach that favours the intentions of the filmmaker and acknowledges ‘the activity of national audiences and the conditions under which they make sense of and use the films they watch’.25 As Hill correctly identifies, a criticism of this approach is that it suggests that British cinema could encompass some Hollywood films, ‘because these are the films which are primarily used and consumed by British national audiences’.26 While this leads Hill to reject the idea, Higson’s argument, that one should consider the views of audiences when assessing a film’s place in the national canon, is persuasive. Higson was identifying the popular conception of films such as the James Bond franchise, which while incorporating elements of American finance and production talent, are still perceived to be authentically ‘British’ by most audiences. It is possible to extend this analysis to EMI’s ‘American’ period, during which the company routinely was presented in the press as a ‘British’ success story and was always referred to as a ‘British’ film company. While it would be contrary to this book’s empirical approach to speculate as to how audiences responded to this, it would not be stretching credulity to imagine that British audiences could  Higson, A. (1989) ‘The concept of national cinema’. Screen, 30(4), p. 36.  Higson, A. (1989), p. 36. 26  Hill, J. (1992), p. 14. 24 25

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have consumed with pride, for example, The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1979), as a successful ‘British’ film, considering that they would have been told relentlessly about the company’s involvement in the film by the media. In fact, the chapter in this book on EMI’s ‘American’ films explores precisely this sort of reaction from the then head of the British Board of Film Censors, James Ferman. But arguably a more elegant approach to this topic is to consider EMI as a ‘transnational’ film company. Higson first applied the concept of the ‘transnational’ to British cinema over 25 years ago, yet it remains a contested and ill-defined idea, with Mette Hjort arguing that ‘to date, the discourse of cinematic transnationalism has been characterized less by competing theories and approaches than by a tendency to use the term “transnational” as a largely self-evident qualifier requiring only minimal conceptual clarification’.27 Of the work that has been done in this area, only Higson and Ian Christie have attempted to apply the concept to the context of film production in Britain, with Christie highlighting the debate as a ‘conundrum that sits problematically among film history, post-­ structural theory, and the operations of contemporary media policy’.28 In essence, transnational approaches to the study of cinema are open to the many different international interactions, connections, and influences that confer on a cinematic text and critically engage with how these film-making activities negotiate with the national on all levels— from cultural policy to financial sources, from the multiculturalism of difference to how [transnationalism] reconfigures the nation’s image of itself.29

This book is the first study of the entire output of a ‘transnational’ film company, as well as being the first study of the ‘transnational’ applied to film production in the context of 1970s and 1980s Britain. Throughout this study, it asks the broader question ‘where does “national” cinema end and “transnational” cinema begin?’, or in other words, ‘what are the limits of British cinema?’. It is structured in broadly chronological chapters that 27  Hjort, M. (2010) ‘On the Plurality of Cinematic Transnationalism’, in Durovicová, N. and Newman, K. (eds.) World Cinema, Transnational Perspectives. London: Routledge, pp. 12–13. 28  Christie, I. (2013) ‘Where is national cinema today (and do we still need it)?’. Film History, 25(1–2), p. 19. 29  Higbee, W. and Lim, S. (2010) ‘Concepts of transnational cinema: towards a critical transnationalism in film studies’, Transnational Cinemas, 1(1), p. 18.

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explore the company under its four main production heads during its existence. There are occasional overlaps, especially when charting EMI’s early years, when effectively it consisted of two production departments headed by Bryan Forbes and Nat Cohen respectively. It is primarily a textual study, with every film produced by EMI receiving attention. However, as a product of empirical research, this analysis is supported by archival documents from a range of sources, which help to explain the production processes and decision-making that led to the development of these films, and hopefully elucidate the unique position that EMI Films has in British Cinema history.

CHAPTER 2

And Soon the Darkness

The first hint of EMI’s entry into film production came in a short series of paragraphs in its Annual Report of 1968. A one-page feature presented Lew and Leslie Grade’s The Grade Organisation Limited as ‘a new addition to the EMI group’ and, after proclaiming that company’s previous involvement with films such as The Young Ones (Sidney J Furie, 1961), Summer Holiday (Peter Yates, 1963), and Alfie (Lewis Gilbert, 1966), it announced that ‘there are plans to increase this activity further in future’.1 EMI owned 25 per cent of the shares of the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC)2 and, by 1969, it transpired that these plans were to purchase ABPC outright. EMI’s announcement to the press positioned this merger as part of its wider entertainment empire, stating: To complete the task of integrating ABPC into the EMI methods of operation will prove a long and complicated job and we welcome all their employees into the EMI Group which, with The Grade Organisation and The Blackpool Tower Company, now becomes the largest entertainment organisation in the country, and a worthy partner to our world gramophone record business.3

 EMI Annual Report (1968). London: EMI, p. 10.  EMI Annual Report (1968), p. 37. 3  EMI Annual Report (1969). London: EMI, p. 3. 1 2

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This move had been instigated by Bernard Delfont, the theatrical impresario who had been brought into the EMI fold with the acquisition of the Grade Organisation—it was a stipulation of the takeover that Delfont assumed charge of operations, on account of his brother Leslie’s ill health.4 Delfont had orchestrated the buyout of Warner’s shares in ABPC, as preparation for a more significant move further down the line. While the prevailing view was that staying with the existing ABPC offer would result in a share price of a few more shillings per share than what EMI was prepared to pay,5 the general belief amongst shareholders was that, on balance, it was wiser to accept EMI’s offer of £63 million and the security (and potential future financial rewards) that could result from being part of a larger entertainment empire. As EMI had purchased its 25 per cent from Warner Brothers, there was also a compelling case for the more patriotically inclined shareholders that the acquisition would ensure that the company remained British, and not only in the short term. With EMI being in a much stronger position than ABPC financially, it was more likely to be able to withstand any approaches from the USA in the future. With all these considerations noted, ABPC’s shareholders decided to accept the offer and, overnight, the company that had made its name in the music industry was now the biggest film company in Britain. ABPC was a substantial addition to EMI’s portfolio, as it brought with it opportunities to leverage EMI’s existing music business directly into film production, not only by easier access to traditional musicians for scores, but also via crossover films in the Elvis Presley/Cliff Richard mould, that could appeal to a teenage audience. But most importantly, ABPC provided a production base in Elstree Studios, and a wide-reaching exhibition and distribution empire which would, in theory, help EMI establish the type of vertical integration that had served Hollywood so well and also had been adopted by what was now EMI’s only commercial rival in Britain, the Rank Organisation. In addition, it was a business that was working—five months after EMI acquired the company, ABPC had accrued a £2 million profit, which accounted for 10 per cent of the total profit for EMI that year. This success convinced EMI that film production could be a potential goldmine, and it committed to a reorganisation of the company’s management structure to facilitate its new venture. Sir Joseph Lockwood retired as Chief Executive and handed over control to the 4 5

 Delfont, B. (1990). East End, West End. London: Macmillan, p. 173.  Bull, J. (16 January 1969). ‘Portfolio.’ The Spectator, p. 23.

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group’s UK Managing Director, John Read, who divided the company into four new areas of operations: ‘Gramophone Records’; ‘Electronic and Industrial Operations’; ‘Television’; and ‘Entertainment’; the latter of which incorporated its new film production activities. As Head of Entertainment at EMI, Delfont was now the most powerful man in the UK film business, and he had to act quickly to secure a respected industry figure who could develop EMI’s slate of new films. It was at this point that Delfont happened upon the respected actor, producer, and director, Bryan Forbes, over dinner at an industry event. Delfont asked if they could meet the following morning so that he could draw on his expertise, and he asked Forbes to write up his thoughts on how film production at the new company could work. Impressed by what he heard, and seeing in Forbes a man who could put on screen the same ‘family entertainment’ values that Delfont held dear, he swiftly offered him the role of Head of Production.6 Forbes recalls in his autobiography, that his wife, the actress Nanette Newman, had serious misgivings about him taking the role, mainly due to the effect it would have on their family life, but also because she was aware of the risk to his professional reputation if it did not work out.7 But after a week of soul searching, Forbes came to the conclusion that ‘it would be an act of supreme hypocrisy to continue as a passionate critic of our native industry in the knowledge that I had passed up an opportunity to do something positive about its obvious ailments’.8 Thus, in EMI’s Annual Report of 1969, Delfont would welcome Bryan Forbes, who has joined our organization with the project of making top class British films at Elstree with British producers, directors, script writers and actors, and backed, what is more, by British finance.9

As this press release was eager to demonstrate, both Delfont and Forbes appreciated that this was a momentous opportunity not only to establish EMI as a major player in the film industry, but also a major player that was explicitly British, in both composition and output. EMI’s Annual Report was not over-exaggerating when it said that this was ‘the most important attempt to revive the fortunes of the British film industry for many years’,10  Forbes, B. (1992). A Divided Life. London: Mandarin, p. 60.  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 60. 8  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 60. 9  EMI Annual Report (1969), 9. 10  EMI Annual Report (1969), 9. 6 7

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and Delfont believed that he had found the man who could balance both the commercial and critical pressures that this statement implied, agreeing to Forbes bringing his production consultants John Hargreaves and Austin Frazer, and his secretary, Margaret Reeves, with him.11 However, unbeknownst to Forbes, the merger with ABPC came packaged with a destabilising element that would have long-lasting implications not only for the fledgling company, but also for Forbes’ career. It is because of this that when his tenure at EMI is mentioned, it is remembered, as Forbes had predicted, only because it was seen to be a failure. For as part of EMI’s acquisition of ABPC, it also became owners of 75 per cent of the company’s subsidiary group, Anglo-Amalgamated, under the chairmanship of Nat Cohen, who was to remain in post as part of the deal. Anglo-­ Amalgamated was in rude health in 1969, with the company ‘more than doubling its profits’,12 and by November that year, EMI would purchase the remaining shares and rechristen it Anglo-EMI.13 Within a year of launching, EMI had established itself as the largest interest in the British film industry, but, by allowing Nat Cohen to continue running Anglo-­ EMI as a separate division to Forbes’ EMI Films, Delfont opened up a clear rivalry between the two which would fester over the next two years and was ultimately unsustainable. Forbes had an established artistic reputation and a modicum of critical success at EMI, but over time, it was Cohen’s division that brought the company the majority of its profits. Forbes’ downfall was sealed even before he had first walked into his new office in Golden Square. Forbes announced EMI Film’s plans for its first releases in a glossy publicity brochure at the end of 1969. The slate was eclectic, although listed many productions that were never to see the light of day. Two-page spreads were afforded to posters of The Man Who Haunted Himself (Basil Dearden, 1970), The Go-Between (Joseph Losey, 1971), And Soon the Darkness (Robert Fuest, 1970), The Railway Children (Lionel Jeffries, 1970), Hoffman (Alvin Rakoff, 1970), Dulcima (Frank Nesbitt, 1970), Mr Forbush and the Penguins (Al Viola, 1970), and The Breaking of Bumbo (Andrew Sinclair, 1970), all of which would eventually make their way into cinemas. But there were several others that were not so fortunate: A Fine and Private Place, from the story by A.E. Coppard and to be directed  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 64.  EMI Annual Report (1969), 9. 13  EMI Annual Report (1970). London: EMI, p. 10. 11 12

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by Paul Watson, would enter production but was abandoned by Forbes before it had even got through half of its schedule; The Barnado Boys was a Forbes project that never got off the ground; Dennis Barker’s script from his novel A Candidate of Promise, John Quigley’s script from his ‘savagely arresting’ novel The Bitter Lollipop, and Julian Bond’s A Question of Innocence, from a story by Roger Moore, did not go beyond development; nor did an original screenplay by Richard Condon, ‘the result of a half hour conversation with Bryan Forbes’, which would ‘undoubtedly’ be ‘one of the most outstanding features produced in 1970’; and the ‘late extra’, The Feathers of Death, from a story by Simon Raven and to be directed by Richard Attenborough, also failed to make it into British cinemas.14 The failure to produce this last project was described by Forbes as ‘perhaps my greatest disappointment’,15 which demonstrates the deep personal involvement he had in each of these  films, and also the catastrophic mistake of announcing the release schedule before all of them had been put into production—a crucial error that immediately tinged the whole endeavour with a hint of failure. However, these were only the projects that were publically advertised, and Forbes’ own notes from this period featured an undated list of films with proposed budgets, which included The Living Room (based on the novel by Graeme Greene and to be directed by Michael Powell) at £285,000, Ned Kelly (budgeted at £830,000 and which would be made in 1970 by Woodfall Films), Dear Jesus (budgeted at £160,000 and based on an idea by Roger Moore), Judith (£250,000), and A Promising Candidate (£300,000), none of which went into production by EMI.16 Of a total budget of £3,000,000 for eight films, the only two from this initial list to be produced were The Go-Between (£600,000) and The Man Who Haunted Himself, which while its budget was not listed, would have had £275,000 left from the total pot.17 What is clear from this note is that, from the start, this was very much Forbes’ vision, and that he was designing a programme based on his conception of what a modern British film company should be. In his first interview as Head of Production, Forbes stated ‘I think a film is a very  EMI Films Publicity Brochure (1969). London: EMI.  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 106. 16  Forbes, B. (Undated, circa June 1969). ‘Projects for 1969/1970.’ Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 17  Forbes, B. ‘Projects for 1969/1970.’ 14 15

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personal statement—or good films usually are—and I think it’s a mistake to make a film by committee even if it can be made by committee’.18 Forbes’ approach was highly influenced by Earl St John, former Executive Producer at Rank who had overall responsibility for the delivery of films at the company. ‘When eventually I occupied a similar position at EMI [to St John at Rank]’, Forbes would recall, ‘I often found myself thinking, “How would Earl have handled this situation?”’.19 St John had a reputation for being a showman, more effective in developing Rank’s business than he was a creative force, as similarly to Nat Cohen, St John’s background was in cinema exhibition before joining Rank in a more production-facing role. But Forbes felt that St John was a man of integrity with a genuine interest in the art of cinema, drawing a distinction between St John and Cohen, and aligning himself with the former: He loved films, even bad films, and now when the industry is mostly in control of men who treat films as just another commodity (‘No different’, as Mr Nat Cohen remarked in an interview in The Guardian in 1973, ‘from the manufacture of shoes, or any other product’) one realizes what a giant Earl was.20

This vision can be distilled into three main strands, which would colour Forbes’ initial production slate and the template for what would become an ‘EMI’ film in its first half-decade. Unsurprisingly, considering Forbes’ theatrical background, the first aspect of his strategy was one that was inextricably tied to the role of the actor, and of the origins of the story, arguably building on a strong tradition throughout the history of British cinema. Questioned as to his approach, he stated that ‘I think people like being entertained. … And I think what people remember is not technique, they remember great performances. … They think of good stories.’21 Of course, this approach also had an element of pragmatism to it, with Forbes conscious of the financial constraints he was working under, and therefore the second aspect of his vision was to produce several productions under what was perceived to be a sustainable, moderate budget; films that were 18  Undated interview with Bryan Forbes. Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 19  Forbes, B. (1974). Notes for a Life. London: William Collins Sons & Co, p. 259. 20  Forbes, B. (1974), p. 259. 21  Undated interview with Bryan Forbes. Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library.

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heavily driven by the story and the performances, and therefore did not require an epic scale and commensurate financial backing. This did not mean that the films themselves would necessarily be of inferior quality— like the dreaded ‘quota quickies’ before them that had maligned British production in the eyes of both the public and critics for decades—but they were not designed to be lavish, Hollywood-level productions. As Forbes put it, the intention was not to ‘make cheap films but to make economically cheaper films because it’s the only way this industry can be viable’ [my italics].22 This also chimed with the prevailing conservatism that had swept Britain at the start of the 1970s, after what was perceived to have been a period of largesse, both economically and morally, at the end of the ‘permissive’ 1960s, and which would ultimately lead to the election of Edward Heath in June 1970, soon after Forbes had started at EMI. Forbes was a prominent Conservative and had been working with Heath on a Conservative Party campaign film a few months before his appointment at EMI. Heath had written to Forbes on 3 March 1969 to thank him for a preview screening of Forbes’ most recent directorial effort, The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969), saying that he hoped it ‘exceeds even the success accorded to our efforts on the Party Political’,23 a reference to a party political broadcast that Forbes had scripted and would present himself in the weeks leading up to the general election, in which he said he had felt compelled to switch from Labour because they were ‘a group of men who betrayed themselves and us by putting a higher priority on the means of gaining and retaining power’.24 On 19 June 1970, the day after his election victory, Heath would send Forbes a signed copy of the front page splash on the Evening Standard proclaiming his success, and thanking Forbes for his involvement.25 Heath would continue to be a regular guest at the Forbes household, even after his elevation to Prime Minister, and Forbes and Newman would spend Christmas at Chequers and help Heath to procure a selection of British films to watch while he was relaxing

22  Undated interview with Bryan Forbes. Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 23  Letter from Ted Heath to Bryan Forbes (3 March 1969). Bryan Forbes Papers, London: Churchill Archives. 24  Transcript of Bryan Forbes’ Party Political Broadcast (9 June 1970). Bryan Forbes Papers. London: Churchill Archives. 25  Signed copy of the Evening Standard from Ted Heath to Bryan Forbes (19 June 1970). Bryan Forbes Papers. London: Churchill Archives.

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there over the winter recess.26 Forbes’ conservative mentality also came with a heavy dose of patriotism, and the final aspect of his vision was to draw a sharp distinction between the films produced by his division and those emanating from Hollywood—hence, explicitly presenting these works as uniquely British. This is not to say that Forbes was averse to commercial Hollywood cinema, or the influence of Hollywood on the British film industry; on the contrary, he would go on record as saying I don’t think we should be snotty about the American intervention and the American participation because … if the American majors had not financed us for the last ten years there would be no British industry left to revitalise— it would have vanished off the face of the earth.27

But Forbes’ stated aim was to ‘either put up or shut up a great many of us who have been talking about the lack of a British film industry for many years and decrying the fact’,28 a project which saw an explicit nod towards producing authentically British cinema as opposed to that which had been financed by the USA over recent years. However, when he arrived at EMI he was greeted with a sharp reminder of why the British film industry had faltered in recent years, including a series of major problems at EMI’s new production studios at Elstree, and a management board who wanted to offload staff as quickly as possible. Unlike Pinewood, Elstree was in the middle of a busy residential area, and thus did not have as much space as its more illustrious counterpart. But even with this lack of space, it had still been under-utilised for many years. Forbes recalled that he ‘inherited an understandably disgruntled workforce, a run-down studio complex and a board that displayed little or no understanding of what I wanted to accomplish’,29 and his private papers outline a series of issues with the set up at Elstree in 1969. In one of his first actions as Head of Production, he commissioned his production assistant, Austin Frazer, to write a review of practices at the studio. This report identified several issues with the production departments, with withering assessments of the camera division in particular, stating that ‘there had been more meetings with the studio manager to 26  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Ted Heath (7 December 1970). Bryan Forbes Papers. London: Churchill Archives. 27  Undated interview with Bryan Forbes. 28  Undated interview with Bryan Forbes. 29  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 99.

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complain about this department than any other’.30 The property section was branded ‘chaotic’, and it was deemed that a ‘complete breakdown [of this area] would not be impossible’.31 The cooperation between the studio garage and productions was ‘nil’ and there was an ‘acute shortage of dressing rooms’, although ‘probably the weakest department in the studio’ was personnel, which was ‘at the whim of the Works Committee who really run the studio labour as they see fit’,32 a nod to what would become an increasingly vexatious clash between companies and unions throughout the 1970s. Forbes’ handwritten notes on this document included an assessment that ‘labour relations [are] non-existent … general apathy in all departments … average age of workers is 55 … look closely at camera department—very dubious about this department’.33 These issues were not merely confined to a lack of communication between departments or poor management—basic facilities were not up to standard. A letter to Forbes in August 1969 identified that Elstree had inadequate medical provision, with personnel having to travel from the studio to the head office at Golden Square in Soho to see the company doctor, and collated statements from staff involved in an argument after work demonstrate that his role even extended to dealing with minor drunken scuffles,34 an account that he recalls as ending with him firing the two men with immediate effect.35 As Forbes remembered it, ‘some of the stage roofs were falling in, the backlot resembled a bomb site, littered with scrap wood, discarded sets and squalid debris of every conceivable nature’,36 and that he ‘expected a disaster area … but I hadn’t been prepared for a Hiroshima’.37 But despite identifying these issues, he managed only to secure £80,000 for refurbishment, ‘just enough to paint and tart up what existed’.38 30  ‘General Notes on Working Conditions at Elstree Studios’ (20 February 1969). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 31  ‘General Notes on Working Conditions at Elstree Studios.’ 32  ‘General Notes on Working Conditions at Elstree Studios.’ 33  ‘General Notes on Working Conditions at Elstree Studios.’ 34  Letter from David Sacks to Bryan Forbes (27 August 1969). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 35  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 67. 36  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 65. 37  Walker, A. (1986). Hollywood, England: The British Film Industry in the Sixties (2nd Edition). London: Harrap, p. 429. 38  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 105.

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He was also facing opposition from EMI as to the role of his closest confidants. Forbes was concerned that Austin Frazer was being asked to do too much, writing to EMI’s solicitor to firm up the terms of his contract, as while he had been appointed as a general production consultant on a retainer of £6000, he had been drawn into overseeing 31 major projects across the company and had produced the brochure for the initial slate—in Forbes’ view, a full-time job which he was only being paid part-­time hours for.39 His disillusionment with the bureaucracy he was facing was evident from this correspondence, with his complaint to the solicitor that ‘I want to make pictures and not get dragged down into the Borehamwood bog. At the end of the year I would consider myself to have failed if most of the activities I am dealing with now were still on my plate.’40 However, Forbes’ private papers provide many examples of the stultifying reality of Elstree, with one letter outlining how he had managed to arrange for a wooden sign to be erected outside the studio, only to then have to approve a more permanent illuminated sign unofficially, as he did not have any provision to do this in his capital expenditure budgets. He then had to ask whether he was able to order note paper, as it was unclear whether the company was formally incorporated by then or not.41 Even by March 1970, he was still having to respond to the ACTT shop steward to say he was ‘profoundly depressed’ to receive a memo from him complaining about Elstree’s canteen facilities, adding that the free tea Forbes had introduced was ‘superior and fresher and hotter than used to be served in urns’.42 But this being Forbes, his response was also contextualised within a wider assessment of the industry, arguing that ‘since May of last year, it has been obvious to all but a small minority that the film industry has been moving steadily towards the worst crisis in living memory’.43 Responses to a memorandum Forbes sent to the various heads of department, merely confirmed his worse fears, with workers complaining that they were demoralised due to lack 39  Letter from Bryan Forbes to EMI’s solicitors (29 August 1969). Personnel Files, Bryan Forbes and John Hargreaves. London: StudioCanal. 40  Letter from Bryan Forbes to EMI’s solicitors (23 September 1969). Personnel Files, Bryan Forbes and John Hargreaves. London: StudioCanal. 41  Letter from Bryan Forbes to James McDonald (6 May 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 42  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Elstree’s ACT Shop Steward (2 March 1970). Personnel Files, Bryan Forbes and John Hargreaves. London: StudioCanal. 43  Letter from Forbes to Elstree’s ACT Shop Steward (2 March 1970).

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of work, with many staff idle throughout the day because it was too expensive for productions to use their services. But equally, they did not want to apply for voluntary redundancy due to the lack of work across the industry.44 In addition, half of the department heads were within five years of retirement age, and Forbes was also unconvinced by the senior management team he had inherited, especially by the studio manager, William Launder, and an early retirement package was swiftly arranged.45 Forbes wrote to the publicity department to advise the trade press that Launder had resigned from his post as Studio general manager46—which prompted a series of rumours to fly around Elstree as to who would be ‘resigned’ next. This was exacerbated when Hargreaves confirmed that the company’s ‘no redundancy’ policy would have to be revisited and that they would be starting a compulsory retirement policy once workers had reached 65, although this was also in keeping with changes that were happening in workplaces across the country.47 On 7 November, 1969, Forbes typed up several redundancy letters himself at his home, based on the list he had discussed with Hargreaves. The gravity of this situation, not only on the lives of his staff, but also his feeling of responsibility to the industry as a whole, is summed up in Forbes’ typically grandiose fashion in a letter to the Head of Construction, in which he says that ‘I must look both to the immediate future and the middle future, which will determine—and it is no exaggeration—the whole future of the industry as we know it’.48 But he found that even in this regard, he was struggling against the barriers that EMI’s bureaucratic machine put in place. Time and time again, he would discover that the staff being made redundant had been led to believe that their private pension would be more generous than what was eventually offered, and this caused a great deal of discontent and distress, at a time when he had hoped to be concentrating on the output of his new slate of films. And 44  Undated memo from head of plastering department to Bryan Forbes. Personnel Files, Bryan Forbes and John Hargreaves. London: StudioCanal. 45  Undated handwritten note by Forbes. Personnel Files, Bryan Forbes and John Hargreaves. London: StudioCanal. 46  Letter from Forbes to David Jones (4 November 1969). Personnel Files, Bryan Forbes and John Hargreaves. London: StudioCanal. 47  Minutes from Joint Works Committee Meeting (22 January 1971). Personnel Files, Bryan Forbes and John Hargreaves. London: StudioCanal. 48  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Elstree’s Head of Construction (7 November 1969). Personnel Files, Bryan Forbes and John Hargreaves. London: StudioCanal.

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when he tried to mitigate these fears, by offering work on a temporary basis, this would often also be thwarted by factors outside of his control. For example, after making associate producer Gordon Scott redundant, Forbes offered to bring him back on a film-by-film basis, first offering him a role on The Living Room—which was soon aborted. He subsequently offered him a role on Mr Forbush and the Penguins, but then discovered that as this came to EMI via British Lion, it already had a producer attached to it. To make matters worse, he had to ask Scott to vacate his production office at Elstree immediately, to accommodate the latest production they had acquired, The Go-Between, for as this was cofunded by MGM, it also already had a producer attached to it.49 The perilous employment situation at Elstree was exacerbated by the number of films that collapsed before they got to the production stage, despite Forbes’ enthusiasm for them. The first such project to be discussed at length by Forbes was first mentioned very early into his tenure, in November 1969, in a letter to John Read: I would like to mention a project of great importance, namely, The Long Loud Silence, about which I feel very bullish. It will require in my opinion at least £1 million and therefore, obviously we must secure a suitable partner.50

Forbes’ first choice for that partner was United Artists, and he had already discussed the project with a contact there, David Picker. The film was set in the fictional US town of Fort Shadrack, where a truck carrying a lethal chemical virus runs off the road, causing the chemical to seep into a nearby river. With echoes of John Wyndham’s novel The Day of the Triffids (1951), Sergeant James Cary wakes up in a hotel room with a hangover and discovers the townsfolk are dead. He meets a hysterical woman called Myra, and they form an alliance in this new post-apocalyptic world. Cary tries to escape the town, which is quarantined, but leaves a trail of death in his wake and realises that he is carrying the infectious disease that has been caused by the chemical spillage. On return to the town, he is killed by Myra, who is pregnant with their unborn child and wants to avoid the disease being transmitted any further. Because of the nature of 49  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Elstree’s Head of Construction (1 August 1969). Personnel Files, Bryan Forbes and John Hargreaves. London: StudioCanal. 50  Letter to John Read from Bryan Forbes (22 November 1969). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library.

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the story, it had to be shot in the USA, and as Forbes identified, union rules meant that this would require the use of an American crew.51 Work on the project had already started, with Forbes stating that the unnamed director working on the project had ‘brought back some staggering stills’ from a recce and had secured ‘very exciting permissions from the governor of the State in question and the local town worthies’.52 The director had found a bridge scheduled for demolition and the American authorities had agreed to hold back, but only if EMI paid $15,000 by 3 December 1969. Forbes was convinced that they should pay, arguing that ‘this could be a very big film indeed, dealing as it does with today’s headlines about germ warfare’.53 He finished with the rallying call: Miracles do happen in the film industry and one box office winner can carry five average films. I hope that our product will never be less than excellent and that whatever the results we will not be ashamed of what comes out of Elstree.54

Unfortunately for Forbes, this enthusiasm did not translate to the EMI board, which produced a script report before making its investment decision. The report called the script an ambitious and expensive project … but I think it was dealt with in a rather more realistic, interesting and more solidly motivated vein in a subject entitled ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’ that Allen Klein was going to produce about four years ago. … In this script I find a number of holes in the construction of the story that must be put right before the project is taken any further.55

The board then sat on the project for a year and a half before finally deciding not to pursue it in September 1971. This pattern was repeated with another production first discussed in 1969, in a memo from Geoff Jones to Forbes. The memo listed several scenarios, including a biopic of the newspaper editor WT Stead entitled ‘The Girl in the Red Silk Dress’,  Letter to John Read from Bryan Forbes (22 November 1969).  Letter to John Read from Bryan Forbes (22 November 1969). 53  Letter to John Read from Bryan Forbes (22 November 1969). 54  Letter to John Read from Bryan Forbes (22 December 1969). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 55  Script Report for The Long, Loud Silence (2 March 1970). London: BFI Special Collections. 51 52

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all of which were struck through by Forbes, except for the scenario for a biopic of the renowned Second World War Royal Air Force pilot Leonard Cheshire, entitled ‘Cheshire, VC’, by John Roast.56 Forbes had been presented the script, and Roast had discussed the lead role with Peter O’Toole (although inexplicably Sid James and John Blythe were also interested).57 Jones’ assessment was negative, arguing that within the compass of some fifteen pages of an extremely rudimentary outline, the author has suggested a very tenuous framework for a film biography of Group-Captain Leonard Cheshire, VC. … I have always felt that an outstanding film might very well be made about Cheshire, who is an incomparably more complex and interesting character than the one which emerges in the present superficial outline.58

Jones explains how he met Cheshire some years ago while convalescing from an operation, and was handed a series of tapes which outlined his life story in a fashion ‘far removed from the conventional gush of Reach for the Sky [Lewis Gilbert, 1956] and similar films’.59 But he returned the tapes, concerned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act, although retained the personal passages that could be used. Cheshire had granted full rights in return for help with what Jones labelled ‘characteristic quixotism’; namely, the production of a documentary on the Turin shroud.60 Forbes rejected the project on 14 October, claiming that the first period of production was underway and therefore EMI was being even more selective, and this project did not enthuse enough.61 Roast replied to Forbes later that year to pitch the project again as a cross between The Longest Day (Ken Annakin, 1962) and a ‘Carry On’ film, and asking for ten minutes of his time.62 But after receiving a note from Jones saying that

56  Untitled memo from Geoff Jones to Bryan Forbes (29 September 1969). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 57  Untitled letter from Joan Roast to Bryan Forbes (27 September 1969). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 58  Untitled memo from Geoff Jones to Bryan Forbes (29 September 1969). 59  Untitled memo from Geoff Jones to Bryan Forbes (29 September 1969). 60  Untitled memo from Geoff Jones to Bryan Forbes (29 September 1969). 61  Untitled letter from Bryan Forbes to John Roast (14 October 1969). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 62  Untitled letter from John Roast to Bryan Forbes (11 November 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library.

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the tape recordings of Cheshire were not as impressive as Jones initially believed, the project was not pursued further.63 By January 1970, Forbes had made the decision to cancel the productions of ‘Candidate of Promise’, ‘Unman, Wittering and Zigo’ (which was later picked up by Paramount and directed by John Mackenzie in 1971) and ‘The Last Summer’, noting that the ‘various scriptwriters and developers’ had been paid for their work completed so far.64 In addition, a major decision had been made to cancel a production that had already begun filming, A Fine and Private Place. The project was brought to Forbes by the documentary director, Paul Watson, and became notorious as not only an indication of the failure of Forbes’ EMI project, but also as endemic of what was seen to be a company that was not flexible or inventive enough to manage the creative demands of maverick directors. Forbes talks about the incident at length in his autobiography,65 although his private papers retain no record of the production—perhaps partly an indication of his willingness to erase it from his memory. Contemporary accounts and later critics bought Forbes’ story that he shut the production down due to bad weather on its Cornish location shoot,66 but the real reason was due to Forbes’ belief that the production was going nowhere and the director was incompetent. He recounts a set visit in which I asked to see the latest weekly reports and to my horror I found that after two weeks a third of the budget had been eaten up for only ten minutes screen time. … I viewed [Watson’s] rushes on a portable screen in the hotel and was appalled by what I saw. One sequence in particular made no sense at all and would obviously never cut together … the cameraman and continuity girl agreed with me, but he remained adamant that we were wrong and he was right.67

After remaining unconvinced by Watson’s vision after a hastily convened production meeting, Forbes decided it was in the best interests of all concerned to cancel the production, and focus his energies on the films 63  Untitled letter from Geoff Jones to Bryan Forbes (27 January 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 64  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Michael Simkins (19 January 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 65  Forbes, B. (1992), pp. 175–179. 66  Walker, A. (1986), p. 433. 67  Forbes, B. (1992), pp. 175–176.

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that were progressing as planned.68 Forbes had very quickly realised that the excitement around the EMI venture masked the grim reality that it was a company with no experience of feature film production, and no infrastructure in place to manage these ambitions. This was especially pertinent with regard to its production base at Elstree, with Forbes writing to John Read and Bernard Delfont to say that his experience during his first six months had shown him that ‘the studio is not equipped to deal with large scale feature film production under the old structure’.69 Forbes’ solution was to reorganise the department so that he would have influence over every aspect of production and release strategy, directly line managing not just the production departments, but publicity, conceptual advertising and product merchandising as well.70 Forbes was constructing the studio in his own image, and attempting to establish and reinforce his power base against an increasingly hostile senior management team. As part of this restructure, Forbes installed his production consultant, John Hargreaves, as his deputy Head of Production,71 and Hargreaves would become his confidant and man on the inside throughout the remaining tumultuous months of Forbes’ tenure. Despite Forbes’ initial difficulties, he eventually managed to produce twelve feature films before leaving the company in April 1971. His completed projects included two commercially and critically successful family films, one critically acclaimed drama, and an eclectic mixture of thrillers and dramas that were flawed but had moments of interest. But to understand Forbes’ approach, one must turn back again to the context of the 1960s, where he cut his teeth in filmmaking. He had experienced the struggle of getting independent, original ideas to market, working with Richard Attenborough on The Angry Silence (Guy Green, 1960) for nothing because they had been turned down by all the distributors they had approached for finance.72 Now that Forbes was in charge of one of these conglomerates, he was determined to ensure that he provided opportunities for mavericks, new voices and what he felt were distinctive visions. Thus, when Forbes announced that his production slate was ‘the most  Forbes, B. (1992), pp. 178–179.  Letter from Bryan Forbes to John Read and Bernard Delfont (10 November 1969). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 70  ‘Implementation of Facilities at Elstree Studios England’ (10 February 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 71  Letter from Bryan Forbes to John Read and Bernard Delfont (10 November 1969). 72  Eves, V. (1970). ‘The structure of the British film industry.’ Screen, 11(1), p. 50. 68 69

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serious and ambitious attempt to revitalise the British film industry in twenty years’,73 he was not referring solely to the commercial prospects of this industry (although this was a significant factor), but to a creative revitalization as well—although as many contemporary critics pointed out, the initial slate did not appear to offer much that was original, or which differed greatly from what Rank had to offer.74 As Vicki Eves would put it, rather than ‘revitalising’ the industry, EMI’s acquisition of ABPC had made the ‘structure of the film industry … slightly more rigid’.75 To launch the slate, Forbes embarked on a promotional tour of six UK cities, and Today’s Cinema caught up with him in Leeds, standing next to three women dressed as ‘Bronte’ girls, each with a sash bearing the title of the first three EMI films to be released, And Soon the Darkness, Hoffman and The Man Who Haunted Himself.76 Rather disingenuously he talked about the press bemoaning the lack of pictures which could be classed as family entertainment, and posited his slate as a refreshing alternative—but these films could hardly be classed as family entertainment. Forbes had admitted as much to Delfont in private, explaining that aside from two films that were due to be released, The Railway Children and Tales of Beatrix Potter, ‘the other fourteen films … have sex in them, but they don’t have very much violence or salaciousness. Some of them treat sex in a very adult and sometimes amusing manner.’77 Despite this, Forbes was quietly confident about the production slate he had begun, stating that he had ‘seen some of the rushes of the film being shot in France—and I’m very excited by it—you know, very excited by the footage’.78 The French film was And Soon the Darkness, an effective thriller that took themes of displacement and fear of a foreign country and transposed them to a story of two young women alone and adrift on a holiday in France, that rapidly deteriorates when one of them goes missing. And Soon the Darkness was Forbes’ first completed film under the EMI banner, made for £260,000. The director, Robert Fuest, producer Albert Fennell and one of the scriptwriters, Brian Clemens, were all associated with the  Eves, Vicki (1970), p. 53.  Eves, Vicki (1970), p. 53. 75  Eves, Vicki (1970), p. 53. 76  Today’s Cinema (10 July 1970), pp. 8–9. 77  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Bernard Delfont (19 January 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 78  Unpublished interview with Bryan Forbes (30 October 1969). Columbia/EMI/Warner Collection. London: BFI. 73 74

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TV series The Avengers, although the film has no element of that series’ quirkiness or sense of fun. This was a straightforward thriller, with elements of horror thrown in for good measure. The film starts with an incongruously upbeat score by Laurie Johnson, and shots of the two lead actresses, Pamela Franklin and Michele Dotrice, riding deserted French streets for what seems an interminable amount of time. The two Englishwomen talk at a café and spot a man who appears to be watching them. After Dotrice goes missing, later discovered to have been killed, Franklin has a frantic battle to survive and to alert the authorities to her friend’s death. Thus it was an unusual choice to be one of his first three releases, for despite showing restraint in the depiction of violence, it was a story that had violence at its core, and a tone that Variety regarded as having ‘a leering, sinister feeling … which is more repellent than intriguing’.79 The film did not fare much better with the rest of the press, with the Monthly Film Bulletin arguing that ‘the material on hand is too pedestrian to give any new turn to the formula, as the storyline traces with unfailing certainty a very well-marked course. The script never gives Pamela Franklin the chance to be psychologically convincing, and the menace surrounding her is very unreal.’80 Films and Filming would agree, as while acknowledging that ‘at some levels, the film undoubtedly succeeds’, it felt that it featured a ‘flatness of characterisation which does not matter too much in a thirty-minute TV episode but becomes a serious weakness in a feature length film’.81 While there is an element of snobbery about the crew’s television background in these critiques, the film does fall flat half way through, and does betray the limitations of scriptwriters who were more familiar with a 45-minute format. The pressbook also drew attention to the crews’ TV lineage, prominently featuring what it called the ‘Avengers team’, along with Clemens’ stated intention to create a thriller that was set in broad daylight. The film is effective in this regard—there are few other films where the blistering sunshine of the south of France has been used to such menacing effect, but the real terror comes from Franklin’s isolation via cultural and language barriers, emphasised in order to increase the tension further. It is tempting to view the film as the product of some distinctly British fears about foreigners, especially European foreigners in light of the debate about the avowedly pro-European Edward Heath and  Variety (22 July 1970), p. 20.  Monthly Film Bulletin (August 1970), p. 162. 81  Tarratt, M. (12 September 1970). Films and Filming 16(12), p. 70. 79 80

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his intention to enter Britain into the European Economic Community, that was the subject of many a dinner table discussion in the early 1970s. However, it would be stretching the point to suggest that the film was consciously anti-European, or that Forbes would have approved of this even if it was, considering his friendship with Heath. But nonetheless, the themes of fear of the European other, of being stranded in a foreign land with people who ‘don’t do things the way that we do here’, are all present in the film, and were certainly capturing an element of the zeitgeist of the early 1970s. That this was the first film to be released by Forbes’ EMI, also speaks volumes about the issues at Elstree, being as it was shot almost entirely on location in France, and it also marked EMI out as a transnational company from the start. For all of Forbes’ proclamations in the build-up to this release, his first film in his new all-British slate was not even set in Britain. The next film released by EMI, Hoffman, was a bizarre story that was very much of its time, and despite being well acted, to the modern viewer it feels extremely dated in terms of its attitudes to women and predatory males. It starts with a woman, Janet Smith (Sinéad Cusack), being waved off at a train station by her boyfriend, ostensibly on a trip to see her ill grandmother, but who in fact turns up at an apartment owned by her employer, the eponymous title character played by Peter Sellers. For Hoffman has offered her an impossible choice: either stay with him as his ‘partner’ for one week or he will tell the police about the bribes that her boyfriend has been receiving while at work. Miss Smith (he never refers to her as Janet, instead preferring to call her in the formal manner that he would when speaking to her as his secretary at work) has to acquiesce, despite her obvious disgust throughout, and her attempts to escape his clutches. Throughout the film, Smith is framed in a variety of ways, from within the serving hatch in Hoffman’s apartment through to the doorframe in his office that we never see, but which we hear that he has been watching her from for the last two years. She is a trophy, a possession that is to be admired and controlled, and the film’s visual language emphasises this. The dialogue also seeks to compartmentalise her and reduce her to a series of physical body parts, such as in Hoffman’s speech to her that ‘you are here to be two arms, two legs, a face and what fits in the middle’. Even his reference to her as Miss Smith, is also a way to disassociate her from being a real human being, rather than an object he can control. This misogyny is never hidden by the script, and one does not have to look far to find it, such as in Hoffman’s speech that ‘it’s not only homosexuals who

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don’t like women; hardly anyone likes them’, or, on hearing that she is hungry, he says ‘women are always hungry for something … [they are] fallopian tubes with teeth’. But despite all this, and indicative of the social mores of the early 1970s, Janet is upset that at the end of the week, he has not tried to ‘take advantage’ of her, and on being discovered in his house by her selfish and incompetent boyfriend, she decides that Hoffman is the lesser of two evils and decides to stay with him permanently. Hoffman would have been the first film released by Forbes’ new company, but it experienced a more difficult journey through the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) than And Soon the Darkness had. The Secretary of the BBFC, John Trevelyan, wrote to the film’s producer that Hoffman would be suitable for the impending ‘AA’ classification, which restricted films to those aged 14 or over, and which was due to come into effect on 1 July 1970.82 Until then, he argued, it would have to be rated an ‘X’, with Trevelyan saying that ‘although the film has been made with taste and discretion, and does not present visual censorship problems, some of the dialogue is unacceptable to the present “A” Category’.83 Bryan Forbes intervened personally, writing to Trevelyan to announce his ‘surprise’ at the decision, and to ask: May I do something I have never done before, and challenge your ruling on this because I cannot for the life of me pinpoint any scene or piece of dialogue which would lead you to this decision. Would you be good enough therefore to let me know more specifically what your objections are and at the same time perhaps you would be good enough to reconsider. I confess I am baffled because naturally I have seen the film several times myself and I do think that everything was handled very tactfully indeed and although there are some strange passages of dialogue, I would have thought they are so literary as to be above salaciousness.84

Trevelyan replied on 26 March, saying ‘I am not surprised that you should query the category decision on Hoffman’, and put the ruling down to the difficulties surrounding the transition to the new ‘AA’ classification.85 He continued, ‘our reluctance to give the film an “A” certificate now is based partly on its theme and partly on certain passages of  Letter from John Trevelyan to EMI Films (19 March 1970). Hoffman. London: BBFC.  Hoffman (19 March 1970). London: BBFC. 84  Hoffman (24 March 1970). London: BBFC. 85  Hoffman (26 March 1970). London: BBFC. 82 83

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dialogue’, and accepted that he would reconsider if EMI insisted on the film opening before July.86 The correspondence stops there, but it appears that Forbes decided the best way around this was to delay the release, as the film was finally passed as ‘AA’ on 5 July 1970. Most critics praised the performances of the two leads, but the general consensus was summarised by Films and Filming, which called it ‘an unusual little film, with much in its favour; but, for what it has to say, it really takes too long’.87 This impression was not helped by Sellers’ lack of engagement with the film’s promotion, and, according to Forbes, after the release of Hoffman, Peter entered one of his manic-depressive periods … and immediately as it completed demanded to buy back the negative and remake it. This being hardly feasible, he then gave an interview prior to the film’s release in which he stated that the film was a disaster, thus doing everybody, including himself, a disservice.88

Ultimately, to the modern viewer, it is a depressing study of a mid-life crisis, with Hoffman describing the sexually frustrated men whose minds are ‘full of breasts and bottoms’, and the low expectations of Miss Smith, which lead her to choose Hoffman over her partner, who is equally uninterested in her as a real person. It also appeared to not be to the taste of 1970s audiences either, as the film was a box office flop and the initial confidence that had greeted the release of Forbes’ first films started to dissipate. Much was riding on his third production, due for release the following month. The Man Who Haunted Himself was director Basil Dearden’s final film, and featured a pre-Bond Roger Moore as Harold Pelham, a leading business partner in a marine engineering firm, who starts to believe that he has a doppelgänger. The film starts with Pelham driving down the Chelsea embankment, passing many of the key tourist landmarks of central London to the sound of a jaunty late 1960s score composed by Michael J Lewis. While driving, his expression appears to change, and he removes his seatbelt and speeds up. A silver Lamborghini Islero appears superimposed over Pelham’s more sedate company car, and he crashes. While having life-saving surgery, two heartbeats appear on the surgeon’s heart monitor.  Hoffman (26 March 1970).  Gow, G. (12 September 1970). Films and Filming, 16(12), p. 53. 88  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 106. 86 87

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Pelham recovers and returns to work to discuss the proposed merger with his company and another firm. There are parallels with EMI and ABPC here—the production company was still technically listed as ABPC at the time of production—and Pelham dismisses the deal as a ‘takeover’. Strange things happen with people claiming to have seen Pelham over the past few days, even though he was on a recuperative holiday in Spain, and his wife starts to notice a silver Lamborghini parked outside their house. As the impossible sightings become more frequent, Pelham discovers that a young woman claims he has been seeing her for the past few weeks, sleeping with her at her apartment, and the board of his company start to think that he has double-crossed them. Pelham eventually confronts his double, and is told that he died temporarily on the operating theatre, bringing the doppelgänger into existence. Pelham is pursued by his double in a car chase and crashes into a river, apparently dead. The film ends with Pelham’s double standing on the side of the bridge looking down triumphantly into the river. The Man Who Haunted Himself was the last film that director Basil Dearden and producer Michael Relph made together, for in a cruel twist of fate, Dearden died a year later in a car crash.89 It was based on a novel, The Strange Case of Mr Pelham, written by Anthony Armstrong in 1940, which in its main doppelgänger theme and title alludes to Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). Interestingly, while that source was a damning indictment of Victorian society, the film adaptation seems more interested in the psychological elements of the story, and avoids any broader social critique. Brian McFarlane makes a convincing case for much of Dearden and Relph’s post-Ealing work as being studies of ‘the way in which the self a person presents is only one possible persona’,90 and arguably The Man Who Haunted Himself is their clearest expression of this theme. Forbes had connections with Dearden and Relph that traced back to their time as part of the Allied Film Makers consortium in the 1960s, a collection of filmmakers that included Forbes and Attenborough and who produced some notable films (such as Victim (1961) and Whistle Down the Wind (1961)), and this mutual trust led to Dearden and Relph asking Forbes 89  Burton, A., and O’Sullivan, T. (2009). The Cinema of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 151. 90  McFarlane, B. (2007). ‘Surviving after Ealing: The later careers of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph.’ Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 24(1), p. 70.

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to do some uncredited dialogue rewrites for the script.91 He also knew Moore from his previous acting work on The Saint, and personally arranged for him to join the production.92 Unsurprisingly, the film’s pressbook focused on Moore, describing it as a transition from his previous most notable role as The Saint, and calling it his first ‘serious role’. But despite his star power, the film was a commercial failure and was dismissed by critics, with Monthly Film Bulletin being perhaps the harshest: The Man Who Haunted Himself is one of the first productions in a programme designed to give new life blood to the British cinema; on this ­evidence, the patient seems unlikely to survive. … The dialogue is consistent only in its banality, the colour processing and special effects are abominable, and stylistically the film might well have been made in the fifties.93

Despite the contemporary disregard for the film, there are several intriguing elements to it, and while on the surface it appears to be a fairly innocuous potboiler, there is a subtle, strange atmosphere to it that was lacking from many other British thrillers of the period. Take for example, the opening scene—in most stories of this nature, there is a clearly identifiable event that is the catalyst for the doppelgänger’s appearance—and in most reviews the car crash is described as this moment. But Moore’s expression turns before the car has crashed, and he removes his seatbelt beforehand deliberately, while the Lamborghini is superimposed over his car. Thus, the doppelgänger appears before the crash, and there is the implication that this is a repressed aspect of his own desires coming to the fore—a notion confirmed by the prognosis of a psychiatrist he visits during the film. In this sense then, the crash can be viewed as a metaphor for a mental ‘crash’, a mid-life crisis which prompts the change in his demeanour and the battle between both aspects of his psyche. These Freudian elements also appear in a startling scene for a thriller of this period, in which Pelham and his wife openly discuss their marital problems, which manifest in Pelham’s impotence. This extends to Pelham’s general feeling of lack of control throughout his life, even in the boardroom where his doppelgänger has supplanted him and reverted his original antipathy to the proposed merger. Pelham is a man stifled by the constraints of his  Forbes, B. (1999). DVD Commentary for ‘The Man Who Haunted Himself’, London: StudioCanal. 92  Forbes, B. (1999). 93  Monthly Film Bulletin (August 1970), p. 166. 91

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stuffy middle-class life, and this unleashes his doppelgänger who is in control at work, subtly negotiating advantageous terms for his company, and who is sleeping with Pelham’s wife and a new mistress. Pelham’s fall from grace is therefore a Reginald Perrin-esque escape from middle-class conformity (although this prefigured Perrin, which did not appear in David Nobbs’ novels for another five years), an interesting early example of the stifled middle-class life that had developed from the 1950s onwards, and a reaction from those who felt that the ‘permissive society’ of the 1960s had passed them by. The film has tended to be seen as one of Dearden’s lesser works, but in this context, there is a case to be made for this representing a continuation of the pioneering social problem films that he had directed from Sapphire (1959) onwards, with the problem identified here either as a stultifying middle-class existence or issues of mental health (Fig. 2.1). It is also an interesting take on the psyche of the female lead, who at the end of the film is standing next to the doppelgänger, who she believes to be the real Pelham, and who is in his smart suit, compared to Pelham’s more flamboyant casual wear. It appears to be that the ‘real’ Pelham has by

Fig. 2.1  Olga Georges-Picot and Roger Moore waiting to start filming a scene for one of EMI’s inaugural releases, The Man Who Haunted Himself. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd

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the end of the film, taken on the qualities of the more roguish double, and his wife chooses the conformity represented by the now respectable-­ looking doppelgänger. In this reading, there is an underlying misogyny which presents the wife as the harbinger of Pelham’s maturity, and destroyer of his formerly fun and carefree youth, although throughout, the ‘real’ Pelham remains devoted to his wife, and desiring the conformity of married life—despite the monotony that this has brought him. Of course, with Forbes also being involved with the script, it is also tempting to interpret the film as a metaphor for his own views on his new role, transferring from the maverick writer/director to the besuited studio head, and the notion of the merging of identity that the arrangement with ABPC had created. In many ways, this is the first EMI film proper, as it was the first by the company to be recorded at Elstree, and thus, Forbes would have been reminded of the parallels almost every day. The entire film is a comment on mixed identity, with Pelham attempting to engineer a company merger at the same time that his own personality is splitting. Forbes would have noted the parallels and the irony of this, and perhaps also had at the back of his mind the unspoken competition between himself and Nat Cohen at Anglo-EMI. In a case of life imitating art, Pelham’s doppelgänger wins out, just as Forbes would ultimately be survived by Cohen. Whatever the reason for the failure of these three films (Alexander Walker points out that the odds were stacked against them as they were released during a summer that witnessed ‘World Cup football play offs, a heat wave, and a general election’94), the harsh commercial reality was that the three films that launched the programme made little money, and by July 1970, John Hargreaves wrote to Forbes to outline Bernard Delfont’s concerns. I had a long chat with Bernie this morning and he has asked me to point out to you that although the notices on ‘The Man Who Haunted Himself’ are not very good, he wanted to make sure you had read them and noted the various criticisms that were being made. … He asked me to say that he had complete faith in you but that our choice of film in the future must be more selective and more carefully chosen, and although cost will still play a major part in the program, the cost factor itself would not rule out a film being made if both of you felt strongly about it.95  Walker, A. (1986), p. 431.  Letter from John Hargreaves to Bryan Forbes (23 July 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 94 95

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Hargreaves told Delfont that Forbes and he were ‘never very happy at the “sausage machine” type of production that had to be made for £275,000 or not at all’, and that Delfont would be ‘very pleasantly surprised’ after he had watched their upcoming productions, Eyewitness, The Railway Children and The Breaking of Bumbo.96 In addition, Hargreaves told him that he had seen the first week’s work on a new film they had in production, called The Go-Between, which was ‘brilliantly shot’ and had a ‘very big, glossy look about it’.97 Regardless of these positive developments, Delfont’s view of The Man Who Haunted Himself was pithily summed up 20 years later in his autobiography, with Delfont simply saying, ‘I should have put a stop to that one’.98

 Letter from John Hargreaves to Bryan Forbes (23 July 1970).  Letter from John Hargreaves to Bryan Forbes (23 July 1970). 98  Delfont, Bernard (1990), p. 184. 96 97

CHAPTER 3

Elstree Falling

Forbes’ first three films, designed around people he knew well and who could have been considered a safe pair of hands, like the ‘Avengers team’, the Dearden/Relph partnership, and sure-fire box office stars like Moore, Sellers and Franklin (who had just received plaudits for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Ronald Neame, 1969)), had not worked out as planned. As such, the stakes had been raised on the films that he had initially considered to be riskier propositions. What had started as a mixed slate, with opportunities given to new directors and writers, had begun to take on importance as films that needed to be successful, either commercially or critically— although he was aware that commercial success was more important to the EMI management in the short term. Eyewitness was the first of these gambles to be released, and was directed by John Hough, who had got the job by impressing Forbes with one of his amateur films. However, to maintain some control over the output, Forbes rewrote the script under a pseudonym, Ronald Harwood.1 The film starts with a plane apparently about to crash and a young boy called Ziggy (Mark Lester) landing in the snow via a parachute. The title sequence, with music coordinated by Jonathan Demme (who would eventually direct The Silence of the Lambs (1991), but was at the time a music journalist and had been called in to coordinate the project by Irving Allen), is quite abstract, starting with Ziggy blindfolded and an offcamera voice saying ‘fire’, before he taunts the camera as if it is a bull, using the red lining of his jacket as a cape. The highly stylised shots, often in close 1

 Forbes, B. (1992). A Divided Life. London: William Heinemann, p. 105.

© The Author(s) 2018 P. Moody, EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94803-4_3

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up, highlight the sense that all is not what it seems, because what the audience has just been witnessing is in fact all a fabrication of the protagonist. This charade is supported by his granddad, ‘the General’ (Lionel Jeffries), who goes along with the boy’s fantasies, but events are soon to take on a much more serious tone. The president is visiting town (it is never specified where the film is set, although it was filmed in Malta), and several flashforwards depict the president’s corpse, foretelling the tragedy that is about to occur. The opening sequence very effectively and subtly builds up a sense of foreboding in advance of the president’s visit, which draws an enormous crowd, along with the unwanted attention of two snipers. Ziggy, who has gone to the procession with his sister, Pippa (Susan George), breaks away from the group and sees the sniper shoot the president, in what is a very effective crowd sequence which conveys Pippa’s terror and confusion. The sniper, who is a policeman, spots Ziggy and sets out to capture him and silence him, and several callous acts of violence are committed in their quest to get the boy, until a final confrontation over a cliff edge determines the policeman’s fate. The film is an excellent and neglected thriller, intelligently directed and with strong performances, especially from Jeffries. Thankfully for Forbes, this was his first critical success, with most reviews commenting on the performances of Jeffries and Peter Vaughan as the villainous policeman, and even Variety called it ‘a good programmer, probably geared as top half of a strong dualer’.2 Like And Soon the Darkness, it is also interesting as being a film focusing on Britons in peril in foreign climes, in this instance, an unidentified Malta, and while that was mainly due to it being a cheap destination for location filming, it is again tempting to view this Forbes-­ penned script as another manifestation of his personal circumstances at EMI. Ziggy, like Forbes, is the great teller of tall stories, up against the crass and corrupt icon of conformity—the parallels are there, but in essence this is a taut thriller with some atmospheric visual flourishes, and which compares favourably with similar films from the period. Regardless, despite its many qualities, it performed modestly at the box office, and this, combined with the poor returns from EMI’s other releases, prompted EMI’s Chairman, Sir Joseph Lockwood, to announce in December 1970 that ‘I think we have got the situation under control. [The film business is] a little riskier than ordinary business. But we shall not allow ourselves to lose lots

2

 Variety (16 September 1970), p. 23.

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of money in film production.’3 Luckily for him, Forbes’ next release was the proposal that on paper was his most obviously commercial project, The Railway Children. Despite this,  Forbes’ interest in The Railway Children was not as a commercial proposition, although of course, a film that was based on a popular children’s book and had been made into a successful television series only a year previously, had great potential. But Forbes would always present his programme as a coherent vision, and never in nakedly commercial terms. Thus, when reminding Delfont of the purpose of what he was trying to achieve, he would say: When we announced our programme we laid great emphasis on the need to include certain films which would be acceptable to a wider audience … out of a total of 16 filmed I have selected two—only two—‘The Railway Children’ and ‘The Beatrix Potter Subject’ to give some substance to our public undertakings. I hope and sincerely believe that these two films will help attract back into the cinemas this wider audience which, in recent years, has stayed away in ever-increasing numbers.4

Based on the popular book by Edith Nesbit, the film had a ready-made family audience, and it had already proven its filmic potential with two previous television adaptations, the most recent of which had starred the promising child actress Jenny Agutter, who was willing to star again in the film. The character actor Lionel Jeffries, who had been so well received in Eyewitness, had written the script and was offered by Forbes to direct,5 further enhancing its popular appeal. The film starts with the camera slowly tracking in to Agutter’s red dress, a metaphorical theatre curtain about to introduce the audience into the story world, followed by her turning of a praxinoscope, which emphasises the film’s appeal to the past and its evocation of a classic tale about to be retold. The story is set in the summer of 1905, and hinges on the departure of a father from the family, taken away by government officials for allegedly selling state secrets. The family has to lay off their servants and decamp to a remote house in the country, with this scene played for gothic thrills, with chiaroscuro shadows 3  Walker, A. (1986a) National Heroes: British Cinema in the Seventies and Eighties, London: Harrap, p. 273. 4  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Bernard Delfont (19 January 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 5  Forbes, Bryan (1992), p. 29.

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as they discover the house and try to find food in the cellar. The three children, Roberta (affectionately known as ‘Bobbie’ and played by Jenny Agutter), Phyllis (Sally Thomsett), and Peter (Gary Warren), see a train close up for the first time. Perks (Bernard Cribbins) is the station master, and develops an avuncular relationship with them. Together, the children experience a number of dramatic encounters at the railway, bringing home a Russian refugee who has collapsed at the station and eventually avert a train crash after a landslide covers the track in debris. Ultimately, through the help of a train passenger that they communicate with via letter, their father is absolved of the charges and returns, prompting Bobbie to exclaim ‘Daddy, my daddy’ in one of the film’s most beloved scenes. The film, made for a relatively inexpensive £298,000,6 was an enormous critical and commercial success, becoming the third highest-­ grossing family film in Britain in the entire decade (beaten only by the re-release of Disney’s Lady and the Tramp (Clyde Geronimi, 1955) and The Aristocats (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1970)). It is clear to see why, with superb performances from the cast and assured and uncomplicated direction from Jeffries. But for most critics, what made it so popular was the nostalgia for the Edwardian era displayed in the film,7 and this is clearly a production which harks back to the past. Life for these children is presented as one glorious adventure, and it is easy to see why audiences were seduced by it. Even the most hard-hearted of reviewers, a report commissioned by the Board of Trade for registration purposes as a British film, regarded it as ‘one of the most enjoyable and charming films to have been made in a very long time … pictures like this should be seen by everyone’.8 But this is also a film about letting go of the past, of growing old and casting off childish things, with Bobbie’s growth into womanhood acting as the vehicle through which the audience, predominantly young, can grow with her. This is seen at several points in the movie, from the moment when a young man, injured on the track, is brought home by Bobbie and cared for by her and her mother; nothing is explicitly said, but it is clear that Bobbie has dormant sexual feelings towards him and that her mother is aware of 6  ‘Evidence of British Nature of a Film’ (27 November 1970). BT 900/35. London: The National Archives. 7  Harper, S. and Smith, J. (2012), ‘Boundaries and Taboos’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (eds.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 141. 8  AIC Film Report on The Railway Children (November 1970). BT 900/35. London: The National Archives.

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Fig. 3.1  Lionel Jeffries directs the crowd of assembled extras during the final scene of EMI’s first commercial success, The Railway Children. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd

this; but this is all one step on her transition to womanhood. It is only once they have stopped visiting the railway track, having cast away the childish adventures that they have undertaken there, that their father returns—the familial dynamic restored once Bobbie has come to the end of her journey, represented by the railway track itself (Fig. 3.1). The film was somewhat transitional for Forbes as well, marking his first bona fide success and triumph over Cohen. It also marked the end of his first year at the company, and was a vital shot in the arm before what would become his most tumultuous period at EMI—but not before he would deliver another successful family film, Tales of Beatrix Potter. Potter had been brought to Forbes by John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin, who had acquired the rights to the original stories and developed the ­concept of working with Frederick Ashton to adapt them as a ballet. Forbes was enchanted by the idea and signed them up on the spot,9 but 9

 Forbes, B. (1992), pp. 29–30.

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his enthusiasm was not shared by all of the EMI board. On announcing the project, Forbes recalls that Nat Cohen’s response was to ask, ‘who’s Beatrix Potter?’, and when subsequently told that the film would be a ballet, another board member countered with ‘ballet films are shit’.10 Despite this lack of enthusiasm, Forbes greenlit the project and it went in to production during the summer of 1970. The film remained around the projected £250,000 mark, but a slight concern that they might go over budget led to an additional £20,000 being held in reserve as contingency, with the final budget ending up as £256,000.11 The eventual release is unlike any other in the history of British family cinema. It was directed by Reginald Mills, who had previously edited The Red Shoes (Michael Powell, 1948) and Tales of Hoffman (Michael Powell, 1950), and there is a Powellesque quality to the proceedings with its lyrical approach to the subjects and the English countryside. It opens on a scene of the English landscape of the Lake District, with the hedgehog Mrs Tiggy-Winkle (performed by Ashton himself) walking through the grassland. This acknowledgement of Potter country soon transitions into the Elstree set, where several vignettes based on the Potter stories play out, each supported with astounding production design by the film’s co-writer, and Richard Goodwin’s wife, Christine Edzard. The allusions to Powell are also found in its melding of the worlds of high art and popular culture by depicting its story solely through ballet, but the parallels end there, and what Mills produces is a distinctive, beautiful rendition of the stories, with universal appeal. The film is completely dialogue free, and often requires knowledge of the stories to understand exactly which character is being depicted on screen, but as a film that works for both younger children and their parents, it is without equal in British cinema. EMI’s marketing strategy was to target this as a ‘woman’s film’ and it instigated a coordinated campaign across a range of women’s magazines, placing adverts in Life, Woman and Home, Woman’s Realm, Vogue, and Woman’s Own, in addition to standard ­newspaper advertising,12 and there was also a specially commissioned BBC programme about the making of the film.13 This marketing effort paid off, and while not quite on the scale of The Railway Children, the film was also  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 31.  Letter from John Hargreaves to Bryan Forbes (23 July 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 12  Beatrix Potter Publicity (February 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 13  Beatrix Potter Publicity (February 1971). 10 11

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a critical and commercial success, becoming the fourth highest-earning family film in British cinemas in the 1970s.14 The phenomenal success of these two films would only be repeated once more during Forbes’ tenure, and there were more disasters to come. For a start, there was another production that had run into trouble, and was facing closure half way through. Dulcima (Frank Nesbitt, 1971) from a story by H.E. Bates, was set mainly on a farm, and the production had decided (with Forbes’ blessing), to record on location, rather than at an Elstree beset with problems. Unfortunately, despite choosing to film in the summer months, they had been besieged by rain, and filming was therefore proving difficult. Eager to avoid another incident akin to A Fine and Private Place, Forbes instructed Hargreaves to insist that the production was finished as planned, and Hargreaves confirmed that he had told the crew that ‘they were not to leave the farm until the filming had been completed’.15 The film they produced is a curio that speaks volumes about the prevailing attitudes of the early 1970s, and is in many ways a companion piece to Hoffman, albeit from different ends of the class spectrum. It begins with various scenes of English country life, and an upbeat theme by Johnny Douglas, which evokes an idyllic 1950s past. A farmer called Mr Parker (John Mills) crashes his car and falls to the ground, dazed. He is found by Dulcima (Carol White), who takes him home, and discovers him living in a place overrun with clutter and farm animals. Feeling sorry for him, she offers to clean his house and soon starts to help him out on a regular basis. After a while, Parker falls in love with her, and desperate to keep her with him, offers to pay her for what she does around the house. Dulcima, who is treated like a slave by her parents at home, jumps at the chance, as at least with Parker she will be paid for her work. But to modern tastes the relationship seems a little unsavoury, and it is not long before we are witnessing Parker watching her undress for a bath through the window of the bathroom door. Despite this, there is real warmth from the two leads, and initially their charisma carries the film. But after threatening to leave and claiming that the new 20-something gamekeeper, Ashby (Stuart Wilson), is her boyfriend, Parker agrees to double what he is paying her, and Dulcima lets him sleep with her—after  Harper, S., & Smith, J. (2012), p. 263.  Letter from John Hargreaves to Bryan Forbes (23 July 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 14 15

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he has spent some time groping her, which, considering that at the time of filming, Mills was 63 and White was 28, is at times difficult to watch. She is then seen depositing money at the bank after each time she sleeps with him. Over time, a relationship between Dulcima and the gamekeeper actually does blossom, and despite the incongruity of the age difference between her and Parker, one feels genuine sorrow for Parker when he discovers the affair, especially after he has decided to marry Dulcima. But this is subverted by one of the most abrupt, bizarre and cynical endings to any film of the 1970s, with Dulcima, who has decided to leave Parker for Ashby, returning to the house to discover the wedding dress he has bought for her ripped up and next to a wedding ring. She goes outside to tell Ashby that she can’t leave (it is unclear whether she has decided that she loves Parker as well, or just feels that he will not be able to cope without her). Ashby agrees, but then is shot dead from the bedroom window by Parker—Carol screams and the screen cuts to black and credits roll. It is a shocking end to the film, and one that sits uneasily with what has gone before. The BBFC were suitably concerned with the film’s sexual content to propose a series of cuts in order for it to achieve an ‘A’ rating, including the scene with Parker trying to look at the naked Dulcima through the bathroom window; Parker touching her between her breasts before making love with her in the barn; and a couple of shots of a pig with its nose near another pig’s rear end and a drake and duck copulating, which would not have looked out of place in a nature documentary.16 A handwritten note on the bottom of the examiner’s report says that the film’s writer/ director, Frank Nesbitt, had phoned to explain his thought process for the shots of the pigs, arguing that he needed ‘something to explain Parker’s feelings as he tries to escape Dulcima’s advances: he suggested putting his duck and drake shot here instead of his pigs’.17 The note continues to say that they could consider this change, and that he had agreed with Nesbitt to ‘consider a shortened version of the bathroom episode, as he wants to keep some of it for his story points’.18 In addition, Nesbitt had asked them to reconsider the objection to Parker touching Dulcima’s breasts, as this is what prompts her to run off across the farmyard.19  Dulcima (29 April 1971). London: BBFC.  Dulcima (29 April 1971). 18  Dulcima (29 April 1971). 19  Dulcima (29 April 1971). 16 17

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The following month, the film was seen again by the examiners, this time joined by Trevelyan. Trevelyan decided that an ‘A’ was the right category, and the examiners ‘all agreed that the cuts would not make very much difference to the general flavour of the film’,20 and all cuts except the shot of Parker and Dulcima dressing in the barn after making love were waived.21 Tellingly, the examiners ‘found this a difficult film to place. It does not contain much to interest children, but there is not very much to harm them in it’,22 and this is partly what accounts for the unusual tone of the film throughout. At an EMI Board meeting, Forbes stated that of the four cuts proposed by the censors, he had ‘waived his objections to three of them’, although in a sign of the power struggle that would play out at these meetings, Nat Cohen countered that it was ‘unnecessary’ to make any cuts at all.23 On the 26 July, EMI confirmed to the BBFC that the suggested deletions had been completed and that all UK prints would be of the revised version,24 suggesting a small victory for Forbes on this occasion. The second curio produced by EMI in this period was The Breaking of Bumbo, which follows the travails of a new recruit to the Guards Ensign, Bumbo Bailey (Richard Warwick). A satire of the British army, but more broadly the absurdities of the British class system, the film features many aesthetic flourishes and has an anarchic tone, which was daring for its time (including the defacing of a wax model of Winston Churchill, Bumbo and Joanna Lumley’s ‘Susie’ frolicking half-naked in his Guards uniform, and the general proto-revolutionary attitudes presented throughout). While the original correspondence between the company and the BBFC has not been recorded, by 7 December 1970 the film’s director, Andrew Sinclair, had written to Trevelyan to confirm that he had ‘recut the film, removing all objectionable elements, particularly in the reel with the naked love scene between Bumbo and Susie’.25 Sinclair was hoping for an ‘AA’ certificate, and a handwritten note from Trevelyan at the bottom of the letter says ‘All the running about naked in the naked love-play (sic) has gone,

 Dulcima (18 May 1971). London: BBFC.  Dulcima (18 May 1971). 22  Dulcima (29 May 1971). London: BBFC. 23  EMI Board Meeting Minutes (1 June 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 24  Dulcima (26 July 1971). London: BBFC. 25  The Breaking of Bumbo (7 December 1970). London: BBFC. 20 21

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and the shots that are left are suitable for “AA”’.26 It appeared that all was set for a swift release and the EMI marketing team swung into action. The pressbook they produced bizarrely focused on the minutiae of the ‘brigade of guards’ as one was informed they should be called,27 and other facts which were unlikely to appear in print, except for obscure military publications. Lumley, still relatively unknown, was relegated to a few short paragraphs, getting the same amount of space as the producer and director, and less than the instructions on how to make a ‘Bumbo’ cocktail (apparently, gin or rum mixed with water, sugar, and nutmeg).28 In fact, their efforts smack of a film that the company did not quite know how to sell. But this confusion soon turned into a deliberate strategy. After the film had been shown at a couple of preview screenings, Delfont intervened to deny it a full release.29 It is not recorded exactly why Delfont chose to do so, although over the years the story has apocryphally become one of the film being so bad, that Delfont felt the reputation of EMI would be sullied by releasing it. This is a story that his autobiography pays lip service to, with Delfont regarding the film as ‘a messy and unwatchable piece of military hokum’,30 but this explanation appears unlikely; the film is no worse that some of the other releases that year, holding up well when compared to EMI’s other product, and the company had invested time and money in producing the pressbook. Instead, it is more likely that Delfont, with his connections to the British establishment, and his personal reputation as a family man, felt that a film which satirised the British army could not go out under the EMI name. If there is one thing that all people who worked with Delfont could agree on, it was that he would take the least-risky option if it meant he could avoid tarnishing his own reputation. And this view is further supported by evidence from the BBFC, which shows that Delfont acquiesced temporarily the following year, as Anglo-EMI, now under the stewardship of Nat Cohen, resubmitted the film again in 1972, this time in an attempt to achieve an ‘A’ certificate. The internal BBFC memo from this submission notes that Anglo-EMI’s Technical Manager felt that he had  The Breaking of Bumbo (7 December 1970).  Pressbook for The Breaking of Bumbo. London: BFI. 28  Pressbook for The Breaking of Bumbo. London: BFI. 29  Walker, A. (1986b), Hollywood, England: The British Film Industry in the Sixties (2nd Edition). London: Harrap, p. 433. 30  Delfont, Bernard (1990), East End, West End, London: Macmillan, p. 184. 26 27

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taken out all the offensive material by cutting all scenes of actual violence, mutiny talk between students, officers and soldiers. The scene with pregnant girl—dialogue has been cut. He would like to have a decision urgently as Anglo EMI want to put it out with ‘Steptoe’.31

On 2 March the cut film was viewed again. The BBFC noted that: Considerable cuts have been made in the scenes between Bumbo and the constabulary girl, leaving nothing explicit about their love affair except a shot of them lying in bed together (no action) and a talk when it is over. In Reel 4, Sheila only tells Bumbo ‘I’m going to have a …’ (sentence not completed) and the argument about abortion has gone.32

Despite this, political events had now overtaken them, and in light of the ‘Bloody Sunday’ massacre (in which British soldiers opened fire on unarmed Northern Irish protestors, killing 14 people and injuring several more) that had occurred only two months previously, and the increase in tension in Northern Ireland as a result, the BBFC took a dim view of what remained, remarking that, ‘We think that what is left is a pretty sour jest in present circumstances (we have the situation of the Army in Londonderry particularly in mind)’.33 The film was eventually granted an ‘A’ certificate, but by then it was too late. EMI decided not to release it, and this was yet another personal blow for Forbes. His time at the company was almost up. As part of Forbes’ contract, he was entitled to direct a feature film of his choosing, but as with all processes at EMI, this was not as straightforward as it would first appear. In a letter from Forbes to EMI’s managing Director, John Read, in December 1970, he lamented that EMI was not investing in any scripts, and asserted that he had three possible subjects that he would be willing to direct in 1971 as part of his agreement with the company, stating ‘I believe that to be one of the prime functions for which I was originally employed’.34 The project he eventually settled on was The Raging Moon, the one and only film he would direct for EMI. Such was Forbes’ commitment to the project, that he took no additional salary

 The Breaking of Bumbo (28 February 1972). London: BBFC.  The Breaking of Bumbo (2 March 1972). London: BBFC. 33  The Breaking of Bumbo (2 March 1972). 34  Letter from Bryan Forbes to John Read (16 December 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 31 32

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for it.35 The film, about a relationship between two disabled people, was a clear passion project, and his attempt at making a ‘serious’ film from the initial slate. He cast his wife, Nanette Newman, as the lead actress, and Malcolm McDowell as her love interest, and both visited Stoke Mandeville hospital for research. In Forbes’ autobiography, he describes how he employed Tony Imi, who was the cinematographer on Cathy Come Home (Ken Loach, 1966), so that he could achieve ‘utter realism’.36 The film does feel like a return to the ‘kitchen sink’ films of the 1960s, and has clear forebears in work like Kes (Ken Loach, 1969), although it was a personal, not a political story. This was a project that meant a great deal to him, and which would, in his mind, secure his critical reputation, and by extension, that of the fledgling EMI films. The film starts with McDowell as a carefree young man, Bruce Pritchard, who plays football and teases his older brother who is about to get married. But he is suddenly struck with a degenerative illness which consigns him to a wheelchair, and he decides to leave home and live in a church-funded home for the disabled. Once there, he meets Jill Matthews (Nanette Newman), also in a wheelchair due to polio, and the two strike up a friendship and eventually fall in love. By focusing on a relationship between a disabled couple, the film was, by the standards of 1971, quite daring, and while it can at times feel heavy handed in its message, it portrays two independent, intelligent and sexually active disabled people—something that is a rarity on screen even almost 50 years later. The two leads are mesmeric, and the love story heartfelt and believable, and there is a good degree of cynicism about ‘well-meaning’ institutions like the church care home, which preached a message of support but really treated their residents as inmates, rather than as individual human beings. Clearly, Pritchard is a cypher for Forbes himself, presented  as a rebel crippled by the constraints the system has put him under, and if the audience was under any doubt about this, the film opens with a quote from Dylan Thomas’ In my Craft or Sullen Art (1946) (a line from which grants the film its name). The poem, about writing for the sake of art, rather than any material reward, is a reference to Pritchard’s burgeoning writing career, but one suspects an ironic dig at EMI on Forbes’ part, slyly commenting on the fact that he received nothing for his work on the film, and more so, that his talents went unrecognised within EMI’s stultifying bureaucracy.  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 174.  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 180.

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On completing the film, Forbes screened it to selected members of the board at EMI’s Head Office at Golden Square, all of whom left before the end of the screening without saying a word to him.37 Unsurprisingly, they hated the film and advised Delfont not to release it.38 Part of the problem was that Forbes was so invested in this production that he had opened himself up to easy criticism. Questions had been raised about how the studio’s head of production would have the time to direct a film, and by casting his wife in a leading role, he was accused of nepotism.39 As a final sign of his declining powerbase in the company, on 24 March 1971, the EMI board decided that ‘returns for several cinemas were below the margin at which it became profitable to show corporation films’, and it was agreed that EMI would delay the release of the Raging Moon ‘whilst more profitable corporation films were available’.40 The rejection of the film by the board marked a new low in relations between Forbes and EMI, and he realised that if this was not resolved, his position would be untenable. At a hastily arranged crisis-meeting with Delfont, he implored: How can I continue to be Head of Production if the film I have made, which is no disgrace, is not given a release? I look a fool, you look a fool, and commercially it’s a stupid decision to get at me.41

Delfont conceded to another screening to an invited audience, on the proviso that if the majority disliked it, it would not get a release.42 Luckily for Forbes, the audience was supportive, and the film went on to be a modest critical success, although EMI never gave it a wide cinema release or any kind of promotional backing. As Forbes would later write to Joseph Losey, the American release was retitled Long Ago, Tomorrow, because Burt Bacharach had been commissioned to write a new title song and this was the title he came up with.43 Despairingly, he wrote, ‘the business  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 182.  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 183. 39  Walker, A. (1986a), p. 435. 40  EMI Board Meeting (24 March 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 41  Forbes, B. (1999). DVD Commentary for The Man Who Haunted Himself. London: StudioCanal. 42  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 183. 43  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Joseph Losey (15 October 1971). Joseph Losey Collection. London: BFI. 37 38

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jumped from $11,000 the opening week to nearly $30,000 the second week and now I am told they intend to withdraw the film in the UK, put it on ice for three months and then re-issue it under the new title’.44 The final irony came when Forbes received a letter from Delfont, who, writing in his capacity as Chairman of the Show Business Awards for the Variety Club, announced that it ‘gives me a lot of personal pleasure’ to confirm that Nanette Newman had received the Best Actress award for her performance in the film.45 The disconnect between Forbes and the company had grown starker still. The problems with the marketing and distribution of EMI’s films that Dulcima, Bumbo, and Raging Moon had highlighted were nothing new to Forbes, who had long been arguing that EMI’s outmoded practices were hindering the success of their productions. In a letter to Delfont, he argued that ‘selling techniques, advertising, exhibition have all got to be dragged—kicking and screaming if necessary—into the twentieth century.46 He had tabled a series of suggestions to be discussed at the next EMI board meeting, analysing what he felt was insufficient in EMI’s current operations, and arguing that EMI should approach a bespoke advertising agency, one that was a ‘smallish, post war, “our generation” kind of agency, not too much history, no established conventions and probably no  American allegiances’, although he also recommended J.  Walter Thompson, which while being an international advertising agency was ‘probably the most British of all despite its [American] ownership’.47 Unfortunately for Forbes, EMI’s Publicity Director took this suggestion as a personal insult, and according to Austin Frazer, he was ‘incensed’ by some of the proposed changes.48 Unsurprisingly, the motion was turned down by the board who proposed instead that freelance designers should be used, rather than Forbes’ preferred choice of working regularly with an advertising agency. This ensured that the powerbase remained under Nat Cohen’s control, as he would still be in a position to dictate which agencies  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Joseph Losey (15 October 1971).  Letter from Bernard Delfont to Bryan Forbes (28 October 1971). Bryan Forbes Papers. London: Churchill Archives. 46  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Bernard Delfont (10 November 1969). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 47  Report by Bryan Forbes for the EMI Board (23 February 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 48  Letter from Austin Frazer to Bryan Forbes (26 February 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 44 45

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would be approached and how much would be spent on each promotion, further entrenching his position. In less than a year, Forbes had gone from the saviour of the British film industry to a pariah within his own company, buffeted by poor reviews and, more importantly, poor commercial returns. Because of this, he had been placed under pressure to implement a ‘Profit Improvement Programme’ and outlined his thoughts on this in an extensive letter to John Read at the end of 1970. In it, Forbes offered a voluntary personal salary cut of 10 per cent, along with the reduction in his personal staff and the relinquishing of his company car.49 While these were minor concessions, and designed as a symbolic gesture considering that he would be making cutbacks across the company, they were still perks that a mid-ranking executive at a Hollywood studio would have taken for granted, yet Forbes, as head of the largest production company in the UK, had to relinquish. It shows to what extent Forbes felt he had to compromise in order to implement his vision for the productions, and also, what precarious footing EMI’s empire was built on, something Forbes was desperate to rectify. In what was the start of a devastating critique of the EMI board and its handling of the film production division, Forbes’ would write, ‘the history of this company over the past twelve months has been a minute and detailed examination of the effects without a correspondingly detailed examination of the causes of our present and continuing discontent’.50 This analysis, while astute, won him few friends in the boardroom. He continued: We are a loss company for partly historical reasons, partly because of the world-wide slump in production, and partly because we are compelled, by board policy, to take a fiscal back-seat to other allied divisions within the group. … I argued, not very successfully, at this morning’s Board meeting and my arguments were misunderstood for the most part, for I do not believe that some members of my Board have a firm grasp of essentials.51

These ‘essentials’ were the fact that the only expenditure Forbes had control over was the ‘above the line’ costs, and that the only way he could cut these and attract top writers, directors, and other creatives was to 49  Letter from Bryan Forbes to John Read (16 December 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 50  Letter from Bryan Forbes to John Read (16 December 1970). 51  Letter from Bryan Forbes to John Read (16 December 1970).

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‘invite them to share part of our risk by either cutting, or deferring their fees or a substantial part of their fees in return for eventual profit participation’.52 But there was a problem with this approach; namely that their cut of the profit was only available once the distributors had taken their share, leaving very little in the pot ‘before the poor bloody investors see a penny piece’.53 Forbes felt that this was ‘manifestly absurd and unjust’ considering that EMI owned both production, distribution and exhibition, and proposed the following: that distribution should receive returns of 15 per cent or at cost (whichever was the lower) until such time as the negative investment was recouped; that they be allowed to recover prints, interest and advertising at half negative recoupment, but not before; and finally, at recoupment, distribution commission would immediately increase to 30 per cent for the UK, with further prints and advertising costs accounted for on the normal basis.54 He notes that the board had suggested his plan was essentially internal bookkeeping, but Forbes asserted that outside of EMI, where external investors were concerned, this would have a major effect on the perception that their risks could be mitigated. Unsurprisingly, considering his reduced status in the company by this point, his lament fell on deaf ears, and less than a month later, he was outlining further potential cost savings and redundancies, with a handwritten note suggesting that the last in, first out approach be taken to reduce costs to the company (from pay-outs for long service).55 In addition, Forbes suggested that Austin Frazer’s department, which the board considered an unnecessary expense, could be closed, and Frazer could be employed as ‘the originator, developer and producer of a modest programme of short films’, believing that he could deliver between five and six shorts over a year for a £30,000 budget.56 By February 1971, Frazer had developed his first short, based on combining existing EMI music tracks and existing film footage.57 This film, a 12-minute piece entitled One Track Mind, used material from Charlie Drake and Cliff Richard  Letter from Bryan Forbes to John Read (16 December 1970).  Letter from Bryan Forbes to John Read (16 December 1970). 54  Letter from Bryan Forbes to John Read (16 December 1970). 55  ‘Further profit improvement suggestions’ (14 January 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 56  Letter from Austin Frazer to Bryan Forbes (12 February 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 57  Letter from Bryan Forbes to John Read (16 December 1970). 52 53

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features, documentaries and other sources, supported by music from the opera Prince Igor.58 He had also prepared a second film, based on Reginald Dixon’s Farewell Mr Blackpool (1970), which used 35-mm clips of material on Blackpool and lasted ten minutes. Finally, he had also drafted three silent comedies called ‘Bed Buggy’, ‘Hypo Hippy’, and ‘Bid Nutty’, all of which were 15 to 20 minutes long. It is unclear whether any of these were shown in public, but Forbes’ departure soon after this memo, and his close personal advocacy of Frazer’s work, suggests that the project was cancelled soon after and was just a convenient way of getting Frazer off the books with some semblance of dignity and without too much opposition from Forbes. At the first EMI board meeting of 1971, it was decided that these cost-­ saving measures were not enough, and various redundancies, such as the loss of 47 staff in carpentry, painting, and the property departments would go ahead.59 Forbes was tasked with the decision of who to make redundant, which weighed heavily on him. On his arrival in 1969, he had made a public statement that ‘You can quote both Mr Bernard Delfont and myself that there is no question of any policy of redundancy at ABPC (sic)—even if it means that we bear a temporary loss’,60 and while some Heads of Department had been retired early during his first year, he had wanted to stick to this position for all other staff. His archive records the weight of this decision in a remarkably poignant sheet of paper written in Forbes’ own hand, simply headed ‘Redundancies’. Tellingly, the sheet was left blank.61 Not only was it an immense personal struggle for Forbes to decide who to lay off, but also his papers retain every correspondence he received regarding the redundancies, from the initial letters he sent through to the replies he received, which were often gracious and understanding of the fact that he was operating under extremely challenging circumstances. But there are also several accounts where old friends had contacted him in desperate situations, with mortgage payments in arrears or trying to mention good news but failing to do so, having not worked in the industry for many months. In one example, a member of staff was  Letter from Austin Frazer to Bryan Forbes (12 February 1971).  EMI Board Meeting Minutes (15 January 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 60  Deighton, J. (2 July 1969). ‘ACTT Closes Door: What the Studios Think.’ Today’s Cinema, p. 3. 61  Undated note from Bryan Forbes. Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 58 59

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about to have their department closed, only for them to suffer a longterm illness. Forbes prevails amongst the board to keep the department open until the staff member returns so that he can discuss the closure with them personally—only for them to go into a relapse immediately upon their return, prolonging the redundancy further. He finally had to write to the staff member to explain his reasons for not telling them sooner, despite the decision having been made several months earlier, confounding an already difficult situation. That these were his friends and colleagues must have been incredibly difficult, and it is clear that from this point onwards Forbes was on borrowed time at the company. The archive presents a fundamentally decent man who had been pushed to the limit, losing several good friends in the process. One can only imagine the intense personal toll that this period must have taken on him, and the fact that he resigned within a few months of these redundancies is testament to the fact that he felt he could not continue under these circumstances. Clearly, there were financial issues that had to be addressed, especially around the problem of Elstree, which Forbes had identified soon into his tenure was not fit for purpose. It was within this context, that when the opportunity for yet another merger presented itself in the summer of 1970, EMI jumped at the chance, despite the fact that this time, the proposed partner was potentially more difficult to handle—an American studio. MGM had operated in Britain since the 1930s, producing commercially successful films such as Goodbye Mr Chips (Sam Wood, 1939) and The Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich, 1967), but which had run into difficulties of its own at its Borehamwood studio after the vast scale of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) had effectively rendered the space unavailable to other productions for over a year. The suggestion was made that MGM could end production at Borehamwood and effectively share the use of Elstree with EMI, solving both company’s difficulties with managing the overheads of running a studio on their own. Forbes had implored Delfont that if one studio had to be closed, it would be better to instead move production into MGM-Borehamwood and close Elstree, due to the former’s superior facilities. But Delfont was hamstrung by the public assurances that he had made on Forbes’ appointment, and the notion of ‘saving the British film industry’ would not have sat well with closing EMI’s flagship studio within a year and a half of Forbes’ appointment. Therefore, a joint press release from John Read, EMI’s Chief Executive, and MGM’s CEO James T Aubrey Jr., announced the deal and confirmed that MGM would close Borehamwood

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immediately and start hosting all future productions at Elstree.62 The deal, arranged under a seven-year agreement to mid-1977, was intended to see both EMI and MGM concentrate all of their UK productions and postproduction from overseas at Elstree, as well as co-produce six to eight films a year for distribution by MGM. Aubrey’s statement on the merger read: ‘The arrangement pleases us because it enables us to remain in studio operations more efficiently and economically, at the same time strengthening our product in the United Kingdom’.63 Interestingly, the line ‘distribution of’ had been struck out of the original draft text in between ‘strengthening’ and ‘our product’, with the implication being that this could not be presented as a route in for the American studios to merely shore up their distribution in the UK. The fact that this paperwork was retained by Forbes, demonstrates that this was also a concern he held himself, and he was aware that this type of deal, struck within a year of his own appointment, could be perceived to run counter to his initial pronouncements about saving the British film industry. In addition, as he reveals in his autobiography, the merger, placing Forbes as head of the new production arm MGM-EMI, also meant that he was now tasked with the responsibility of breaking the news of the Borehamwood closure, along with the redundancies that would ensue from this, to the existing staff. As he recalled, ‘it was one of the saddest jobs I ever had to perform. I knew then that my own days were numbered and that nobody really gave a toss for films or the people who made them.’64

62  ‘EMI and MGM Announce Formation of Joint Studio Company’ (22 April 1970). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 63  ‘EMI and MGM Announce Formation of Joint Studio Company’ (22 April 1970). 64  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 101.

CHAPTER 4

Mr Forbes and the Pen-Pushers

Within days of the EMI-MGM partnership being ratified, four co-­ productions were announced; The Go-Between (which was part of the original Forbes slate and had been in development since 1969), Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971), The Last Run (Richard Fleischer, 1971), and The Boy Friend (Ken Russell, 1971). This package was part of the hastily put together deal that was intended to demonstrate that despite the closure of Borehamwood, MGM-EMI would continue to invest in the British film industry,1 although The Last Run would eventually be made solely by MGM without EMI’s support, and Get Carter was already in post-­ production by the time of the announcement, and therefore was effectively an MGM-British production with no involvement from EMI.  Similarly, The Boy Friend was originally an MGM-British production, but was at its early stages, and therefore was shoe-horned into Forbes’ in-tray and became the first MGM-EMI film. The Boy Friend is set in a seaside town theatre, where Polly (played by Twiggy in her first leading role) works as an assistant stage manager. Rita (Glenda Jackson) is the company’s lead actress, preparing for a production of Sandy Wilson’s The Boy Friend (1954), and it is rumoured that a top Hollywood producer is in town to watch the production. Jackson suffers an injury and Twiggy is forced into the limelight, taking over the role and integrating her fantasy love for one of the other actors, Tony (Christopher Gable) with the story of the theatre production. Twiggy has a real presence on screen, and her 1

 Walker, A. (1986). National Heroes, London: Harrap, p. 274.

© The Author(s) 2018 P. Moody, EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94803-4_4

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wide-eyed innocence carries the audience through the many elaborate fantasy sequences, including a dance on a giant LP record, including a full Busby Berkley pastiche ending with a shot through the dance troupe’s legs, akin to 42nd Street (1933)—one of the many examples of the lavish sets for the film, which are never less than stunning. At the end, the theatre production is a success and Twiggy and her beau go off together—it is a positive ending, but this is a film that demands a lot from its audience and is not a traditional musical adaptation in the slightest. Forbes was not convinced by the finished product, saying that Russell’s conception of this fragile, ingenuous stage musical, which had achieved its success in the theatre from the very fact it was a nostalgic pastiche, could easily destroy its original charm. The finished product rather bore this out and it was one mistake [Forbes’ critics] could not lay at my door, though I derived no pleasure from its failure.2

Contemporary critics also were not amused, with Alexander Walker regarding it as ‘a musical, made for MGM-EMI, which did its dancing over the body of a better one’,3 and he complained about Russell’s decision to stage the numbers on a screen nearly three times as broad as it was high, totally unsuitable for the spectacular multiplication of leggy females whom Berkeley contrived to replicate on the perfectly rectangular screen of his day so that six dames looked like fifty. Russell’s effects worked exactly the other way round.4

But this is where the real ingenuity of Russell’s work can be seen. The first musical number, Perfect Young Ladies, is presented from one fixed camera position from the theatre stalls, and the second number is mainly from the perspective of the stage box, where the visiting American film producer is sitting. By the third song, the presentation has become much more expansive, shifting to a fantasy of a royal gala performance before returning to the reality of the provincial theatre. Therefore, Russell ­establishes the theatrical setting in the first two numbers, placing the viewer in the position that the actors are playing to (in the first, the theatre  Forbes, B. (1992). A Divided Life, London: William Heinemann, p. 102.  Walker, A. (1986), p. 81. 4  Walker, A. (1986), p. 81. 2 3

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rehearsal audience, and in the second, the movie producer), before unleashing his more fantastical urges. It is a subtle and effective way of generating a connection with the characters, and also shows the development of the show as they are improving through rehearsal. By the time of the fourth musical number, the use of sound has become complex and rich, with music and applause from the stage merging with the events taking place in a dance routine in the upper reaches of the theatre. It is an intellectual approach to filmmaking that feels stilted in the first act but is necessary to build the story world through Polly’s eyes, and taking the audience aesthetically from the pedestrian staging of the provincial theatre to the expansive visual and aural worlds of Hollywood. This kind of visual ‘excess’ was naturally frowned upon by Aubrey, and, still nominally in control of the film, he ordered 27 minutes to be removed before its release, a strategy which failed to reap any commercial reward. The film was viewed as a disaster, despite managing some critical success for Twiggy with a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer and Best Actress (Musical/Comedy). Its reputation has grown in recent years along with that of its director, and is probably the closest that a musical has ever come to an intellectual experiment, but this is pure Russell and a minor classic which sits uniquely out of kilter with the rest of Forbes’ output. MGM had also provided the money to fund another maverick director, Joseph Losey, whose The Go-Between had been in gestation for five years. In hindsight, The Go-Between was almost certainly destined to be a successful piece of art. The third collaboration between Harold Pinter and Losey, after The Servant (1962) and Accident (1967), it featured a host of star names including Julie Christie and Alan Bates, and a strong supporting cast. Forbes regarded the script as ‘one of the finest I had ever read’,5 but the projected budget, of £489,000, established it as EMI’s most expensive project to date, and hence the co-production deal with MGM, while foisted upon Forbes and the company, was beneficial in that it enabled the project to finally get off the ground. The film is set during the summer of 1900, and follows the story of Leo (Dominic Guard), about to turn 13, who is spending the holiday with the family of his classmate Marcus Maudsley (Richard Gibson). But once he arrives, Marcus is taken ill and Leo is left to explore the Maudsley’s country house. Leo is befriended by one of Marcus’ adult siblings, Marion (Julie Christie), who offers to take him to town to buy him some summer clothes, as it is 5

 Forbes, B. (1992), p. 100.

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increasingly hot and Leo is wearing unseasonably warm woollen clothing— for Leo’s family are not quite as affluent as the Maudsleys. The signs are there, but Leo does not realise that he is on the cusp of entering another world, for he has already become the ‘go-between’, and the film is likewise about all ‘go-betweens’, the liminal spaces of what lies between two opposites. In his naiveté, he acquiesces to Marion’s motive for taking him on, agreeing to take messages between her and a tenant farmer, Ted Burgess (Alan Bates), who, unbeknownst to Leo, is also her lover. It is scandalous enough that they are from different classes, but Marion is engaged to Lord Hugh Trimingham (Edward Fox), an ex-soldier who is a decent man and nice to Leo. Leo secretly reads one of the letters Marion has written to Ted and discovers the truth, and the rest of the film is his way of understanding this as a 12-year-old boy, and how his world collapses in the film’s denouement when, during his 13th birthday party, Marion’s mother compels him to witness Ted and Marion together in flagrante delicto. Leo is the catalyst for the tragic events at the end of the film, but he is also a naïve, unwitting participant, and in his innocence he represents the fragile façade of the family and Victorian upper-class society, which is shattered and forever damaged upon the revelation of the illicit affair. As an adult, Leo has become a broken man, unable to love, and ultimately, he is the one who has been most scarred by the incident (Fig. 4.1). As James Park notes, the film was Forbes’ second set in the Edwardian era (although it begins near the end of Queen Victoria’s reign—another example of the film’s liminal narrative themes),6 after The Railway Children, and it is a notable indication of what was popular with audiences that these films were both critical and commercial successes. The novel’s oft-quoted opening line, ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’, which also opens the film’s narrative, is instructive in understanding the film and its relation to Forbes’ overall project. It appeals to the past, to Britain’s sense of nationhood. It also appealed to Forbes’ moral stance, which similarly harked back to earlier times. But Losey did not set out to present a romanticised vision of history. His production notes state that: On the contrary, [the film] should have its own reality, and there should be, under the images of these indulged characters, wandering through their great house and vast estate, a sense of malaise and apprehension … the ­feeling of the house and the feeling round its occupants is one of oppression— almost sinister.7 6 7

 Park, J. (1990). British Cinema: The Lights That Failed. London: BT Batsford, p. 127.  ‘Production notes’ (undated, c. 1970). Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI.

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Fig. 4.1  Joseph Losey and Julie Christie on the set of The Go-Between, EMI’s first unanimous critical success. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd

Pinter’s work has been noted as featuring ‘distortion of time, sequence, and the past’,8 and the script for The Go-Between is no exception. The film’s playfulness with time, with apparent flash-forwards and elliptical editing, also create the sense of liminality in the film’s form. The flash-­ forwards gradually elongate in duration, and are coupled with an asyn8   Klein, J. (1985). Making Pictures: The Pinter Screenplays. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, p. 185.

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chronous voiceover that mixes two different time periods together, further emphasising the notion of the ‘go-between’.9 Losey changed the original opening of Pinter’s script so that it starts in the present with an image of rain on the windscreen of Leo’s car, which W. Russell Gray argues has the effect of changing Pinter’s flash-forwards into flashbacks,10 an intention which might be metaphorical, in that the rain represents Leo’s own tears, but also was a practical decision based on reservations to the flash-­forwards from the editor, Reginald Beck and the executive producer John Heymann.11 But most importantly, the combination of script and direction provided an effect which ‘achieves a coexistence of past and present’.12 This was Pinter and Losey’s contribution—L.P.  Hartley’s original novel used a much more conventional structure, with a chronologically ordered flashback bookended by a prologue and epilogue set in the present, and Pinter uses the disruption in time to not only provide a form that aesthetically emphasises liminality, but also to critique the formalities of this upper-class environment. Edward Jones argues that Hartley ‘does not throw the order and values of his presented world into question to the degree that the film does’,13 and it is a feature of the work that every ­character is to a degree transgressing the boundaries of what is expected of them. Harper and Smith argue that despite the film appearing to ‘present more complex possibilities of personal memory and social transgression’, primarily via the disjointed form introduced by Pinter, it ‘ultimately reinforces a morally conservative position in undermining its central protagonists’.14 But Pinter’s intention was to argue that the past was not as foreign a country as the novel projected—in fact, by undermining Leo and Ted, it says that the order of society in Britain has remained essentially the same, shattering the illusions of the ‘swinging’ 1960s. It shows how the rigid 9  Gray, W. R. (2007). ‘The time in our minds: The presence of the past in The Go-Between.’ The Journal of Popular Culture, 40(4), p. 646. 10  Gray, W. R. (2007), p. 646. 11  Gray, W. R. (2007), p. 647. 12  Gray, W. R. (2007), p. 649. 13  Jones, E. (1994). ‘Re-Viewing the Losey-Pinter Go-Between’, in Dixon, Wheeler Winston (ed.) Re-Viewing British Cinema, 1900–1992. Albany: State University of New York, p. 211. 14  Harper, S. and Smith, J. (2012), ‘Boundaries and taboos’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (eds.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 141.

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confines of class, threatened by the 1960s in cultural revolutions in music, theatre and film, had remained intact, as the two usurpers to this world, Ted and Leo, are both fatally damaged at the end—Ted committing suicide, and Leo becoming a shell of a man as an adult. Marion in contrast, is able to continue her upper-class lie, marrying Hugh while continuing to send secret letters via Leo. Nothing changes for her, but everything does for the working-class characters. It is unclear whether the original adaptation of the story would have been quite so radical. Losey had embarked on the project in the mid-­ 1960s, but would write to the film’s original scriptwriter, Paul Dehn that: After my collaboration with Harold Pinter on ‘the Servant’, many things happened. In the first place, I have leapt ahead on my particular style and development, and, secondly, I have discovered the enormous satisfaction and joy in working with Pinter … for these reasons and for many others I became progressively less interested in your version of ‘the Go-Between’ and more interested in a new approach of my own and Harold Pinter’s.15

Losey wanted Marion and Ted to be young, unknown actors, as this ‘was a story of very young lovers who were using a little boy who was only slightly younger than they were’,16 and he first considered Jane Asher, Charlotte Rampling and Marianne Faithful for Marion, and Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, and Ian McShane for Ted. He wrote to Lynn Redgrave’s agent to enquire about her availability for the role, and had written to Mia Farrow in 1968 to say ‘please don’t commit yourself beyond June 1969 without letting me know’.17 But Delfont insisted on including at least one ‘name’ actor, and Losey would have to write to Michael Billington that regrettably he could not pursue the idea of him playing Ted ‘because of the “name” requirements of the finance’.18 Losey eventually compromised on Alan Bates and Julie Christie, who he had in fact initially approached in 1964. Christie had refused then, saying she was too old, but eventually

15  Letter from Joseph Losey to Paul Dehn (4 February 1965). Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI. 16  Ciment, M. (1985), Conversations with Losey, London: Methuen, p. 240. 17  Letter from Joseph Losey to Mia Farrow (6 June 1968). Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI. 18  Undated Letter from Losey to Michael Billington (16 June 1970). Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI.

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was persuaded to do the film on this second occasion,19 and Losey would write to her regularly to apologise for yet another delay in the production, saying on one occasion, ‘I much regret that “The Go Between” still is not definitely going. There is a little hope but not a great deal in spite of Brian (sic) Forbes’ self-deluding compliments.’20 Once the MGM deal was agreed and the project began in earnest, Losey’s files reveal the exacting standards and precision in which the film was conceived. There are three pages of notes dedicated to the sounds of East Anglia at the turn of the century, based on research from Peter Handford conducted for Akenfield (Peter Hall, 1974). This collection of game birds, insects and church bells is evocatively carried over into the film, although despite this meticulous planning, Losey still received a letter from a member of the public complaining about the inauthenticity of the sound of the bell ringing in one scene.21 Likewise, Handford was also unhappy with the release print, writing to Losey that: I do feel very much that a lot of atmosphere and style has gone from the film in its present form … there seems now to be so little of the atmosphere of the house and estate left in the film, virtually nothing of the trip to Norwich and little of the relationship between the boys, at least in comparison to the earlier versions.22

But with the production completed, Forbes would write to Losey to put forward his views of what was obviously a difficult gestation, before work on the post-production and distribution would begin, saying: Now that finally, it would appear, all the legal Captains and Kings have departed the scene, I felt I should try to put on paper what has always been my attitude towards the film and towards you. I have no idea what garbled reports you have received on my attitude or behaviour, but I can assure you that my enthusiasm for the film, for Harold’s script, and for you personally

 Ciment, Michel (1985), p. 240.  Letter from Joseph Losey to Julie Christie (30 May 1970). Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI. 21  Undated letter from an audience member to Joseph Losey. Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI. 22  Letter from Peter Handford to Joseph Losey (4 November 1970). Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI. 19 20

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has remained undimmed. I always thought it was the most distinguished film we had in our lists and I fought as hard as I could to keep it afloat.23

Losey’s reply is evidence of the breakdown in trust between the two, saying: Thank you for your friendly letter. The only disturbing thing in it is the phrase ‘it would appear’. It has so often ‘appeared’ to be something that it wasn’t, that I suppose a degree of lingering scepticism can be understood. For my part, I assure you that I will do the best I can to make the film that has been intended for these several years now, in spite of the many qualifications with which it has been hedged and the constant drains to which all of us have been subjected.24

But there was still tension in the relationship, with Losey unhappy about being asked by Forbes to record the post-production sound at Elstree, writing to him that ‘my only chance of protecting my picture is to persuade you that we who made the picture have already contributed and sacrificed enough to deserve that you should let me make the decision over the question of sound’.25 Forbes relented, although in a typical example of misplaced optimism he asked him to confirm precisely his objections to recording at Elstree, so that he could make the facilities ‘second to none’.26 But once complete, Delfont did not care for it much himself. Forbes recalls that after screening the film to him, Delfont remarked condescendingly with regard to Leo’s character, ‘he runs forever, for miles and miles’.27 And likewise, Aubrey, who retained some degree of influence due to MGM’s co-financing arrangement, wanted to open the film at a provincial cinema in California, which would have effectively killed it off as a commercial prospect. Forbes was left in the unenviable position of being once again the only person in the company willing to defend the

23  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Joseph Losey (25 June 1970). Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI. 24  Letter from Joseph Losey to Bryan Forbes (30 June 1970). Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI. 25  Letter from Joseph Losey to Bryan Forbes (28 September 1970). Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI. 26  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Joseph Losey (30 September 1970). Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI. 27  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 220.

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film, and was adamant that it should have a major New  York release.28 Delfont was concerned that if they did not acquiesce to Aubrey, then MGM would withdraw its money and support in the USA, denying it access to what would potentially be its biggest revenue stream. With few options left, and sensing the moment for one final grand gesture as Head of Production, Forbes went behind Delfont’s back (albeit with Losey’s agreement) to arrange for the film to be selected as the official British entry at Cannes that year,29 effectively ensuring that it would attract publicity and thus have to be released more widely. An incensed Aubrey withdrew MGM’s support as promised, and John Heyman of Columbia Pictures stepped in with the necessary finance and, more importantly, access to the American market. The film eventually won the Palme D’Or at Cannes (then known as the Grand Prix du festival International du Film) and four Baftas (for Margaret Leighton, Edward Fox, Harold Pinter, and Dominic Guard respectively), and did phenomenally well across the USA and Europe, with over 400,000 admissions in Paris alone. By the end of March 1973 the film had grossed over £450,000, and that was before US box office was taken into account. This success did not stop Losey complaining to Forbes and Delfont about how his masterpiece was being treated by the distributors, however, and he would telegram Delfont to claim that the Italian release was ‘disgraceful’ and the sound on the Athens release was ‘unintelligible’.30 But the majority of his ire was reserved for EMI’s woeful marketing, which did not even mention the Palme D’Or: What has been done about the credit situation in England? Do you totally disregard value of Cannes award, my name and Pinter’s? What is the use of making quality pictures if they are handled like shit? Expect immediate correction or will publicise.31

Delfont acquiesced and hastily corrected the omission,32 and Losey was appeased. Now that the film was successful, Delfont did not fail to take an  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 219.  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 220. 30  Telegram from Joseph Losey to Bernard Delfont (5 November 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 31  Telegram from Joseph Losey to Bernard Delfont (5 November 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 32  Telegram from Bernard Delfont to Joseph Losey (10 November 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 28 29

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opportunity to claim the success as his own, complaining that in an interview Forbes had intimated that he, rather than Delfont, had instigated The Go-Between.33 Instead, said Delfont, he ‘personally had this project well in mind prior to [Forbes] joining the company … in no way was The Go-Between initiated by yourself’.34 Forbes did not keep his reply, but as he was nearing the end of his tenure, it is clear who won the argument (although Forbes repeats the claim in his autobiography,35 while Delfont maintains that it was brought to him first in his own autobiography36). But the film’s success did lead to a thawing of relations between Forbes and Losey, with the latter coming to view Forbes as a similarly thwarted artist. Forbes would write to him to complain about EMI’s marketing preferences as well, saying the silence surrounding The Go-Between had not escaped my notice and I have on several occasions remonstrated at the total disregard for publicity following the triumph for the film at Cannes. … I might add that where The Raging Moon is concerned, we have only had 71 bookings since January whereas such films as ‘Suck the Blood of Dracula’ are given in excess of 400 books although proportionately our takings are 300% better! As you say they are determined to prove that you and I can only make commercial failures.37

Likewise, Losey could barely contain his amusement when recounting to Forbes that Delfont had called him personally to tell him how ‘tremendous’ the box office receipts were for the film, and said that ‘I hope you go to the Royal performance at Norwich and make your presence uncomfortably felt. Why don’t you arrive with the Queen Mother?.’38 Of course, this being EMI, this was the first that Forbes had heard of the Royal premiere,39 but he noted a bittersweet revenge of sorts, as the credits in 33  Letter from Bernard Delfont to Bryan Forbes (28 October 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 34  Letter from Bernard Delfont to Bryan Forbes (28 October 1971). 35  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 100. 36  Delfont, B. (1990). East End, West End, London: Macmillan, p. 186. 37  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Joseph Losey (12 July 1971). Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI. 38  Letter from Joseph Losey to Bryan Forbes (11 October 1971). Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI. 39  Letter from Bryan Forbes to Joseph Losey (14 October 1971). Joseph Losey Special Collection. London: BFI.

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the US marketing campaign presented it as a Columbia Pictures film with no mention of EMI, leading Forbes to remark, ‘poetic justice in reverse, I suppose’.40 These tensions found their final creative outlet in what would be the last film released by EMI while Forbes was still Head of Production, one of EMI’s lesser-known works, Mr Forbush and the Penguins, which can be interpreted as a metaphor for Forbes’ tenure at EMI and the ultimate unravelling of his mini empire. Forbush follows John Hurt’s eponymous character as he pursues a perilous Antarctic adventure during the penguin breeding season. He is a solitary figure, striking out alone on something terribly important, only to be dashed when, after forming a connection with the penguins, he is helpless to stop their population being decimated by skua gulls—the parallels between Forbes and the attacks from his various critics (including, most pertinently, the EMI management), are obvious. The original novel for Forbush was by written by the New Zealand author Graham Billing, and Anthony Shaffer adapted the film’s script. This was Shaffer’s first screenplay, and his first work after his breakthrough play Sleuth (Anthony Shaffer, 1970) the previous year. Schaffer’s script follows the core Antarctic adventure of the novel, but with one key difference—a framing story set in London which is intended to humanise and locate Forbush in the real world. In the film, this story begins with Forbush as a postgraduate student in biology, who is presented as academically gifted despite being more interested in women and partying than in his studies. As played by Hurt, he is a clearly upper-class student with few financial concerns, due to a generous endowment from his parents. This funding includes the use of an Indian chauffeur, who is endlessly trying to avoid parking tickets after Forbush has asked him to park in another inconsiderate (and illegal) location, so that Forbush can pursue his new crush, Tara (Hayley Mills). These scenes establish Forbush as caring little about the world around him, and provide an opportunity for some awkward 1970s social satire, with the chauffeur claiming racial discrimination from the black traffic warden who repeatedly gives him a ticket. To further entrench the sense of privilege, Forbush is arrested after taking over the driving (after having had several alcoholic drinks), and is bailed at the police station by one of his equally upper-class lecturers. As recompense for being bailed, Forbush attends a talk on Antarctic penguins on his lecturer’s request, and notices that Tara is also in atten Letter from Bryan Forbes to Joseph Losey (14 October 1971).

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dance. He is offered a posting at a research base in Antarctica to observe and record the penguins’ breeding season and, knowing that this will impress Tara, he accepts. More examples of upper-class privilege follow, with Forbush gathering his rations for the trip from Fortnum and Mason, and a contrived scene with his parents at the breakfast table, in which they spend their time with their heads buried in a newspaper and treat his imminent adventure as if it is a short holiday break. This entire framing section is a departure from the source material, presumably because the Forbush of the novel was, like his author, a New Zealander, and the peculiarities of the British class system therefore were of little concern. But Billing’s Forbush is certainly not as privileged as Shaffer’s, with Billing’s character preparing rations of ‘frozen steaks, kidneys, bacon, liver, tripe, chicken and sweetbreads’,41 as opposed to Shaffer’s Fortnum and Mason caviar. But the effect falls flat; rather than humanising him, Shaffer’s Forbush is even more disassociated from his audience’s real lives, and ultimately the satire fails to land its blows. From herein the action relocates to Antarctica, with Forbush living in the same base as the Scott expedition. After no appearance of the penguins for days, he becomes increasingly frustrated, until eventually they start to arrive and the film features various scenes of Hurt interacting with them. At one point he has to kill a penguin to dissect it for research purposes, and this is the first instance of Forbush starting to humanise and feel empathy for others, exaggerated further when a helicopter of visiting American researchers arrives and frightens the penguins away, resulting in a volley of abuse from Forbush. Meanwhile, Tara has acquired a new boyfriend, who does not appreciate her listening to Forbush’s weekly audio diary that he posts to her, which she seems more interested in than in him. Back in Antarctica, Forbush becomes more and more attached to the penguins, and constructs a slingshot in a futile attempt to ward off the skuas which are eating the newly hatched penguin chicks. His journey complete, both literally and metaphorically, he returns to London, and the final scene shows Tara greeting him at her door and welcoming him into her house, her boyfriend vanquished and Forbush’s own mating ritual now also complete. Forbush was another attempt by Forbes to tap into the nascent live-­ action family film market, an area in which British cinema had, until The Railway Children, been woefully unsuccessful. However, unlike The Railway Children, this was an especially troubled production, which suf Billing, G. (1965). Forbush and the Penguins. London: Coronet Books, p. 18.

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fered from a severe lack of planning and supervision. Forbes’ much vaunted hands-off approach, designed to let the people he viewed as artists to continue with their work unimpeded, had great success within the context of adult-oriented arthouse fare such as The Go-Between, but on what was a more commercial proposition, his lack of oversight often created problems for the crew, who appeared at times to flounder until they were picked up at the point of no return. What made Forbush different, and what arguably saved it from a similar fate to A Fine and Private Place, was that it had been backed financially to the tune of £200,000 by the National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC), had also received co-funding from British Lion, and more importantly, had secured a completion bond from John Croydon’s insurance company Film Finances, which ensured a level of oversight and a financial commitment from another backer determined not to see the film fail. Film Finances’ involvement would guarantee investors that the film would be finished on time for the agreed budget, with Film Finances’ covering any costs above and beyond this (recouping them on the eventual release of the film). Its involvement began in October 1969, at which point it was yet to advance any money, and was combing through the film’s shooting schedule. The company’s notes from this period depict its concerns regarding Forbush’s character development, some of the practicalities of filming the location scenes, and the need to extend the schedule to accommodate back projection work.42 In its opinion, the first two days of location shooting would ‘set the scene’, as they would establish Forbush’s first encounters with the penguins and skuas, and his walking amongst the colony.43 As the report points out, the main unit ‘presumably’ had to feature the full colony, in order to establish a ‘pattern of skua behaviour’ and two ‘individual “episodes” with specific birds’.44 Because of this, the report’s author was concerned about the difficulties involved in this type of filming, and the experience of the crew that was going to record it, asking: To what extent has the director experience of all this himself? Apart from the Nature Unit, will any naturalist be attached to the Unit to coach the actor? Will the Nature Unit be working as part of the main unit for scenes of this sort?45 42  Mr Forbush and the Penguins Schedule Report (9 October 1969). London: Film Finances, p. 2. 43  Forbush Schedule Report, p. 2. 44  Forbush Schedule Report, p. 2. 45  Forbush Schedule Report, p. 2.

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At this stage of the production, the appointed director was Al Viola, helming his second feature after a low-key US production Interplay (Al Viola, 1970), and his relative inexperience alarmed the Film Finances team, along with the fact that a second ‘Nature’ unit under the direction of Arne Sucksdorff was in charge of filming most of the scenes involving the penguins. As the report questioned, ‘If the shots of skuas taking eggs have to be shot much later by the Nature Unit, what is the degree of liaison between director and Sucksdorff (sic)? Will each be completely aware of the angles each has to comply with for smooth cutting?.’46 These concerns over the film’s direction also extended to the structure of the film’s core sequences: Day 4. What does Forbush actually do? This is the scene in which a penguin is killed for dissection purposes. He also watches ecstatic displays, copulations, colour of excreta, etc. … This raises the question of the ‘progression’ of events. On Day 2 the penguins arrive. On Day 3 we see behaviour patterns. On Day 4 the penguins are copulating. On Day 5 there are eggs—and so on. Obviously the main unit alternates between being ahead and behind nature. How is this achieved?47

This concern over how the schedule would fit in with nature’s natural rhythms was a constant theme throughout Film Finances’ initial review of the shooting schedule, prompting questions such as ‘is location schedule haphazard or has it been established that nature can, either naturally or artificially, be “bent” to suit this existent schedule?’.48 Similar practical questions were raised about the creation of an artificial blizzard and deep snow on days 7 and 8, with the constant refrain being ‘how will this be done?’ or ‘how will this be achieved?’.49 EMI did not have a satisfactory answer, and this haphazard approach to the film led to the co-producers, the Boulting Brothers and Launder and Gilliat of British Lion, deciding that major reworking was required. An uncredited Roy Boulting decided that he would have to remove the film’s director and direct the London framing sequence himself, after Viola’s poorly received first cut which, like the novel, was set exclusively in Antarctica. Forbes had to convince

 Forbush Schedule Report, p. 3.  Forbush Schedule Report, pp. 2–3. 48  Forbush Schedule Report, p. 3. 49  Forbush Schedule Report, p. 3. 46 47

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John Hurt to stay on to re-film the scenes, or risk the entire production going under.50 On 14 October 1969, John Croydon of Film Finances would write to his colleague R.E.F. Garrett regarding Forbush, starting his letter by saying, ‘I was not very impressed by anybody at our meeting yesterday’.51 Croydon had discovered a production in disarray, including that ‘none of the papers I have looked at are finalised’, and most importantly that he had found a ‘schedule [that] had been discarded some time ago, even before I looked at it’, and had been substituted by ‘something that had been made out by [the associate producer] Gordon Scott’.52 ‘Much to [Croydon’s] amazement’, Scott’s retort was to say that ‘not only did his new X-plot bear no scene numbers’ but also that he ‘would not, under any ­circumstances, apply scene numbers to the location as it was so filled with uncertainties’.53 This was of course precisely the source of Croydon’s fears. In addition, the production team appeared especially reluctant to proffer any information, with Croydon complaining that ‘purely by questioning’, he had found out that ‘certain script alterations are already in hand’,54 yet these did not address even the most basic scene considerations. For example, Croydon questioned the filming of what he termed ‘the other side’ of a telephone conversation that Forbush has with his girlfriend Tara, and another radio conversation with Forbush’s fellow scientists Fisher and Starshot—a basic shot/reverse shot construction that forms a standard element of commercial cinematic language. After receiving an initial response that the ‘other side’ would never be seen, Croydon insisted that the dialogue was too long to focus on one individual, prompting Viola to suggest that while a reverse shot for the scene with Tara might in fact be necessary, he did not want to see either Fisher or Starshot ‘as to do so would destroy the feeling of Forbush’s isolation’.55 The final film includes reverse shots for both scenes, although it is unclear whether they were added by Boulting or whether Viola decided to relent. While this was of course an artistic decision on Viola’s part, it is also emblematic of a production in which communication between both parties was strained,  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 222.  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F.  Garrett (14 October 1969). London: Film Finances. 52  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969). 53  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969). 54  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969). 55  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969). 50 51

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replaced by mistrust, to the extent that even these most basic elements of the story were being questioned by the insurance company. Aside from artistic differences, there were logistical issues, with Croydon reporting that the ‘journey to and from the Antarctic seems to be full of doubts’.56 For a start, the Argentinian government was responsible for all travel arrangements once on the location, despite at the time still being in the throes of Juan Carlos Onganía’s military dictatorship. Negotiations between the Argentinian Navy and Army had taken place, and it was believed that permissions had been granted for the Navy to escort the unit from the mainland to Palmer land—although no ‘definite date’ for when the ship would sail had been ascertained, and there was ‘an element of hit or miss about the prospects of the unit reaching the location’.57 As Croydon sardonically noted, this was ‘bad enough’ on the outbound journey, but ‘if similar conditions were to apply to the units (sic) return, one wonders when they would reach Elstree’.58 However, the problems did not end there. For once they had arrived on the island, ‘Nobody seemed to understand my questions concerning natural cycle (sic) of the penguins stay on Palmer Land’.59 Croydon believed that the penguins did not arrive all at the same time, and that the cycle of events depicted in the script took place on a rotational basis throughout the colony, which in his view meant that ‘any part of the script should be capable of being shot at any given time’.60 This, coupled with concerns about animal welfare in scenes such as ‘the birds being scattered by the helicopter rotors’, led to Croydon announcing that he was trying to source a textbook on penguin behaviour in order to confirm his assumptions.61 Croydon’s account speaks of the many difficulties associated with the production from the start, which appear to stem from inadequate planning, primarily because of a lack of experience at the top of the production. As Croydon would remark, the ‘thinking on the part of the producer and director was very loose’,62 but this was equalled by the attitudes of the EMI board. Croydon recounted how Forbes’ assistant John Hargreaves and the film’s associate producer Gordon Scott were ‘full of confidence’ about the shooting schedule and  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969).  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969). 58  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969). 59  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969). 60  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969). 61  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969). 62  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969). 56 57

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budget, but on the other hand, the producer Henry Trettin and director Viola seemed to have no connected thought about how they would shoot the picture, how they would get to location and back to Elstree, who precisely would make facilities available and certainly nothing very definite about the natural habitats in which they were to work.63

Croydon felt that the situation was so bad that he would have to meet with Trettin and Viola separately from EMI, ‘mainly to test the thought that they … are to some extent withholding information that ought to be available’.64 His conclusion was unequivocal: ‘there is no glimmer of encouragement to Film Finances to give this proposition a guarantee of completion either as the papers stand or in the manner in which the personalities express themselves’.65 Relations had hit a low point, and the project was looking likely to be another abandoned feature for EMI. However, less than a month later, both parties had agreed to meet at Elstree to discuss the location shooting at Esperanza, the Argentine research base on Antarctica,66 and Hargreaves would laud the ‘tripartite’ financing that had been arranged between EMI, British Lion, and the NFFC.67 By November 1969, Croydon had been convinced of the project’s viability, presumably as a result of the oversight that the NFFC would provide, and transferred $50,000 to Henry Trettin to get the production underway.68 Hargreaves eventually signed off a budget of $235,180 for the Antarctic expedition, and the unit departed in December that year. By February 1970, 8  weeks of Antarctic location shooting had been completed, followed by the completion of the studio scenes by March. But the cut that resulted from this material was not well received, with Forbes believing the exteriors to not cut well with the studio shots, precisely as Film Finances had warned.69 Viola was fired, and Roy Boulting took over  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969).  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969). 65  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (14 October 1969). 66  Mr Forbush and the Penguins Statement of Production Cost (5 November 1969). London: Film Finances. 67  Mr Forbush and the Penguins Statement of Production Cost (5 November 1969). 68  Letter from John Hargreaves to Douglas Gosling (24 November 1969). London: Film Finances. 69  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 221. 63 64

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pickups in November, replacing the lead actress with his then wife, Hayley Mills. Shooting was eventually completed on 16 December 1970 with another 55 minutes of screen time recorded, and the last payment to the cast and crew were made by the end of March 1971. The final accounts at the end of December 1972 show that the production had eventually cost £638,842, £33,000 over budget and significantly more expensive than even The Go-Between.70 The film finally secured a release in December 1971, but was not a commercial success. An EMI internal report from February 1972 described its takings as ‘not promising but too early to be sure’,71 and reviews were also uniformly negative. Variety found it to be a ‘limp yarn about the transformation of a young hedonist, interesting only when the camera is trained on a colony of penguins’.72 It referred to the ‘dull’ scripting and ‘conventional’ direction, bemoaning the ‘corny story, overly familiar with respect to plotting and sentimentality … clearly destined for fast dual-bill playoff’, with the penguin sequences lending the film ‘its only real humor (sic) and dramatic interest’.73 In addition, Hurt was ‘saddled with a hackneyed part’ and Mills was ‘wasted in a basically support role of no depth’.74 British reviewers were no more forgiving, with Richard Combs of the Monthly Film Bulletin stating: In his introduction to Forbush and the Penguins, its author Graham Billing claimed that it was ‘the first serious novel to come out of Antarctica’. The film, as it has emerged from EMI, has managed not only to banish all seriousness but also to minimise the relevance of the Antarctic setting. … The surviving Antarctic material features some realistically gruelling action; but the central character is now reduced to the abbreviated, caricatured motions of a clown, comic and tragic by unconvincing turns.75

And perhaps Alexander Walker summed it up best, when he said that Forbush was ‘the sort of film only penguins would enjoy’.76 Forbush was  Letter from Film Finances to EMI Films (31 December 1972). London: Film Finances.  MacDonald, W.H. (22 February 1972). ‘Film Valuations.’ Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 72  Pit (12 January 1972), ‘Mr Forbush and the Penguins’, Variety, p. 14. 73  Pit (12 January 1972), p. 14. 74  Pit (12 January 1972), p. 14. 75  Combs, R. (11 January 1972). ‘Mr Forbush and the Penguins.’ Monthly Film Bulletin 39(456), p. 11. 76  Walker, J. (1985). The Once and Future Film, London: Methuen, p. 29. 70 71

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not a film that anyone involved in the production would be remembered for, but it serves as a microcosm of Forbes’ short-lived tenure at EMI and was emblematic of the problems that the company faced in its early years. In was a depressing, but in many ways, more fitting end to his tenure than The Go-Between. By the time the film was actually released, Forbes had already decided that he had had enough. His resignation, delivered in April 1971, reads by his account as an anti-climax, the result of an ultimatum delivered to Delfont to force him into support for Elstree and Forbes’ plans for his film programme, which ended as a discussion as to how best to manage the publicity of his leaving.77 Delfont, in a typical prevarication, retained Forbes on the EMI board as a non-executive director, a concession suggested by Delfont as a way of making it look to the rest of the industry that they had left on good terms.78 To a certain extent this was true; a conversation conducted via telegram between Forbes and Delfont, soon after his resignation, encapsulates their relationship succinctly, with Delfont first informing Forbes that ‘[Tales of Beatrix] Potter capacity every performance and really sensational’. This was followed two weeks later with Delfont’s comment that ‘Railway Children also still doing exceptional business STOP great wave planned for summer STOP Raging Moon unfortunately not doing the business but all in all most delighted with everything STOP’.79 Forbes’ reply said simply, ‘West Ham Potter Railway Children Raging Moon Dulcima Go Between all winners perhaps I should resign more often STOP your welcome cable further proof that you and I are kosher’.80 Forbes illustrated his thoughts during this period in a typically sardonic fashion, summing up the days following his resignation by saying ‘I sat on the beach and watched a deformed dog urinate on yesterday’s sandcastles. The dog graphically illustrated my feelings at that moment’ (Fig. 4.2).81 Forbes’ vision had failed to materialise into either regular, guaranteed small profit, or irregular substantial profit, and the personal toll that it had taken was profound. As James Park argues, ‘it was not only that the industry needed propping up, but the whole film culture had to be  Forbes, B. (1992), pp. 223–224.  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 227. 79  Telegram from Bernard Delfont to Bryan Forbes (20 April 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 80  Telegram from Bernard Delfont to Bryan Forbes (9 April 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 81  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 375. 77 78

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Fig. 4.2  Bryan Forbes crouches pensively on the beach during the filming of The Raging Moon. His resignation would follow a few months later. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd

rebuilt, and Forbes had clearly not grasped the scale of what needed to be done’.82 As such, it had become clear to all involved that his tenure would have to come to an end. In the short space of time that he spent at EMI, he had established the company as a serious player in the British film industry, with a range of productions that had both found commercial success in family entertainment, such as The Railway Children, and had produced a major critical success with the Palme d’Or for The Go-Between. Added to this was the not insignificant feat of having reorganised Elstree into a studio that had a realistic chance of competing for business with other, better run and better equipped British studios. Before leaving the company completely, Forbes would have one more year on the EMI board, and as such, Delfont, opportunistic as ever, would invite him to salvage a biopic of Rudolph Nureyev whose production had stalled. This film would become, under Forbes’ (uncredited) direction, I  Park, J. (1990), p. 127.

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am a Dancer (Pierre Jourdan, 1972).83 The documentary had originally been intended solely for French television,84 but Delfont, recognising the opportunity to release this in cinemas as a unique depiction of the film’s star, agreed to provide an additional £79,000 to complete it as a feature film.85 In the piece, Nureyev would be filmed performing the ballet, Field Figures, with music by Stockhausen and choreography by Glenn Tetley, along with the pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty.86 Before Forbes’ arrival, all that had been recorded were some interviews and Frederick Ashton’s La Dame aux Camelias, starring Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn.87 Forbes once again used the naturalistic cinematography of Tony Imi, who he had worked with on Raging Moon, and they shot at Elstree and in the London Coliseum. Nureyev was notoriously difficult to work with, and his behaviour on set included almost coming to blows with a member of the crew, and an erratic approach to timekeeping, with Forbes having to pull him to one side to bring him to task.88 The subsequent film features a portentous, and unintentionally humorous voiceover from Forbes, written apparently to an ‘everyman’ viewer with little knowledge of ballet (featuring lines like, ‘dancing is difficult, you see’), but it is a remarkable record of the artistry of Nureyev and Fonteyn, and has a major historical importance as the only filmed record of the two dancers performing together. It is an anomaly in the EMI canon, but a significant one nonetheless. Forbes’ last documented action at EMI was a memo to the members of the board in October 1971, on ‘The Future Role of Studios’, which outlined his vision for how Elstree could be developed into a modern, profitable film studio. Forbes identified several issues with the Elstree complex and presented his plans for the future, which included the creation of mobile cinema units (called ‘cinemobiles’), with production facilities on board a vehicle for location shooting, and converting some of the backlot area to housing to generate regular income, an idea not too dissimilar to contemporary developments at Pinewood.89 However, after assessing the  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 224.  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 222. 85  Minutes of the EMI Film Programme Investment Committee (28 June 1972). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 86  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 223. 87  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 222. 88  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 224. 89  Memo from Bryan Forbes to the EMI board (27 September 1972). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 83 84

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parlous state of the UK film industry, the board decided that it would be too risky to proceed with the types of changes envisioned by Forbes.90 Powerless once more, Forbes left EMI the following year. As he would put it in his autobiography, ‘perhaps my comparative youth worked against me. I was forty-three when I took the post, while most of the other members of the board were fifteen years my senior, set in their ways and resented any attempt to change the old status quo.’91 But Delfont recognised that Forbes’ resignation was an opportunity to shift the balance of power in the company irrevocably in favour of one of these board members, Forbes’ rival and head of Anglo-EMI, Nat Cohen. For now that Forbes’ was gone, the process of moving his closest confidants on had begun in earnest, and the transition from a studio that was established to reignite the British film industry as an artistic goal, to one that was concentrated on the commercial imperatives of this industry, had started. As Delfont would later recall: My heart was with Bryan Forbes: I wanted him to succeed. But as a director of EMI, with a responsibility to shareholders and the workforce, I had to accept that Nat Cohen was talking practical common sense. … I was rather more inclined to back the market I knew to exist, in other words, to go the way of Nat Cohen, than to chance all on a long-odds bet.92

Hargreaves recounts a meeting between himself, another one of Forbes’ consultants, Geoff Jones, and two of Nat Cohen’s production executives soon after Forbes’ departure. Both Hargreaves and Jones left the meeting disappointed. Jones’ own account of the meeting noted that he had prepared ‘a list of some 7 areas in which it might be reasonably expected that we could cooperate’, but they said that they ‘had no need to do so’, before reminding him that ‘any number of people at the studios must be worried about their present position and to where they may be going’.93 As Hargreaves recalled, what ‘particularly annoyed and disgusted [Jones]’, was the ‘snide remarks made by these two gentlemen about you … they used every opportunity to make him say something of a derogatory nature  EMI Board Minutes (22 November 1972). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 91  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 107. 92  Delfont, B. (1990), p. 185. 93  Letter from Geoff Jones to Bryan Forbes (19 May 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 90

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about you and I believe him when he says that he refused to be caught out.94 As Hargreaves would opine, ‘It is fairly obvious that they will recommend to Nat, who in turn will recommend to Bernie, that Geoff Jones has no future role to play in this company’ and, highlighting his distaste at the actions of the new management team, ‘It is quite sickening to have to compare a man of letters, with his background of literature, theatre and films, with the opinions of two most unpleasant spivs’.95 Forbes always believed that he was undermined by the board in his endeavours, stating that ‘I had been given to believe that if I held the studio together and broke even with my initial programme I would then be given some serious money to make more ambitious films’.96 But he had not produced a British behemoth of the size and stature of Rank, or even a Hammer or Ealing, and as such, the film related business of EMI’s operations looked inferior when compared with the profits that it could generate from its music business or, for that matter, its bingo halls. It is telling that Forbes states that the proudest achievement of his tenure was that ‘not a single day was lost through industrial disputes and with one exception every film was completed on schedule and within budget’,97 which is hardly the revival of the British film industry that he had hoped to achieve. While Delfont was almost certainly over-ambitious in terms of what a British film company in the early 1970s could achieve commercially, it had been noted that Forbes’ colleague, Nat Cohen, had begun to generate more money from his Anglo-EMI venture then it appeared Forbes ever would. Five out of the ten biggest box office successes in Britain in 1971 were EMI films,98 but three of those were Cohen, not Forbes productions. Thus, the central tenets of Forbes’ regime were destabilised, and replaced with alternatives which would fundamentally alter EMI’s position in the international film trade and its place in history. First, the notion of a consistent authorial vision guided by and in the image of its producer was supplanted by a more economically minded, pragmatic approach to filmmaking, with each 94  Letter from John Hargreaves to Bryan Forbes (19 May 1971). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 95  Letter from John Hargreaves to Bryan Forbes (19 May 1971). 96  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 100. 97  Forbes, B. (1992), p. 103. 98  These films were: No. 2—On the Buses (Harry Booth, 1971); No. 5—Percy (Ralph Thomas, 1971); No. 6—The Railway Children (Lionel Jefferies, 1970); No. 7—Tales of Beatrix Potter (Reginald Mills, 1971); No. 9—Up Pompeii (Bob Kellett, 1971); Cinema TV Today (8 January 1972), 9962, pp. 16–17.

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script assessed on its commercial merits and its potential to appeal to international financial backers. However, this shift meant that Forbes’ second tenet, that of a frugal approach to budgets based on EMI being the main funder of its own productions, was also abandoned, and international co-­production enabled the company to increase its budgets and potentially reap the higher financial rewards that big budget filmmaking offered. But thirdly, and most importantly, these two changes would fundamentally alter the ‘Britishness’ of EMI’s products, as they would become an amalgam of both American and British approaches.

CHAPTER 5

All the Way Up

By June 1972, EMI had made only £240,000 profit from its first two years in the film business, and this money had been recouped from just six films—with its feature-length version of the television series, On the Buses, comprising almost half of this figure, with a return of £106,000.1 The other four films that had turned a profit were Percy (£43,000), The Railway Children (£52,000), Tales of Beatrix Potter (£18,000), and Up Pompeii (£20,000).2 Despite these relatively modest figures, the EMI publicity machine had kicked into life, with the company’s Annual Report from 1972 opining that: A measure of our success in film-making during the past year is that of the ten most successful films screened in our cinemas, four were EMI productions. A substantial cash flow from our feature films as a whole continues and our total investment in production is contained within a £6 million revolving fund.3

According to this document, ‘Outstanding’ results had been obtained with the film Eyewitness in Japan, where Anglo-EMI had also had success with its documentary The Body (Roy Battersby, 1970), and Australia had 1  W.H.  MacDonald to Directors of EMI Film & Theatre Corporation Limited (22 February 1972). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 2  W.H.  MacDonald to Directors of EMI Film & Theatre Corporation Limited (22 February 1972). 3  EMI Annual Report (1972). London: EMI, p. 5.

© The Author(s) 2018 P. Moody, EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94803-4_5

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also seen successes for Tales of Beatrix Potter, where its Anglo-EMI co-­ productions of On the Buses, Up Pompeii, and Percy had also done well.4 EMI would also claim that The Go-Between had proved ‘our most successful production in all major markets overseas’,5 and although no precise figures were quoted, this film would also become profitable by the end of the year. Therefore, within just over two years, the company had established itself as a viable filmmaking concern, and while it had produced a number of critical and commercial failures, its successes had ensured that it had not made an overall loss. But there had been a continual sense of crisis from the outset, and the resignation of the company’s first Head of Production was regarded by most observers as not merely the latest iteration of this, but as Justin Smith argues, it marked a significant breach of faith: effectively the end of the productive relationship between corporate financiers and their men of vision. Few old-­ style studio producers and their journeymen directors survived into the 1970s. From now on, the old rules did not apply.6

A new type of leader was required, one that could navigate the harsh climate of the British film industry which had been starved of American finance and was trying to survive in reduced circumstances. In Delfont’s eyes, this man was Nat Cohen. Cohen had already by this point had a long and varied career, having started in the film exhibition business with the purchase of his first cinema in 1932, and Delfont saw in him some kind of kindred spirit, whose background in exhibition provided a similar experience to Delfont’s own beginnings as a theatre impresario. He had formed the company that would eventually become known as Anglo-Amalgamated in 1945 and was responsible for a string of hits, including the Carry On series, and Delfont regarded him as ‘the sort of filmmaker who knew all there was to know about popular demand’.7 But this reputation as a successful producer was a double-edged sword, for it had also tarnished him as the crass, money-oriented studio head that was also more than a little indebted to traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes that were all too-often flung in the direction of the Jewish Cohen and Delfont. Even when  EMI Annual Report (1972), p. 29.  EMI Annual Report (1972), p. 30. 6  Smith, J. (2008). ‘Glam, spam and Uncle Sam: Funding diversity in 1970s British film production’, in Shail, R. (ed.) Seventies British Cinema. London: Palgrave, pp. 73–74. 7  Delfont, B. (1990), East End, West End, London: Macmillan, p. 182. 4 5

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stripped away from its racial undertones, this mercenary categorisation of Cohen was unfair, as he had also been responsible for launching the careers of some of Britain’s most vaunted arthouse directors, with Joseph Losey’s The Sleeping Tiger (1954), John Schlesinger’s A Kind of Loving (1962), and Ken Loach’s Poor Cow (1967), amongst the films that he oversaw at Anglo-Amalgamated. But after merging with ABPC, and soon after, EMI, Cohen knew what worked commercially and was determined to maintain this successful approach, especially in light of the competition from the younger upstart, Bryan Forbes. The division he headed up, Anglo-EMI, launched its first production slate at roughly the same time as Forbes’ EMI Films was launched, but took a far more obviously commercial approach. Importantly, it was also much more interested in sharing the financial burden, financing a range of co-production deals with other companies. Of its initial production slate of 15 films up until the end of 1971, only two were 100 per cent financed by EMI, Percy (Ralph Thomas, 1971), and Up the Chastity Belt, which was a sequel to the successful Up Pompeii (Bob Kellett, 1970) and of course built upon the success of the existing television series.8 This was a strategy born of the reality of both British filmmaking in the early 1970s and the nature of EMI as a company. An example from the first page of EMI’s Annual Report from 1970 emphasises the conditions that Cohen was working under, where prominence was afforded not to the newly resurgent production endeavour, but instead a full-page image of the company’s newly opened prestige cinema, the ABC Film Centre in Bournemouth. Despite this, the portents of the exhibition industry were laid bare in the same report, which outlined that EMI had sold 25 ABC cinemas to Mecca Limited for over £1.5  million plus one million Mecca ordinary shares.9 That exhibition was becoming an increasingly unprofitable business when compared to bingo halls, was confirmed by EMI discontinuing the Pathé newsreel in the same year, and the increasing prominence on the agenda of its Board meetings of items such as ‘the locations of bingo clubs in Didcot’, ‘the discotheque Hanley’ and a ‘squash rackets clubs’ report.10 8  EMI Film Productions Limited and Anglo-EMI Film Distributors Limited—Production Release Schedule (24 April 1972). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 9  EMI Annual Report (1970). London: EMI, p. 1. 10  Minutes of the EMI Board (3 January 1973). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library.

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Thus, there was a great deal riding on the ability of Cohen to produce films cheaply, quickly, and with substantial returns on investment. Despite this, the first few films produced by Cohen’s division could have quite comfortably been released as part of Forbes’ slate, as each in their own way spoke clearly and intelligently about aspects of British culture, often more successfully than the films that Forbes’ division released. This ‘Forbesian’ style can be most keenly felt in the first film shot at Elstree after Forbes’ arrival, a Cohen project entitled Spring and Port Wine (Peter Hammond, 1970). Cohen’s Anglo-EMI provided two-thirds of the film’s £198,000 budget, and this quaint, family-based English drama, follows the patriarch of a Lancashire family (played by James Mason), as he attempts to navigate the shifting power dynamic between himself and his children as they grow older. Mason is supported by a superb cast, with Diana Coupland as his long-suffering wife, and Bob Ferris as his eldest son. The pivotal challenge to his authority is made by his daughter Hilda (Susan George), who refuses to eat one of her evening meals, sparking a long feud which spills over into the other family members. As Harper and Smith rightly identify, Mason’s performance carries much of the weight of the drama, using facial expressions and body movement to exert his dominance over the family, subtly modifying this over time to become more open and tolerant.11 Of course, Mason’s negotiation of the changes in his own family are a metaphor for the changes in society more broadly, and the begrudging acceptance that the legacy of the 1960s would mean significant changes to the British way of life on the cusp of the 1970s, although the denouement, which sees the patriarchal order fully restored and the family back together as a unit, subtly suggests that these societal shockwaves had perhaps changed very little—an apt message for a country that had just elected a Conservative government after almost six years of progressive social reforms under Harold Wilson and his Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins. A much more obvious societal critique was found in Cohen’s second EMI production, Entertaining Mr Sloane (Douglas Hickox, 1970), which while based on the successful Joe Orton play, was also helmed by a first-­ time producer, Douglas Kentish, and director, Douglas Hickox, who would go on to make the more widely known Vincent Price vehicle, 11  Harper, S. and Smith, J. (2013), ‘Social Space’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (ed.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 185–186.

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Theatre of Blood (1973). The eponymous Mr Sloane (Peter McEnery) is taken on as a lodger by the middle-aged Kath (Beryl Reid), who lives with her elderly father, Kemp (Alan Webb), and the film documents the sadistic mind games that develop between Sloane, Kemp, Kath, and her brother Ed (Harry Andrews). The film started its life in 1969, with Kentish in regular correspondence with Trevelyan at the BBFC. Kentish knew that he was working with material that would be controversial, as Orton’s plays had skirted with the boundaries of respectability in the 1960s theatre world. Therefore, Kentish would keep Trevelyan abreast of the film’s development, to the extent that he would even write to him to explain that because they had an ‘excellent location for the cemetery’ where Kath first meets Sloane, they intended to make Kemp a cemetery caretaker.12 This additional flirtation with an Ortonesque element of satire of a sacred institution, prompted Trevelyan to make the BBFC’s boundaries clear before the film went into production: I would like to make one important general point. What is acceptable for theatre may not be acceptable for a film … generally speaking, the audience for the film is less sophisticated than the audience for the theatre; indeed, there are many parts of the country where people do not have a theatre at all, and where many people would be horrified by what was staged even a few years ago in some London theatres. We cannot ignore this.13

Kentish, aware of the delicacy of the adaptation due to the differences between theatre and film censorship during this period, reassured Trevelyan, asserting that they had ‘tried very hard in scripting and casting, and in the styling of the production, to produce a rather whiter version of Joe Orton’s original black comedy’, and that the theme song by Georgie Fame would ‘help this intention’.14 Kentish had by then secured a slightly larger budget with additional finance from the NFFC, which provided 50 per cent of its £97,000 budget, with EMI providing the remaining 50 per cent,15 and it was imperative that they secured a release. To acquiesce further, Kentish agreed to change or drop the line ‘shut your mouth and give your arse a chance’, and to ensure that the last word of the phrase ‘I just  Letter from Douglas Kentish to Trevelyan (30 May 1969). London: BBFC.  Letter from Trevelyan to Douglas Kentish (12 June 1969). London: BBFC. 14  Letter from Douglas Kentish to John Trevelyan (29 July 1969). London: BBFC. 15  EMI Film Productions Limited and Anglo-EMI Film Distributors Limited—Production Release Schedule (24 April 1972). 12 13

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don’t give a monkey’s fart’ was to be covered by the sound of someone diving into a swimming pool.16 In an indication of the level of detail that the two scrutinised the script, Kentish would confirm that, in response to a query Trevelyan raised, he did not know the meaning of the word ‘twank’ either, in the line ‘why don’t you speak to your only begotten son you old twank’, although he ‘did not like it much’.17 But despite Trevelyan’s suggestions, they would like to keep the phrase ‘a knocking shop’, which ‘does amuse us’.18 Trevelyan was eventually happy with the amended script and said that after meeting Kentish and Hickox, he had ‘no serious worries’ about the production.19 The resulting film was an interesting, if stagebound production, that retained the flavour of Orton’s work and suggested a more dynamic direction for the company which was not ultimately realised. Partly this was due to the economics of the industry, but also the constraints of the censorship system in Trevelyan’s twilight years, before he was replaced by Stephen Murphy in 1971. The examiner’s report on viewing the film recommended removing shots of Kathy opening her legs and of ‘Mr Sloane sitting on top of her and shots of him moving up and down’.20 Kentish and Hickox were reluctant to remove this scene, but Trevelyan insisted they would have to in order for the film to be passed,21 before writing again later that month to ask them to consider delaying the release until the new ‘X’ certificate, which restricted admittance to anyone under the age of 18, came into force—which was what EMI ultimately decided to do.22 But while these types of amendments were easy to make, more challenging was the attitude to the general tone of this type of material, with the report also noting that the examiners ‘are concerned about the homosexual element in this film, which is very convincing’.23 These were battles that EMI, especially with its loudly proclaimed appeal to ‘family values’, was not willing to fight, and therefore much of its output in the early 1970s remained faithful to the existing British tradition of mild double entendre  Letter from Douglas Kentish to John Trevelyan (29 July 1969).  Letter from Douglas Kentish to John Trevelyan (29 July 1969). 18  Letter from Douglas Kentish to John Trevelyan (29 July 1969). 19  Letter from John Trevelyan to Douglas Kentish (20 August 1969). London: BBFC. 20  Entertaining Mr Sloane (18 February 1970). London: BBFC. 21  Entertaining Mr Sloane (18 February 1970). 22  Letter from John Trevelyan to Arnold Barber of Warner Brothers (18 February 1970). London: BBFC. 23  Entertaining Mr Sloane (18 February 1970). 16 17

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and in the main avoided anything that was more challenging. But despite these reservations, the finished film met with Trevelyan’s approval, and he would write to Beryl Reid afterwards to tell her that her performance was ‘much the best thing that you have done on film’.24 At around the same time as these fiction films were being made, EMI produced a feature-length scientific documentary about the human body, called simply The Body, providing 50 per cent of its £108,000 budget.25 This extraordinary film was the brainchild of Tony Garnett, who was even then better known for his work with Ken Loach. But while this was a radical departure from the Loach blueprint in terms of form, the content, which depicted the inner workings of the body from birth to death, was certainly as much a political statement as it was a scientific exploration. Scientific and artistic shots of the human body are interspersed with interviews with the public talking about the problems with modern life, thus providing opportunities to montage shots of birth with working in a factory, or with Vanessa Redgrave’s voiceover asking how we can explain to a newborn baby the terrible destruction that humans wreak on the world and each other. But by sitting a group of people together in a room who simply talk about and explore each other’s bodies, the film made its most challenging political statement. This was a film that explicitly said we are our bodies, and this is how we work—it was materialism at the fundamental level of biology. And like Garnett’s other work, it was at the time a radical treatment, one which prompted Trevelyan to ask the advice of the BBFC’s President, Lord Harlech. Trevelyan informed Harlech that he had watched the film with two other examiners ‘who were very impressed’ with it,26 and while they thought it appropriate for an ‘X’ certificate, they wanted the sex scenes reduced for they felt that they ‘would prove embarrassing to a mixed audience outside the sex-exploitation circuit’, and could also create an ‘embarrassing precedent for the board’.27 Eventually, Trevelyan and Harlech watched a revised version of this scene with Garnett, and Harlech agreed that the film could be released under the X category.

 Letter from John Trevelyan to Beryl Reid (16 June 1970). London: BBFC.  EMI Film Productions Limited and Anglo-EMI Film Distributors Limited—Production Release Schedule (24 April 1972). 26  Undated letter from Trevelyan to Lord Harlech. London: BBFC. 27  Undated letter from Trevelyan to Harlech. 24 25

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These films were clearly not part of a coherent strategy, a ‘production slate’ in the sense that Forbes was producing one. But that was to change. While not explicitly expressing it in those terms, Cohen’s strategy starts to develop from late 1970 onwards, focusing productions into three key areas: comedy, especially films based on successful TV sitcoms; horror, working in collaboration with Hammer, and thrillers, either those that featured gritty violence or, in his most successful venture, the more genteel thrills of Agatha Christie. As can be seen, this was a very different approach to Forbes, with little care for taste in the conventional sense, and it also went against the grain of what most critics praised from British studios—‘heritage’ cinema that focused on the social mores of the upper classes, preferably set in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. While there was an element of this in the horror films that he would produce with Hammer, in contrast, Cohen’s films were in the main resolutely working class, and resolutely modern. This has in part contributed to Cohen’s dismissal in British film history, a reputation that he did not attempt to dispute. But he left a body of work that had a significant impact on British culture and was enormously popular with the public. Moreover, there is a thematic consistency to his output that Forbes did not cultivate, and which can offer a starting point for a reassessment of EMI’s contribution to British film history. Despite this, his pragmatic approach to film funding meant that the comedies and horror films he produced were indelibly associated with other companies/traditions, and it would be absurd to make a claim for EMI to be thought of as, for example, a horror film company, for while it invested in horror production, these films were clearly still Hammer films and were part of the broader Hammer tradition. Likewise, its comedies were in essence feature-length versions of established franchises, and once again, EMI cannot be thought of as having a comedy style per se. But without EMI’s backing, many of the more generic outputs it supported would have never been made, and it was arguably influential in defining and popularising sub-genres, such as the sitcom film or Hammer’s more sexualised horror films of the early 1970s. This move into regular genre filmmaking began in 1971, with EMI announcing that it had entered into an agreement with Hammer Films to produce nine films between 1971 and 1973, all to be made at Elstree,28 with EMI providing the financing up front but receiving roughly two-­

 EMI Annual Report (1970), p. 4.

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thirds of the profit from each production.29 Aside from the obvious financial benefits for both companies, Hammer had relocated from its Bray Studios to Elstree in 1966, so was already an established presence there, and it had been rumoured that Hammer, facing several financial difficulties, the ending of a distribution deal with Rank and reluctance from American distributors to take their product, had flirted with the idea of selling the company to EMI.30 However, as it transpired, the co-­production finance that EMI would offer was enough to sustain it for the first half of the decade. The first film to result from this collaboration was Horror of Frankenstein (Jimmy Sangster, 1970), effectively Hammer’s reboot of the Frankenstein franchise after the previous Peter Cushing vehicle, Frankenstein Must be Destroyed (Terence Fisher, 1969). Ralph Bates, in his first starring role for Hammer, played the Baron as a precocious university student (despite being 30 years old at the time of making the film), and as such there are some poor attempts at juvenile humour, and a tendency to present him as inexplicably attractive to young women. The standard Frankenstein plot is played out, with a few minor adjustments, but as Bates is in almost every scene, his performance, lacking the dynamism that Peter Cushing imbued in the role, is so distant and unlikeable that it makes for a one-dimensional portrayal, and there is no surprise at all that he attempts to reanimate corpses or that he will kill his friends in order to achieve this. The film also feels very stage bound and limited by the Elstree sets, and the film’s limited budget of £176,00031 shows, as does the lack of the guiding hand of the company’s recently retired producer, Anthony Hinds, soon to be followed by the company’s founder James Carreras in 1971.32 Despite this, there are some innovative touches, with a genuinely funny grave robbing married couple (Dennis Price and Joan Rice), and a good turn from Kate O’Mara as Bates’ housemaid cum concubine. Like Horror of Frankenstein, the second EMI/Hammer collaboration, Scars of Dracula (Roy Ward Baker, 1970), betrays its cheap origins, having been made on

29  Minutes of the EMI Film Programme Investment Committee (28 June 1972). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 30  Pirie, D. (2009). A New Heritage of Horror. London: IB Tauris, p. 187. 31  EMI Film Productions Limited and Anglo-EMI Film Distributors Limited—Production Release Schedule (24 April 1972). 32  Ede, L. (2012), ‘British film design in the 1970s’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (eds.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 34.

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only a slightly improved figure of £186,000,33 and feels equally stage bound and lacking in ideas. Dennis Waterman, as a hapless chap whose brother inadvertently gets caught up in Dracula’s castle, may have been an attempt to inject some youth into the proceedings, but as with Frankenstein, the absence of Cushing is keenly felt, and this is a minor entry in Hammer’s Dracula series. In addition, these two releases provoked the ire of Warner Seven Arts, Hammer’s US distributor, who, it transpired, had a clause in its contract which ensured that Hammer could only produce Dracula and Frankenstein titles with Warner’s explicit permission.34 Understandably, this put Hammer in an extremely challenging position, and its subsequent EMI co-productions represent part of its attempts to diversify its product in the 1970s, in light of this deal and of changing audience tastes. While many of these releases were unsuccessful on their first run, in retrospect many of them were comparable in quality to Hammer’s 1960 output, starting with the much-maligned Lust for a Vampire (Jimmy Sangster, 1971). Much better than its reputation would suggest, this is an evocative Hammer film that feels more akin to a Jean Rollin eurohorror production than the company’s Dracula output. Dallying with themes of lesbianism and Satanism, but conversely imbuing this with what is almost a traditional romantic story between the two leads (Yutte Stensgaard and Michael Johnson), it is a strangely intoxicating film that is much more interesting than any of Hammer’s 1970s Dracula efforts, and benefitted from some location shooting which helped to improve its production values. The title was allegedly chosen by Delfont,35 and Yutte Stensgaard conveys the character of the vampire Mircalla (loosely based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 short story, Carmilla) with aplomb. Lust was followed by an interesting reworking of the Mummy theme, Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (Seth Holt, 1971), based on Bram Stoker’s Jewel of the Seven Stars (1903). Written by Christopher Wicking, who also suggested to Hammer that Seth Holt should be brought on to the film to direct, it feels very much like a 1960s Hammer film, in look and expression, despite some 1970s trappings. It is the only mummy themed film that does not feature someone in bandages, except in the final scene, which prefigures the ending of Roman Polanski’s The Tenant (1974). In fact, lead actress Valerie 33  EMI Film Productions Limited and Anglo-EMI Film Distributors Limited—Production Release Schedule (24 April 1972). 34  Pirie, D. (2009), p. 184. 35  Pirie, D. (2009), p. 181.

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Leon is encouraged to wear as little as possible for the majority of the film’s running time, and like Stensgaard before her, has a presence that carries the narrative and has ensured the film has gained a cult following. This was followed by one of the great cult films, and Ralph Bates’ masterpiece, Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (Roy Ward Baker, 1971), in which Bates’ Jekyll turns into a woman after drinking a potion he has developed as an elixir of youth. Playing with early 1970s notions of gender politics, and picking up on the campier elements of Bates’ persona to flirt with notions of homosexuality and transsexualism, it is an enjoyable film that suggested EMI’s collaboration could produce some interesting work. Unfortunately, it was followed by two disappointments, the efficient, if slightly underwhelming potboiler, Fear in the Night (Jimmy Sangster, 1972) and Peter Collinson’s Straight on Till Morning (1972). In the former, Judy Geeson is terrorised by a stalker with a prosthetic arm, who turns out to be her husband (also played by Bates) and his scheming mistress (Joan Collins), which is simply too predictable to maintain one’s interest for the film’s duration. The latter was one of the worst films Hammer made, an incredibly odd mix between a romance and serial killer narrative in which Rita Tushingham plays the irritating and depressing lead role. The fact that they were released as a double-bill did neither film any favours, and they had a negligible impact at the box office. EMI would end its dalliance with Hammer horror with two films from the young Australian director Peter Sykes, who had earned his spurs working on British television shows such as The Avengers. His first production for the company commenced filming in 1971 as ‘Blood Will be Blood’, but was eventually released as Demons of the Mind (1972).36 Demons is one of the outstanding British horror films of the 1970s, merging Hammer’s 1960s psychological thrillers and its gothic strains together, to create a unique concoction that is unlike anything else the company produced. It feels extremely modern in tone, despite being set in the nineteenth century, and focuses on a curious familial scenario, of a father (Robert Hardy) who keeps his two children locked up inside his stately home to ‘protect’ them from the madness that afflicted his wife. Enlisting an experimental doctor (Patrick Magee) to look into their supposed malady, he unlocks a series of events that will ultimately lead to several grisly deaths. This remarkable film deals with challenging topics such as incest 36   Personnel Files, Bryan Forbes and John Hargreaves (30 June 1971). London: StudioCanal.

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between the two incarcerated children, and their father’s psychotic bloodlust, developed after sleeping with his wife for the first time and witnessing her vaginal blood. The violence is as distressing as in the more lauded Witchfinder General (Michael Reeves, 1968), and while the (over)acting of cast members like  Patrick Magee may not suit all tastes, his performance in particular appears to suit the delirium that has descended upon this especially troubled familial environment. Sykes followed this up four years later with his and EMI’s last horror production with Hammer, To the Devil a Daughter (Peter Sykes, 1976). This was another interesting, if flawed, production that takes in the familiar themes of urban Satanism that was common to Dennis Wheatley’s work, from which it was adapted. It is also far better than its reputation suggests, but it arrived after several poorly received Hammer horror films and critical expectations were low. Unfortunately for Hammer, so were audience numbers, and the company parted ways with EMI and soon after went into television production. But this is only one half of the story. For there was another reason why Hammer’s horror output started to decline in the 1970s, and why EMI and Hammer appeared to lose interest in this aspect of the business. For the main commercial benefit for EMI’s Hammer collaboration was not in horror, but in a series of comedies based on existing British television sitcoms, some of which would become some of the highest-grossing British films of the decade. This shift was predicated on two factors: firstly, Hammer’s then accountant, Roy Skeggs, was promoted to production supervisor and, secondly, he was influential in shifting Hammer’s production focus to projects that had already proven successful on television.37 But the main reason for this change in policy was far simpler—the ­enormous commercial success of its first venture in this field, On the Buses (Harry Booth, 1971). In his autobiography, Forbes claims that the film was brought to him by Leslie Grade, and made under his tenure, but Forbes would have had little day-to-day involvement with the production, and his collected papers make no mention of the film. This was a Cohen production through and through, and made as part of the deal that had been struck between him and Hammer. The BBFC examiner report of the films’ treatment summed up its tone perfectly:

 Harper, S. and Smith, J. (2013), p. 200.

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It’s a great life on the buses—cheating, idling, taking the mickey out of the inspectors … it does not appear that you often actually have time to drive a bus, but if you do, you prove expert at throwing the passengers off the bus or leaving them behind. You get the picture—simple, good-hearted dirty for the workin’ chap—except, presumably, the crosser sort of transport and general workers shop-steward, and even he will not dare to complain, as it’s good proletarian fun, not satire like enemies of the people like the Boulting Brothers.38

As for any exceptionable content, the examiner expected that the final film would feature ‘a lot of fairly dirty ad-libbing’, and that even in the treatment there was ‘advanced snogging’, and the ‘symbolic drawing down of a radio aerial when one of our heroes is foiled again in his attempts at sexual conquest’, all of which made the treatment feel ‘grubby’.39 The film is a fairly standard retread of the television series, following the exploits of bus driver Stan Butler (Reg Varney) and his conductor Jack (Bob Grant), as they try to evade and outsmart their inspector Blakey (Stephen Lewis). In the first film, Stan and Jack also face another nemesis, in the form of newly appointed female bus drivers, after the bus company relaxes its ban on women drivers because of a shortage of staff. With Stan and Jack’s overtime payments threatened due to the staff shortages now being filled, they decide to take matters in to their own hands and sabotage the women’s work, eventually getting the company to renege on its new employment policy. As Harper argues, the film ‘makes a double attack on women’, as not only are the new female drivers a threat to the male staff, but Olive, Stan’s put-upon sister, becomes pregnant, and there are several jokes at her expense related to her pregnancy, especially when Stan and Olive’s husband attempt to get her to the hospital in a motorcycle sidecar (Fig. 5.1).40 Harper’s critique is hard to argue with, and the film appears to be one of the earliest comedies of the decade to acknowledge the increasing influence of women in what was until then perceived to be exclusively male working environments. It is deeply conservative in other ways as well, finding time to mock the perceived power of the unions in the depiction of the battle between the male-run union and the management in the dispute over the new female drivers. This was of course becoming a theme  On the Buses (3 October 1970). London: BBFC.  On the Buses (3 October 1970). London: BBFC. 40  Harper, S. and Smith, J. (2013), p. 200. 38 39

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Fig. 5.1  Reg Varney gets his comeuppance at the hands of a fleet of new female bus drivers in On the Buses, EMI’s most commercially successful film that year and endemic of its perceived new low-brow direction under Nat Cohen. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd

that would feature regularly in public discourse of the period, with Heath’s government clashing with the trades unions frequently, and ultimately leading to a dispute in 1973 that would result in a three-day week. But the film attempts to have its cake and eat it, by appearing to be on the side of Stan and Jack, but regularly showing them up to be idle, obstructive and using the union as an excuse to avoid work. Despite this, the film was incredibly popular with audiences, and became the highest-grossing release in British cinemas in 1971, and one of the highest-grossing films of the 1970s. Of course, its appeal was entirely parochial, restricted in content that would have been recognisable to British audiences, but this did not matter. Having been made for barely over £100,000, the film could afford to concentrate its audiences within the British Isles, especially when it was as successful with these audiences as it was. The format was continued in a sequel released the following year, Mutiny on the Buses (Harry Booth, 1972), which, while not as successful as its predecessor, did well enough at the box office to prompt a third entry in the series in 1973, Holiday on the Buses (Bryan Izzard, 1973). All films were passed as ‘A’ by the BBFC, and the then Secretary, Stephen Murphy, when reviewing the

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third instalment, felt that while  the board had been ‘a bit hard’ on it, scenes involving bare breasts and reaction shots during lovemaking were too strong for Hammer’s preferred ‘A’ rating and had to be cut.41 Regardless, each sequel represented diminishing returns, repeating the formula from the first with a few minor changes, most obviously in the final instalment which saw Stan and co relocated from the bus depot for the holiday of the title. However, even here the paucity of the script was apparent in the chosen location—whereas most sitcom films of the period took their characters abroad, Holiday on the Buses was set at a Pontins holiday camp in Wales. While the On the Buses series was exploring the male working-class reaction to the role of women in society, Hammer and EMI’s Love Thy Neighbour (John Robins, 1973) presented the white working-class males’ reaction to immigration, which had risen to national prominence after Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in 1968. Based on the popular ITV television series, Love Thy Neighbour presents the animosity between the white Eddie Booth (Jack Smethurst) and his black neighbour, Bill (Rudolph Walker), which frequently boils over into racial abuse. In the film, the neighbours’ parents come to visit and spark up a relationship, much to the chagrin of Bill and Eddie. Eddie is not presented in a positive light, and the film takes every opportunity to make him look foolish, but the numerous racial slurs, jokes at Bill’s expense (‘why are you always looking on the black side of things?’ is a particularly crude example of the dialogue), and a Sikh bus conductor who is actually a white actor in blackface suggest quite clearly where the film’s racial sympathies lie. Like the On the Buses films, it was ultimately conservative in nature, presenting a similarly troublesome picture of union activity in Eddie’s bigoted and idle shop steward. In this film, the workplace is threatened not by women, but by non-white immigrants, and the union steps in to try to protect the interests of its predominantly white members. The film was passed ‘A’ with minor cuts to some bawdy dialogue,42 although as an example of the sentiment of the day, the trailer, which featured dialogue like ‘A huge grinning nig-nog’ and ‘cheers sambo’, was passed as ‘U’ for general audiences.43

 Letter from Roy Skeggs to Stephen Murphy (1 August 1973). London: BBFC.  Love Thy Neighbour (23 February 1973). London: BBFC. 43  Love Thy Neighbour (19 April 1973). London: BBFC. 41 42

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The Hammer collaborations were not EMI’s only foray into comedy, and there were several productions that suggest EMI as a leading contributor to Britain’s comedy output during this period. Cohen had brought with him a few ABPC productions, which would be finished under the aegis of Anglo-EMI, beginning with a remake of the 1950s Alastair Sim vehicle, Laughter in Paradise (Mario Zampi, 1951), entitled Some Will, Some Won’t (Duncan Wood, 1970). The original was directed by Mario Zampi, who had become known for his comedies at ABPC, and was edited by Zampi’s son, Guilio, who became the producer of the EMI remake. Michael Hordern took on the Alastair Sim role, playing one of four siblings who have inherited a lot of money from their eccentric relative (Wilfrid Brambell). But there is a catch—before they can receive the money, each one has to perform an outrageous out of character action, with the law-abiding Hordern, for example, having to contrive a way of being sent to prison for 28 days. The stellar cast, which includes Thora Hird, Ronnie Corbett and Leslie Phillips as Hordern’s siblings, manage to make it all genuinely entertaining, but it suffers from the danger inherent in many ensemble pieces, that it is very difficult to feel any real connection with any of the characters because there are so many of them, and the twist ending is not as surprising as the writers would have hoped. More successful was another ABPC project which Cohen brought with him, based on the play Semi-Detached (1962) by David Turner. All The Way Up (James MacTaggart, 1970), which the completed film would become, was a competent comedy with a fine ensemble cast headed by Warren Mitchell. It shares themes with Spring and Port Wine, in that Mitchell’s patriarch also attempts to shape his family in his own image, and faces challenges from his children, but this was a much more biting comedy of manners in its satirising of Mitchell’s obsession with social status and progression at work. Mitchell’s constant refrain to his family to be aware of what the neighbours think, culminates in a scene where the family, having been embroiled in an ugly and ungainly argument in their living room, all turn to face the connecting wall of their semi-detached and proceed to laugh maniacally, in order to pretend to the neighbours that they are all ecstatically happy, and the camera turns to face them, as they walk towards it in united, painful rictus, facing the audience and holding up a mirror to its own pretensions. But the censors were not amused. Despite receiving pre-­ approval of the script from John Trevelyan,44 when it was eventually sub All the Way Up (26 September 1969). London: BBFC.

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mitted to the board in January 1970, the response from the examiners was anything but positive: If this company wants an ‘A’ for this film, it should be seen again by other examiners and Secretary. We think it a filthy deplorable and immoral (sic), featuring Warren Mitchell. It is crammed with dialogue far worse than in the ‘A’ ‘Carry On’ films and hardly as light hearted.45

A handwritten note on the report from Trevelyan was more positive, saying, ‘Seen it today. I do not think it an “X” film. It is, however, to be recut, and will be resubmitted later, I should see it then.’46 The lewd remarks that Trevelyan identified suggested a crude production akin to EMI’s On the Buses, but it is certainly not as explicit as many of these other films were. The producer, Phillip Mackie, persevered, and would write to Trevelyan to express his hopes for the film’s release: I am of course hoping that you will want to give the film an ‘A’ certificate. It is—of course—a comedy. It is meant to make people laugh, and the more people I can get to laugh at it—including, hopefully, family audiences—then the happier I shall be. It may be my vanity as producer/writer that I think it to be a cut above the ‘Carry On’ films and the ‘Doctor’ films. It probably is. But the intention is the same as theirs: the essentially innocent intention of making fun, and of giving as much entertainment as possible to as many people as possible. So I am hopeful that you will view it with a benevolent eye.47

By 24 March, the examiners had viewed the print again, concluding: This is an ‘A’ comedy situation, made with the wit and double entendre of an X film. We agree with the first examiners that it would rate ‘X’ at present, but add that it would slide easily into an AA slot when the time comes, though even then some of it might look strong. We have in mind the various references to the ‘loin’, ‘pubescent symbol’ etc.; & the strip tease, the impotence reference, & the general accumulation of sex jokes. We do not think A should be considered.48  All the Way Up (13 January 1970). London: BBFC.  Handwritten note by John Trevelyan (28 January 1970). London: BBFC. 47  Letter from Phillip Mackie to John Trevelyan (4 March 1970). ‘All the way up.’ London, UK: BBFC. 48  All the Way Up (24 March 1970). London: BBFC. 45 46

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On 31 March, Trevelyan wrote to Mackie to inform him of the examiners’ decision, explaining that the ‘question of category does give us a problem’, and suggesting that if the release could be held back until July, then they would be able to place it under their new ‘AA’ category, effectively restricting the screening for anyone under the age of 14 and following a similar approach to the strategy they adopted for some of Forbes’ earliest EMI films.49 If not, then Mackie ‘would have to start with an ‘X’ Certificate which in many ways would be inappropriate’,50 a sentiment Mackie acknowledged but said that he would have to discuss with EMI.51 It was at this stage that Nat Cohen made a rare intervention, writing to Trevelyan that: To me, ‘All the Way Up’ is an excellent comedy, and to my mind, would suit any audience. With reference to the Board of Film Censors changing the certificates after a certain date, this would obviously put a film company in a very awkward position. I feel sure that the British Board of Film Censors do not wish us to stop our distribution because of this. I would definitely be disturbed, and would object strongly to the thought of putting an ‘X’ Certificate on a comedy which is far less harmful than any ‘Carry On’ film, or any serious film of the calibre of the ‘James Bond’ series. I hope this decision will be reconsidered.52

Cohen’s appeal had the desired effect, and on 13 April, Mackie would write to Trevelyan that ‘I gathered from our telephone conversation that you felt you were prepared to give our film a present-time “A” Certificate for the West End release … and to re-grade the film as “AA” when the new categories come into being. Is my understanding correct on this?’.53 Mackie was especially concerned about the need for a certificate to screen a sneak preview at one of EMI’s own cinemas, arguing that ‘We do feel that the film is jolly (and basically innocent) fun, which can very well be shown to the largest possible audience’.54 Trevelyan agreed, and went to the extraordinary measure of preparing a special slide for the release, which said ‘The British Board of Film Censors has passed this film in the “AA”  Letter from John Trevelyan to Phillip Mackie (31 March 1970). London: BBFC.  Letter from John Trevelyan to Phillip Mackie (31 March 1970). 51  Letter from Phillip Mackie to John Trevelyan (1 April 1970). London: BBFC. 52  Letter from Nat Cohen to John Trevelyan (3 April 1970). London: BBFC. 53  Letter from Phillip Mackie to John Trevelyan (13 April 1970). London: BBFC. 54  Letter from Phillip Mackie to John Trevelyan (13 April 1970). 49 50

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category, which will shortly come into operation and has agreed that a preview screening can be given under a temporary “A” Certificate’.55 The film’s long gestation period was over, but its eventual lack of impact at the box office, in contrast to the On the Buses series that would follow, taught Cohen a valuable lesson in what the British public would pay to see, and this was the last such ‘middle-class’ comedy that EMI would produce.

 Handwritten note from John Trevelyan (13 April 1970). London: BBFC.

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CHAPTER 6

The Likely Lad

As an indicator of the direction of EMI’s comedy output over the next few years, its next film was about a man, Edwin (Hywel Bennett), undergoing the world’s first penis transplant, after losing his original member in a freak accident. In Percy (Ralph Thomas, 1971), Edwin receives the appendage of a notorious womaniser (who died in the same accident after falling on to Edwin from a great height) and proceeds to sleep with as many women as he can get his hands on. While this at first glance appeared to represent a race to the bottom of the barrel, the film had a decent pedigree, being brought to EMI by the respected British producer Betty Box, after the script had been rejected by Rank.1 With Box came Ralph Thomas, who together had created the successful series of Doctor in the House films, and therefore the film was not in the same category as one of Robin Askwith’s endeavours. But the fact that Cohen decided to make it at all, especially in light of Delfont’s avowed moral stance, was indicative of changing times. As the BBFC examiner who viewed the finished film would remark, ‘we could not have looked on this picture under the old “X” but it seems that it is satisfactory to expect public opinion to countenance this sort of thing now’.2 The film cost EMI £300,000 to make,3 but was one of the most 1  Box, B. (2000). Lifting the Lid: The Autobiography of Film Producer Betty Box. London: Book Guild Publishing, p. 272. 2  Percy (6 October 1970). London: BBFC. 3  EMI Film Productions Limited and Anglo-EMI Film Distributors Limited—Production Release Schedule (24 April 1972). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library.

© The Author(s) 2018 P. Moody, EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94803-4_6

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successful films in British cinemas that year and more than made its money back, further confirming the template that EMI would follow over the next few years. Because of the film’s success, Cohen desperately wanted a sequel made, and after years of trying to convince Box and Thomas to produce one, he eventually accepted their demand that he would finance a project they wanted to make about Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Hywel Bennett would not reappear for Percy’s Progress (Ralph Thomas, 1974), so the role was reprised by Leigh Lawson, who makes a convincing lothario in an absurd plot whereby every man in the world, except Percy, becomes impotent. Harry H Corbett plays a British Prime Minister modelled on Harold Wilson, who requisitions Percy to impregnate selected women for the sake of the human race. It was a silly sequel and performed reasonably well, but Cohen, ever the wily businessman, then reneged on his promise to Box and her passion project on Byron was never produced.4 EMI’s new approach to comedy would find further expression in Cohen’s next series of television adaptations, this time of the ribald Frankie Howerd vehicle, Up Pompeii (Bob Kellett, 1971). Made for just over £200,000,5 it was also a major box office success and would spawn two further sequels. As could be expected, it was disliked by the critics, and even Film Finances, who provided the completion bond for the film, were of the opinion that it was inferior to the television series.6 Howerd performs his act as protagonist and narrator, Lurcio, often speaking directly to camera to address the audience, in a nod to the music hall traditions of the content itself. While the plot, which sees Lurcio coming into possession of a scroll that identifies a plan to assassinate Nero, is routine, the film is significant in EMI’s history, as the producers were charged with providing a film that included six minutes of additional footage for American television, consisting of a prologue and an epilogue featuring Lurcio ­setting the scene.7 This was further evidence of the increasing emphasis that Cohen’s Anglo-EMI was starting to place on the US market, a gradual shift in policy that would culminate under his ten Box, B. (2000), p. 281.  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F.  Garrett (28 September 1970). London: Film Finances Archive. 6  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (28 September 1970). 7  ‘Distribution agreement’ (Undated, c. October 1970). London: Film Finances Archive. 4 5

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ure with EMI’s Murder on the Orient Express. Once again, Cohen was heavily involved in trying to secure the best exhibition arrangements with the BBFC, writing to Trevelyan after the film’s release to inform him that he had received ‘several complaints from the [cinema] managers from many of the families because they were unable to take their children with them, because they were underage. … I sincerely hope that when the next Frankie Howerd film is submitted, you will consider these facts.’8 While Trevelyan acknowledged that ‘we all enjoyed Up Pompeii’, the fact that the jokes were ‘dirtier’ than in the Carry On series, coupled with some instances of nudity, meant the BBFC would have had to have cut the film for an ‘A’, and hence the ‘AA’ certificate it received was the best option available.9 In the same letter, he noted that the film’s producer, Ned Sherrin, had been in touch with him about the follow up, and ‘I have told him that I hope that he will make it with the new “A” category in mind. I have added that the title, “Up the Chastity Belt”, does not sound “A” category to me!’10 But Up the Chastity Belt (Bob Kellett, 1971) it would be, and it commenced filming on 19 April 1971,11 with a slightly increased budget of £216,000.12 The film updated Lurcio to Medieval England, where his character, Lurkalot, is the twin brother of King Richard the Lionheart, but due to a mix up at birth, Lurkalot has lived his life as a serf. After the kingdom is threatened (and with Richard too busy in exile with a variety of young concubines), Lurkalot has to adopt the role of Richard and save the kingdom from the dastardly Sir Braggart de Bombast. The film is an improvement on the original, as by being unleashed from the locale of the television series, it feels like a film in its own right, rather than merely an extended episode. Howerd is given the unusual position of being able to portray a heroic leading man, who while retaining some of the knowing cowardice of the series, still enables to defeat the villain and, perhaps implausibly, get the girl. It also features a wonderful cameo from Hugh Paddick as a camp Robin Hood in the ‘Julian and Sandy’ mould, leading his equally effete band of men. But the BBFC was still not amused, and  Letter from Nat Cohen to John Trevelyan (29 April 1971). London: BBFC.  Letter from John Trevelyan to Nat Cohen (14 May 1971). London: BBFC. 10  Letter from John Trevelyan to Nat Cohen (14 May 1971). 11  Personnel Files, Bryan Forbes and John Hargreaves (30 June 1971). London: StudioCanal. 12  EMI Film Productions Limited and Anglo-EMI Film Distributors Limited—Production Release Schedule (24 April 1972). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 8 9

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on initial viewing, felt that the ‘abundance of very blue jokes’, with ‘practically every line [carrying] a double-entendre of some sort’, ensured that even with cuts it would probably remain an ‘AA’.13 The new Secretary of the BBFC, Stephen Murphy, wrote to Sherrin, having watched the film himself, saying Ouch! I still think it is too much for an ‘A’, partly, I suppose, because you’ve chosen rather a difficult subject, and partly because you do tend to go on with the same jokes as running gags through the film … if you would still like an ‘A’ we are going to have to ask for some fairly heavy cutting.14

The ‘difficult subject’, as Murphy would reveal later, was the theme of chastity belts themselves, which were presumably in the eyes of the BBFC examiners still taboo at the turn of the decade. This, coupled with the frequent sexual references that formed the basis of much of the comedy, ensured that the BBFC viewed the film in an entirely different category to much of the other comedies of that era. Wise to what appeared to be an unfair singling out of his production, Sherrin asked for a second opinion from some other examiners (which Murphy had offered as an option), specifically requesting the same people who had passed On The Buses and Carry On Henry as ‘A’,15 but Murphy countered with a fascinating insight into the BBFC’s approach to this type of comedy at the time, saying that I think the films you mention are rather more directly in the earthy tradition of straightforward vulgarity. Perhaps, if I could put it another way, they do their field work in Southend and Blackpool, where you perhaps seem to concentrate on London—or am I wronging you?16

This contrast between what Murphy viewed as an essentially harmless seaside postcard style tradition of humour, exemplified by the On the Buses series, and the more London-centric boundary-pushing double entendre of Sherrin’s work is indicative of a BBFC with a tendency towards snobbery, although what is unusual here is that this disposition usually had favoured ‘London’ tastes. Sherrin defended Howerd’s appeal in the north, and referred to Trevelyan’s assurances that without any nudity the film  Up the Chastity Belt (27 September 1971). London: BBFC.  Letter from Stephen Murphy to Ned Sherrin (28 September 1971). London: BBFC. 15  Letter from Ned Sherrin to Stephen Murphy (30 September 1971). London: BBFC. 16  Letter from Stephen Murphy to Ned Sherrin (5 October 1971). London: BBFC. 13 14

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would be suitable for an ‘A’,17 but he was forced to agree to numerous cuts, including seemingly innocuous lines such as Little John being told that ‘it doesn’t look very little to me’, and Paddick’s response to a suggestion that the merry men might have been ‘incarcerated’ in the castle; ‘We’d have heard the screams, agony, I’m told’.18 Both these lines would not have been out of place in the Carry On series, but as the final examiners report concluded, the fact that the film was based on the theme of chastity belts was ‘sufficient to justify the “AA”’.19 Similar treatment was afforded Sherrin’s follow-up, and the final film in the series, Up the Front (Bob Kellett, 1972), which transposed the premise to the First World War. Howerd’s ‘Lurk’, as he is now known, once again is allowed a heroic character arc, helping to win the war by safely transferring the German’s secret masterplan to the British army—although this being an Up film, he does so by inadvertently having the plan tattooed on his buttocks. Careful not to fall foul of the BBFC again, the final entry in the series feels as if it was running out of steam, and the loss of writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson (who had penned the previous entry) shows. Sherrin once again had to make cuts to ensure an ‘A’ rating; including a sign outside a brothel saying ‘Moniques—six beds, no waiting’, and Lurk saying ‘You see it’s so stiff’, and ‘That’s buggered up his bombardment’.20 With Lurk receiving a medal for bravery at the end of the film (and once again leaving with the girl), the character had gone as far as it could. EMI attempted to find a vehicle for Howerd on one further occasion, with The House in Nightmare Park (Peter Sykes, 1973), a comedy in the Carry On Screaming tradition which starred Howerd as Foster Twelvetrees, a jobbing actor and public orator, who makes a living as a ‘master of the spoken word’, reading from famous authors in public. Written by Terry Nation and Clive Exton, who had been the screenwriter for Entertaining Mr Sloane and had just come off the back of 10 Rillington Place (Richard Fleischer, 1971), it promised much but failed to deliver. The plot revolves around Howerd’s character being invited to entertain at a country house, only to discover that he is the heir of the deceased owner’s fortune, as he is his long-lost, abandoned son. The owner’s brothers want to kill him off to inherit the money, but only after they have tricked  Letter from Ned Sherrin to Stephen Murphy (6 October 1971). London: BBFC.  Letter from Ned Sherrin to Stephen Murphy (12 October 1971). London: BBFC. 19  Up the Chastity Belt (17 October 1971). London: BBFC. 20  Letter from Ned Sherrin to Stephen Murphy (4 July 1972). London: BBFC. 17 18

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him into revealing the secret to where the fortune (in the form of diamonds) is stashed. Despite the talent involved, it is poorly put together, with few laughs. Howerd does his usual shtick, but it generally falls flat, and the horrific moments also fail to register. Overall, it was a disappointment for both Nation and the film’s director Peter Sykes, and is only for completists of these two or the film’s star. Bob Kellett, who had directed all of the Up series, would also direct for EMI Danny La Rue’s only film, the entertaining Our Miss Fred (Bob Kellett, 1972). The plot is similar to Kellett’s Up the Front, in that La Rue is able to infiltrate enemy lines inadvertently, as his hapless soldier is allowed to live freely in Nazi-occupied France due to the fact that he was entertaining his fellow troops dressed as a woman when they were all captured. Hitching up with a group of plucky schoolgirls and their mistress, the gang wreak havoc with the enemy and manage to successfully destabilise the German army. La Rue is on screen for virtually every minute, and he relishes the role, with a remarkably charismatic portrayal. This being a 1970s sitcom film, La Rue has to portray himself as a heterosexual tormented by living in close quarters to the girls, which says a lot about both early 1970s attitudes to homosexuality, even if the main character is known as a drag artist, and also sexual attitudes towards underage women. But none of this was remarked upon by the censor, which instead objected to only one moment from the film; the ending, where beneath ‘singalong’ on-screen subtitles, La Rue and the girls drive through the French countryside while delivering a rendition of ‘Hitler Has Only Got One Ball’.21 It was a puerile if fitting end to Kellett’s first swathe of comedies, summarising the appeal of his regular ingredients of camp charisma, double entendre, and distrust of ‘Johnny Foreigner’. Kellett would return three years later with the dreadful Spanish Fly (Bob Kellett, 1975), in which Terry Thomas’ Sir Percy buys a lot of notoriously bad local Spanish wine on the cheap, to sell on at a profit by dressing it up as a top-quality French wine. In an attempt to make the drink more palatable, Sir Percy’s butler, Perkins (Graham Armitage), adds some herbs to the wine, inadvertently adding a Spanish fly in the process, which it is discovered has aphrodisiac properties. Leslie Phillips, on business in Spain, gets involved in the scheme, and a series of embarrassing escapades ensue, in which, this being the 1970s, Thomas and Phillips, aged 65 and 52 respectively when the film was made, appear irresistible to a host of young women in their 20s. Kellett would follow this with his final comedy film,  Letter from EMI to Stephen Murphy (30 January 1973). London: BBFC.

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and EMI’s last foray into sitcom films, Are You Being Served (Bob Kellett, 1977). What could have been another dispiriting affair is saved by the writing of Jimmy Croft and David Perry, and the strong performances of the ensemble cast, whose characters end up holidaying at the Costa del Plonka. It is all good fun, but by 1977 was feeling tired and the box office returns confirmed this. Nonetheless, the artistic and commercial failures of Kellett’s later work paled in comparison to a full-on sex comedy in the Confessions of a Window Cleaner (Val Guest, 1974) tradition, the abysmal Keep it up Downstairs (Robert Young, 1976). This production satirised the popular Upstairs, Downstairs (1971–1975) television series with a story of an upper-class family who have run out of money, and who attempt to engineer a marriage of their son to an American Oil millionaire, all the while having sex with anyone and everyone in the house, including the servants. Bizarrely, it was the first film scored by Michael Nyman, but undoubtedly this was something that he would not want to be reminded of. Having seen the writing on the wall of the British horror film industry, another company associated with the genre, Tigon Productions, agreed to co-produce a sitcom film with EMI, based on the recent success For the Love of Ada (Ronnie Baxter, 1972) which focused on the blossoming relationship between an elderly woman (the eponymous Ada, played by Irene Handl) and her new man, Walter (Wilfred Pickles), after her husband had died. The film follows the preparations for the couple’s one-year wedding anniversary, and thus was directed squarely at fans of the existing series who would come to the film with the requisite knowledge of the couple’s history together. The result was unique in the genre in that the events of the film take place over the course of one day, with Walter purchasing (and subsequently losing) an expensive item of jewellery for her, and their children trying to keep the surprise anniversary party they have planned secret from the couple. But Cleo from 5 to 7 (Agnès Varda, 1962) this was not, and while being an ultimately heartwarming film, it was a fairly forgettable commercial failure. Baxter would return later that year with his version of the spin-off from Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width (Ronnie Baxter, 1972), a television series that follows the adventures of two tailors, the Jewish Manny Cohen (John Bluthal) and the Catholic Patrick Kelly (Joe Lynch). Much of the humour arose from the clash between these two religious cultures, and the series and film were moderate commercial successes. The film was released with an ‘AA’ certificate due to some dialogue about virginity

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and some shots of bare breasts,22 but, as with the Up series, the film’s producer would argue that cinemas were receiving complaints from the public as to why their children were not allowed in to see it.23 In this case, while Murphy agreed that the category decision was ‘quite ludicrous’, a joke about the Virgin Mary was deemed beyond the pale, and would not be suitable for an ‘A’,24 highlighting the BBFC’s sensitivity over perceived blasphemy in the early 1970s, especially with regard to anything that could appear in a ‘family’ film. The final television sitcom spin-off EMI produced in this initial wave of interest in the genre was a brace of Steptoe and Son films, both written by Galton and Simpson. Freed from the constraints of television regulation, the first film, Steptoe and Son (Cliff Owen, 1972) is notable in its explicitness in its language and sexual content, which Harper and Smith have categorised as an ‘intensified … sexual distaste’.25 This manifests most often in the conversations between the two Steptoes, with Harold falling for and eventually marrying a stripper, much to his father Albert’s disapproval. But it is also extended across a range of other distastes, from Harold letting his father believe he has ‘pulled’ a woman, even though he and the audience know that the person Albert is enamoured with is a transvestite, through to the end of the film, where it is revealed that Harold’s now ex-wife, has had a child with a black man, ending Harold’s interest in her. But as a Galton and Simpson work, the writing is of a higher calibre than most of the other sitcom films from this period, and the ‘distastes’ are an evocation of the prevailing working-class attitudes of the period, epitomised by Albert. Harold is the more progressive, more open Steptoe, who is happy to travel abroad for his honeymoon whereas Albert (who manages to convince Harold and his new wife that he should join them) cannot understand the appeal. The contrast between the two, and what this says about working-class life, aspirations, and limitations, was the source of the comedy for the entire series, and echoed many of the themes that were integral to British sitcom of the period. As such, the fact that Albert expresses many conservative attitudes and prejudices is a realistic portrayal of his character and beliefs.  Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width (11 October 1971). London: BBFC.  Letter from Michael Havas to Stephen Murphy (22 January 1973). London: BBFC. 24  Letter from Stephen Murphy to Michael Havas (24 January 1973). London: BBFC. 25  Harper, S. and Smith, J. (2013), ‘Cross-over’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (ed.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 201. 22 23

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While Murphy recognised this, writing to the producer Beryl Vertue that the script was ‘excellent’ and that ‘there is a real need for some unchildish comedy in the “A”s, and I’ll do all I can to help’, he would countenance this with a concern for the language used, as he was ‘anxious to preserve the “A”s as one area (the only one!!) that doesn’t arouse controversy’.26 The offending words were cut, and a similar objection was raised to the film’s sequel, Steptoe and Son Ride Again (Peter Sykes, 1973),27 which also prompted concerns over taste,28 as it featured Harold faking Albert’s death in order to claim his life insurance money. Once again, the script and performances were strong, but with margins being increasingly stretched and Hammer about to withdraw from film production, this marked the last sitcom film EMI would be involved in until its elegiac The Likely Lads (Michael Tuchner, 1976). The Likely Lads feels like a nostalgic ode to a forgotten time, coming two years after the end of the revival sitcom Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (1973–1974), which in its depiction of two middle-aged men reflecting on what had been lost from their youth, was also tinged with nostalgia. The film follows Bob (Rodney Bewes) and Terry (James Bolam) in much the same way that the sitcom depicted them, but in the tradition of most sitcom films, they go away on holiday together, with their wives in tow, before a series of misunderstandings and mishaps lead ultimately to Bob inadvertently getting trapped on a ship on course from Newcastle to Bahrain. But it was in the scenes where Bob and Terry are present at the demolition of the pub they used to drink at as young men, where the film’s true message becomes apparent. For all the overt claims to be recapturing their lost youth by chasing women and going out for a drink, what they are really searching for is the Britain of their youth, and the promises of the 1960s that had failed to materialise by the mid-1970s. It was more a case of ‘Whatever Happened to Great Britain’, and this ode to a nation’s lost promise by Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement was a fitting end to the sitcom film genre, and to this type of filmmaking in Britain. Comedy was not the only genre filmmaking that the company tackled under Cohen’s direction, and the team of La Frenais, Clement, and director Michael Tuchner had started to shatter the 1960s illusion in their first 26  Letter from Stephen Murphy to Beryl Vertue and Aida Young (12 October 1971). London: BBFC. 27  Letter from Stephen Murphy to EMI Films (20 February 1973). London: BBFC. 28  Letter from Stephen Murphy to EMI Films (21 May 1973). London: BBFC.

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collaboration five years earlier, with the striking gangster film masterpiece Villain (Michael Tuchner, 1971). EMI already had been involved in a minor capacity in Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971), but as that had been brought to it by MGM, its contribution was little more than investing money. But it was Villain, released in the same year that would prove to be one of its most significant productions, and a worthy companion to Michael Caine’s better known example. Villain was Tuchner’s directorial debut, after a string of successful programmes for the BBC. It was also La Frenais and Clement’s first straight thriller, ably assisted by co-writing from the actor Al Lettieri, who would feature in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) the following year. The film is dominated by the villain of the title, the vicious and manipulative East End gangster Vic Dakin, played by Richard Burton in one of his best performances. The plot, which revolves around a heist Dakin and his gang is planning on a factory’s wages van, is secondary to the core dynamic between Dakin and the two men in his life: his lover, Wolfie (Ian McShane), and the detective who is trying to find charges that can stick to him, Bob Matthews (Nigel Davenport). They form the crux of Dakin’s life, with his emotional dependency and sexual longing for Wolfie, contrasted with his rivalry with Davenport. He pursues the former, and is pursued himself by the latter, and this dynamic is the catalyst for most of the film’s drama. Villain was, like Forbush before it, provided with a completion bond by Film Finances, in this case for £383,706.29 It was produced by Alan Ladd Jr, who had moved to the UK the year previously to start a fledgling producing career, had worked with Dick Clement on his directorial debut A Severed Head (Dick Clement, 1970), and was offered a 16.75 per cent bonus from Film Finances due to its ‘happy relationship with Mr Cohen’.30 John Croydon of Film Finances expressed some minor concerns with the script, especially over the first portrayal of Dakin’s violence, when his gang suspends a debtor from an apartment window, saying that ‘I suppose that apart from a few raised eyebrows from near neighbours this is not impossible to do, but I would like to know the unit’s own proposals to get the shot’.31 But by 1 September, these fears had been allayed, and Croydon noted that the script had ‘improved out of all knowledge’.32  Villain (Undated, c. July 1970). London: Film Finances Archive  Villain (4 August 1970). London: Film Finances Archive. 31  Villain (27 July 1970). London: Film Finances Archive. 32  Villain (1 September 1970). London: Film Finances Archive. 29 30

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At the same time, EMI was running the script by Trevelyan at the BBFC, and in light of their discussions, had removed the word ‘fart’ from the line, ‘doesn’t give a rat’s fart’.33 But Trevelyan had been in discussion with the film’s producer for some time, and was more concerned about content rather than language, advising that It would be wise to get rid entirely of the homosexual relationship between Dakin and [Wolfie] Lissner. … As you know, homosexuality is not a popular theme with the mainstream cinema audiences in this country and from a censorship angle it introduces an element that we would be happier not to have in a picture of this kind. Here again there is a possibility of simulation; I have in mind these horrible cases that we occasionally get where naked young men are found dead, tied up and mutilated.34

This hysterical response from Trevelyan shows that despite his regular portrayal as a liberal, he was prone to moments of moral panic, and he maintained this position after his first view of the script, stating ‘here we again have violence leading to homosexual caresses. I dislike this very much, and, as I said before, I hope you can keep the homosexuality right out.’35 But for once, the censor’s objections did not affect the final film, perhaps in part because it was released just as Trevelyan’s tenure was coming to an end. Dakin’s homosexuality remained, and the film entered production as intended on 14 September, 1970.36 Villain was shot entirely on location, partly due to it being cheaper to film this way than to build ­studio sets,37 but also due to the various problems that were being experienced at Elstree during the production, and it lends the film an immediate, gritty feel that has seen it placed with similar films like Carter, and the television programme The Sweeney, as representative of the end of the 1960s and swinging London38—a theme which fits into dominant portrayals of the 1970s as the ‘hangover’ from the 1960s. While most review Villain draft script (20 August 1970). London: BFI.  Barber, S. (2009). ‘“Blue is the pervading shade”: Re-examining British film censorship in the 1970s.’ Journal of British Cinema and Television, 6(3), p. 354. 35  John Trevelyan to Alan Ladd Jr. (18 March 1971). London: BBFC. 36  Villain (22 October 1970). London: Film Finances Archive. 37  Newland, P. (2009). ‘On location in 1970s London: Gavrik Losey.’ Journal of British Cinema and Television, 6(2), p. 303. 38  Brunsdon, C. (2010). ‘Towards a history of empty spaces.’ The City and the Moving Image. London: Palgrave, p. 226. 33 34

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ers note the similarities between Dakin and the Kray twins,39 it is notable that Lettieri was related via his brother-in-law to 1960s Genovese crime boss Thomas Eboli, and it is tempting to suggest that there are elements of Eboli in the depiction as well. Regardless, as played by Burton, he is a menacing, yet incredibly vulnerable character, certainly one of the most complex personas of British crime cinema. As Alexander Walker would put it In Villain he looks, simply, godawful. His face is like an old glove that does not quite fit and has had to be pinched in here and there. His eyes are pebbles. The voice that had too often sounded self-enraptured in roles where, admittedly, listening to himself was the only compensation, is now hard and cheapened. And the immense dramatic ‘weight’ he carries, to the point of seeming overweight in commonplace films, is this time a bonus, not a burden. It reinforces his epic contempt for the tawdry ordinariness of the world that Vic Dakin seeks to dominate.40

This iconic portrayal is none so prominent than in the final scene, in which Dakin, cornered and caught red handed by his nemesis, Matthews, looks to the assembled crowd and ultimately the audience through the camera, and screams ‘What are you looking at?’—a chilling end to a unique film, which, coming only five months after Carter, fell short at the box office. Despite this failure, Tuchner was trusted enough by the EMI board to take on a subsequent project, entitled Fear is the Key (Michael Tuchner, 1972). In this film, Barry Newman plays John Talbot, who we first see radioing his wife and brother, moments before their plane is shot down and crashes. He relocates to Louisiana and is arrested for disorderly behaviour after taking a bottle from a bar. At his trial, we learn that he was a marine scavenger, who is now on the run after stealing some jewels from a previous mission, and is wanted for killing a policeman. But to evade prison, he takes a gun from the holster of one of the policeman at the courthouse and kills another who tries to intervene. He escapes, taking a woman with him as hostage, who it later transpires is Sarah Ruthvan, the daughter of an oil billionaire. An exhilarating car chase ensues, and he is eventually captured by a shady character named Jablonsky, who says he wants to turn him in to Sarah’s father for a reward. He does, and Talbot is  Walker, A. (1986). National Heroes. London: Harrap, p. 27.  Walker, A. (1986) National Heroes. London: Harrap, p. 28.

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monitored by the shady Vyland and his assistant Royale (Ben Kingsley in his first screen role). Realising he is a marine scavenger, they employ him to take them down in a submersible to collect some cargo from a plane that has crashed and is at the bottom of the ocean. But it is all a ruse— Talbot wants to get in with them to take the two men down to the site where his wife, brother and unborn son crashed, as he blames Vyland and Royale for their death (they had commissioned his wife and brother to fly a plane to transport some cargo, but they did not tell them it was carrying millions of pounds worth of diamonds). Talbot turns off the oxygen to the submersible and forces Vyland to admit his part in his wife’s death, his confession recorded by Talbot’s associates on land. Vyland and Royale die, and Talbot, satisfied with his revenge, returns to the top. A guarantee in principle from Film Finances was granted on 9 March 1972, but only four days later, concerns were raised by Croydon that some script sequences, notably the initial car chase and Talbot’s first invasion of the oil rig, had been changed in the script and they needed to see a final version.41 The film’s associate producer, Gavrik Losey, wrote to Film Finances that the director and producer were aware that the script contained ‘certain areas [that] are not practical in relation to our budget and schedule’, however, he had ‘every confidence that we will have no difficulty in bringing the picture in on schedule and budget’.42 The budget was set at £531,546 including contingency, once again significantly higher than had been the case for the majority of the Forbes slate, and the unit arrived in New Orleans to start shooting on 1 May 1972. Croydon had been able to ‘check the new script against the latest schedule’ and felt that there was ‘no doubt that it does raise quite a lot of questions which obviously cannot be gone into and answered until the unit returns from USA (sic)’.43 He continued: I am quite sure that a great deal of work has been crammed into the USA schedule which will never be accomplished. The chase which is scheduled for 7 days a pure matter of speculation (sic); we do not know if it is the intention to ‘cut cloth’ according to schedule or whether, regardless of time,

 Fear is the Key (13 March 1972). London: Film Finances Archive.  Fear is the Key (21 April 1972). London: Film Finances Archive. 43  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F.  Garrett (3 May 1972). London: Film Finances Archive. 41 42

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they will get the best possible car chase to at least, perhaps equal the one in Diamonds are Forever.44

The car chase itself is spectacular, despite ‘Miss Kendall’s reluctance to shoot in a moving vehicle’, but this was overcome after a discussion with Tuchner and revision of some of the shots.45 Outside of this, the film is as convoluted as the plot summary above suggests, although the adaptation from the Alastair Maclean novel is effective. Its real importance lies in the tentative steps that EMI was taking into the American market, making what was for all intents and purposes, an American film. It was a successful move, with the film being the eleventh most successful crime film at the British box office in the decade,46 and it confirmed that they were capable of producing in this environment, a not insignificant achievement for a British film company, and in light of its rejection of The Long Loud Silence only a couple of years previously due to its American location, suggested a huge step forward for the company in terms of ambition. Similarly, EMI’s second thriller released that year: Endless Night (Sidney Gilliat, 1972) marked another major development in the company’s production policy, as it was its first Agatha Christie adaptation. It was adapted, produced, and directed by Launder and Gilliat, in association with EMI and British Lion. Bernard Herrmann composed an experimental moog score, which is one of the more interesting aspects of this enjoyable, but largely predictable thriller, in which Hywel Bennett falls in love with Haley Mill’s Ellie Thompson, only for their dreams to be shattered after ignoring warnings about building on ‘cursed’ land. The film has an elegiac, dreamlike tone, at times feeling more like a supernatural horror film than a whodunit, and the nature of the violence was commented on by the censor, who consulted a psychiatrist for an opinion on the ‘sadistic games which lead to the murder scene’.47 The plot also has echoes of Rebecca and Wuthering Heights, with Hywel Bennett’s visions of his dead wife and the evocation of the importance of the landscape and the house to terrible events that occur later in the film, and like the two Tuchner films, Endless  Letter from John Croydon to R.E.F. Garrett (3 May 1972).  Fear is the Key (15 May 1972). London: Film Finances Archive. 46  Smith, J. (2013), ‘Cinema statistics, box office and related data’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (eds.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 264. 47  Letter from Stephen Murphy to consultant psychiatrist (12 December 1972). London: BBFC. 44 45

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Night is an interesting exploration of various aspects of the male psyche, conveyed via the thriller genre. With the stock of sitcom adaptations drying up, and EMI’s horror and crime thrillers being only sporadically successful at the box office, the company would then embark on a fourth series of genre films, which can loosely be described as musicals (in that they featured musicians in leading roles and included music that these performers had written). The first such film in this genre, was Made (John Mackenzie, 1972), which featured folk artist Roy Harper as a tormented rock star, who forms a relationship with a single parent called Valerie (Carol White). It starts with images of Valerie playing at a fairground, interspersed with images of Harper, an older lady and a priest, the four juxtaposed on the screen as representations of the various influences on her life; fun, freedom, religion and her mother, all artfully shot in black and white. The film deeply impressed the examiners at the BBFC, with Murphy writing to the producer, Joe Janni to say that ‘I would love to meet you and talk to you about your film. … This is not basically for any purposes of censorship, but simply because I found the film both interesting and, in some respects, puzzling.’48 The film has dated badly, but the theme, of Valerie being buffeted by the various egotistic and selfish men in her life, is an interesting one, and is unusual for British cinema of the period. Every man she meets imprints his own version of who she should be, with Mahdav (Sam Dastor), a man she meets at work seeing her as a poetic muse and his first sexual conquest, attempting to rape her when she comes back to his house for dinner; and the priest (John Castle) who purports to want to support her, but actually just wants to treat her as a fallen soul he can redeem, due to her being an unmarried mother. She is presented with two extreme moments of guilt in the film, when first her baby, then her mother, die when she is not there with them, and these pressures in her life make it all the more refreshing when she meets the pop star Mike Preston (Roy Harper). In what could have been a clichéd portrayal, he is interested only in freedom and taking each day as it comes, but crucially, he is the first man in her life who also does not ask anything of her, or demand that she be a certain way. However, in a refreshingly honest reversal, it is revealed at the film’s conclusion that he is just the same as all the others—as Valerie listens to his latest single on the radio while ironing, she realises that he has written a song about her life, and in so doing, has defined her from his perspective, the way that all the other  Letter from Stephen Murphy to Joe Janni (25 April 1972). London: BBFC.

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men she has met have ‘made’ her as well. EMI wanted an ‘AA’ certificate, and the BBFC invited them to ‘make us an offer’ by trimming some of the problematic scenes and language, especially the scene in which Mahdav orgasms during his lovemaking with Valerie, which concerned them because they felt that ‘we were almost being invited, at this point, to laugh at him where I am sure that the intention was quite other’.49 However, after completing the film, Roy Harper was hospitalised with a rare medical condition which put him out of action for at least four months, and therefore Cohen decided that under the circumstances, EMI would have to accept the ‘X’, as there was no chance of Harper being able to record any reshoots.50 From the sublime notes of Made, EMI shifted quickly into the ridiculous, with another vehicle for a pop singer, who was more used to acting but whose star had been on the wane for some time. Take Me High (David Askey, 1973) was to be Cliff Richard’s final film performance, and it appears from viewing it that this decision was partly down to a belated desire to not inflict any similar aberrations on the public again. A brief summary of the plot provides a hint of the bizarre nature of the film, but barely does it justice. Richard is a merchant banker called Tim Matthews, who believes that he is about to be sent off to work for the company in New York, only to discover that in fact they have posted him to Birmingham. Once there, he is tasked with reconciling the conflicting interests of a local entrepreneur (Hugh Griffiths) who wants to invest in a major new development in the city, and the local Labour councillor (George Cole) who seeks to oppose it. Considering that Richard is there to make a killing for his company, and is presumably the star attraction of the film, it is clear where the film’s sympathies lie. This is also why Birmingham was chosen as the location, as with its modern concrete buildings and areas ripe for development, it is as if the film is a nightmarish satire of Thatcherism and the yuppie tendency a decade before such concepts even existed. But Richard’s character has a glimmer of humanity, and falls for a local Brummie woman, who has struck upon a solution to Birmingham’s mid-­ 1970s malaise—an ultra-hip burger restaurant made from locally sourced ingredients. Richards secures an agreement between the businessman and the councillor, and as a reward is finally offered the New York job. But he rejects this to stay in Brum and commit himself to the restaurant, newly  Letter from Stephen Murphy to Joe Janni (25 April 1972).  Letter from Joe Janni to Stephen Murphy (15 May 1972). London: BBFC.

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christened the ‘BrumBurger’. Cue his delivery of a song of the same name and a procession through the town centre to celebrate its opening, with full marching band in tow. It is of no surprise to those people who have witnessed the film, that it has never been released on DVD, even despite Richard’s ardent fan base. Despite this, the film is so strange, at times jaw-­ droppingly weird, that it has the same intoxicating power of an Ed Wood film. It is difficult to think of any British film like it, and it undeniably has historical value in its depiction of Birmingham in the 1970s. But like most films of this ilk (it fits neatly into the definition of ‘paracinema’51), it is difficult to analyse historically, because it feels almost out of its own time, a film that sits outside of the usual boundaries of normal cinema. It is hard to imagine that a cast and crew of dozens could have been found to make this, let alone that they would be responding to any social or historical trends, but in one regard it made sense as part of EMI’s overall slate of films—one must remember that Richard was an EMI artist, as was Harper before him, and thus these films were one way of cross-pollinating their products across various markets. That this was a spectacular failure therefore did not matter that much, as costs were evenly spread across the entire company. Despite this major low point in EMI’s history, the template was by now firmly established, and so when the fresh-faced young producer David Puttnam brought Cohen a treatment for a film starring a Columbia artist (a company also owned by EMI), David Essex, Cohen leapt at the chance. For the first time though, he had what appeared to be a genuinely commercial approach to the subject, with a lead who was at the time, more bankable than Harper or Richard and was about to reach the peak of his fame. That’ll be the Day (Claude Whatham, 1973) is in many ways a precursor to Quadrophenia (Franc Roddam, 1979), in its depiction of a romanticised version of a rock past, featuring Essex as a wannabe rock star in the late 1950s who, through his own insouciance fails to reach the big time. It is at one and the same time a lament for an earlier era and a critique of the type of characters who inhabited it, but to prove its modern credentials and appeal to the youth audience, it was peppered with bad language, sex, and violence. Because of this, it posed particularly difficult problems for the BBFC. Murphy informed Puttnam that while the board viewed it as an ‘AA’ film, they had never certified language that strong at 51  Sconce, J. (1995). ‘“Trashing” the academy: Taste, excess, and an emerging politics of cinematic style’, Screen, 36(4), pp. 371–393.

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‘AA’ (including as it did, the words ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt’, both immediate guarantees of an ‘X’ certificate), and that the sex scenes and sexual references to 14-year-old girls were also too strong for this rating.52 After some work during the post-synch all the ‘harder four letter words’ were covered, along with references to the girl’s age, including removing the line ‘Only when I am with a virgin’ after she says ‘Do you always come this quickly?’.53 Despite these changes, after the film’s release Murphy received several letters from concerned parents, who on taking their children to the film were appalled by the language used and by the film’s sexual content, and who believed there to be many young children in the audience. An embattled Murphy would respond to one such complainant that ‘It makes me sad to receive thoughtful and muted letters likes yours’, but that ‘I must necessarily question some of your attitudes towards 14 year-olds today’.54 Arguing that the bad language referred to consisted mostly of the word ‘bugger’, Murphy pointed out that in the north (where Murphy could trace his own heritage) the word was used ‘as much a term of affection as a swear-word’.55 As for the sex scene, Murphy’s view was that ‘those of us whose erotic experiences were of the era of the suspender belt found the scene rather more severe than youngsters who regarded it as something of a museum piece’,56 and it was these youngsters who eventually made the film the tenth highest-grossing film in British cinemas that year.57 The commercial success of That’ll be the Day meant that a sequel was inevitable, and the reaction to the first film ensured that it would be much more carefully scrutinised by the censors. Stardust (Michael Apted, 1974) was the only film to be granted money by the NFFC in 1974, providing half of the total budget on the basis that it was the ‘only project out of 134 submitted to the corporation during the year which was ready to go into commercial production and which seemed to have an outstanding chance of commercial success’.58 It worked—Stardust was one of the leading films that year at the UK box office, almost matching the returns of That’ll be  Letter from Stephen Murphy to David Puttnam (1 February 1973). London: BBFC.  Letter from David Puttnam to Stephen Murphy (26 March 1973). London: BBFC. 54  Letter from Stephen Murphy to Phillip Crome (23 October 1973). London: BBFC. 55  Letter from Stephen Murphy to Phillip Crome (23 October 1973). 56  Letter from Stephen Murphy to Phillip Crome (23 October 1973). 57  Smith, J. (2013), p. 270. 58  Barber, S. (2013), ‘Government aid and film legislation: “An elastoplast to stop a haemorrhage”’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (ed.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 14. 52 53

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Fig. 6.1  David Essex pulls a nonchalant rock star pose for a publicity still for Stardust, a film that would confirm to the EMI board that success in Britain alone was not a profitable commercial strategy. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd

the Day. But while the film benefitted from NFFC funding, this brought with it the added tension that the producers had to try to secure an ‘AA’ certificate, in order to have any chance of the NFFC recouping its investment. Therefore, the first examiners’ decision, that the sex scenes and dialogue would ensure it was an ‘X’, did not bode well (Fig. 6.1).59 Puttnam met with John Terry of the NFFC and Murphy to try to come to some agreement, and Puttnam deployed what would become his legendary diplomatic skills, with Murphy leaving the meeting regarding Puttnam as ‘a young man of great integrity and who does not want any sort of censorship row, and who is capable, very rationally, of seeing both sides of any question’.60 Murphy agreed to the team resubmitting the film in September to see if by then the ‘climate had changed’.61 In the intervening period, Murphy also agreed to Puttnam’s suggestion to engage Guy Phelps, a sociologist at the University of Leicester who had just pub Stardust (4 July 1974). London: BBFC.  Stardust (18 July 1974). London: BBFC. 61  Stardust (18 July 1974). 59 60

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lished his Mass Media and the Secondary School (1973), to convene screenings of the film in Reading and London to garner opinions from the public, teachers, youth workers, and lecturers, as to the correct classification. The overwhelming consensus was that they felt the film should be an ‘AA’, bolstering the NFFC’s and Puttnam’s position. With this data in support, Murphy granted the certificate, and the film was released to critical acclaim and a rapturous audience reception, appearing in the top 20 releases in Britain in 1974 and, because it was released late that year, it charted even higher in 1975, being the tenth most popular release.62 This put the film under an even greater spotlight, and complaints from the usual suspects were heard. Murphy felt compelled to write to Mary Whitehouse to admonish her for one such attack, outlining the deliberate and time consuming process they had taken in making this decision,63 although Murphy’s soon to be successor, James Ferman, would write to Guy Phelps a few years later that despite the restrictions to under 14s that the ‘AA’ certificate provided, when he went to view the film the cinema was ‘full of tweeney-boppers aged 11, 12 and 13 who were just wishing they could be a notch on David Essex’s rifle’.64 And Murphy himself would note to the film’s co-producer, Sandy Lieberson, that he had received ‘a fair level of complaint about “Stardust” … and only one letter agreeing with our decision’.65 Despite this (or perhaps because of it), both That’ll be the Day and Stardust represent the best of the genre, however fleeting and short-lived it was. While EMI had never been a genre company per se, by the mid-1970s the writing was on the wall for companies that had made their names with a specific type of film, and the notion of focusing on a single generic style had effectively ended. Thus, these films are significant as a final hurrah to this type of filmmaking in Britain, and to Cohen’s approach to filmmaking, that had served him well since the 1950s. As this and the previous chapter have shown, several of his genre films were of interest, with productions like Demons of the Mind, The Likely Lads, Villain and Made pushing the boundaries of popular cinema and further problematising the notion of Cohen as a crass commercial producer. But regardless of their artistic merits, Cohen’s experience with these films had  Smith, J. (2013), p. 271.  Letter from Stephen Murphy to Mary Whitehouse (17 September 1974). London: BBFC. 64  James Ferman to Guy Phelps (7 December 1976). London: BBFC. 65  Stephen Murphy to Sandy Lieberson (29 November 1974). London: BBFC. 62 63

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also highlighted an issue of which Stardust was the perfect example; for while it had been a phenomenon at the British box office, it had made barely over £185,000  in the US market.66 It was this conundrum that Cohen and Delfont would resolve to address as the decade progressed.

66  Letter from EMI to Gavrik Losey (10 May 1984). Gavrik Losey Collection. Exeter: Bill Douglas Cinema Museum.

CHAPTER 7

Trick or Treat?

In public, Nat Cohen maintained the persona of the corporate studio head interested only in the bottom line, stating that ‘I have no desire to get across or convey any thoughts in any of my films. I believe in good, sound quality entertainments.’1 But by the end of 1972, the company would describe a ‘policy of producing films of varied types to ensure a well-­ balanced programme’,2 and this balance incorporated work that would fall outside of generic boundaries and challenge Cohen’s reputation for crass popular entertainment. The first one of these productions was, like many of his more commercial films in the early 1970s, an adaptation of a television programme, a Wednesday Play entitled In Two Minds (1967), which had been directed by Ken Loach—not perhaps an obvious bedfellow for Cohen’s EMI. This was Loach’s third feature film after Poor Cow (1967) and Kes (1969), and Cohen committed a relatively low-risk £96,0003 to what would eventually become Family Life (Ken Loach, 1971). The original script for what was then still called ‘In Two Minds’ by David Mercer was quite a conventional story, with sympathy generated for the lead ­character, Janice, a young woman whose parents force her into having an 1  Garvey, A. (2010), ‘“Pre-sold to millions”: The sitcom films of the 1970s’, in Newland, P. (ed.), Don’t Look Now: British Cinema in the 1970s, London: Intellect, p. 179. 2  EMI Annual Report (1972). London: EMI, p. 29. 3  EMI Film Productions Limited and Anglo-EMI Film Distributors Limited—Production Release Schedule (24 April 1972). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library.

© The Author(s) 2018 P. Moody, EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94803-4_7

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abortion when she becomes pregnant and ultimately commit her to a mental hospital. But her travails are not presented as necessarily a symptom of the prevailing society, but instead the failings of a familiar cast of unhelpful, uncaring authority figures. It was this draft that Loach and producer Tony Garnett presented to Cohen and the National Film Finance Corporation to secure funding,4 but from this, what followed was much more experimental. Loach and Garnett took typed scenes from the script, cut out and stapled to evocative handwritten descriptions of the mood and visuals, with snippets of dialogue, and only a few scenes from the original draft were retained, such as when Janice is at a tube station and the rush hour is described as ‘being itself a kind of madness’.5 By the third draft, the script had become known as ‘Scenes of Family Life’, and it was pared down even further, with scenes that had described previously, for example, Jan and an evening with her friends in a full paragraph reduced to just ‘Jan spends time with her friends’.6 By the working copy of the script, annotations have highlighted the shift to a wider societal critique, noting that titles on stills at the start of the film should read: ‘The order and repressive nature of suburban working class life’.7 Likewise, in an argument between Janice and a welfare worker, it says at the bottom of the script, ‘The attitude of the welfare worker is that it should be Janice’s decision to return … if she doesn’t decide of her own free will to return she will be put on a section. She is free but not free.’8 Garnett wrote to the new Secretary of the BBFC, Stephen Murphy, to confirm a preview screening for him, and also to make explicit his and Loach’s belief that the film should be certificated as ‘A’, to enable a younger audience entry. He said: We consulted a number of psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, some of whom were very posh, in our preparations for the film. We certainly don’t want to start playing games with each other: what we both want is a sensible and informed discussion. We could both throw distinguished medical names at each other, but that would get us no-where. The psychiatrist, whose day to day advice we leant on most heavily … feels happy for people over 14 to see

4  Barnett, A., McGrath, J., Mathews, J. and Wollen, P. (1976), ‘Interview with Tony Garnett and Ken Loach: Family Life in the making’. Jump Cut, 10–11, pp. 43–45. 5  ‘Family Life.’ Ken Loach Collection. London: BFI. 6  ‘Family Life.’ Ken Loach Collection. 7  ‘Family Life.’ Ken Loach Collection. 8  ‘Family Life.’ Ken Loach Collection.

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the film but he feels he would like to hear other judgements before he finally makes up his mind.9

No other correspondence is recorded by the BBFC, but Murphy was clearly more convinced by his advisors than by Garnett’s, and passed it as ‘AA’ on 19 October 1971. The US reviews for the film were generally positive, if commenting on the contrivances that Loach and Mercer produced to ram home their point,10 which several later critics would attribute to a certain modishness on Loach and Garnett’s part, picking up on the zeitgeist theories of Scottish psychiatrist RD Laing.11 In the UK, the critical response was, while positive, wary of its commercial prospects, with Tony Palmer in The Spectator typical of this approach, lavishly praising it as a work of art but saying that he was ‘sure those who put up the money must have wrung their proverbial hands in all too real despair as they convinced themselves that all their lovely money had gone down the cinematic drain’.12 This portrayal would sit neatly with the stereotype of Cohen’s operations that he had cultivated over the years, but which was increasingly removed from the truth, and in an indication of his willingness to defend the quality of his division’s output (and in marked contrast to the way that Forbes’ productions were handled), EMI’s Managing Director, Peter King, wrote to the magazine later that month to say ‘I am sorry to disappoint Mr Palmer and to destroy his illusions of the film industry stereotype, but everyone in this company who has seen this film has reacted with both excitement and enthusiasm’.13 In a rare public insight into EMI’s production strategy, he continued: Mr Palmer goes on to ask ironically ‘… so this is art. But who needs it?’ Well, this company for a start believes that many people in Britain do. There is no longer such a creature as the majority audience; there are simply a number of varying size minorities and it is our job to provide films for each of these minorities.14

 Letter from Tony Garnett to Stephen Murphy (17 September 1971). London: BBFC.  ‘Family Life.’ Ken Loach Collection. 11  Walker, A. (1986). National Heroes. London: Harrap, p. 46. 12  Palmer, T. (1 January 1972). ‘Unholy Family.’ The Spectator, p. 30. 13  King, P. (15 January 1972). ‘Sincerely, Delfont.’ The Spectator, p. 17. 14  King, P. (15 January 1972), p. 17. 9

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As evidence of the company’s support for the film, he recounted a letter signed by Bernard Delfont himself that EMI would be sending to 350,000 homes in the areas in which the film was going to be shown: Dear Family, There is a film coming to … next week which I think no one should miss. It is called Family Life and is one of the very few films of which I could truthfully say ‘it could change the way you think’. Now I know that people go to films to be entertained, not changed. Fine, Ken Loach’s Family Life is a brilliant film, staggeringly well acted and as stimulating entertainment as his earlier Kes. But it is also a film of real importance to your family. It is about that crucial period when adolescents should sometimes be allowed to make their own decisions—and sometimes not. The parents in this film make the wrong decisions. Not because they are wicked, but because they are misinformed. The things they make their daughter do ‘for her own good’ are one relentless step after another on the way to tragedy. You can bring your whole family to Family Life as long as they’re over fourteen. You ought to. It is not just another film about the generation gap. It is the kind of event which can bring people together to talk and discuss things which are otherwise left unsaid—even in the closest families. Things which can lead, if not always to disaster, to bewildering anger and sorrow. For like real life, there are no villains in Family Life, only victims. Yours sincerely, Bernard Delfont.15

This staggering piece of advertising demonstrates not only Delfont’s key association with the company as a sign of quality who could be trusted, but also its willingness to back Cohen’s releases, even the less obviously commercial ones, in a way that Forbes had never been fortunate enough to receive. While Family Life was not a commercial proposition in the manner of On the Buses, this support would work in territories that had a disposition to Loach’s work, with EMI’s Annual Report of 1973 stating that ‘in Europe, particular success was attained with the film Family Life in France … [which] also won first prize at the Barcelona film festival’.16 Two years after the film’s release, Stephen Murphy at the BBFC received a letter from The Schizophrenia Association, complaining about the depiction of the treatment of mental illness in the film and the board’s

 King, P. (15 January 1972), p. 17.  EMI Annual Report (1973). London: EMI, p. 32.

15 16

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decision to award it a certificate,17 followed up by a letter to Murphy from the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health, Michael Alison.18 Alison states that he and a number of his advisors had seen Family Life and that it ‘did indeed present a most unfortunate and misleading impression of the role played by the family in the causation of mental illness’; however, he also acknowledged that there had been little effect on public attitudes to mental illness and the willingness of the public to seek treatment,19 and it appears that the matter was drawn to a close. But this powerful, if flawed, film marked a significant point in EMI’s development and was a further indication of its increasing confidence in its own product and a production strategy that could accommodate films which were not immediately obvious box office draws. Once this principle had been established, Cohen’s production division would release several more outliers over the course of the decade, which did not easily fit within the generic tropes that EMI had started to specialise in. Often, these films would be produced with a degree of caution—for example, Waris Hussein’s Henry VIII and his Six Wives (1972) was also a television spin-off, adapted from the BBC mini-series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and thus was built upon the success of an existing product and had a ready-made audience (as would its sitcom films). It was the fourth feature film directed by Hussein, who had come out of a similar tradition at the BBC to Loach (although Hussein’s alma mater was Cambridge, not Oxford, as in Loach’s case), having directed several Wednesday Plays, but had begun a Hollywood career with his most recent work being The Possession of Joel Delaney (Waris Hussein, 1972). It was to be his last feature film, as he returned to work as a television director, often in the USA, and there is an element of television staginess to this piece, in comparison to say, A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zimmerman, 1966), but it is a superb adaptation with a justly well received performance by Keith Michell as Henry. His portrayal shows a king who displays the full range of human emotion, a man who grieves at the loss of a child, and feels the weight of the decisions he has to make in court, not just the one-­ dimensional tyrant that many other treatments of this role display. 17  Letter from the Schizophrenia Society to Stephen Murphy (14 November 1973). London: BBFC. 18  Letter from the Schizophrenia Society to Stephen Murphy (24 January 1974). London: BBFC. 19  Letter from Michael Alison MP to John Biggs-Davison MP (11 January 1974). London: BBFC.

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Likewise, Charlotte Rampling’s  depiction of Anne Boleyn commands attention and is full of depth, and the film would also showcase the talents of cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, who had worked with Hussein on his previous films and whose images were naturalistic and similarly restrained. Two more television adaptations would be released the following year, with EMI first spending £80,00020 on an adaptation of an episode of ITV Playhouse, The Best Pair of Legs in the Business (Christopher Hodson, 1973), which featured Reg Varney as a holiday camp entertainer, Sherry Sheridan, whose career is at a dead end. This was Varney’s last film (although he would star in some more television work afterwards) and was a clear attempt at a break from his On the Buses roles, as while he plays a comic entertainer, the script, which features his life crumbling around him, was at its heart a tragic story. Varney is superb in the main role, in what would have been a career defining performance if the film had been a commercial success. It is almost inconceivable that this was made in the same year as Holiday on the Buses—the contrast between the two films, and Varney’s performances, could not be greater. It was a touching and heartfelt portrayal, that had echoes of Tony Hancock in its pathos, but with a much greater dramatic range than Hancock could muster. It was an adult film, which was borne out with the protracted censorship process that it endured, with Murphy telling EMI by phone that there was ‘not the slightest hope of an “A”’ certificate being granted, despite Cohen’s insistence to the contrary.21 It would take another four months, and over ‘30 cuts in dialogue’, for the BBFC to finally agree that an ‘A’ certificate would be ‘marginally acceptable’.22 The film that emerged from this process can be read as a prescient swansong to the type of working-class comedy that EMI’s sitcom films, most importantly, Varney’s On the Buses, represented and which, in a changing cultural and economic climate, were on the wane. Its second television spin-off that year, the Hammer collaboration Man at the Top (Mike Vardy, 1973), was similarly downbeat and was based on the series of the same name (which was itself a continuation of the story of Joe Lampton, first introduced to audiences in Room at the Top (Jack Clayton, 1959)). This story of working-class ambition dashed by the real20  Minutes of the EMI Film Programme Investment Committee (28 June 1972). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 21  The Best Pair of Legs in the Business (15 December 1972). London: BBFC. 22  The Best Pair of Legs in the Business (3 April 1973). London: BBFC.

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ity of middle-class mundanity had become more of a Reggie Perrin-esque portrayal of a successful businessman undergoing a mid-life crisis, by the time of this, the fourth iteration of the Joe Lampton story. Of course, this was an apt reflection of the times and of anyone who, like Lampton, had entered the middle classes in the late 1950s only to realise a decade or so later that their dream had turned sour. This being a Hammer film, the usual EMI desire to secure an ‘A’ certificate was not in evidence, and the film was peppered with nudity, including a nude body double for the lead actress, Nanette Newman. Murphy was concerned that this material was ‘grafted’ on to the film to ensure an X certificate, in what is an otherwise ‘sexploitationless’ film.23 Murphy wrote to Carreras to ask Are they necessary? Is there any way of weaving them better into the picture? Individually speaking, none of these shots breaks any ground for us, but it is new for all of us to feel as strongly as we do that they have no natural place within the picture.24

Hammer unsurprisingly declined to make any changes, but to accept the X certificate as offered and the film was released in the summer. But while these images feel tacked on to convince people to turn up at the cinema for a story they could see on their televisions at home, the content was a stark reflection of the times. Lampton, after picking up a couple of 20-something hitchhikers and sleeping with them in a motel, delivers the following speech to them, and by extension all young people who, like him once, had dreams and ambition: Christ are you in for a rude awakening … all the soft-skinned, moist-eyed, flaxen-haired brigade. All those feeble wanking revolutionaries in their ­bell-­bottom denims. And all those art school Jesus Christs with their pot smoking muddle-headed gospels about candy floss futures where everybody fucks, nobody fights and human nature changes overnight. Are you in for a rude awakening.25

Lampton’s speech could almost be viewed as a direct riposte to another film EMI released that year, one of the company’s few forays into science fiction, The Final Programme (Robert Fuest, 1973), which melded themes  Man at the Top (15 May 1973). London: BBFC.  Letter from Murphy to Carreras (18 May 1973). London: BBFC. 25  Man at the Top (Mike Vardy, 1973). 23 24

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of apocalyptic science fiction with explorations of sexuality, akin to Zardoz (John Boorman, 1974) or The Man Who Fell to Earth (Nicolas Roeg, 1976). This strangely intoxicating film was based on a 1968 novel by Michael Moorcock and followed Jerry Cornelius, who is searching for a microfilm that might hold information leading to the end of the world. Cornelius, who in written form had been embraced by the late 1960s counterculture, was precisely the type of ‘wanking revolutionary’ that Lambton railed against, a long-haired proto-messiah who by the end of the film will have transformed into an androgynous being, the perfect human that the ‘final programme’ is trying to create. The film, like the novel, defies categorisation and is deliberately obtuse, but in its story of the end of one type of world, and the creation of another, it clearly captures the zeitgeist. It is debateable whether the new age that dawns after Cornelius’ transformation is to be welcomed or feared, but this remarkable film is unequivocal in its suggestion that a significant change in society has occurred. Even when EMI funded a more straightforwardly uplifting production, such as its 1972 documentary of Jackie Stewart’s success at the 1971 Monaco Grand Prix, Weekend of a Champion (Frank Simon & Roman Polanski), it was subverted. The film, which can be seen as a forerunner to Asif Kapadia’s Senna (2011), charts Stewart’s entire performance at Monaco, from arrival to winning the race, and benefits from good access to Stewart himself, due to his friendship with the film’s co-director, Roman Polanski. But after being screened at the Berlin Film Festival, this success story received only a limited specialist release, before quickly being withdrawn. Perhaps EMI’s most telling expression of the public mood was Baxter! (Lionel Jeffries, 1973), a film that in reuniting Lionel Jeffries and Sally Thomsett could realistically have been expected to produce a s­ imilarly positive treatment of adolescent life as Jeffries’ The Railway Children. Instead, the film was a damning portrayal of a teenage boy (Jean-Pierre Cassel) starved of affection, coming to London from America after his parents have separated. If one film EMI released in the period summed up the spirit (or lack of spirit) of the early 1970s, it was the bleak message of this production that was ostensibly for family viewing, which portrayed Baxter’s disaffection and eventual capitulation, giving in to his despair and taking his own life. It was almost as if the national malaise ensured that genuinely positive stories of modern Britain would have no traction with audiences, who were increasingly looking backwards to idealised notions of the past.

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The faux-Edwardian pleasures of The Railway Children and The Go-Between had already been the most profitable films of the Forbes period, and as explored in the previous chapter, this demand for films set in the past can also be seen in many of its genre offerings of the period. It also explains the phenomenal success of another Cohen film from this period, a BritishEuropean co-production based on the life of the eponymous heroine best known for her relationship with Lord Byron, Lady Caroline Lamb. It was panned by critics, and is a fairly forgettable historical romp, but it would become the ninth most popular film at the UK box office in 1973.26 EMI’s corporate face was much more positive, although it would hint at some challenging undercurrents on the horizon. Despite noting that while Elstree ‘serviced a total of fifteen feature film productions and three TV series, the studios made a substantial loss due to insufficient workload’, it felt confident enough to explain this away by saying that ‘most films today are made on location, with relatively little studio work involved’.27 It could now afford to brush off setbacks like these, as the report noted that three of its films, Mutiny on the Buses, Fear is the Key and That’ll be the Day, were amongst the ten most successful films screened on its ABC circuit,28 and that Anglo-EMI had received the Queen’s Award to Industry for export achievement—with the implicit message being that everything therefore had to be rosy financially.29 But it was the films announced as currently in ‘production or preparation’, which provided a true reflection of the company’s position and was therefore most revealing. It included two films, Wet Stuff, which would become S*P*Y*S (Irvin Kershner, 1974), and Here There be Dragons, which would become The Dove (Charles Jarrott, 1974).30 These two films are vital to understanding the development of EMI in the latter half of the 1970s, as EMI’s failure to produce them (it would eventually hand them over to 20th Century Fox and Paramount respectively) appeared to provide the catalyst for Cohen to embark on a new financing strategy. Firstly, it is important to explain the problem that these films presented. The Dove was produced by Gregory Peck, and Cohen wanted EMI to be associated with his name as a valuable 26  Smith, J. (2013). ‘Cinema statistics, box office and related data’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (eds.), British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 270. 27  EMI Annual Report (1973). London: EMI, p. 32. 28  EMI Annual Report (1973), p. 31. 29  EMI Annual Report (1973), p. 32. 30  EMI Annual Report (1973), p. 32.

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marketing tool and a sign of quality. But Peck’s private papers depict the difficulties he was having in getting the film made in the UK. A telegram from Peck to Delfont explains that Finally we are examining British quota possibilities. We can qualify by using British personnel, however studio filming and post production in England would involve budget increase [sic] which must be weighed against advantages.31

The advantages of qualifying this production as a quota film were mutual—Peck would be able to get his film financed by a willing Cohen, and EMI would have a film with a high-profile American star attached which was also eligible for Eady money. But by April 1973, it had become clear that those advantages were not persuasive enough, and Peck wrote to Cohen to explain that the restrictions that would apply to making it as a British quota film meant that it would not be possible to produce it with EMI, but that if Cohen could think of a way around the problem then he would be happy to pursue the project.32 Cohen’s proposal was to kick-­ start the career of a man who was to become one of Britain’s most successful film directors. At the time, Alan Parker was still known as a director of television commercials, although he had written the feature film script for Melody (Waris Hussein, 1971) and stood in for Claude Whatham on That’ll be the Day for a couple of days while he was ill. It was therefore unusual for Cohen to approach him to produce two short films for a company that had, until now, been known exclusively for producing features. However, the terms of the Eady Levy allowed eligibility to films that were preceded by British shorts—and this was where Parker stepped in, as a potential solution to Cohen’s difficulties with The Dove.33 Our Cissy (Alan Parker, 1974) followed a man and his son travelling from Bolton to London in search of answers, following his daughter’s death. In many ways, it echoes the plot of Get Carter and draws on themes of the end of swinging London and the aftermath of the allure that had brought many young women from the north to the area. This was recorded back to back 31  Telegram to Bernard Delfont from Gregory Peck (January 1973). Gregory Peck Papers. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 32  Letter to Nat Cohen from Gregory Peck (20 April 1973). Gregory Peck Papers. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library. 33  Parker, A. (2017). ‘Our Cissy and Footsteps.’ http://alanparker.com/earlywork/ourcissy-and-footsteps/. Accessed 31 August 2017.

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with Footsteps (Alan Parker, 1974), which was an altogether more fantastical affair, following a woman who develops extremely sensitive hearing after being beaten up in a mugging, and who believes that she can hear what might be a murder taking place in the apartment upstairs. Both films were shot over six days each, and as Parker puts it, were ‘a nice antidote and break from shooting 30 second commercials’.34 It is unclear as to what kind of release these films received, although they were generally well received, with the BBFC examiner remarking of Footsteps that it was ‘good, possibly very good. … Isn’t it mad when we have to say to someone “I’m sorry, your picture is too good for us to award the certificate you are contracted to deliver?”.’35 It was eventually granted an ‘A’ certificate, but although Parker would go on to great acclaim with Bugsy Malone (Alan Parker, 1976) two years later, the films were not enough to convince Peck to make The Dove with EMI, and it was eventually produced by Paramount. When this relatively small incident was repeated in the loss of S*P*Y*S to 20th Century Fox, it highlighted the difficulties that the company was facing, which would not be solved by the production of a handful of low-­ budget short films. This was reflected in its end of year report for 1974, the year in which Sir Joseph Lockwood retired from the company and Bernard Delfont received a Knighthood. It started with a typically bleak portrayal of the situation at Elstree, explaining that permanent staff ­numbers had been halved, from 518 to 261 employees, but that despite this, the level of film production is still unsatisfactory, and whilst we are continuing to make every effort to put the studios on a viable basis, we cannot be sure of its future unless the position improves substantially in the coming year.36

From this year onwards, the company accounts included film production within its overall leisure business, which included its squash and bingo operations; so it is difficult to discern the success of the film production division—although hiding it amongst other entertainment activities does not suggest a healthy position. But Elstree’s struggles, and the end of MGM’s involvement with the company after it closed its worldwide distribution operations at the end of 1973, meant that EMI had to act quickly  Parker, A. (2017). ‘Our Cissy and Footsteps.’  Footsteps (17 January 1974). London: BBFC. 36  EMI Annual Report (1974). London: EMI, p. 5. 34 35

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to repair the situation. Initially, the response was to shore up its distribution agreements, often the most reliably profitable aspect of the film business, and in February 1974 EMI formed a standalone UK distribution division, EMI Film Distributors, and announced that it was releasing The Dove and S*P*Y*S internationally.37 But the incident with The Dove had sown an idea in Cohen’s mind that would have a much more profound and long-lasting effect on the company’s direction over the latter half of the decade. Rather than continuing with his programme of co-­productions with other British companies, or attempting to attract US partners like Peck into deals based in the UK, Cohen would instead attempt to produce a ‘Hollywood’ film himself, making an EMI film whose production values would be comparable to the best of what was coming out of the USA. The film that would result from this new approach was presented as ‘EMI’s most important production to date’, and ‘the most ambitious feature film ever to be made and wholly financed by a British company’.38 It was not wrong. Murder on the Orient Express had been granted the biggest budget of any film that the company had produced so far (at just under $1.5 million) and featured an international all-star cast. Cohen instigated the idea, but Agatha Christie was notoriously reluctant to cede the rights to her work for film adaptations. Cohen approached Lord John Brabourne who, as the son in law of Earl Mountbatten, had a respectability and connections that gave him an advantage in negotiations. With contact made, Cohen negotiated the rights to three Hercule  Poirot stories, Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and Evil Under the Sun.39 The film itself established the template for most of the Christie adaptations that would follow, with a cast of well-known stars, featuring Albert Finney in the Poirot role, ably supported by Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall and Ingrid Bergman, and was nominated for six Oscars, with Bergman winning for Best Supporting Actress. It is easy to dismiss it now as hackneyed, with Finney’s Poirot in particular feeling like a caricature in light of the interpretations that would follow, but this was the first adaptation of this particular story and for audiences of the time was a revelation. Lumet’s direction was assured and never too showy, and he managed to marshal relatively restrained performances from his cast of big names. The film was a major commercial success, with the company’s Annual Report of 1976 arguing that the ‘sales to  EMI Annual Report (1974), p. 33.  EMI Annual Report (1974), p. 33. 39  Walker, A. (1986), p. 129. 37 38

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date of Murder on the Orient Express, particularly in Australia, Brazil and the US, have already established it as the most successful British film ever produced’,40 and with $19.1 million in US rentals, it would remain the ninth highest-grossing British film of the 1970s.41 More importantly, it further cemented Cohen and Delfont’s willingness to internationalise EMI’s product, and while this production was based on British source material and had a British lead actor, the influence of Hollywood both stylistically and in the supporting cast was evident for all to see. For regardless of one’s view of the film, it had a seismic effect on the direction of EMI and, therefore, British filmmaking. Up until this point, EMI’s films can be, with few exceptions, easily categorised as ‘British’, and whether one prefers the more refined pleasures of The Go-Between or the music hall humour of On the Buses is immaterial to their place in the history of British filmmaking—both styles can clearly and easily be placed within existing traditions in British culture more broadly. But Orient Express is different. It is a film adrift from its national moorings, with an international cast, crew and location, and production values that would not look out of place in Hollywood. It created a schism in EMI’s output, and from this moment onwards, the relationship between EMI and British cinema becomes skewed—it is at this point that it started to become a truly transnational company (Fig. 7.1). But there was one slight snag to Cohen’s strategy that he could not have foreseen. In October 1974 the November Finance Bill presented by the newly installed Chancellor of the Exchequer, Dennis Healy, proposed changes to tax laws for the highest earners. From April 1976, tax would have to be paid on 75 per cent of world earnings if the work had been performed in Britain, which immediately rendered projects with international casts, like Orient Express, more difficult to make.42 Changes were also afoot at EMI itself, with John Read succeeding Joseph Lockwood as Chairman of EMI in 1975, and it was announced that with effect from 1 April 1975, a minimum of three of the nine sound stages at Elstree would be available for rental from other companies,43 a decision that would pave the way for what would eventually be Elstree’s renaissance, with films like Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977) finding a home there. But it is noticeable  EMI Annual Report (1976). London: EMI, p. 36.  Smith, J. (2012), p. 274. 42  Walker, A. (1986), p. 132. 43  EMI Annual Report (1975). London: EMI. p. 5. 40 41

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Fig. 7.1  The set of Murder on the Orient Express, the film that confirmed EMI’s future transnational production strategy. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd

that this also had the effect of reducing studio space for the films that Cohen was producing, in favour of the more lucrative rentals that could be achieved by leasing the space out to American companies. Thus, when EMI announced its new £6 million programme in July 1975, ‘designed to create products of maximum audience appeal in both the UK and overseas’,44 and including Aces High (Jack Gold, 1976), All Creatures Great and Small (Claude Whatham, 1975), Death on the Nile, a new version of ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’ (which was not realised), The Likely Lads, The Nat King Cole Story (also not made), Seven Nights in Japan (Lewis Gilbert, 1976), Spanish Fly and To the Devil a Daughter, all of these productions were filmed on location, rather than at Elstree. At the height of Cohen’s greatest triumph, EMI was gradually becoming untethered from its roots, both literally and metaphorically. Thus Cohen’s final two years at EMI were a curious anti-climax, full of underwhelming, underperforming films, especially in light of Orient  EMI Annual Report (1975), p. 36.

44

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Express, which it was now difficult to recreate. All Creatures Great and Small was certainly British through and through, and its parochial charms led to a successful box office return. It featured strong performances from Simon Ward and Anthony Hopkins as the country vets James Herriot and Siegfried Farnon, but it increasingly felt that EMI was losing interest in this type of film, that only five years earlier would have sat neatly within Forbes’ initial slate. The result was a production that seemed more suited to the television. Seven Nights in Japan was a romantic comedy in which Michael York played a Prince (strangely modelled on Prince Charles) who falls in love with a local girl while on tour in Japan. Once again, it was an excuse to film beautiful shots of the Japanese landscape, but the concept felt half-baked. This was followed by Aces High, based on the play Journey’s End (RC Sherriff, 1928), which documents a week in the life of Major John Gresham (Malcolm MacDowell), and his tutelage of Lieutenant Stephen Croft, who is a pilot for the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War. It is all spiffing stuff, but once more feels overly nostalgic, and it was not the type of work that pushed any boundaries. But perhaps the clearest indication of EMI’s poverty of ideas was its ‘sequel’ to one of the most highly regarded British films of the 1960s, Alfie (Lewis Gilbert, 1966), entitled Alfie Darling (Ken Hughes, 1975), which is perhaps best thought of as, in modern parlance, a ‘reboot’, rather than a sequel, and which diverges from the source material in a number of unusual ways. The plot, which follows Alfie as a lorry driver rather than the chauffeur of the original, effectively recreates the mechanics of Alfie’s many sexual encounters with women, all ultimately tempered by a dramatic revelation that shows a glimmer of a conscience. Alfie himself is played by the musician Alan Price, suggesting that the 1970s trend of having a pop star play the lead role had not been completely exhausted, and Price also wrote the film’s score and title song (a role he had performed for Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man (1973) a couple of years previously). Price is convincing in the role, but clearly does not have the charisma of Michael Caine, and being from County Durham, plays the part with his North East accent, again highlighting the film as more of a ‘reboot’. At the end of the original, Caine would famously say, ‘What’s it all about?’, and it appears from this iteration that the answer is still simply, ‘birds’, and Alfie’s philandering ways and attitudes to women were beginning to feel dated even in 1975. His response to a regular fling who does not immediately leap into bed with him is to say ‘You’ve not gone lesbian, have yer?’, and on not immediately accepting his marriage proposal, he says to the woman he has fallen

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in love with, ‘If you’re making me a fool I’ll kill yer’. As a lorry driver, Alfie is able to follow his love across the world, for she is a successful magazine editor who travels for business frequently, but who inexplicably is attracted to a man who appears for most of the film to be in need of a restraining order. This affords several scenes in France, presumably to link the film thematically to what was becoming more affordable European travel and to Britain’s new relationship with Europe as part of the European Economic Community, but in reality was due to the unavailability of Elstree. But these moments of glamour do not lift the generally depressing tone, and when Alfie learns at the end that his new fiancé (for she finally accepts the proposal) has died in a plane crash on one of her frequent business trips, his frivolity throughout is undercut with a numbing shock, rather than the deeper and more troubling reflection on his life that the first film posits. It was not a success, and this would be one of Hughes’ last films as a director. These films were not necessarily bad enough to make Delfont lose faith in Cohen’s Midas touch, but his final year at the company would see his biggest failure, which did a great deal to tarnish his reputation. The film in question, Trick or Treat?, was brought to EMI by Puttnam’s Goodtimes Enterprises and was to be directed by Michael Apted, who had just come off of the last EMI/Goodtimes hit, Stardust. As with Stardust, the NFFC was also on board, but after the budget increased by over £50,000 due to numerous production delays, it withdrew its support, leaving EMI and Goodtimes to find a new backer. The film was to star Bianca Jagger, who was then still best known for being Mick Jagger’s wife, and the promise of her appearing nude in one of the film’s sex scenes was enough to entice Playboy to step in with the finance—but only on the guarantee that Jagger’s star billing was assured.45 Unfortunately, this was not well received by Equity, who threatened to blacklist Goodtimes due to Jagger’s non-union membership,46 leading to further delays. Shooting began in the middle of November 1975, and the account of the film’s production by its scriptwriter, Ray Connelly, depicts a fraught relationship with Jagger, which combined with other issues on set led to Apted and Puttnam deciding to pull the plug in January 1976.47 The 45  Connelly, Ray (September 1976), ‘Bianca Jagger and the film that never was’. Sunday Times Magazine. 46  Screen International (25 October 1975). Gavrik Losey Collection. Exeter: Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. 47  Connelly, R. (September 1976).

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plot focuses on two women, Ille and Kathy, who have a ménage a trois with an older man, Claude. In what by now was EMI tradition, the film was set in France, where the women sleep with each other in a series of awkwardly written sex scenes, including a nasty rape, where Claude is mocked by Kathy for his lack of sexual prowess, and to prove his virility he assaults her. Kathy falls pregnant from the rape and confronts Claude’s wife, Helen, with the news that she is pregnant with Claude’s baby, prompting this choice diatribe about Ille: She’s used you, and me and Claude. … She’s terrified of becoming an old bull dyke and she thought a baby would save her from that … the baby you wanted Claude to give you, he gave to me. Because you’re sterile … you’re sterile and she’s a lesbian who hates herself so much that she hates everyone and everything around her. She’s bad and she’s mad. And you’re sterile.48

As the film’s associate producer Gavrik Losey notes, as with all the Puttnam/Lieberson films ‘salacious’ aspects were included to attract an audience, but there was a meaningful subtext underneath, with the ­production team attempting to produce the first mainstream British film to feature a serious dramatic portrayal of bisexual female characters.49 Perhaps it was the heady nature of the decade and its sexual politics, or the attempt to make a ‘European’ style film about an adult sexual relationship in Britain, but to the modern reader the script has dated in a similar way to the sex comedies that EMI contributed to throughout the 1970s. But unlike those more frivolous, but hugely profitable movies, by the time the production was brought to a halt EMI’s expenditure on the project was already £192,872, with Playboy having incurred a similar loss of £144,644.50 This disaster confirmed to many that EMI was a company that had run out of ideas, and all strategic direction. Financially, it was more secure than it had ever been; by the end of 1975, it had made a profit of almost £7.5 million, a figure that had steadily grown since Forbes left the company. This suggested that EMI’s commercial strategy under Cohen’s leadership was working, and even when at the end of 1976 profit had dropped back to only £5.5 million,51 this was still a significant increase on the money that  Undated script, Trick or Treat?. London: BFI  Losey, G. (29 June 2018), Interview with the author. 50  Production budget (January 1976). Gavrik Losey Collection. Exeter: Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. 51  EMI Exhibition Accounts, 1972–76. London: BFI. 48 49

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Forbes had managed to produce. But by then Cohen was 71 years old and was looking a spent force creatively. As Andrew Spicer notes, ‘The producer represents the unfortunate vulgarity of commercial filmmaking, an unwelcome reminder of film’s showground origins, its lack of cultural capital’,52 and Cohen was neatly placed into this role by his critics, most notably Forbes himself. EMI’s output under his leadership certainly demonstrates elements of this, and whereas there was a moral conservatism in Forbes’ work which was steeped in nostalgia (as in The Railway Children or The Go-Between), Cohen’s work presented a form of populist conservativism which was represented in the sexist and racist attitudes in many of his sitcom films or in the attitudes towards retributive violence presented in his crime thrillers like Fear is the Key. However, this was not necessarily out of step with the majority of British cinema in the first half of the 1970s,53 and his tenure also produced some subtle and unique masterpieces; films such as The Body, Demons of the Mind, Family Life, Villain and The Final Programme, each of which were grounded in the culture from which they sprung. But similarly, all these films were made before Orient Express, and Cohen’s critical successes had dried up since that film pointed the way forward commercially for the company—a path that took EMI increasingly further away from its origins and into the murky, but potentially profitable waters of international film production.

52  Spicer, A. (2004). ‘The production line: Reflections on the role of the film producer in British cinema.’ Journal of British Cinema and Television, 1(1), p. 33. 53  Harper, S. and Smith, J. (2012). ‘Boundaries and taboos’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (eds.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 153.

CHAPTER 8

American Adventure

By August 1975, the British film industry appeared to be in a parlous state, and a general sense of malaise had permeated the EMI board. Bob Webster, then managing director of EMI, would write in The Sunday Times, ‘The only truly national taste is for films like Emmanuelle [Just Jaeckin, 1974]. Everybody likes sex.’1 But this was hiding the fact that EMI itself was not producing any alternatives, and was so desperately lacking in new material that it had applied to the Board of Trade in February 1974 for a one-year extension to the quota life of The Railway Children, so that it could show this in cinemas and still meet its quota obligations.2 It had also ended its partnership with MGM, so it could not even be bailed out by new product from Hollywood.3 These issues were not exclusive to EMI; the Prime Minister Harold Wilson had felt compelled to establish a working party on how to reinvigorate the film industry in June 1975, and Bernard Delfont was invited to sit on the panel. When it reported in early 1976 it had 39 recommendations, including additional funding for the NFFC,4 but Harold Wilson’s resignation a few months later, and Labour’s subsequent loss of the 1979 general election,  Barber, S. (2009). ‘“Blue is the pervading shade”: Re-examining British film censorship in the 1970s.’ Journal of British Cinema and Television, 6(3), p. 357. 2  Letter from F Morris-Dyson to John Hogarth (26 February 1975). BT 900/35. London: The National Archives 3  Walker, A. (1986). National Heroes, London: Harrap, p. 275. 4  Walker, A. (1986), pp. 136-137. 1

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meant that these suggestions were never implemented. Even if they had been, there was little to suggest that any of them would have challenged the structural issues at the heart of the British film industry—unsurprisingly, considering that Delfont’s EMI had, until now, been one of the key beneficiaries of these inequalities. For the main problem with British filmmaking in the early 1970s was that it was dominated by just two companies, Rank and EMI. As Vicki Eves had identified as early as 1970, Rank and ABPC (before it was purchased by EMI) were the duopoly controlling the British film sector, with their stranglehold especially pertinent to exhibition.5 Distributors would often hold back the release of a film in order to secure a booking with Rank or ABPC, which effectively meant also signing a distribution deal with them. If a producer could not get a film accepted by either, then he or she had only one other option—to approach the only surviving independent British studio, British Lion.6 As Eves put it, the effect of this was that: Few distributors, other than British Lion, will back films that they consider to be unacceptable to the two combines and British Lion may be avoided by a British producer because of the distribution disadvantages … for this reason films that step outside the requirements of Rank and ABPC may never be made.7

This scenario ensured that EMI was likely to have first refusal on any script written in the country, but ultimately this had contributed to the stagnation that it and the wider British industry now found itself in. Therefore, the solution that Delfont contrived out of this situation was the only logical step for a company that desperately needed an injection of ideas; he looked to the place where the more interesting scripts were being sent to—British Lion. British Lion could trace its history back to the 1920s, but from 1973 it had been managed by a consortium headed up by the 41-year-old Michael Deeley and 34-year-old Barry Spikings (with support from their sleeping partner Stanley Baker), who started to produce a series of quirky genre films such as The Wicker Man (Robert Hardy, 1973) and Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973), and had scored a major suc Eves, V. (1970). ‘The structure of the British film industry.’ Screen, 11(1), p. 49.  Harper, S. and Smith, J. (2012), ‘Key Players’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (eds.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 117. 7  Eves, V. (1970), p. 49. 5 6

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cess with The Man Who Fell to Earth (Nicolas Roeg, 1976). These two young men were ambitious and aware of their role as providing an alternative to the ‘big two’, and without the security that EMI and Rank had with their domination of the domestic exhibition sector, Deeley and Spikings had to consider films that would have international appeal or face being overwhelmed in UK cinemas. Now that EMI’s run of successful, but ultimately parochial films like On the Buses had come to an end, British Lion’s approach appeared to point in the direction that the industry was heading. Delfont’s involvement in Wilson’s working party had only confirmed this opinion, along with his fears the domestic market ‘was not set for an early recovery’.8 His solution was that EMI ‘had to be international or it was no business at all’.9 Cohen’s Anglo-EMI division had flirted with American co-productions before and had even opened a New York office in 1971 to further establish its distribution presence in North America.10 But what Deeley and Spikings were doing was different, and they knew how to make it work. Therefore, when Deeley and Spikings approached Delfont with the opportunity to co-produce what was, to all intents and purposes, an American film, he leapt at the chance. Peter Bogdanovich had been trying to get his homage to silent comedy, Nickelodeon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1976), funded in the USA, but despite a string of critical and commercial hits at the start of the 1970s, including The Last Picture Show (1971), What’s Up Doc? (1972) and Paper Moon (1973), his most recent work had not been as well received, with the failure of At Long Last Love (1975) suggesting that his star was on wane. Columbia was only willing to provide part of the money, and so an opportunity presented itself for Deeley and Spikings to raise their profile in the USA. But they did not have the $2 million Columbia needed, and this was where Delfont stepped in.11 The film was a fraught experience for all concerned, with claims and counterclaims attempting to lay blame for its eventual commercial failure, and Bogdanovich took three years off from filming as a result of working on the project. But for EMI an important precedent had been set, and the film had confirmed to Delfont that co-­ production in America could be possible. He was also impressed with the  Delfont, Bernard (1990), East End, West End, London: Macmillan, p. 187.  Delfont, Bernard (1990), p. 188. 10  EMI Annual Report (1972). London: EMI, p. 29. 11  Deeley, M. (2008), Blade Runners, Deer Hunters and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies, London: Faber and Faber, p. 111. 8 9

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enthusiasm shown by Deeley and Spikings, and realised that if he was going to make this work long term, he would have to ensure that they were part of the journey. Spikings would later recall that Delfont had talked of a desire to break into the international market and said ‘we’d like you to come and do it with us’.12 Therefore, he took the decision to exercise EMI’s significant financial muscle and acquired British Lion in May 1976, presenting it in explicitly ambitious terms, with an announcement in EMI’s annual report that the acquisition was an opportunity to ‘strengthen our international film production and distribution capability in the UK’.13 This was slightly disingenuous, for EMI possessed the financial strength to compete in the USA on its own, and purchasing British Lion itself did little to improve EMI’s chances in the US market. The acquisition was never about the company—Delfont wanted Deeley and Spikings, and this merger effectively meant the end of Cohen’s reign as Head of Production. This being Delfont, rather than sacking Cohen and appointing the two young men in his place, he had to find a way to make the transition without unceremoniously throwing Cohen overboard, and thus Deeley and Spikings were appointed as joint Managing Directors of EMI Film Distributor’s Ltd, with Cohen becoming Chairman of EMI Films and Delfont himself becoming Group Director of Entertainments. Cohen recalled the moment bitterly, saying ‘I was not consulted and it was beyond my powers to influence the decision’,14 but his time at the coal face was up (although he would remain on the board), and Delfont had overnight ushered in a new era and a complete overhaul of EMI’s production plan. With Forbes, the company had been perceived as perhaps too earnest and parochial, and with Cohen, it was tarnished as being too crass and commercial. Deeley and Spikings also arrived  with preconceptions and would rapidly become perceived as wannabe Hollywood producers who had little interest in making ‘British’ films, a belief that has persisted to the present day. Robert Shail categorises Deeley as a ‘forward-looking, entrepreneurial producer who clearly loved the cut-and-thrust of dealmaking for its own sake and thrived on the high risk financial excitements offered by international film production’.15 In his view, Spikings was also  Walker, A. (1986), p. 142.  EMI Annual Report (1976). London: EMI, p. 36. 14  Walker, A. (1986), p. 142. 15  Shail, R. (2010), ‘Stanley Baker and British Lion: A Cautionary Tale’, in Newland, Paul (Ed.), Don’t Look Now: British Cinema in the 1970s, London: Intellect, p. 34. 12 13

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‘enamoured  of the Hollywood model of filmmaking’,16 investing in ‘American-­based films to the detriment of intrinsically British subjects’.17 But this was precisely why Delfont was interested in them and was also influenced by Delfont’s desire to trump his brother Lew Grade, who had already achieved enormous success selling his television programmes to the US market.18 The co-production of Nickelodeon with Columbia had proven a convenient way in, and as part of a deal to acquire Columbia’s music publishing division, Screen Gems, Delfont negotiated an investment in the next three Columbia Pictures productions, $2 million each for The Deep, The Cheap Detective (Robert Moore, 1978), and The Greatest (Tom Gries and Monte Hellman, 1977). Therefore, as Duncan Petrie identifies, ‘within a decade a bizarre reversal had taken place; instead of American companies investing in the production of British films, the largest British company was investing exclusively in American films’.19 At the same time, Deeley and Spikings were presenting to the board EMI’s new production strategy, which would effectively mean preselling 75 per cent of the film in advance of production, providing a very low risk for the initial investment.20 They would apply this to their first slate of six films, but the earliest releases of their tenure would all be work that had been put in place by Delfont before their arrival. The first release from this slate was Peter Yates’ The Deep (1977). Based on Peter Benchley’s novel, it was a clear attempt to cash in on the success of the last film adaptation of his work, Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1976), emphasised by the completely misleading poster which was designed to mimic this forebear. The film itself is very different, with a ponderous story about a search for rare and expensive jewels in a sunken vessel, interspersed with an antagonist who is also looking for a large haul of drugs which were on the ship when it sank. The film was passed ‘A’ by the BBFC with a few cuts, mainly focused on a scene of sexual violence, where the lead actress Jacqueline Bisset’s dress is cut open by attackers who are  Shail, R. (2010), p. 34.  Shail, R. (2008). ‘Introduction’, in Shail, R. (ed.) Seventies British Cinema. London: Palgrave, p. xv. 18  Walker, A. (1986), p. 142. 19  Petrie, D. (1996). ‘British Cinema: The Search for Identity’, in Nowell-Smith, G. (ed.) The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 609. 20  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 134. 16 17

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threatening her and her husband not to dive to the ship again. The BBFC had started a new procedure of including reports from the Association of Independent Cinemas (AIC) to help inform their decisions, as a knowledge of the film’s commercial potential from these one-page digests would help to contextualise a company’s insistence for a particular certificate.21 The report for this film commented that ‘Jacqueline Bisset, one hears, comes across as a good actress when she speaks her lines in French, but here, once again, she sounds as if she is reading a laundry list’.22 But according to the film’s producer, it was Bisset, especially the opening diving scene where all she is wearing is a tight white vest top and bikini bottoms, that led to the film’s eventual popularity,23 with it becoming the tenth highest-grossing film at the US box office that year. Deeley and Spikings had started with a huge commercial hit, and the template was confirmed. Their next release was a unique biopic, The Greatest, about Muhammed Ali’s boxing career, based on his autobiography and starring the man himself. The film was a fairly pedestrian affair, but interspersed as it was with actual footage of Ali’s fights, and blessed with the not insubstantial promotional abilities of Ali, it did relatively well at the box office. This was followed by The Cheap Detective, in which Peter Falk played detective Lou Peckinpaugh, in an affectionate send-up of Humphrey Bogart with a hint of Columbo. Neil Simon’s script built on similar themes to his and Moore’s earlier Murder by Death (Robert Moore, 1976), which also starred Falk, and the film was another enormous success, in the top 20 highest-grossing films of the year. EMI also invested in Columbia’s The Silver Bears (Ivan Passer, 1977), in which Michael Caine is involved in the purchase of a silver mine for the American mob, but this was not as successful as the other three films, despite a bankable cast. However, the first series of co-productions had done well enough, with two of them very successful indeed, so much so that EMI reported that its pre-tax profits from filmmaking had increased to £7.2 million.24 EMI now felt that it could compete with the Hollywood studios and play them at their own game. This development into the American market continued apace at the end of 1977, with EMI Film Distributors Limited coming 21  Barber, S. (2011). Censoring the 1970s: The Decade That Taste Forgot. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p. 103. 22  The Deep (1977). London: BBFC. 23  Griffin, N. and Masters, K. (1996). Hit & Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for A Ride in Hollywood, London: Simon & Schuster, p. 85. 24  Walker, A. (1986), p. 278.

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under the EMI Films Limited banner, bringing all of its operations under one brand. The company also established a US subsidiary, EMI Films Inc., which would help to make the process of these American productions much easier. This was what EMI had wanted—Deeley and Spikings’ policy at British Lion was that they would only make a film if they had already secured a US distribution deal to cover half of the cost,25 and they were now merely extending this strategy on a grander scale. To facilitate this, Deeley relocated to Hollywood full-time, with Spikings overseeing developments in London, and EMI’s future path was set. As this was happening, EMI was starting to discover that an unusual film about UFOs that it had also invested in, ostensibly to help Columbia out when the budget had expanded beyond the US company’s means, and designed as a way to smooth relations while the projects it was more actively involved with went ahead, was doing rather well at the box office. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977) would become one of the highest-­ grossing movies of all time and was the second most successful film that year after Star Wars. EMI had, with the appointment of Deeley and Spikings, regained its commercial instinct, although Delfont had provided most of the impetus for the Columbia deals. This new strategy extended to another area that Delfont was eager to colonise, also as a challenge to his brother Lew—American television. EMI had collaborated with the BBC on Your Undoubted Queen (John Trumper & Ronald Webster, 1978), a mixture of archive film and television coverage of the 1953 coronation to tie in with the silver jubilee, and it made a short for the British Overseas trade board, which explained the value of exports, called Sink or Swim (John Michael Phillips, 1978), but it was in the USA that its real interest lay. Spikings established the spin-off company EMI Television Programmes, and it would produce several US shows at the end of the decade, including The Amazing Howard Hughes (William Graham, 1977), Special Olympics (Lee Phillips, 1978), Steel Cowboy (Harvey S Laidman, 1978), The Cracker Factory (Burt Brinckerhoff, 1979), and Wings Over the World (Uncredited, 1979), a documentary on the life of Paul McCartney and Wings. These were all productions which were made in conjunction with Roger Gimbel Productions, and passed over to his American production teams, and were beyond the scope of Deeley and Spikings’ remit, although EMI’s SOS Titanic (William Hale, 1979), a two-parter on the Titanic story, was instigated by Delfont as a  Park, J. (1990). British Cinema: The Lights That Failed, London: BT Batsford, p. 135.

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riposte to Lew Grade’s Raise the Titanic (Jerry Jameson, 1980), and these activities help to contextualise the direction of the company in this period, and how they were defined by Delfont’s ambition and rivalry with his brother. Perhaps the greatest expression of this was a documentary EMI produced celebrating the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, entitled 25 Years—Impressions (Peter Morley, 1977), instigated again by Delfont, no doubt as a way to ingratiate himself with the British establishment more fully than Lew had achieved. This was a documentary collage of archive footage, providing a striking counterpoint to the Sex Pistol’s God Save the Queen (1977) and Britain’s year of punk. It is a remarkable film, that subtly builds a picture of the Queen’s reign, primarily through the use of montage with extracts from the Queen’s speeches or news reports, and these ‘impressions’ can be interpreted as an intelligent portrayal of her public life, documenting major moments in British and world history, especially the end of the British Empire. Its impressionistic nature leaves it open to an interpretation as a subtle critique of the monarchy and wider extensions of British pomp, especially in the montage of a successive number of documents being handed over by Price Phillip to newly autonomous leaders of former Empire countries, and a sequence where a contemporary shot of the Queen riding her horse is interspersed with shots of major political events of the day, from Vietnam protests to the election of Harold Wilson, with the implication being that the Queen has remained a constant stabilising force throughout these tumultuous times—but equally it can be read as her remaining aloof in a privileged bubble. In Morley’s public pronouncements he depicted a convivial relationship with the palace, and a screening to Prince Phillip and the Queen of which they approved, so any such critique was likely unintentional.26 However, the film was not a ­straightforward hagiography, and its documentation of key moments in the Queen’s reign lends it a certain historical importance as well. EMI would also release some of the last films that Cohen had optioned during this period. One such production was its sequel to All Creatures Great and Small, entitled It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet (Eric Till, 1977). This film followed the template of the original and saw Simon Ward reprise his role as James Herriot, to good effect. It did remarkably well at the box office and was one of the ten most successful releases at the British box office that year,27 but it was a product of an earlier strategy, and despite  Morley, P. (2006) A Life Rewound, London: Bank House Books, p. 202.  Smith, J. (2012). ‘Cinema statistics, box office and related data’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (eds.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 272. 26 27

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this success no further sequels would follow, as attention was shifted across the Atlantic. This can be seen in two other productions EMI invested in that year, although it is unclear whether these were also instigated by Delfont or indicated that Cohen was also moving in this direction before he left the company. Welcome to Blood City (Peter Sasdy, 1977), a science fiction Western that owes much to Westworld (Michael Crichton, 1973), depicts Keir Dullea waking up with four other strangers in a ‘wild west’ environment, who then have to fight to survive, all under the watchful eye of the town’s sheriff, played by Jack Palance. But all is not what it seems, and Dullea and co are actually being trained for an undefined military engagement, and what they are experiencing is a simulated reality. It is an interesting film, and to all intents and purposes was an American production, similar in tone to what Deeley and Spikings were working on, although one that was much more firmly rooted in genre than anything EMI’s new production heads would deliver. Perhaps closer to the Deeley and Spikings model was what is generally regarded as Sam Peckinpah’s last masterpiece, Cross of Iron (1977). The film, which focuses on the power struggle between Captain Stransky (Maximilian Schell), the leader of a German battalion near the end of the Second World War and his Sergeant Rolf Steiner (James Coburn), is a brutal and uncompromising depiction of war, in which Stransky’s naked desire to achieve the highest German military award, an Iron Cross, drives him to use and deceive Steiner at every opportunity. The BBFC regarded it as a ‘horrifyingly realistic and seemingly endless bombardment of war’ and argued that Peckinpah’s slow motion technique provided an effect which was ‘realism rather than exploitation, and the film reveals the chaos and gory squalor of the battlefield’.28 Peckinpah had already built a reputation as a director who refused to make compromises with his material, and this film was no exception. It was precisely for this reason that the AIC report was not enthusiastic about the film’s commercial prospects: As a piece of spectacular action the film makes no concessions to commercial viability with the battle sequences being confused, unmemorable, and usually shot in the half dark—highly realistic and in keeping with the general tone of the film, but not what war film enthusiasts are used to. … One gets the feeling that Peckinpah is far from being an optimist with regard to

 Cross of Iron (24 January 1977). London: BBFC.

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human nature and whilst that is his privilege one wonders whether cinema patrons are likely to shell out for such a depressing experience as this.29

The BBFC believed that a bit of realism could be edifying for a teen audience, saying that ‘for a generation that grows up without the threat of conscription, it surely cannot be wrong to reinforce the concept of the real horror of war’.30 But there was a scene of sexual violence that in its view pushed it way beyond what they felt was acceptable to an under 18 audience, when a captive Russian woman is forced by one of Steiner’s men to perform oral sex at gunpoint, resulting in her biting the man’s penis in retaliation. As far as the BBFC was concerned, the scene was ‘shot with as much discretion as is possible, and we are shown only enough to establish the brutal facts. These facts, however, we thought too horrifying for any category lower than “X”.’31 Peckinpah refused to budge, and the film was passed as an ‘X’, a rarity for an EMI release, and perhaps a portent of what working with Peckinpah again might entail. While these films were being produced, Deeley was busy putting together the plans for EMI’s new slate of US co-productions, and interestingly, even as late as July 1977, he was looking at its existing options on scripts, with Deeley writing to Spikings about the long-abandoned project, ‘The Long Loud Silence’. Deeley had spoken with John Bryson, who had adapted the script with Richard Condon, and had been advised that it was not made because it was set in America, which was contrary to Bryan Forbes’ policy.32 However, this was patently nonsense, as Forbes was in fact one of the project’s main champions—instead, it was the EMI board, and Forbes’ impending resignation, which killed the project off. While Bryson was clearly using the perception about Forbes as an excuse to convince Deeley to look at the script again, it speaks volumes about how Forbes was perceived, and also how Deeley was now viewed as being responsive to ‘American’ projects. Despite this, once again, the film was taken no further, and Deeley instead secured what he believed were three major film projects, with three large Hollywood studios. In its report of 1977, EMI would announce that in ‘pursuit of the EMI Group’s policy of enlarging its scale of production of international films,  Cross of Iron (1977). London: BBFC.  Cross of Iron (24 January 1977). London: BBFC. 31  Cross of Iron (24 January 1977). London: BBFC. 32  Letter from Michael Deeley to Barry Spikings (6 July 1977). London: BFI. 29 30

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with top directors and artists, EMI Films Inc. started work during the year on three major films in the USA’.33 Each of these films had been arranged in co-­ production with another company; Convoy (United Artists), which Deeley and Spikings had brought with them from British Lion, The Deer Hunter (Universal) and The Driver (20th Century Fox). In addition, they were also working on three British films, also co-productions according to their policy—the sequel to Orient Express, Death on the Nile (Paramount), which had already been in development at EMI when they arrived, and two fantasy films, Warlords of Atlantis (Kevin Connor, 1978) and Arabian Adventure (Kevin Connor, 1979), both with Columbia. The first of this slate to be released, Convoy (Sam Peckinpah, 1978) was co-financed by United Artists for $8 million34 and reunited Peckinpah with EMI in a film that saw Kris Kristofferson’s Martin ‘Rubber Duck’ Penfold being pursued in his truck across Arizona by Ernest Borgnine’s Sheriff Lyle Wallace. Deeley hired Peckinpah on the basis of his reputation as a filmmaker and because his name was what committed United Artists to the project. On first meeting him, he thought him to be a ‘mellow soul’,35 but quickly realised that his reputation as being difficult to work with was equally true. As Deeley would recall in hindsight, Peckinpah’s previous film, the EMI financed Cross of Iron, was perhaps a ‘poor rehearsal’ for Convoy, which was meant to be ‘bright, full of sunshine and colour, madness and silliness’.36 Peckinpah was on cocaine throughout the making of the film, and used a filmmaking process of having up to six cameras running simultaneously, with the rationale that at least one of them would get a good shot—an incredibly expensive and inefficient way of working.37 The relationship with the film’s producer, Bob Sherman, had also broken down irretrievably, and Peckinpah would refuse to work while Sherman was on set,38 forcing Deeley to assume his role. Deeley took Peckinpah to one side and gave him an ultimatum— either he could finish the film or Deeley would find someone else to complete it, noting that as Peckinpah had already delivered five weeks of work, his contract stipulated that it could be described as a Sam Peckinpah  EMI Annual Report (1977). London: EMI, p. 36.  Walker, A. (1986), p. 194 35  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 132. 36  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 145. 37  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 151. 38  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 150. 33 34

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film, regardless of who finished the movie.39 Grudgingly, Peckinpah returned to the set and completed the film, but at the screening of the first cut, it included scenes which Deeley considered to be indulgences, such as a shot of lead actress Ali MacGraw running across the screen upside down.40 Deeley demanded a number of changes to the film, which Peckinpah refused, so Deeley fired him and brought in Graeme Clifford to recut the film using the existing rushes,41 thus providing a level of hands-on involvement that had not been seen at EMI since Forbes and A Fine and Private Place. When it finally reached the BBFC, they agreed to it being an ‘A’, as long as the line ‘piss on your law’ was removed, as Ferman felt that in ‘a film for children the hero should not treat the idea of law with such contempt’.42 But this was an especially serious tone for Ferman to take, as the film followed in the tradition of Smokey and the Bandit (Hal Needham, 1977) and was an enjoyable romp that opened to great commercial success, becoming the highest-­grossing film that EMI released that year. At the same time as the development of Convoy, EMI was also producing what would eventually become The Deer Hunter. Many of the studios that Deeley approached to co-fund it said that they were not ready for a Vietnam film and also questioned why an Englishman was trying to ­produce a film about Vietnam,43 but eventually he managed to convince Universal to support the project for $9 million.44 Deeley had asked the director, Michael Cimino, to also rewrite the script, but a portent of the difficulties to follow became apparent when it was revealed that Cimino had contracted this job out to someone else.45 Deeley was embroiled in Convoy, and the named producer for Deer Hunter, Bob Relyea, left the production in what Deeley assumed was foresight about the problems that were to follow. This left him with no option but to send the inexperienced production manager John Peverell to oversee things on his behalf, opening up a scenario where Cimino had suddenly gained a large degree of control over the picture.46 With this opportunity, Cimino extended the  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 159.  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 160. 41  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 162. 42  Convoy (29 June 1978). London: BBFC. 43  Deeley, M. (2016). ‘A Life in Film: Michael Deeley.’ http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/ watch-a-life-in-film-michael-deeley-2014/. Accessed 31 August 2017. 44  Walker, A. (1986), p. 194. 45  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 164. 46  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 172. 39 40

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opening wedding scene, turning what was ‘half a dozen’ pages of script into over an hour of material.47 Deeley had agreed with Cimino for a two-­ hour film, but Cimino’s first cut was over three hours long, with his reason being that ‘this was the length of Gone with the Wind (1939)’.48 Spikings eventually travelled out to try to find a compromise, and Cimino wrested more control, garnering a producer credit and approval for his cut, but only after Bernard Delfont had intervened and agreed with Lew Wasserman of Universal that Universal could accept a film of this length.49 This incident is interesting in that it highlights some of the dynamics of the working relationship at EMI and is one of the most well-documented productions of all the films EMI produced. But the received wisdom on the film’s production has come mainly from one source; namely Deeley, who presents his experiences on this film and on Convoy as one of trying against all the odds to release a workable film despite the behaviour of two intractable directors. While these two men were certainly difficult to manage, it is possible to put forward a case for their artistic temperament being entirely that—it was in service to their art, and their preferred vision of the film (a notion, that to be fair to Deeley, he dismisses as merely an excuse for either drug-fuelled incompetence on Peckinpah’s part or sheer ­egotism from Cimino). We will never know what Peckinpah’s first cut of Convoy was like, and whether the scenes that Deeley regarded as ‘indulgences’ were in fact moments of artistic brilliance. But Cimino’s cut of The Deer Hunter, which Deeley tried to reduce, is an undoubted masterpiece, and while most people would have sympathy for Deeley as to the means in which Cimino achieved his ‘vision’, there is a case to be made that he was wrong on this call. The excessive length that so perturbed Deeley and Universal is one of the film’s great strengths; for in establishing the relationships between the three main characters, locating them in the love and affection of friends and family in their hometown, Cimino enables the audience to understand their hopes and foibles in a way that a more concise introduction would not achieve. These young men, who have no idea what horrors will befall them on duty, show their naivety in a crucial moment during the extended wedding at the start of the film. De Niro tries to engage with a US soldier who has returned from the war, but receives short shrift; his lack of reaction to questioning infuriates De Niro.  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 178.  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 179. 49  Delfont, B. (1990), p. 190. 47 48

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But this is how De Niro himself will become on his return, a shell of a man, damaged wholly by the war. The audience is provided an insight into this shell shock by a brilliant device; an abrupt cut from the frivolity of the wedding to De Niro waking in Vietnam and witnessing the horrific acts of violence of a North Vietnamese soldier on innocent civilians, followed by De Niro’s equally repulsive retaliation. This horror is then developed by the capture of the three men and their participation in the notorious ‘Russian roulette’ scene, which displays the depths of depravity and disregard for human life that they have sunk to. It is a harrowing and moving experience, and when we return to America, the audience and De Niro can understand the soldier from the film’s early scenes. This is all encapsulated in the metaphor of hunting deer, and De Niro’s reluctance to shoot a deer he has in his sights near the film’s conclusion. It serves as a damning and profound critique of violence in all its forms (Fig. 8.1). Deeley’s reluctance to screen this cut is suggestive of both the advantages and the constraints that his production policy entailed. By co-­funding

Fig. 8.1  Michael Cimino directing Robert de Niro on the set of The Deer Hunter, which confirmed the critical and commercial success of Deeley and Spikings’ new international co-production policy. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd

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the film, he was able to initially grant a greater degree of artistic licence to filmmakers, as the costs to EMI were minimal and hence prospective losses were negligible. But this had the effect of shifting more risk onto the co-­ funder, which meant that they would also want a degree of influence over the final cut—hence Delfont’s intervention with Universal. But what Deeley’s account does not describe is that there was a third barrier before these films would reach cinemas, as they would also have to pass through a distributor. Thus, in the case of The Deer Hunter, there was a second attempt to cut the film, after Delfont’s approval of the original cut, which was revealed in discussions with the BBFC. On viewing the film, the BBFC examiners initially agreed to grant it an ‘X’ certificate due to the ‘impact of the harrowing torture and Russian roulette sequences and the destruction of the Vietnamese village’.50 But it appears that EMI contacted the BBFC to ask what cuts could be made to secure an ‘AA’ instead. Ferman replied with one of the most extraordinary interventions in the history of the BBFC and appears to have ensured that the film was released in Britain intact. Expressing his ‘astonishment’ that EMI had requested this, he then returned a passionate defence of the film and the certification decision: The category was arrived at after careful discussion and is based on the emotional intensity of the experience and not on any details. … The detailed horrors which a distributor might contemplate deleting for the lower category are precisely the elements that underscore this contrast [between the main characters’ values at home and those in Vietnam]. Furthermore, if one were to reduce the horrifying brutality of the first Russian Roulette sequence with the Viet Cong, the result would be to diminish also the potential horrors which the audience must read into every subsequent Russian Roulette sequence, thus at a stroke destroying the power of one of the most powerful films of this or any decade.51

But for Ferman, the issue was not so much one of a defence of the censorship decision on the grounds of integrity of content, but on the quality of the work in question: There is no doubt in any of [the examiners’] minds that the film is a masterpiece of the modern cinema. Indeed, it seems to us to be one of the masterpieces of all world cinema, and to seek to alter it for reasons of category  The Deer Hunter (1978). London: BBFC.  James Ferman to EMI Films (6 December 1978). London: BBFC.

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represents a kind of sacrilege. The fact that the names of the executive producers on this film are British does honour not only to them but to the whole of the British film industry, and I hope and trust that they value the work they have brought forth far too much to damage it by even a frame.52

It is interesting to note that Ferman explicitly identifies the British question and viewed the film as a credit to the industry as a whole, a view of EMI’s work that was at odds with most public pronouncements at the time. It highlights the complexity of the notion of national cinema and how EMI in this period complicated this issue in a way that no British film company had done before. To emphasise the point, Ferman added that he appreciated that the commercial potential of the film may have influenced EMI’s request for a different category, but that ‘to apply such narrow commercial considerations to a film of this nature would reflect discredit on the British film industry, and I feel certain that the producers will wish to resist this’.53 Finally, Ferman ended with a request to convey his feelings to Cimino, saying ‘Mere congratulations seem somehow inadequate for an achievement of this magnitude. May I, therefore, convey simply my very deep gratitude, and the gratitude of my Board, for the experience he has given us.’54 This intervention speaks volumes of the esteem with which the film was held and the importance it had for EMI and the wider industry. It is easy to forget that this was the first film to tackle the Vietnam War, and it was the critical and commercial success of this that paved the way for later and arguably more well-known examples like Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979). Importantly, Ferman’s intervention woke up the EMI management into what could potentially happen to the film, and Spikings, who by now had effectively taken over the production from Deeley due to the breakdown in relations between him and Cimino, felt compelled to intervene and shift the blame away from EMI, writing to Ferman that: it was never my intention that this film should be cut. In fact, I have spent a deal of time in America making certain that it was not. And when Lord Delfont was in LA a few weeks ago, he shared your view that not a frame should be changed. … I feel this picture does represent a new benchmark in this funny business of ours which sometimes yields art.55  James Ferman to EMI Films (6 December 1978).  James Ferman to EMI Films (6 December 1978). 54  James Ferman to EMI Films (6 December 1978). 55  Barry Spikings to James Ferman (8 December 1978). London: BBFC. 52 53

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Ferman would later tell the BBFC President, Lord Harlech, that Spikings had rung him in ‘considerable outrage’ as he was not aware that the US distributor, Columbia, was asking for cuts, shifting the blame on to EMI’s new distribution arm that had been formed in collaboration with Columbia and Warner Brothers. Considering Deeley’s antipathy towards Cimino’s cut and the earlier correspondence between EMI and the BBFC it would not be unusual to imagine that Deeley had some influence in this regard.56 Regardless, Ferman’s enthusiasm for the film was ruthlessly exploited by EMI, with EMI’s Head of Publicity telling him that the company wanted to quote Ferman’s letter in Screen International, and that if he refused, they would publish anyway and he would have to complain after the fact.57 The publication became a full-page advertisement for the film, and Harlech complained to Ferman that he had set ‘a most unfortunate precedent [which will] give us all sorts of problems in the future’.58 Ferman admitted that ‘lessons had been learned’, but prefaced this with his rationale that he was ‘attempting to stop the distribution company butchering its own work’ and that it ‘seemed necessary to bolster their confidence in the work and give them courage to stand by what all of us here at the board consider to be a masterpiece’.59 The film as released was a major success for EMI and established it as a company that could produce genuine critical and commercial triumphs. The company had hit on a winning formula, and the only way appeared to be up. The company’s third and final film from the 1977 announcement was a co-production with 20th Century Fox, The Driver (Walter Hill, 1978), which was a much less traumatic experience. A self-consciously ‘cool’ film in the American independent tradition, it featured Ryan O’Neal as the nameless getaway ‘driver’ of the title. He is pursued throughout the film by Bruce Dern’s also nameless ‘detective’, who mirrors the driver and acts as a moral counterweight to him. But in his obsession to catch him, the detective also starts to cross ethical lines, and the distance between the law and the criminal begins to narrow. The film was conceived to be deliberately sparse, with the actors as cyphers for the main themes, and the BBFC view of it concurred, arguing that ‘it’s hard to find anything with which to identify except perhaps Ryan O’Neal’s face. Even that palls in the end so  James Ferman to Lord Harlech (8 January 1978). London: BBFC.  James Ferman to Lord Harlech (8 January 1978). 58  Lord Harlech to James Ferman (7 January 1978). London: BBFC. 59  James Ferman to Lord Harlech (8 January 1978). 56 57

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expressionless is it.’60 It has proven to be influential on a number of subsequent American directors, and it has clear similarities to Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive (2011), as can be identified from a comparison between O’Neal’s and Ryan Gosling’s respective performances. But it was Deeley and Spikings’ one flop from this period, a film which struggled to find an audience in the USA or beyond, despite becoming a cult film. Nonetheless, it was budgeted for only $4.5 million, and because of the way that Deeley and Spikings had packaged pre-sales, it had entered profit even before the production had started, therefore ensuring that no money was lost.61 It was a successful strategy that appeared at the time to be virtually risk free for EMI. As Deeley would explain: We always asked ourselves in advance, would the American market put up 50 per cent of the budget? Had the Americans that degree of confidence in the product? If they had, we went ahead. If they hadn’t, we didn’t. It was that simple at first … the fact that we had the Americans backing the production was a great source of confidence, and not only to us—it also bought prestige to the non-American buyers of the film. No one could tell the difference: to them and their audiences, it looked to be a wholly American movie.62

This production policy, while commercially successful, was also the source of most of the critical distaste of their work. On the one hand, they were making ersatz Hollywood movies, which in the case of The Deer Hunter, had been so good that it had become more successful than the real thing. But in Britain, the perception was that they had turned EMI into an ersatz British film company as well, and this lack of ‘authenticity’ would blight the perception of these men for the rest of their careers.

 The Driver (3 July 1978). London: BBFC.  Walker, A. (1986), p. 194. 62  Walker, A. (1986), p. 194. 60 61

CHAPTER 9

Honky Tonk Filmmaking

In 1978, Deeley and Spikings released the first film shot in Britain that they were directly involved with, a fantasy production called Warlords of Atlantis. The story followed in traditions that can be traced back to Conan Doyle and arguably picked up a national trend for this type of fantasy adventure story, in its depiction of an underwater exploration that discovers a secret Atlantean city, the home to an alien race. This was not the more realistic thrills of The Deep, but a fantasy odyssey that, to its critics, spoke volumes about the type of ‘British’ cinema that Deeley and Spikings would invest in—one that was as removed from contemporary British culture as a film like Convoy. Warlords did reasonably well at the box office and was by no means a flop, but compared to the stellar performance of their American work, it seemed less profitable. It was a small risk, budgeted at only $2 million,1 less than half the money EMI had committed to its three other US co-productions, but as James Chapman argues, in the wake of Star Wars, ‘the Victorian decor and puppet monsters now looked quaint and old fashioned in the new era of futuristic special-effects driven spectacle’,2 and it effectively heralded the end of this ‘lost world’ genre.  Walker, A. (1986), National Heroes, London: Harrap, 1986, p. 194.  Chapman, J. (2008). ‘From Amicus to Atlantis: The lost worlds of 1970s British cinema’, in Shail, Robert (ed.) Seventies British Cinema. London: Palgrave, p. 61. 1 2

© The Author(s) 2018 P. Moody, EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94803-4_9

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The modest commercial success of Warlords led to Connor and Dark producing their next fantasy film for EMI, loosely based on the 1001 Nights stories. The film, Arabian Adventure, focuses on the quest of Prince Hassan (Oliver Tobias) as he attempts to win the hand of a daughter of an evil sorcerer played by Christopher Lee. Made as part of a new co-production deal with Orion, the film followed the usual fantasy tropes of the period and of Connor’s oeuvre as a whole and provides an unusual counterpoint to both the gritty realism of most of late 1970s cinema and also, like Warlords, was a remarkably transnational production, making its canonisation within British cinema difficult. But despite this, there are many British elements, not least from the production team and cast, and these two films represent a flourishing of British fantasy cinema in the latter half of the 1970s, which EMI continued to support with its distribution of Christine Edzard’s Stories From a Flying Trunk (1979), three short Hans Christian Andersen stories dramatised in the same expressive vein as Tales of Beatrix Potter, for which she had co-written the screenplay and been the production and costume designer. As a stark counterpoint to these releases, EMI also distributed Euston Films’ Sweeney! (David Wickes, 1977) in this period and funded the sequel, Sweeney 2 (Tom Clegg, 1978), both based on the popular television series starring John Thaw and Dennis Waterman. The first film took its opportunity to be much more explicit on the cinema screen than what would have been allowed on television and was passed uncut with an ‘X’ certificate on its original release, although the BBFC registered its concerns about the ‘excessive bloodshed’ in a few scenes.3 It was incredibly brutal, with scenes of criminals impersonating police officers and machine gunning two men to death, the murder of a naked Linda Bellingham, the force feeding of alcohol to John Thaw’s character, Regan, and Regan’s water torture of a prostitute under a shower to make her give up information. Overall, there was a seedy, rough edge to the film, that is as tough as anything released in Britain in the 1970s. It also ends on an incredibly downbeat note, the antithesis of the ‘buddy’ cop films, when after the death of a suspect who has been relentlessly pursued by Regan, Dennis Waterman screams at his partner, ‘it’s not them who killed him, it was you!’ before the camera freezes on a close-up of Regan’s worn, grimaced 3

 Sweeney! (26 March 1976). London: BBFC.

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face. It was topical in its treatment of the machinations of oil prices and political corruption, and tinged with Profumo in its story of a politician involved with a prostitute. As such, it was typical of the grittier crime thrillers of the late 1970s and was arguably a more representative, if relentlessly bleak, depiction of Britain at the end of the decade. The film’s success at the box office ensured that Sweeny 2 appeared the following year, and EMI, now with a greater degree of control over the product as its principal funder, ensured that the film’s content was toned down from the original. EMI sent a draft of the script to the BBFC for its approval before filming commenced4 and was asked for changes to the ‘naked girl with spread legs over the car mascot’, and was informed that it ‘would prefer not to see the girl urinate during the raid on the factory’.5 There was some debate at the BBFC as to whether the completed film should be an ‘AA’ or an ‘X’, but it was felt that as the final scene of violence was ‘aversive realism’ and even Regan was repulsed by it, then it could be acceptable for an ‘AA’. They decided to allow the company to ‘make the decision themselves on commercial grounds, since the censorship issues were far from clear cut’ and EMI felt that an ‘AA’ was more appropriate in this instance.6 These five films represent the extreme contrast between the gritty realist and fantasy traditions of British cinema that I alluded to in the introduction to this book, but while one can make a claim that Deeley was making a contribution to the long heritage of this ‘British’ corpus, he would receive no credit for it. This is partly due to his lack of engagement with these films on a personal level, certainly when contrasted with his involvement in Convoy or The Deer Hunter. But, as with his predecessors, he was unfairly pigeon-holed by his contemporaries, and his commitment to ‘British’ filmmaking could have been more lauded if some of the projects he attempted to get off the ground had not been stymied by EMI’s senior management. Perhaps the clearest indication of this was his aborted attempt to produce what would become regarded as one of the best British comedies of the decade, when the script for Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979) landed on his desk. Deeley agreed to put up $4 million and the crew were about to go into production when Delfont was informed of the script, with Deeley suspecting that it was passed to him by

 Letter from Euston films to the BBFC (3 November 1977). London: BBFC.  Letter from the BBFC to Euston films (14 November 1977). London: BBFC. 6  Sweeney 2 (Undated, c. 1978). London: BBFC. 4 5

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Nat Cohen or James Carreras,7 in a flashback to the in-fighting that had happened under Forbes’ tenure. Delfont harangued Deeley by telegram, saying the script was ‘obscene and sacrilegious’, and that ‘I’m not going to be accused of making fun of fucking Jesus Christ’.8 Delfont withdrew funding, and George Harrison stepped in to save the production and create Handmade Films in the process. The Pythons could not resist making a reference to Delfont’s intransigence in the film itself, and as the credits are rolling and the last strains of Eric Idle’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life are playing out, Idle speaks over the music and says ‘I said to him, Bernie, they’ll never make their money back’. But while Delfont was eager not to be seen as ‘blasphemous’, he would never turn down a good business opportunity, and once it became clear that the film was to be an enormous success, it was shown widely in the cinemas that EMI owned, and the rights to the video release were purchased a few years later.9 This was to be the start of a small trend, with EMI also initially becoming involved in the production of The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, 1979), only to withdraw before production and, once again, Handmade Films eventually took  over the film’s distribution once its second backer, Lew Grade’s ITC, pulled out as well. EMI would also withdraw from a project that Nat Cohen had contributed $1 million to, Roar (Noel Marshall, 1981),10 which was finished by another production company and released in 1981. It was also in this period that EMI released its next Agatha Christie adaptation, Death on the Nile. The rights had been purchased by Cohen at the time of the acquisition of Orient Express, and it was unlike the company to wait so long before capitalising on a successful template. But aside from the changes in management that had precipitated this delay, there had also been a change in strategy that required all of EMI’s films to secure a coproduction partner, and Deeley had spent some time in securing a coproduction deal with Paramount. The film featured Peter Ustinov as Poirot, in a performance that was much more sophisticated than Finney’s, and he would return for two other big screen outings in the role. The film was also an enormous success, doing even better in the USA than Orient Express had done, although, like Warlords and Arabian Adventure before  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 139.  Deeley, M. (2008), pp. 139–140. 9  Walker, J. (1985). The Once and Future Film, London: Methuen, p. 83. 10  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 143. 7 8

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it, critics would bemoan what they felt was a tenuous connection to British culture. Despite the overall success of the films division since Deeley’s appointment, it was still part of a larger conglomerate that over time had become dominated by EMI’s medical instruments division, in the wake of its successful development of the CAT scanner. However, new US government rules over the procurement of medical equipment had led to a reduction in international sales  of expensive hardware like the CAT scanner, more than halving the company’s profits.11 Therefore in 1978 EMI restructured, and Delfont became Head of Entertainment and Leisure, and enjoyed a newly strengthened position in the company as his entertainment division was one of the few areas that had remained profitable. Delfont was now ready to enact the latest stage of his reorientation of the company strategy and fulfil his own personal ambitions. He arranged a meeting with Deeley and Spikings, travelling out to Los Angeles personally to meet them and break the news about EMI’s financial problems. In essence, his message was simple; EMI could not afford to produce any more films—it had run out of money. But Deeley suspected otherwise. Prior to the meeting, he had been contacted by Delfont’s brother, Lew Grade, to sound him out about setting up a partnership with Grade’s Associated Communication Company (ACC) to form a US distribution subsidiary that would challenge the US distributors at their own game.12 Buoyed by success in US film production, Delfont and Grade had felt that EMI could earn even more if it could cut out the American middleman, and its only way of doing this was to establish its own company. Deeley thought the idea far too risky and rejected it outright, but Delfont’s new admission that EMI had run out of money smacked of a ploy to justify the necessity of his distribution venture with his brother.13 This view was confirmed when Deeley and Spikings presented an alternative to Delfont, which involved re-establishing British Lion as a separate entity with no additional investment from EMI—a plan that was rejected.14 Deeley, now effectively unemployed, finished his existing commitments and left the company in September 1978 to start up again as an independent producer,15 and two months later, EMI announced  Walker, A. (1986), p. 196.  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 183. 13  Harper, S. and Smith, J. (2012), ‘Key Players’, in Sue Harper and Justin Smith (eds.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 119. 14  Deeley, M. (2008), p. 185. 15  Walker, A. (1986), p. 199–201. 11 12

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that it was establishing a new US distribution company with ACC, entitled Associated Film Distributors. As Deeley had predicted, this immediately soured relations between EMI and the existing US majors, who correctly spotted this as a power grab for some of the business in their home territory. As Deeley would later remark, this challenge to the US ‘was the very opposite of the policy that Barry and I had spent years bringing to the point of profit’.16 Where Deeley and Spikings had nurtured mutually beneficial relationships with the US majors, Delfont and Grade were attempting to muscle in on their turf. Now that this infrastructure was in place, EMI restructured again, and Delfont became Chief Executive of the EMI Group, with Spikings convinced to stay on as a replacement for Delfont’s newly vacated role as Chairman and Chief Executive of EMI Films and Theatre Corporation. In addition, the former Managing Director of Twentieth Century Fox’s London division, Peter Beale, who had overseen the productions of Star Wars and Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) and was thus well placed to develop commercial films in the Hollywood tradition, became Managing Director of EMI Films. It therefore appeared ready to begin the next stage of the company’s development, but all this uncertainty, coupled with its new-­ found profitability under Deeley’s management, had alerted others to a potential business opportunity. Thorn, a large electronics firm which specialised in consumer entertainment systems like television sets and hi-fis, saw in EMI Films a chance to create a late twentieth century form of a vertically integrated entertainment company, owning film and television production, distribution, exhibition and crucially, the area in which it had built its own business, home entertainment. It launched a successful bid of £169 million and in June 1980 created the conglomerate Thorn-EMI.17 Beale, sensing that the company he had signed up to had changed ­indelibly, and feeling disheartened after proposals he had made to Spikings to invest in both Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson, 1981) and Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982) were rejected, left Thorn-EMI one month later and Spikings assumed overall control of its filmmaking output. The various restructures in this tumultuous period for the company meant that it released only one feature film in 1979, the aforementioned Arabian Adventure. Although it had been producing films throughout the year, they were all released in 1980, thus associating them with the new Thorn-­  Walker, A. (1986), p. 201.  Walker, A. (1986), p. 280.

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EMI incarnation. Thus, within the space of a year, two heads of production had left, an entirely new management structure was in place, and relations with the US majors, which had been so encouraging in 1978, had quickly soured. This would have all been fine had any of the films released in Thorn-­ EMI’s first year been either critical or commercial successes on the scale of The Deer Hunter or Death on the Nile. But without exception, every film released in this initial phase was flawed, and by 1981 had culminated in two disasters on a scale that few film companies had experienced. The first film to be released by Thorn-EMI was The Awakening (Mike Newell, 1980), Mike Newell’s first feature film as director. As this was initiated in the Deeley period, it followed two practices that he had established; firstly being squarely within a tradition of British fantasy fiction (it was based on the same Bram Stoker short story as Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb), and secondly was co-produced to share the financial risk (on this occasion with Orion). Unfortunately, the film features Charlton Heston with an appalling British accent as the archaeologist, Matthew Corbeck, obsessed with reincarnating the spirit of an ancient Egyptian Queen in the body of his daughter (Stephanie Zimbalist). It was well handled by Newell and did moderately well at the box office but was not successful enough to mitigate for what was to follow. In part, the lack of one consistent guiding force at the head of the company during the previous year showed in this production and was reflected in its next release, another ensemble Christie adaptation, The Mirror Crack’d (Guy Hamilton, 1980). It was EMI’s first Miss Marple adaptation, and while Angela Lansbury was an acceptable Marple, she paled in comparison to Margaret Rutherford and was sidelined in the script so that more screen time could be provided to the two stars, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. This was an unwise move, as those names were hardly top box office draws in 1980, and the entire production feels like a second-rate television movie. As a Christie ­adaptation, it did not lose the company any money, but again, this was hardly the type of material that would challenge the Hollywood majors. This more parochial focus was partly deliberate; these films were always conceived as smaller budgeted features that would pay lip service to the British film industry. Spikings’ real interest was in Thorn-EMI’s more expensive productions, and he would talk in meetings about thinking in a ‘colonial’ way, meaning that the films EMI produced had to be set up for sales to foreign markets.18 Thus, the major investment of time and 18  Minutes of EMI meeting (15 January 1981). Don Boyd Collection. Exeter: Bill Douglas Cinema Museum.

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resources was reserved for its ‘American’ productions, and, realising the advantages that also being the world’s leading music producer offered, gambled on connecting these two parts of its business into a successful filmmaking venture, releasing three films in succession in which music featured heavily. The Jazz Singer (Richard Fleischer, 1980) was a bizarre updating of the Al Jolson film which pitched Neil Diamond as Yussel Rabinovitch, a Jewish cantor who secretly longs to sing jazz. Making one of his intermittent interventions into film production, Delfont had secured the rights to the singles and album release associated with the film, in return for providing Diamond with the money to make it,19 and the music sales far outweighed the cinema attendances. It is a film that feels strangely out of time, simultaneously a product of the 1980s but also of an earlier era. Neil Diamond was a strange choice for the lead, but plays the role well enough, and there are several opportunities to see him perform his music throughout the film. There are moments that feel uncomfortable even for 1980, such as Diamond passing as a member of a jazz group by using full blackface make-up, and his music was hardly cutting edge for the decade. But while it was neither a critical nor a commercial success, EMI had once again pre-sold the rights for $4 million and so did not lose any money on the production.20 Diamond also saw success with singles and an album from the film, and his rousing finale of ‘America’, a song about the opportunities for people coming to America, is also a metaphor for Rabinovitch’s own transition to the jazz singing Jess Robin and the American dream of the freedom to build a new and prosperous life from nothing. It can of course, with its rousing refrain of ‘On the boats and on the planes; They’re coming to America; Never looking back again; They’re coming to America’, also be read as a parable for EMI’s production policy in the period, and there is an irony that this most American of stories was financed by a British company. Its next musical endeavour was a slice of teen angst that was outdated by the time it was released. Times Square (Allan Moyle, 1980) presented the story of two young women, Nicky and Pam, who have both been checked into hospital over concerns about their mental health. Nicky is a loose cannon, an orphan who is streetwise, whereas Pam is the daughter of a New York commissioner. But they find a spiritual connection to each other and run away from the hospital together, all the while broadcasting  Delfont, B. (1990). East End, West End, London: Macmillan, p. 195.  Grade, L. (1987). Still Dancing: My Story. London: William Collins & Sons, p 252.

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their exploits via a sympathetic late-night radio presenter, Johnny LaGuardia (Tim Curry). On their journey of self-discovery, they manage to form a band (called the ‘Sleez Sisters’) and perform a song, Damn Dog, which is like an ersatz I Wanna be your Dog by Iggy Pop. It is all terribly embarrassing for all involved, and Curry hams up his role in a knowing wink to the quality of the material he has to work with. Of course, this being a teen film, all the talk of rebellion (highlighted by the frankly incongruous scenes of the two runaway women being able to freely walk around town smashing up television sets without attracting any attention from the police) comes to nothing at the end, with Nicky’s redemption as a pop/ punk success confirmed as she walks off into the sunset, whereas Pam returns to her father happily, the equilibrium restored and the fact that he had only an hour and a half ago committed his own daughter to a mental hospital conveniently forgotten—an experience that would sum up most of the audience reaction to the film. But that is not the whole story. Since its release, the film has garnered a small, but dedicated cult following, and it does have interest to those who wish to see New York’s Times Square as it was in the 1980s, still grimy and full of grindhouse theatres. The film’s director, Allan Moyle, left the production before the filming was completed, unhappy with the interference from the studio, which included grafting on a few additional songs (including the track over the closing scene, an upbeat Help Me! (Marca Levy & Robin Gibb, 1980) that is of an entirely different tone to the rest of the film) and the final edit removed material that made the relationship between the two leads explicitly lesbian. It also marks the significant shift in attitudes from the early 1970s to the early 1980s, especially when contrasted with EMI’s family film release ten years prior, The Railway Children. This could not be further from that film in content, but in essence the story of young teens being torn away from their normal life and learning about themselves via a shared interest/ experience is the same, and both stories are resolved with the return of an absent father to a ‘lost’ daughter. But whereas one represented an idyllic, idealised fantasy of a Britain that perhaps never was, the latter was a depiction of a gritty New York that speaks volumes of its location and of the decade that it represents. EMI’s last film from this year took the ‘pop star’ led musical format to its extreme, for the first time focusing on an entire pop group. Can’t Stop the Music (Nancy Walker, 1980) was also unusual in that the story was crafted around the formation of the group, rather than incorporating the pop stars as actors in a fictional world. Thus it acts as a kind of biopic,

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albeit an entirely fictional one, based around the disco group The Village People. The group had major hits with Macho Man, YMCA, In the Navy, and Go West, but the first two were from 1978, and the latter two from 1979, and by the time the film had been released, the disco movement that the group had been a major part of was on the wane. It also meant that the narrative did not make sense, for as Steve Guttenberg’s Jack Morell creates the band to launch his own song writing career, the story is about the formation of a band that already had been a part of popular culture for three years by the time of the film’s release. It also meant that the main draw for the audience, the Village People themselves, is almost secondary to the plot, which also manages to feature Caitlyn Jenner (then still known as Bruce Jenner) in a role as a lawyer who gets caught up in the creation of the band. EMI spent $18 million on Can’t Stop the Music, hoping that it would be as successful as the producer Allan Carr’s last film, Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1979), but instead it was a major flop, and ended careers for many of those involved, including its director, Nancy Walker. It was this production that inspired John Wilson to start the annual award ceremony for terrible films, The Golden Raspberries, and in its inaugural year this was nominated as one of ten films (along with The Jazz Singer) for the ‘Worst Movie’ award. Can’t Stop the Music won, and therefore enshrines it in the alternative history of bad films, a fact that has helped it to develop a cult status over time, especially amongst gay audiences. For EMI, it appeared to mark a low point in its attempts to triumph in America, and while the two events were not ostensibly connected, there was an air of inevitability when, a few months after the debacle of Can’t Stop the Music, Delfont was effectively resigned as Chief Executive of EMI Group, told by Sir Richard Cave of Thorn that it was company policy that ­directors had to retire at 70.21 As Thorn wanted to dismantle some of the less profitable parts of the business, Delfont manged to arrange the sale of much of the company’s theatre and leisure holdings, most of which eventually became part of the First Leisure Corporation— which Delfont left Thorn-EMI to join as managing director. In organising this sale, Delfont had managed to return to his first love in theatre and variety entertainment, and also divest Thorn-EMI of the parts of its business that it had least expertise in. But while this was happening, he stayed in his role at the company just long enough to preside over its biggest commercial failure.  Delfont, B. (1990), p. 210.

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Honky Tonk Freeway (John Schlesinger, 1981) is remembered in Hollywood circles as one of the biggest flops of all time, a disaster that is almost comparable to that of Heaven’s Gate (Michael Cimino, 1980). The AIC report commissioned by the BBFC called it ‘an insult to the talent involved’,22 and most reviews on its release were scathing, with Variety regarding its long-term commercial prospects ‘to be almost nil’.23 The film itself is similar to It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (Stanley Kramer, 1963), in that it depicts the intersecting paths of a variety of differing characters, all of whom at the film’s conclusion converge on the fictional locale of Ticlaw, which has been fighting plans to build a freeway over its town as it will decimate the tourism that the population relies on. Egged on by the charismatic mayor, Kirby T Calo (William Devane), the townsfolk decide that they are not going to see their town sacrificed in the name of progress and set in motion a series of events that will eventually lead to them sabotaging the freeway by blowing it up. While this story plays out, everyone from a group of travelling nuns through to a confidence trickster gets caught up in the action, culminating in one of the biggest car crashes in cinema history. It cost $25  million to make, and this clearly shows on screen. This was of course one of the reasons why the film was seen as a failure—it was endemic of EMI reaching too high and falling, but this was the culture of the company in this period. The film’s producer, Don Boyd, claims that he came up with the idea when he was working uncredited as a Second Unit Director on Bryan Forbes’ International Velvet (1978) in Massachusetts and noticed the communities that exist on the edge of the highways,24 prompting the thought, ‘what would happen if these towns suddenly had the road rerouted?’.25 He first sent the script to Barry Spikings in 1978, and was surprised by the enthusiasm with which it was received, with Spikings saying it was the ‘funniest script he and his wife Dot had ever read’.26 Boyd had produced several arthouse successes, including Alan Clark’s Scum (1979) and Derek Jarman’s The Tempest (1979), and had likewise pitched Honky Tonk as a small film, but Spikings argued that EMI policy was to make ‘big films with established names in order to compete in the American movie market’, and therefore the production increased in  Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), London: BBFC.  Walker, A. (1986), p. 163. 24  Although there is some dispute about the provenance of the story idea, with the film’s screenwriter, Ed Clinton, also making a claim for being the author of the original concept. 25  Boyd, D. Undated press cutting. John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 26  Walker, A. (1986), p. 159. 22 23

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scale almost immediately.27 This also meant that Boyd’s intention to direct the film himself would have to be jettisoned, as Spikings needed a big name director in order to attract attention to the film.28 However, Spikings agreed that Boyd could suggest a director for the film, and his choice, John Schlesinger, agreed to take on what was for him an entirely out of character treatment. He first received a copy of the script from EMI in November 1978,29 and Spikings also sent a copy to Schlesinger’s long-term producer, Joseph Janni, who had most recently worked with him on Yanks (1979). Despite this previous connection, Schlesinger was quick to argue that ‘Jo is totally the wrong producer for it’30 and Boyd was confirmed as the film’s producer. Schlesinger was eager to attempt a new genre, having never filmed a comedy film before, and he was enthusiastic about the script, stating, ‘I quite like it—it is very zany, and a lot of it is in deliberately bad taste, which I find funny’.31 While Schlesinger was perhaps a risk on Spikings’ part, it is understandable why he was approached; he had made successful, Oscar-winning films in the US before, had handled major Hollywood stars and budgets, and had a critical reputation that immediately lent some weight to the production. His involvement also meant that Boyd, and his new 30-year-old American screenwriter, Ed Clinton, could be retained on the project. The script itself is incredibly ambitious for a screenwriter so young, in its weaving of almost 20 main characters into the plot, a microcosm of American society as a whole brought together by the great American freeway. Clinton cleverly pairs characters together, so that they can act out their individual stories throughout the narrative with someone else to play off. The core characters are two nuns (Geraldine Page and Deborah Rush), one of whom has doubts about her calling; a copy machine repairman (Beau Bridges) and the waitress he picks up (Beverly D’Angelo) who is travelling to Florida to spread her mother’s ashes; two petty criminals (George Dzundza and Joe Grifasi) on the run after a successful bank job; an elderly man (Hume Cronyn) and his alcoholic wife (Jessica Tandy); and a dentist  Walker, A. (1986), p. 159.  Walker, J. (1985), p. 142. 29  Letter from Michael Relph to John Schlesinger (27 November 1978). John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 30  Letter from John Schlesinger to Michael Oliver (5 December 1978). John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 31  Letter from John Schlesinger to Michael Oliver (5 December 1978). John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 27 28

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(Howard Hesseman) and his family. In Ticlaw, where they will all converge, Calo reacts to the various townsfolk he feels responsible for and the politicians who try to get in their way, and arranges crazy schemes to attract tourists, such as establishing a mini ‘safari park’ and culminating with him water-skiing on an elephant’s back. With Schlesinger on board, the script was further developed, with the director picking up on some of the script’s more juvenile elements in his extensive annotations, often identifying them with a simple ‘bit obvious’.32 He also toned down some of the script’s racial language,33 especially in a scene where Duane and a black bus driver he is trying to overtake exchange racial insults, which in the final version is turned into a carefully storyboarded sequence in which the two nuns stop abruptly in front of the bus, almost causing an accident and enabling Duane to overtake.34 But even at this pre-production stage it is clear that some concerns were being raised. Boyd had received an unsigned and undated handwritten report on the script, possibly from Michael Relph, which identified that the ‘problem with this subject has always been to preserve interest in the numerous and diverse characters whilst maintaining involvement in the Ticlaw story, with which they appear to have, at first, little connection’.35 The second unit director and editor, Jim Clark, also picked up on this, writing to Schlesinger after reading one of his rewrites: ‘I can well see why you thought to throw in the towel after reading the [revised script], but I think you should persevere.’36 Clark’s main concern was reserved for the finale, an enormous car crash in Ticlaw involving most of the film’s main characters: Maybe it is correct to stage the crash as the finale on the freeway, but it has always read badly, as if nobody could really think of a way to end the movie. It’s convenient and without any real motivation. Whatever is to happen before that in the hotel is obviously confused right now, and therefore it would be unwise to comment, but I am haunted by my reaction to the very first time I read the script—that we were following a lot of creatures around for a long time without a true sense of purpose—and I still maintain that  Undated first draft script, John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI, p. 42.  Undated first draft script, pp. 85–86. 34  Shooting script (24 December 1979). John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 35  Undated letter to Don Boyd. Don Boyd Collection. Exeter: Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. 36  Letter from Jim Clark to John Schlesinger (8 September 1979). 32 33

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there is something lacking in the script which I cannot exactly put my finger on.37

Schlesinger’s mood over the script had surfaced during his initial meetings with Clinton, with the director having to apologise to him after they met, saying that ‘I am sorry things got too much for me in the final days of your visit. I felt that I just could not concentrate fully on further Honky Tonk meetings with so much else on my mind.’38 Their relationship did not sour however, with the young Clinton remaining in awe of the great director, writing to him to explain that he had watched both The Day of the Locusts (1975) and Billy Liar (1963), saying that he loved what he did in Locusts but that he had ‘to be frank and admit that I didn’t know what the fuck it was about’ and that he ‘went ape-shit’ over Billy Liar.39 He would later receive another handwritten letter from him saying that Midnight Cowboy (1969) was ‘incredible. I’m so thrilled to be working with you.’40 On receipt of a later draft, Schlesinger would write to him to say that ‘there are many improvements which work well’ but that ‘Kirby and his crew [are] really unbelievable … any man to have got where he is with a resort safari park and so forth cannot have done so by employing a group of shit-kickers who are so naïve’.41 Even the actor Hume Cronyn would write to Schlesinger to say that he was ‘most enthusiastic’ about the script, but that he ‘wondered if there might not be one element—one individual or group—too many’.42 The issues with the script were apparent, but the production team pressed ahead, and principal photography started in January 1980 (Fig. 9.1). The scale of the production was vast, not just in the range of characters but in the number of expensive set pieces that had to be filmed, up to and including the final car crash. As this crash was the result of the Ticlaw resi Letter from Jim Clark to John Schlesinger (8 September 1979).  Letter from John Schlesinger to Ed Clinton (8 February 1979). John Collection. London: BFI. 39  Letter from Ed Clinton to John Schlesinger (3 February 1979). John Collection. London: BFI. 40  Letter from Ed Clinton to John Schlesinger (Undated). John Schlesinger London: BFI. 41  Letter from John Schlesinger to Ed Clinton (Undated). John Schlesinger London: BFI. 42  Hume Cronyn to John Schlesinger (1 October 1979). John Schlesinger London: BFI. 37 38

Schlesinger Schlesinger Collection. Collection. Collection.

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Fig. 9.1  The car crash at the end of Honky Tonk Freeway; an apt visual metaphor for the calamitous effect of the film on EMI’s ambitions. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd

dents blowing up the newly built freeway, the production team had to build and then demolish an ‘overpass’ in Florida, at an estimated cost of at least $300,000 alone.43 These expenses, and concerns from Boyd that Schlesinger was exerting too much control over the script and production process, led to him approaching EMI for a budget increase of up to $2.5 million.44 As it turned out, Boyd’s estimate was conservative; the film went $7.8 million over budget, costing just under $25 million in total.45 It was EMI’s biggest single investment in an individual film, and for comparison with other films released that year, Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981) cost just over $20  million to make and For Your Eyes Only (John Glen, 1981) just over $28  million. This was pitched at the 43  Craven R. (Undated circa February 1979). Honky Tonk Freeway Report of Production Recce. Don Boyd Collection. Exeter: Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. 44  Letter from Don Boyd to Brecher and Co (8 February 1980). Don Boyd Collection. Exeter: Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. 45  Honky Tonk Freeway budget statement (22 August 1980). Don Boyd Collection. Exeter: Bill Douglas Cinema Museum.

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same level as these blockbuster productions, which made $212  million and $54 million respectively at the worldwide box office on their initial run. Therefore, by the time the final cut was ready to screen to the EMI board, expectations were riding high. But as Boyd recalls, the screening went incredibly well, with Spikings saying that ‘it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen’.46 The rest of the board were in agreement, but as Boyd notes, ‘they were all English’.47 One of the board members present at the screening, EMI’s Music Coordinator Bob Mercer, would write to Schlesinger afterwards that the film was ‘just wonderful, delightful, marvellous, cheeky, happy, funny and beautiful to behold’.48 Schlesinger would also receive a telegram from Boyd, who wrote that the film ‘is going to be brilliant’49 and from Spikings saying simply, ‘Marvellous material’.50 Spikings followed this up with a letter, that ‘Dot and I thought Honky Tonk Freeway the funniest film we ever remember seeing. It also has a very warm heart, and looks beautiful. I can see nothing but success for it in both critical and commercial terms. Thank you!’51 Everything looked promising, and it was submitted to the BBFC for classification and a big US publicity stunt was arranged, featuring Bubbles the elephant skiing on the Marina Del Rey, in a recreation of one of the stranger moments from the film.52 It is at this point that things started to turn sour for the production. The BBFC examiner’s report said ‘although this is a pleasant light comedy, one expects rather more from director John Schlesinger. Perhaps the curse of EMI has struck again!’,53 highlighting to what extent EMI had become a tainted brand by this point, and how its failures were now more expected than not. It is this attitude that provides the most suitable context for the film’s reception. The elements that appeared to be positives  Walker, A. (1986), p. 162.  Walker, A. (1986), p. 162. 48  Letter from Bob Mercer to John Schlesinger (21 October 1980). John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 49  Telegram from Don Boyd to John Schlesinger (Undated). John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 50  Telegram from Barry Spikings to John Schlesinger (Undated). John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 51  Letter from Barry Spikings to John Schlesinger (21 October 1980). John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 52  Letter from Michael Maslansky to John Schelsinger (1 September 1981). John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 53  Honky Tonk Freeway (22 July 1981). London: BBFC. 46 47

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during its gestation were now, when placed in front of critics and audiences, reasons to castigate it. Schlesinger was an important director who had worked in America regularly, but his films were not exactly paeans to the American Dream, and Midnight Cowboy to The Day of the Locusts had presented explicit critiques of various aspects of Americana. Boyd had experience as a producer, but not on this scale, and Clinton was a first-­ time screenwriter; in addition, the actors who were in the leading roles, William Devane and Beau Bridges, were hardly in the upper echelons of Hollywood star power. And to top it all, EMI had become the company that had gotten too big for its boots, and it was ripe for being taken down a peg or two. This attitude first became apparent when the film was screened to its US distributor Universal, where it received a lukewarm response. To mitigate this, Boyd suggested to Spikings a series of carefully selected screenings to key critics who exhibitors would trust,54 such as Judith Christ and Rex Reed, and this strategy looked initially to have had its desired effect. Reed, after complaining bitterly about the spate of recent comedies that he had seen, gave a glowing review to Honky Tonk, praising it as a ‘perfect example of what can be achieved when a genuine artist tackles the genre of lunatic comedy’.55 Likewise, Christ thought it was ‘perceptive, diverting and pleasantly cynical’.56 However, while the reviews were not as scathing as many later critics would suggest, there were few that wholeheartedly endorsed the film. Negative voices came from Playboy, which described it as a ‘nutty Nashville’, with the reviewer ‘wondering why Schlesinger chose to do a comedy so aimless he finally has to end it with a resounding crash of cars, trucks and top talent gone to pieces’.57 The Hollywood Reporter called it ‘an oddly distorted, unidimensional vision to come from a director like Schlesinger’,58 and the LA Times felt that ‘the joy comes in small amounts and the rest of the film is wasteful and woeful’.59 UK critics were slightly more favourable, including some praise 54  Letter from Don Boyd to Barry Spikings (4 June 1981). Don Boyd Collection. Exeter: Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. 55  Reed, R. (15 July 1981). ‘“Honky Tonk Freeway” Artistic Comedy’, The Daily News. Don Boyd Collection. Exeter: Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. 56  Christ, J. (September 1981). ‘Honky Tonk Freeway’, Saturday Review. John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 57  Williamson, B. (October, 1981). ‘Honky Tonk Freeway.’ Playboy. John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 58  Knight, A. (20 August 1981). ‘Honky Tonk Freeway.’ The Hollywood Reporter. John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 59  Benson, S. (21 August 1981). ‘Honky Tonk Freeway.’ The LA Times. John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI.

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from Barry Norman in the Radio Times, but it would open in the UK in the same week as one of Schlesinger’s contemporaries, Karel Reisz’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), and the inevitable comparison between Honky Tonk and Reisz’s masterpiece was drawn.60 The general mood of disappointment was replicated in the series of US exhibitor screenings EMI held throughout June 1981. The first screening, at which 15 exhibitors attended, presented a generally downbeat assessment of the film’s chances at the box office, and each subsequent exhibitor screening represented diminishing returns and attendance, presumably as word got out in the exhibition sector regarding the film.61 By the final series of screenings in June, of those who did attend, several walked out of the screening.62 Of course, none of this would have mattered had the film captured the public imagination and made any money; as it was, despite a successful limited run in Florida, the film barely grossed over $700,000 on its initial release,63 losing EMI millions in the process and becoming one of the biggest flops of the decade. Once the film’s failure had become apparent, EMI’s PR man, Michael Maslansky, would write to Schlesinger to say that It will take a little time, and a little distance for all of us to have some perspective about Honky Tonk Freeway, about whether or not it was a project that was doomed from its inception and never really had a fighting chance. I insist it contains some of your loveliest and most incisive work, and that there will be revisionist thinking on the film sometime in the future.64

Bob Mercer would also contact him to say ‘I still think it’s a wonderful film of which you can be proud and I hope you’re able to keep smiling’,65 with Schlesinger replying that ‘there are many unexplained questions 60  Norman, B. (19 October 1981). ‘Honky Tonk Freeway.’ Radio Times. John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 61  Memorandum from Jack Box to William Soady (8 July 1981). Don Boyd Collection. Exeter: Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. 62  Memorandum from Jack Box to William Soady (8 July 1981). Don Boyd Collection. Exeter: Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. 63  Leach, F. (25 March 1983). Honky Tonk Freeway Financial Statement. Don Boyd Collection. Exeter: Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. 64  Letter from Michael Maslansky to John Schlesinger (1 September 1981). John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 65  Letter from Bob Mercer to John Schlesinger (3 September 1981). John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI.

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connected with a movie that we all liked so much once’.66 As Boyd recounted, up until the film’s release, he had been regarded by his peers as ‘the producer of what was then the biggest film being made in America’ but then ‘the week we opened I really felt I had caught some contagious infection. And of course I had—its name was ‘failure’.67 Michael Bromhead of EMI’s sales division would write to Boyd a few years after its release that ‘I am afraid it is difficult to accept that the lack of success of the picture was due only to the adverse publicity regarding the budget over-cost’, pointing out that across the world ‘the public reaction to it has been unanimously poor’ and that distributors in Germany, Japan, France and Brazil had all rejected the film.68 But Boyd remained upbeat about the production, stating that he had ‘absolutely no regrets’ about it, and that ‘time will re-evaluate it; it’s a definitive statement about the America of the time, and an entertaining one.’69 The film was undoubtedly treated unfairly by the press, and this contributed in part to its failure to generate an audience. In retrospect, it is an interesting if flawed satire of American society, in which the motor car and the freeway are emblematic of America’s strengths and weaknesses. Each pair of characters is on a literal and metaphorical journey, and each in their own way are seeking the freedom that has been promised to them by the American Dream—and of course the opportunity to make a little money from this freedom. That this all ends with the destruction of the eponymous freeway, and one of the largest car crashes ever committed to celluloid, is perhaps the most potent symbolic critique of these ideals since Godard’s Week-End (1968). Of course, in the context of EMI’s history, it was also the symbolic end of its own excursions into both the US and big-­budget filmmaking. As Alexander Walker would argue after Barry Spiking’s resignation two years later, When the history of EMI and its would-be moguls comes to be fully written, it will add a third chapter to the inglorious and costly efforts of Sir Alexander Korda and, later, J Arthur Rank to take on the Americans at their own game.70 66  Letter from John Schlesinger to Bob Mercer (9 September 1981). John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 67  Walker, A. (1986), p. 164. 68  Letter from Michael Bromhead to Don Boyd (3 February 1983). John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI. 69  Walker, J. (1985), p. 142. 70  Walker, A. (4 January 1983), ‘EMI’s film chief quits’. Evening Standard. John Schlesinger Collection. London: BFI.

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Until 1980, EMI’s exploits in the US had been either critically or commercially successful, with The Deer Hunter winning an Oscar for Best Film, along with four other Oscars, and even Death on the Nile winning an Oscar for Costume Design. Commercially, its new strategy had also been a great success, with the total income from films increasing from just over £5.5 million in 1976 before Spikings and Deeley took over, to just under £19.5 million in 1981.71 EMI Films was, after almost ten years of operation, finally at the point where it was reliably profitable, and it was achieving the kind of critical success that Delfont had first envisaged. EMI had established a regular US income stream into the UK film industry, ensuring that many crew members now had more work than they had ever had before. In contrast to how Elstree was when Delfont and Forbes had first arrived at the company, this was remarkable. Redundancy was now off the cards and the future looked bright. Yet this had arguably come at a price. Delfont’s proclamation of the impact he would make on the British film industry when he started had been replaced with a series of productions that were, to the company’s critics, American films that were being financed via a British company. The prevailing view was summarised neatly by James Park, who argued that the ‘profits made from such 1978 films as Convoy, The Driver, The Deer Hunter and Warlords of Atlantis may have pleased the accountants at EMI, but did nothing to rebuild British filmmaking’.72 To maintain a regular stream of films made in Britain, EMI had decided to jettison most of what would readily identify these films as British, becoming if not a fully transnational company, certainly a transatlantic company. There was a selection of films that retained British roots, but ultimately, these were side projects—EMI was now as international in outlook in its film productions as it was in its music. But whereas the criticism of this strategy had until then been conveniently masked by reliable and substantial profits, in the wake of Honky Tonk Freeway, its flaws were now all too apparent.

 EMI Exhibition Accounts, 1977–1983 (1983). London: BFI.  Park, J., British Cinema: The Lights That Failed. London: BT Batsford, p. 135.

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CHAPTER 10

Memoirs of a Survivor

A great deal had changed in both British society and EMI’s fortunes by the start of the 1980s, and this decade was destined to remain turbulent, albeit with one consistent thread—Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government which had come to power in 1979. Thatcherism’s shadow makes it difficult to assess any aspect of British culture from the 1980s without reference to her influence, and her administration was to have a profound effect on the British film industry during this period. As John Hill argues, the connections between the politics of the 1980s and British cinema are ‘not necessarily straightforward’,1 but as EMI started to turn its head back towards filmmaking in Britain, it would inevitably be confronted with, and would respond to, the Thatcherite project. It had begun the decade auspiciously enough, with Rank announcing in 1980 that it was to cease film production, leaving EMI as the only major film producer in Britain with access to its own distribution and exhibition channels. The duopoly had become a monopoly overnight, and EMI was now de facto the only major player in British cinema. But there were ominous signs that EMI’s status was not as assured as it first appeared. For a start, the Honky Tonk debacle had seriously undermined its reputation, along with its bank balance, and as Alexander Walker would put it, for its new owners Thorn, the remaining commitments to productions it had inherited were like ‘ticking time bombs’.2 Of equal 1 2

 Hill, J. (1999). British Cinema in the 1980s. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 3.  Walker, A. (1986), National Heroes, London: Harrap, p. 206.

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concern was the fact that Thatcher’s government had started to take a keen interest in the British film industry, and what was perceived to be the various excesses of public subsidy afforded to it. Its first target was the National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC), which in 1981 was awarded its final government grant, of £1 million, and begun the process of transitioning into the British Screen Finance Consortium, which was intended to ultimately become self-financing.3 By 1981, the number of films officially registered as ‘British’ had declined to only 36, from 98 at the start of the 1970s,4 and thus it was an unpopular decision by the government to withdraw funding from the NFFC at this moment, especially as more prescient critics recognised this as part of a wider liberalisation of British industry and removal of state funding, which would only increase as the decade wore on. While EMI had never been reliant on the NFFC to finance its productions, and had itself contributed significantly to the decline in ‘British’ registered films, it had used NFFC money several times, most notably with That’ll be the Day and Stardust, and had just entered into production on a film that the NFFC had co-financed, Memoirs of a Survivor (David Gladwell, 1981)—and would do so again a year later with Britannia Hospital (Lindsay Anderson, 1982). Thus, this was a not insignificant challenge to its income stream and was certainly a disincentive to any desires it harboured to invest in British filmmaking in the future. To make matters worse,  income from cinema admissions that year were now barely over £83  million, a decline from almost £176 million in 1971,5 and thus it was becoming increasingly difficult to find a market for home-grown product. Therefore, when Spikings’ embarked on a new production programme, it was perhaps inevitable that the majority of these films would remain on the surface Hollywood-style releases, with only Memoirs and Britannia as films that critics would regard as culturally ‘British’; although it would release the latest instalment in its Christie stable during this period, Evil Under the Sun (Guy Hamilton, 1982), which was a return to its successful Poirot/Ustinov formula after the misstep of Hamilton’s previous effort The Mirror Crack’d. As with all the Christie adaptations, the cast was impressive and international in composition, and the plot, weaving 3  Hill, J. (1993). ‘Government policy and the British film industry.’ European Journal of Communication, 8, pp. 206–207. 4  Wood, L. (1983). British Films, 1971–1981. London: BFI Publishing, p. 118 5  Wood, L. (1983), p. 123.

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together missing diamonds with murder on an Adriatic island, was typically labyrinthine. It was this heady mix that ensured the film would make $8.8 million in the USA alone,6 and while not as successful as Death on the Nile or Orient Express, it was still a welcome return after EMI’s string of unmitigated financial disasters. But the films EMI released in the early 1980s also hinted at the start of a significant shift in EMI’s production policy, with an emphasis on much more character led, intimate dramas, which was on the one hand an attempt to regain a reputation for producing quality work, but on the other was a product of the grim reality of the lack of finance that was now at Spikings’ disposal. Thus, it would produce Frances (Graeme Clifford, 1982) a biopic of the actress Frances Farmer, who had a promising career in the golden age of Hollywood cruelly cut short by a mental illness that ultimately led to her hospitalisation. The lead performance by Jessica Lange carries the film and lends a commendable emotional intensity, but while it marked a significant return to ‘serious’ filmmaking from the company, it would be a fairly modest character piece when compared with EMI’s ambitions only a year previously. Likewise, EMI’s next release was the low-budget rape-revenge drama Handgun (Tony Garnett, 1982), which saw Tony Garnett return to the director’s chair for the second time, and for his first film set in America. Appropriately enough, he takes aim at America’s gun culture, in the story of Kathleen (Karen Young), who is raped at gunpoint and then learns how to use firearms as part of a revenge plot. It is a complex and troubling look at the all-pervasive nature of violence, which sucks in and destroys individuals, using tropes such as the classic American cowboy look and its Texan locale to demonstrate how this cult of violence is embedded within American culture. The first BBFC examiners’ report felt that Garnett had ‘finished up with a lighter version of the Death Wish films, a rape being the trigger for revenge’,7 and considered it for the relatively new ‘18’ rating, which EMI appealed. The subsequent report this triggered said ‘I feel very strongly that teenagers should see it, because it carries the most convincing filmed version of an alternative view of rape that I have seen in the commercial cinema’,8 and was supported with the view that ‘the crux of our decision, as of the film, is the rape, and it seems to me that what we 6  Smith, J. (2008). ‘Glam, spam and Uncle Sam: Funding diversity in 1970s British film production’, in Shail, Robert (ed.) Seventies British Cinema. London: Palgrave, p. 70. 7  Handgun (12 January 1983). London: BBFC. 8  Handgun (6 April 1983). London: BBFC.

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have to ask ourselves is if any boy, 15 or 18, or 40, could find himself giving a moment’s credence to the argument advanced by [the rapist] Larry’.9 However, in a sad indication of the conservatism at the BBFC, a second examiner argued that for ‘the unsophisticated, Handgun could be seen as yet another vigilante film, in which a girl does the gun-toting for a change’,10 and a handwritten note from Ferman says ‘this report is the clincher for me’, and the film remained an ‘18’ in the UK. As with most of Garnett’s oeuvre, the film was a critical exploration of the interplay between the personal and political dimensions of the body, with Kathleen’s violation revealing much about the social and political status of women in 1980s America, and drawing distinct parallels with the ways that Janice in Family Life, or human beings in general in The Body, have been abused by social and political forces. While Handgun was a telling critique of contemporary America, Spikings’ final two British films were in their own individual ways amongst the earliest critiques of Thatcher’s Britain. Memoirs of a Survivor was based on Doris Lessing’s 1974 feminist science fiction novel of the same name, and had a budget of £800,000 jointly financed by EMI and the NFFC. The plot revolves around the mysterious ‘D’, played by Julie Christie in her first role for three years, who is a survivor of an unknown disaster, referred to only as ‘the crisis’. She now lives out her life in a post-­apocalyptic world, in which most people struggle to survive. While Lessing was writing in the early 1970s, the parallels between this story and most critical accounts of Thatcher’s Britain are  obvious. Despite Christie’s involvement, it was not the most obviously commercial prospect, with EMI executives privately expressing their view that ‘We’re going to have to pay people to come to see it’,11 and the fact that the BBFC gave it an ‘X’ certificate because of a sex scene which featured ‘humping more vigorous than there is precedent for in [the “AA” category]’, further condemned it to a poor financial return. But as a drama, it was very effective, and was the sort of serious British film that EMI had not been involved in since the early 1970s. Its follow-up to this was Lindsay Anderson’s state of the nation treatise, Britannia Hospital (1982), also co-funded by the NFFC, which had put up an initial £400,000 before EMI stepped in with the remainder of the film’s budget. Anderson was an unusual director for EMI to finance, as while Spikings was clearly making a conscious effort to reen Handgun (12 April 1983). London: BBFC.  Handgun (12 April 1983). London: BBFC. 11  Walker, J. (1985). The Once and Future Film. London: Methuen, p. 26. 9

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gage with British culture in this period, of all British directors, Anderson was probably the most likely to make a trenchant critique of that culture. As Erik Hedling argues, Anderson is best understood via a tradition of artistic appreciation that extends back to his time as a writer for Sequence, in which certain directors, most specifically John Ford, were venerated above others. The films they championed—like She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949)—were the ones that celebrated specifically American values, thus representing a counter-cultural challenge to the class-ridden, chauvinistic and traditionalist British heritage.12

Hedling views the film as ‘formally more traditional’ but still conforming to the ‘theatrical stylisation and Brechtian lessons’ of If … (Lindsay Anderson, 1968) and O Lucky Man (1973), of which Britannia is a loose sequel, the third instalment of Anderson’s Michael Travis trilogy.13 But he also notes a number of allusions to popular British cinema, including the Doctor films, the Carry On series and Hammer horror films.14 In so doing, Anderson created a film that was both essentially British and at the same time, one that was highly critical of British social class and mores. It was, in many respects, an exemplary EMI film, having one foot inside the British cinema canon and one foot outside it, which divided critics at the time and continues to repel even Anderson’s most ardent fans, many of whom view it as a failed, politically reactionary comedy. John Walker was endemic of the critical consensus when he said that with this film, Anderson ‘allowed rant to replace wit, becoming not only increasingly didactic but less in control of his material’.15 But he was missing the point; the film makes an argument against subtle satire, regarding the nation to be in such a dire state that satire is ineffective, and that the outrageous excesses of the UK government required an equally ostentatious response. Thus, Malcolm McDowell’s Travis in this iteration is a reporter investigating the work of Professor Millar (Graham Crowden), and ultimately is murdered by him in order to have his body parts harvested for one of Millar’s experiments. It is Frankenstein as metaphor for the decay that Anderson perceived in 12  Hedling, E. (1997), ‘Lindsay Anderson and the development of British art cinema’, in Murphy, R. (ed.) The British Cinema Book, BFI: London, p. 183. 13  Hedling, E. (1997), p. 183. 14  Hedling, E. (1997), p. 183. 15  Walker, J. (1985), p. 60.

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British society, as exemplified by its most cherished institution—the National Health Service. Alexander Walker was one of the few critics who supported the film, arguing that reviewers who presented it as a paean to right-wing reactionary thought were being too simplistic. Instead, he argued Anderson’s was the anger of a moral reformer, a traditionalist whose ire is kindled by the state of chaos into which the realm has fallen—and who uses anarchy of a more formalized kind to reflect it and purge it. Britannia Hospital turned out to be his most powerful piece of invective against the mess that Britain was in. Its very title was a metaphor for a sick country in the throes of a nervous breakdown.16

Walker refers to the film as ‘Anderson’s Devils’, as like Ken Russell’s masterpiece, Britannia is ‘set in a hospice where the people are possessed by all kinds of contemporary demons’,17 and like that earlier film, it was misunderstood by, and offended, many. The BBFC in particular was not amused by the work, with the first examiner’s pithy summary of the film describing it simply as ‘Lindsay Anderson’s political critique of just about everything,’ continuing that it was a ‘curiously superficial analysis, with Anderson frozen in his attitudes as time has moved on.18 A second examiner noted wearily that ‘Lindsay Anderson grows older without getting wiser’.19 Similarly, the AIC report commissioned by the BBFC was just as disparaging. Describing its genre as ‘Anti-Everything’ and its appeal ‘A doubtful proposition’, the report continued: This piece of self-indulgence by Lindsay Anderson has the benefit of his considerable expertise but fails because he is anti-everything and this ­attitude does not produce any valid conclusions … one feels that in spite of all the talent put into this picture this is a mis-directed project.20

Nonetheless, as had often been the case with EMI, it was not solely the quality of the film or its commercial appeal that defined its fate, but events that were outside the filmmakers’ control. In an ironic exemplification of  Walker, A. (1986), p. 245.  Walker, A. (1986), p. 245. 18  Britannia Hospital (28 April 1982). London: BBFC. 19  Britannia Hospital (28 April 1982). 20  Britannia Hospital (1982). London: BBFC. 16 17

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the film’s critique of the national psyche, the country had recently engaged in war with Argentina over ownership of the Falklands Islands, and Thorn-­ EMI, realising that Anderson’s film would inevitably be viewed as a critique of the conflict at a time when the public mood was generally in favour of the government’s stance, tried to delay the film’s release. But it had already committed to a screening at Cannes in May, and so the film was released in the UK with little fanfare and withdrawn after only one week.21 Unsurprisingly, it did not perform well financially, but as Thorn-­ EMI’s initial outlay was small, so were its losses. Anderson’s typically acerbic opinion of the film discounted the Falklands effect, saying in an interview in 1991 that if ‘you showed it now it would be just as disliked’, because it was ‘pretty depressing about the general idiocy of human beings [and] nothing has occurred which would make one change one’s mind’.22 This film, along with Memoirs, marked a significant contribution to British cinema from the company at the start of the 1980s. As Walker argues, they ‘can be said to mark the passive and active tenses of a nation’s ceasing to believe in itself’,23 and they are major statements on British society from a company that had allegedly turned its back on British cinema. But unusually, they were artistic endeavours destined for specialist audiences, and while EMI had produced films like this before, this was the first time in its history that it had programmed this material without any other obviously commercial releases as part of its wider slate. If Death on the Nile is taken out of the equation, then even the American films from this year were all small-scale serious dramas, as if Honky Tonk had damaged Spikings’ confidence so much that he had shied away from the commercial cinema entirely. This was felt most keenly by British producers like David Puttnam, who were trying to make commercially oriented British films, on a medium to large budget. He had taken his idea for what would become Chariots of Fire to Spikings, and it was enthusiastically supported by EMI’s then Managing Director of its film department, Peter Beale, only for it to be rejected. Despite this film’s critical and commercial success, Spikings also rejected the next project Puttnam brought his way, Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero (1983), which John Walker regards as his ‘major political

 Walker, A. (1986), pp. 245–246.  Swallow, N. (1991), Interview with Lindsay Anderson, BECTU: BECTU History Project. 23  Walker, A. (1986), p. 245. 21 22

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mistake’,24 for this decision really saw Spikings cast as the head of a British film company that had no interest in making British films. As Don Boyd would recall, ‘EMI was always regarded as the last people you took your project to, instead of possibly being the first’.25 This perception was fine when EMI’s policies were making money, but it had been a long time since that was the case. Its income from the film division at the end of 1981 was just over £19 million,26 but this had declined to only just over £7 million the following year.27 It was decided that enough was enough, and Spikings left EMI by mutual agreement.28 The company had been lambasted for its lack of investment in home-­ grown cinema, and it could not afford to compete with the inflated budgets of most Hollywood films of the period, so it came as no surprise that when in October 1982 Verity Lambert was announced as Spikings’ replacement, she committed herself to a programme of low-budget British films. Lambert was probably best known for her work as a producer on the original Doctor Who television series, but in the 1970s had worked with Thames Television, producing notable dramas like The Naked Civil Servant (Jack Gold, 1976). At Thames, she was in charge of its film production subsidiary, Euston Films, and it was this experience that put her in a prime position for the role of Head of Production at Thorn-EMI, which owned a 48 per cent share of the company.29 Lambert negotiated a three-­ year contract, as part of which she also remained head of Euston Films— an enormous task, but Lambert had a formidable reputation and at the age of 46 became the most powerful woman in the history of the British film industry. With her arrival came a further restructure, with the newly christened Thorn-EMI Screen Entertainment combining the company’s film production and then cutting-edge video interests, all under the aegis of new Chief Executive Gary Dartnell. Thus, for many contemporary critics there was a strong sense of history repeating,30 with a newly formed company, overseen by a new Chief Executive and Head of Production, committed to a programme of significant, reasonably budgeted British  Walker, J. (1985), p. 32.  Walker, J. (1985), p. 31. 26  EMI Exhibition Accounts. 1977–83. London: BFI. 27  EMI Exhibition Accounts. 1977–83. London: BFI. 28  Walker, A. (1986), p. 214. 29  Marson, R. (2015), Drama and Delight: The Life of Verity Lambert, Tadworth: Miwk Publishing, p. 220. 30  Walker, J. (1985), pp. 28–29. 24 25

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films—it was as if Forbes had never left. And like Forbes, Lambert faced several immediate challenges on her appointment. Firstly, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission reported in 1983 on its investigation into the British film industry, and estimated that Rank and Thorn-EMI controlled at least 60 per cent of the British exhibition market,31 which did not chime well with the free trade agenda of the newly emboldened Thatcher government, which had now entered its second term on a vastly increased majority. But as Hill notes, the government was reluctant to challenge the two majors, as it was dependent on them for the establishment of British Screen, its replacement for the NFFC.32 John Walker, writing in 1985, expressed the power that these two companies held, and why the government was wary of tampering with them: The fear is that if Rank and Thorn-EMI had to give up their dominant position, it would bring about the end of British cinema, since cinemas doing no more than breaking even would be shut down once they lost the protection of being part of a larger group.33

This reluctance also needs to be viewed within the context of the immediate aftermath of the home video revolution, which had seen cinema attendance tumble from 101 million admissions in 1981, to only 54 million in 1984.34 Therefore, cinema exhibition as a whole seemed extremely precarious, and Thorn-EMI, while having a major interest in home video, was cautious and unwilling to risk too much money in film production. The context of Lambert’s production policy therefore differs from Forbes’, in that whereas Forbes was operating out of an infusion of cash by a confident and expanding company eager to make its mark in the British film industry, Lambert’s approach was the result of a company heading in the opposite direction, and thus she had to carefully manage expectations amidst the harsh reality of Thorn-EMI’s financial situation. The next immediate challenges she faced were personal ones. Lambert had recently lost an expensive legal case over an authorship dispute on one of the Thames Television shows that she had produced, Rock Follies (Brian

 Hill, J. (1993), p. 218.  Hill, J. (1993), p. 218. 33  Walker, J. (1985), p. 35. 34  Wickham, P. & Mettler, E. (2005). Back to the Future: The Fall and Rise of the British Film Industry in the 1980s. London: BFI Publishing, p. 3. 31 32

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Farnham/Jon Scoffield, 1976)35 and while Thames had footed the bill, it remained a huge personal blow, with descriptions in court of her explosive temperament painting an unflattering picture. But this was a minor issue when compared to the break-up of her marriage of 11 years to the director Colin Bucksey, which was finalised with divorce in 1987. In addition to this, Spikings had already commissioned several American productions before his departure, and thus Thorn-EMI’s name was to still be associated with American films for the first year of Lambert’s tenure. The first such film that Lambert inherited was the dreadful comedy Second Thoughts (Lawrence Turman, 1982), which returned to a familiar love triangle scenario as a lawyer played by Lucie Arnaz is torn between two different men, her ex-husband and a street musician she falls pregnant to. Everything about the film demonstrated EMI’s new limitations, with a cheap visual aesthetic and actors who were guaranteed to not attract any interest to the film. It sank without a trace at the box office. The second release, Tender Mercies (Bruce Beresford, 1983) fared far better, eventually leading to an Oscar win for Robert Duvall in the role of Mac Sledge, a Country and Western singer who falls in love with a widow and finds God. It is American through and through, perhaps the most culturally American film EMI was ever involved with, with a deeply moralistic and uplifting tone, focused on the values of family, religion, and country music. It is beautifully acted by Duvall, and was a serious, but somewhat earnest attempt at filmmaking, which along with Duvall’s win, was nominated for another four Oscars, including Best Film. It is one of the company’s lesser-­ known films, partly because it was not granted much support from its US distributor Universal and was too wholesomely American to work in the UK, and as such it did not perform well commercially. But it is significant as the only other film produced by EMI after The Deer Hunter to be ­nominated for a Best Film Oscar, and it suggested that Spikings’ change of policy towards more modestly budgeted films after Honky Tonk had the potential to have reaped greater rewards over time. Likewise, Thorn-­ EMI’s next release, Bad Boys (Rick Rosenthal, 1983) was highly praised, and would perform much better at the box office than Tender Mercies. The film featured a young Sean Penn in what was his first lead role in a feature film, as Mick O’Brien, a small-time criminal who ends up in a young offenders’ institute, which the BBFC examiner who viewed it felt made

 Marson, R. (2015), p. 235.

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‘Scum look like a holiday camp’.36 The film certainly pulled no punches, and has an ending that refuses to present a neat solution to O’Brien’s problems, who despite attempting to reform himself is so embedded within the system that he is sucked back into the violence he is trying to escape. It was an impressive piece of work, and would do no harm for Penn’s future career. Cross Creek (Martin Ritt, 1983) followed a similar template to Tender Mercies, in that it featured an artist who visits a new community and discovers love, and themselves, in the process. Unlike Tender Mercies, however, it did not have an Oscar-winning performance from its lead, in this case Mary Steenburgen as the writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Rawlings retreats to an orange grove in Florida to overcome writer’s block, and in the process meets the various characters who will become the subject of her next novel. It was all relatively safe and as a result, did not trouble either the box office or the attention of critics. Strange Invaders (Michael Laughlin, 1983) was intended as the second part of a proposed trilogy of ‘strange’ films, following 1981s Strange Behaviour (Michael Laughlin, 1981), and as such, it was an unusual project for Thorn-EMI to take on, as the original was a small New Zealand production that had only been a minor cult hit. Presumably the sequel’s allusions to 1950s science fiction films were expected to be popular with the public in the wake of the success of ET (Steven Spielberg, 1983), although this was an entirely different proposition. The director, Michael Laughlin, was no Spielberg, and the film was described by AIC as a ‘masterpiece of ineptitude’.37 Despite this, the examiner who viewed it regarded it as a ‘lovely film … one at which kids would roll about with pleasure’,38 but sadly for EMI this ­prophecy did not materialise, and the box office failure of the film led to the third instalment in the trilogy not being made. Finally, there was the risible Not For Publication (Paul Bartel, 1984), in which Nancy Allen, best known for her role as the policewoman in RoboCop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987), played a journalist who happens upon a government cover up, and sees this as the chance to make her name in her field. All of which sounds like All the President’s Men (Alan J Pakula, 1976) territory, but rather than produce a tense political thriller, the filmmakers

 Bad Boys (16 February 1983). London: BBFC.  Strange Invaders (1983), London: BBFC. 38  Strange Invaders (8 July 1983). London: BBFC. 36 37

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decided to play the scenario for laughs. Perhaps the BBFC examiner’s report summed the film up best when it described it as the kind of innocuous comedy which, in the late 30s or 40s would have been directed by, say Ernst Lubitsch or Hawks, played by stars such as Cary Grant, William Powell, Spencer Tracy, Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Myrna Loy and which would have entertained or become a minor classic like Bringing up Baby or Monkey Business or The Thin Man. Here it is just plain dull; inadequately acted, routinely directed.39

By the time these films had been released, the Thatcher government was preparing to publish a report into the future of the British film industry, which would recommend the abolition of the Eady Levy. It also confirmed the dissolution of the NFFC, to be replaced by British Screen, to which Thorn-EMI and the other major industry players were supposed to commit £1.1 million to;40 although in its inaugural year, Thorn-EMI provided only £250,000,41 in a damning indictment of the government’s strategy. Thorn-EMI had bigger plans of its own, and by December 1984 issued shares to the value of £36 million in its upcoming slate of feature films; A Passage to India (David Lean, 1984), The Holcroft Covenant (John Frankenheimer, 1985), Dream Child (Gavin Millar, 1985), Morons From Outer Space (Mike Hodges, 1985) and Wild Geese II (Peter R. Hunt, 1985),42 the first releases that Lambert could genuinely identify as her own. As her production executive, Graham Easton would later remark, ‘we were a production department making feature films reflecting Verity’s wishes and tastes’.43 Lambert’s first production was a curious mix of crime thriller and horror, and also a US/UK crossover. Slayground (Terry Bedford, 1983) marks a transition point in EMI’s history, both literally and metaphorically, and it has a liminal feel to it that betrays its origins from two divergent production strategies. Lambert was not convinced by the script, but by employing Trevor Preston as the screenwriter, someone she had worked with before in her television career, she felt a degree of security. However,  Not For Publication (4 October 1984). London: BBFC.  Walker, J. (1985), p. 17. 41  Spicer, A. (2014). ‘The art and craft of producing films: Simon Relph.’ Journal of British Cinema and Television 11 (2–3), p. 242. 42  Walker, A. (1986), p. 286. 43  Marson, R. (2015), p. 243. 39 40

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as the film’s producer, John Dark, would later recall, he thought the script was ‘a pile of shit’, and that the writer was in ‘another world’.44 Dark had been brought in as a trusted confidant, and he had worked with EMI before, producing both Warlords of Atlantis and Arabian Adventure. He would later attempt to convince Lambert to pull the plug on the project,45 but the fact that they had already started production, coupled with this being her first film at EMI that she had been fully engaged with, ensured that it was completed. The film was originally developed while Spikings was still in charge, and it is likely that if he had stayed, it would have remained entirely set in the USA. As it transpires, only the first half of the film now does, following a group of American petty criminals. But in a metaphorical handing over of the baton, the second half of the film transports the action to England, and takes a dramatic shift in tone from what had until then been a pedestrian American thriller, bringing in supernatural elements that shift the film towards a more English gothic sensibility. The title likewise appears to cross two boundaries, suggesting a horror film but also referring to the patch in which these criminals operate. Thus, on its release, it was regarded as a confused piece of work, but in hindsight, the film has some genuinely atmospheric moments and marks the point at which historically, EMI transitioned back towards making films set in Britain and which focused specifically on British culture. The failure of this film also coincided with another low point in Lambert’s personal life, with her arrest for drink driving and subsequent court appearance in January 1984. Initially banned from driving for a year after failing to ­provide a blood sample,46 she was later acquitted on appeal; but a significant amount of reputational damage had been done, and this was another unwelcome distraction for both Lambert and EMI, ultimately leading to her leaving Euston Films to focus completely on the EMI job. From this moment on, Lambert’s programme was explicitly British, and a line had been drawn in the sand. The company that only a few years previously had not supported Chariots of Fire and Gandhi (two films that Lambert referenced in a Film ‘83 interview as being the type of British film she would like the company to make47), was now preparing to release David Lean’s A Passage to India (1984). Lambert had only been at the company  Marson, R. (2015), p. 245.  Marson, R. (2015), p. 246. 46  Marson, R. (2015), p. 249. 47  Marson, R. (2015), p. 242. 44 45

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for a few months when it went into production, and while it was a lesser Lean work, it was still widely praised, and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning for Best Supporting Actress for Peggy Ashcroft, and Best Original Score for Maurice Jarre. In its depiction of the ambiguities of a case surrounding an Indian doctor, Aziz Ahmed (Victor Banerjee) accused of raping an Englishwoman, Adela Quested (Judy Davis), the film does not provide any easy answers, and as the alleged attack takes place off screen (it is similarly left to the reader’s interpretation in E.M. Forster’s original novel) we do not know for certain whether he is guilty or not, despite him being acquitted after Quested withdraws her original accusation near the film’s conclusion. And while many contemporary critics interpreted it as a film which exposed the inherent racism of the British Raj, the film, like the novel, is a more ambiguous proposition. As the BBFC examiners report noted, for a start, the film undermines its critique by having Alec Guinness portray an Indian,48 but more importantly, it is the uncertainty surrounding the crime that is the key idea here, and its metaphor for the regime of the Raj itself. Lean is not criticising the Raj; instead, he is refusing to be drawn into a critique of it, and suggests that its legacy is far more complex than what can be offered by  a simplistic good/bad analysis. It is therefore a much more challenging statement on the British Empire, which enables it to be interpreted in both positive and negative lights. It was also a welcome shot in the arm for Thorn-EMI and Lambert, although as with Forbes and The Go-Between, it was perhaps a case of too little, too late. An indication of this can be seen in the reaction to Lambert’s next film, which was perceived by many in the industry as her way of restoring faith in Thorn-EMI with the many filmmakers who had deserted the company in the wake of its rejection of Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero. By funding his next feature, Comfort and Joy (1984), Lambert was brokering a truce and announcing to British filmmakers that Thorn-EMI was back in business in Britain. But like the Lean film, it was not as warmly received as Forsyth’s other work, although the plot, about a radio DJ, Allan Bird (Bill Paterson) who becomes embroiled in the ‘turf wars’ between two rival ice cream van proprietors and their families, is a quirky and fascinating exploration of the national psyche. The film plays on a number of British cinema clichés, most obviously the obsession with war, which the film recreates metaphorically with the two opposing ice cream vendors. Bird communicates  A Passage to India (14 December 1984). London: BBFC.

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with them via coded messages on his radio show, and ultimately mediates between the two families and proposes a way that they can work together in business. This is a literal ‘cold war’, that while mocking the real international diplomatic conflict five years before the fall of the Berlin wall, was also based on historical events much closer to home; there was a genuine ‘turf war’ in Glasgow in the 1980s conducted by rival groups operating out of ice cream vans, but they were selling drugs and guns, whereas the film highlights the absurdity of conflict with its substitution of drugs for ice cream. Its targets may have been more obvious and the humour more forced than in Forsyth’s previous work, but it was still a major statement on British culture in the early 1980s, from one of its most talented filmmakers. It was also significant in being the first film that EMI had set in Scotland, and picked up on a renewed interest in Scottish filmmaking that Forsyth had done a great deal to cultivate. Thus, Lambert’s follow-up, Restless Natives (Michael Hoffman, 1985) by a first-time director, Michael Hoffman, focused on a couple of young Scottish men who hijack tourist buses, and did extremely well in Scottish cinemas. Not everyone was convinced, and it struggled to find an audience in other territories, with the BBFC report calling it an ‘awfully tedious film’,49 and ‘an inept exercise in Scottish whimsy, a newish genre I think I could shortly come to loathe, however pretty the scenery’.50 But these were English reviewers operating out of London, and it is more likely that the film’s lack of success was ­actually due to it telling its audience a few home truths about the cinema’s bastardisation of ‘Scottishness’, and the tourist trade’s and film industry’s willingness to be complicit in this. It was about people wanting to take from a local culture without offering anything in return, and two local heroes who see it as their duty to get something back from these interlopers. Thus, it was a defining statement from the company about the importance of protecting one’s own culture, and clearly was chosen by Lambert for what was perceived to be its inherent ‘Britishness’. In this case, the story was perhaps too parochial to attract a wider audience, but it was the type of film that British filmmakers had been calling on EMI to make for many years, and it was indicative of what the company could do if it decided to invest more completely in British filmmaking.

 Restless Natives (4 April 1985). London: BBFC.  Restless Natives (28 January 1985)

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This approach would become both the strength and the weakness of Lambert’s strategy, as can be witnessed by the next two films of her reign, which in their own ways highlighted what quickly became a perception that Thorn-EMI’s shift in strategy had resulted in films which lacked ambition and had few commercial prospects beyond small-scale runs at UK cinemas. This was partly fuelled by the antipathy towards Lambert by many in the film industry, who thought of her as a ‘TV’ person, ill equipped for film production, an attitude that was often tinged with an underlying sexism. Morons From Outer Space would only seem to confirm this, being as it was essentially a vehicle for the British television comedy double act Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. Smith plays one of the eponymous aliens whose companions accidently crash land on Earth and become minor celebrities, while he is stuck in space and arrives on Earth after they do. Destitute, Smith spends the majority of the film trying to find his compatriots, and it plays out as a two-hander in which his various attempts at socialising and imparting knowledge of his planet to the variety of people he meets ends in disaster and ignorance, while his vapid, self-obsessed companions are feted and idolised despite offering little to the human race. These ‘morons’ are helped along the way by a failing journalist, played by Jones, who eventually becomes their manager and arranges their various engagements while simultaneously trying to manage their childish wants. The film is a broad satire of both our obsession with celebrity culture and the optimistic beliefs of most science fiction that visitors to the planet would be intelligent. The ‘aliens’ are both strangers and reflections of our own failings—they are human, but from an alternative universe, a planet known simply as ‘Blob’. It was all ably directed by Mike Hodges of Get Carter fame, and is an intriguing concept with great potential, let down by only being mildly amusing in execution. Correspondence between the film’s editor and the BBFC, listed several changes that had been made to the film since the version that was originally submitted, although none of these bore any relation to cuts to language and the sex scene that the BBFC had previously requested—instead, changes such as adding new end titles and a new song, suggested filmmakers trying to salvage the product, and this was precisely the case—Lambert had sacked the film’s original producer Barry Hanson, and returned to John Dark to bring it in to shape. Recalling his work several years later, he would describe the role purely as damage limitation.51 The film had a budget of

 Marson, R. (2015), p. 246.

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£5 million but made just under £2 million at the UK box office,52 and was another example of EMI failing to deliver a comedy concept that was not already successful on television. Its production at Pinewood also signalled a further drift from its roots at Elstree. This failure was followed by an extraordinary film written by Dennis Potter, Dreamchild (Gavin Millar, 1985). The story of Alice Liddell, Lewis Carrol’s inspiration for Alice in Wonderland, is given a fascinating treatment by Potter’s script, and while this was a cinematic response to the story, the fact that it appeared to be yet another example of Lambert drawing on her television connections ensured that her critics viewed it as further evidence that she was out of her depth in filmmaking. Lambert asserted considerable editorial control on the finished product, effectively forcing the director, Gavin Millar to cut out entirely the scenes featuring Alice’s father, played by Nigel Hawthorne, which Millar asserts was due to a simmering resentment Lambert felt towards Hawthorne since he had testified against her in the Rock Follies court case.53 But this robbed the film of its most recognisable star, and this, coupled with the fact that as it was a Potter script, it was perhaps too experimental, too unusual, too challenging for the average cinemagoer, meant that this film also failed to attract a significant return. Likewise, Thorn-EMI’s commercial acquisitions department had invested in two films which would also fail to make the company any money. The first, Wild Geese II, was ripe for development as it was a sequel to one of the most successful films of the 1970s, The Wild Geese (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1978).54 However, it failed to recreate the drama and excitement of the original, nor the interest in the minds of the public. The BBFC report also objected to its exploitative tone, saying ‘this is a vile film which, were I able, I would ritually eliminate. … I cannot emphasise too much my loathing for this garbage!’,55 and while this might have been a slightly hyperbolic reaction, the film did not connect with audiences in the way that the first in the series had. This was followed by another disappointment, The Holcroft Covenant, based on a Robert Ludlum novel and starring Michael Caine as the inheritor of a fortune  Wickham, P. & Mettler, E. (2005), p. 26.  Horne, P. (March 2014). ‘Lost and Found: Dreamchild.’ Sight and Sound, 24(3), p. 100. 54  Walker, J. (1985), p. 24. 55  The Wild Geese II (23 May, 1985). London: BBFC. 52 53

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with links to the former Nazi regime. It had potential to be a great success, but the finished film plodded along at a slovenly, almost catatonic pace and was technically poor and with an inept structure. The absurdity of the plot, which as James Park pithily observed, assumed that the ‘contemporary cinema audience lived in constant fear of Rudolph Hess being released from Spandau prison, or a Fourth Reich being established’,56 was  too much even for Caine’s charisma to carry, and the film was another failure for the company. These releases coincided with the 1985 Films Act, which abolished the Eady Levy entirely and effectively ended the financial incentive to produce popular British cinema. This, along with the critical and commercial pressures that Thorn-EMI faced by the mid-1980s, marked the death-knell for the company, and in a final desperate act, it  appeared to return to the Deeley/Spikings production model, announcing a $175 million production fund to produce films for ‘the factory worker aged 42 in Cincinnati’.57 This slight shift back towards an American audience made obvious commercial sense, but Lambert had struggled to get off the ground productions that would presumably have fitted this bill. She had developed a script with Howard Schuman (who had written Rock Follies), about a group of British men who set up a restaurant in Manhattan, but her time at EMI was over before the film was developed any further.58 Similar fates befell the likes of John Carpenter, whose El Diablo script was also in development under her tenure, Fay Weldon’s adaptation of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, and Nancy Dowd’s script R and R,59 all work that was designed to have more international appeal. Of all of these attempts, the only film that Lambert managed to get into cinemas was Richard Franklin’s interesting horror film, Link (Richard Franklin, 1986). Franklin had made two Psycho sequels which had been generally well received amongst horror aficionados, and had secured Terence Stamp for the project. Stamp played a British academic researching chimpanzee behaviour, who takes on an American research student (Elisabeth Shue) to live and work with him at his remote country house-cum-laboratory. Stamp has three chimpanzees living with  Park, J. (1990), p. 148.  Walker, A. (1986), p. 286. 58  Marson, R. (2015), p. 250. 59  Marson, R. (2015), p. 252. 56 57

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him as research subjects, including the eponymous Link, who is the most intelligent of the group and capable of communicating via sign language. Shue discovers that Stamp has arranged for Link to be put down, but before she can confront him, he goes missing, leaving her alone in the house with the chimps. What transpires is a deadly battle between Shue and Link, who we realise has learned of his fate and has killed Stamp. John Dark described it as a ‘desperately unhappy’ film to work on,60 and Lambert clashed with Franklin, but despite its flaws it is an interesting update of the Frankenstein myth and ties it into modern notions of animal rights and the ethics of animal testing. Stamp is terrific as the professor, with his movement at times subtly replicating the behaviour of a chimpanzee, such as when he leaps up on to a table to chastise one of his subjects. Shue represents the younger, more caring presence, who has a gut feeling that the professor’s practices are not ethically sound, and she is the film’s moral compass. That her final action is to rescue the one remaining chimp, only for the camera to zoom out and reveal that he has slaughtered a herd of sheep, says a lot for the film’s view of Shue’s type of kindness in 1980s Britain, and it is notable that she is the film’s only American character. The film’s message can be interpreted in numerous ways; its sympathies could lie with Stamp, who is trying to control the base urges of the chimps and civilise them, and therefore it could be viewed as a right-wing paean to the type of authoritarianism that was pervading British society in the decade; but equally, it can be read as a critique of the free market liberalism that was the central tenet of Thatcher’s economic policy, with Stamp attempting to reign in and regulate the excesses of the uncivilised, unfettered animals in his charge, aided and abetted by an American who wants them to be free. Lambert’s last contribution to Thorn-EMI would be the John Cleese vehicle, Clockwise (Christopher Morahan, 1986). Cleese plays Brian Stimpson, the first headmaster of a comprehensive school to be invited to address the prestigious Headmasters’ Conference. The film is an account of the various mishaps that befall him as he attempts to attend the conference, from being mistakenly believed to have kidnapped a schoolgirl, through to stealing a car, and all culminating in his hilariously dishevelled speech to the conference before he is led away by the police. It was a major success, with a guaranteed box office comedy star with international recognition in Cleese, which enabled it to make almost £5 million

 Marson, R. (2015), p. 246.

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Fig. 10.1  Headmaster Brian Stimpson (John Cleese) leaves the assembly hall in disgrace in the final scene from EMI’s last release, Clockwise. ©STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd

at the UK box office61 and almost a further $1.5 million in the USA. The story of a respected and proud Brit struggling to maintain his dignity while all around him was crumbling, was an entirely apt way for EMI’s filmmaking endeavours to end, and this was added additional poignancy by the fact that the script had initially been introduced to Nat Cohen, who was still on the EMI board, and he produced it with Lambert.62 The final film to be released by EMI featured Nat Cohen’s name on the credits, and it was fitting that the man who had been there from the start, would also be present at the company’s demise (Fig. 10.1). Lambert had, like previous EMI production heads, a difficult relationship with the wider entertainment conglomerate that was ThornEMI, and by the time she had arrived, was already the captain of a sinking ship. In attempting to do this with verve and originality, she had faced some insurmountable obstacles:  Wickham, P. & Mettler, E. (2005), p. 20.  Marson, R. (2015), p. 254.

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When the distribution people tell you that they can distribute a film, it is usually because it is like another film that they could put into a category. If you are interested in making films that have some originality, that is always a problem for them. Almost every single film that I have put money into so far has come back from the distribution people with a very low assessment.63

As James Park wryly commented, the pedigree of some of the films she produced, such as Morons from Outer Space and Restless Natives, suggests that the distributors ‘had a case’; however, he felt that Thorn-EMI’s ‘commercially oriented’ acquisitions department, which had brought Wild Geese II and The Holcroft Covenant to the company, was ‘far worse’.64 As Duncan Petrie argues, ‘although the performance of the films was pretty bad, that was by no means the whole story’, pointing to the fact that Lambert’s department was only a small provider of content to what was essentially a large distribution firm which required at least 20 films per year.65 Lambert had struggled with this aspect of the job, and was used to getting things done quickly in her previous television roles. To suddenly be a small cog in the system did not sit well with her, and she has gone on record as describing her time at Thorn-EMI as the ‘unhappiest of my life’.66 Despite this, cumulatively, Thorn-EMI ‘seemed an organization dedicated to the production of mediocrity’,67 and this was reflected in its box office performance. As Park argues: Lambert’s declared interest in romance, optimism, comedy and entertainment was, it could be argued, a reasonable riposte to the number of British scripts pervaded with class guilt and heavy messages, but it also resulted in too many projects without much sense of excitement or urgency.68

During this period, EMI turned down My Beautiful Launderette (Stephen Frears, 1985), and Letter to Brezhnev (Chris Bernard, 1985), and it appeared that newer companies like Channel Four would usher in the 63  Park, J. (1985). ‘The Nervous Summer of the British Film Industry.’ Sight and Sound, 55(1), pp. 9–10. 64  Park, J. (1985), p. 10. 65  Petrie, D. (1991). Creativity and Constraint in the British Film Industry. London: Macmillan, pp. 99–100. 66  Marson, R. (2015), p. 241. 67  Park, J. (1985), p. 10. 68  Park, J. (1990), p. 148.

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more daring, challenging work of the late 1980s. In his assessment of British cinema in the 1980s, John Hill identified some of that decade’s political contradictions, comparing the inherent internationalism of the Conservative’s liberal economic agenda with “Little England” notions of national sovereignty and identity that increasingly stood at odds with the realities of globalizing economic and cultural forces.69 In many ways, Lambert’s EMI can be seem as embodying this paradoxical dichotomy, trying to create ‘British’ cultural films while at the same time establishing an international company. It was in many respects a ‘Thatcherite’ company, and this is also one of the reasons why it has been omitted from most histories of British cinema, which have tended to focus on films and filmmakers with a left-wing outlook. As Hill argues, ‘while the rightward turn of American cinema in the 1980s has been associated with a revival of morally conservative, entrepreneurial, and militaristic themes, it is difficult to identify an equivalent trend in British cinema’.70 I would argue that instead, this trend can be seen in Thorn-EMI at the strategic level, with a film policy that can be said to have had Thatcherite leanings. As with the Conservative government, ultimately these contradictions would implode on themselves, and the perception of Thorn-EMI as a parochial, risk averse company in content, coupled with the extreme financial risks precipitated by the poor commercial results of the films produced under Lambert’s tenure, ensured that there was little surprise when Gary Dartnell, Chief Executive of Thorn-EMI, chose not to renew Lambert’s contract. In sacking Lambert, Dartnell signalled the end of film production at Thorn-EMI, for while he announced a project development fund of £1.5 million,71 this was essentially a pot of money to which freelance producers could apply for. Ultimately, this new strategy would not come to pass, as Thorn-EMI had realised that it could provide a far greater return to its investors if it sold off its film assets. One such company, the American firm Cannon, which was run by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, had expressed an interest, but despite the antipathy towards much of Thorn-EMI’s output, the British Screen Advisory Council felt that this takeover would ‘lead to the elimination … of anything which could be called the British film

 Hill, J. (1999), p. 15.  Hill, J. (1999), p. 17. 71  Petrie, D. (1991), p. 100. 69 70

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industry’.72 Gary Dartnall attempted a management buyout, but could not raise the capital for the initial, non-returnable £10  million deposit, which Thorn insisted would be necessary for any interested party to continue the negotiations.73 The Australian entrepreneur, Alan Bond, stepped in to support Dartnell, and provided the money for a 45 per cent share in the company, outbidding Cannon with what would ultimately amount to an initial investment of over £20  million.74 But Dartnell still could not raise the rest of the capital needed, and thus Bond was forced to commit a further £118  million to purchase the company outright or forfeit the £10  million deposit that was part of the terms of his initial purchase.75 However, Bond only wanted the Australian rights to Thorn-EMI’s back catalogue of films, and had no intention on owning what was perceived to be a failing business. Cannon saw its opportunity and bought Bond out with a £178 million offer,76 although it is debateable as to how much of the expected profit from the sale Bond actually received, as Cannon found itself in severe financial difficulty within a year.77 Thus, even though Thorn-EMI had already put up the financing for Highlander (Russell Mulcahy, 1986), Cannon would take over the production of that film, and Clockwise would remain the final film produced under the EMI name. The company which only six years previously had felt powerful enough to take on the Hollywood studios at their own game, had now been bought out by a small American studio which until then was best known for the series of Death Wish films. It was an especially ironic way for Britain’s largest film company to cease production, but with this takeover, more than 15 years of filmmaking was finally at an end.

72  Walker, A. (2004). Icons in the fire: The Rise and Fall of Practically Everyone in the British Film Industry. London: Orion Books, p. 38. 73  Pandit, S. A. (1996). From Making to Music: The History of Thorn EMI. London: Hodder and Stoughton, p. 163. 74  Walker, A. (2004), p. 39. 75  Pandit, S. A. (1996), p. 166. 76  Hill, J. (1999), p. 41. 77  Pandit, S. A. (1996), p. 167.

CHAPTER 11

Conclusion

As the preceding chapters have shown, EMI was a complex and rapidly changing company, which both responded to changes in the industry as a whole and precipitated some itself. This chameleon-like nature ensured that it struggled to develop a clear identity throughout its existence and was, as Forbes had predicted, absorbed—although not due to it being successful. While it had several triumphs, overall it has become known as a failure and was always treated with suspicion by both the industry and critics, who perceived it to be not really interested in the British film industry at all. But as this book has shown, EMI’s failings can be related to several historical and economic factors which, over time, contributed to a gradual shift towards the type of work that was being produced in Hollywood. This was not the company’s intention from the outset—in fact, Delfont and Forbes explicitly set out to reinvigorate the British film industry. But while Spikings and Deeley would be the team that ultimately took EMI into American production, this was the culmination of a gradual shift in policy over the course of the early 1970s, predicated mainly on the success of a few of Cohen’s more commercial releases, especially the international complexion of Murder on the Orient Express. It was Orient Express which marked EMI’s shift to what can realistically be called a transnational filmmaking operation. Its international cast, crew, and setting all pointed to what would become a truly Anglo-American operation when Deeley and Spikings took over and was the first point at which critics started to question EMI’s commitment to Britain’s i­ ndigenous © The Author(s) 2018 P. Moody, EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94803-4_11

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industry. Yet, with Agatha Christie’s source material, and Albert Finney’s Poirot, it was grounded in a British sensibility and could realistically be proclaimed as a British success story. These elements of ‘Britishness’ are more difficult to discern in Deeley and Spiking’s output, but they are still there, and rather than seeing this period as an aberration, a moment when the company detached itself from British cinema, instead, this period was a transnational continuation of themes that had been present throughout the company’s history, and which enable its releases to be viewed as outputs of an extended British cinema. Thus, The Deer Hunter, a film about the lives of a small group of Vietnam veterans, directed by a young maverick American director, at first glance could not appear to be anything other than an American film; but this was a production that the American studios would not and could not make—a damning critique of America’s involvement in the Vietnam war and the destruction that this had wrought on these men. This could only have been made by a non-­American company, a fact that Deeley was well aware of, and this critical approach to both US politics and a broader anti-war agenda was part of a British sensibility, which first attracted Deeley to the project and which he sought to enforce until relations between him and Cimino broke down entirely. This sensibility can also be viewed in Deeley’s relationship with Sam Peckinpah, and Convoy was as much a diatribe on the American love affair with the road as was Honky Tonk Freeway, with the later Handgun taking a similarly critical view of America’s gun culture. As I have shown, even a film as ‘American’ as Times Square bears a striking similarity to EMI’s earlier The Railway Children, and it is notable that much of its cult following, including famous adherents like the indie rock band The Manic Street Preachers, was based in Britain. The film spoke to a British audience, and it is clear when viewing EMI’s American films as a whole as to why this was—they are essentially films about the USA which are made from an outsider’s viewpoint. These are not nationalistic metaphorical pats on the back, but often deeply satirical critiques of aspects of American culture and often veer into stereotype. It is this factor, more than any other, which enables these films and the company which made them to be reclaimed as part of the history of British cinema. It is this more sophisticated approach to the definition of a national culture that Higson was alluding to when he outlined the importance of analysing these films at the ‘site of consumption’. This was not, as authors like Hill have argued, an approach that opened up the possibility of incorporating Hollywood films into the national culture, but instead was an

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acknowledgement that British audiences could discern a British sensibility or influence in a transnational production and respond to it in a way that they would to a film that was more obviously British. It allowed for audiences to feel a cultural connection to a film that was not necessarily set in their country of origin, by dint of recognising elements within in that were identifiably part of a shared cultural heritage. This acknowledgement of the broader international influences on a production does not necessarily diminish the film’s national elements; in fact, for some audiences, it reinforces them and enables a broader conception of British cinema based on cultural, rather than purely industrial, terms. EMI is a paradigmatic example of how the boundaries of national cinema are mutable and in constant flux, and its omission from the national cinematic canon is endemic of a long-held rigidity in most critical discussions of British film culture. EMI Films occupies a unique and uniquely important place within the British filmmaking tradition, and its history reveals the limits of British cinema to be more flexible and permeable than they may first appear.

Selected Bibliography

Barber, S. (2009). “Blue Is the Pervading Shade”: Re-examining British Film Censorship in the 1970s. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 6(3), 349–369. Barber, S. (2011). Censoring the 1970s: The BBFC and the Decade That Taste Forgot. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. Barber, S. (2013). The British Film Industry in the 1970s: Capital, Culture and Creativity. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Barnett, A., McGrath, J., Mathews, J., & Wollen, P. (1976). Interview with Tony Garnett and Ken Loach: Family Life in the Making. Jump Cut, 10–11, 43–45. Benson, S. (1981, August 21). Honky Tonk Freeway. The LA Times. Box, B. (2000). Lifting the Lid: The Autobiography of Film Producer Betty Box. London: Book Guild Publishing. Brunsdon, C. (2010). Towards a History of Empty Spaces. In The City and the Moving Image (pp. 91–103). London: Palgrave. Bull, J. (1969, January 16). Portfolio. The Spectator. Burton, A., & O’Sullivan, T. (2009). The Cinema of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Christ, J. (1981, September). Honky Tonk Freeway. Saturday Review. Christie, I. (2013). Where Is National Cinema Today (And Do We Still Need It)? Film History, 25(1–2), 19–30. Ciment, M. (1985). Conversations with Losey. London: Methuen. Connelly, R. (1976, September). Bianca Jagger and the Film That Never Was. Sunday Times Magazine.

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Deeley, M. (2008). Blade Runners, Deer Hunters and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies. London: Faber and Faber. Deighton, J. (1969, July 2). ACTT Closes Door: What the Studios Think. Today’s Cinema. Delfont, B. (1990). East End, West End. London: Macmillan. Dickinson, M., & Street, S. (1985). Cinema and State: The Film Industry and the British Government, 1927–1984. London: BFI Publishing. EMI Annual Reports. (1968–1976). London: EMI. Eves, V. (1970). The Structure of the British Film Industry. Screen, 11(1), 41–54. Forbes, B. (1974). Notes for a Life. London: William Collins Sons & Co. Forbes, B. (1992). A Divided Life. London: Mandarin. Forster, L., & Harper, S. (2010). British Culture and Society in the 1970s: The Lost Decade. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. Grade, L. (1987). Still Dancing: My Story. London: William Collins & Sons. Gray, W.  R. (2007). The Time in Our Minds: The Presence of the Past in The Go-Between. The Journal of Popular Culture, 40(4), 643–654. Griffin, N., & Masters, K. (1996). Hit & Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for A Ride in Hollywood. London: Simon & Schuster. Harper, S., & Smith, J.  (Eds.). (2013). British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure (pp. 269–274). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Hedling, E. (1997). Lindsay Anderson and the Development of British Art Cinema. In R. Murphy (Ed.), The British Cinema Book (3rd ed., pp. 39–45). London: BFI. Higbee, W., & Lim, S. (2010). Concepts of Transnational Cinema: Towards a Critical Transnationalism in Film Studies. Transnational Cinemas, 1(1), 7–21. Higson, A. (1989). The Concept of National Cinema. Screen, 30(4), 52–67. Higson, A. (1994). A Diversity of Film Practices: Renewing British Cinema in the 1970s. In B.  Moore-Gilbert (Ed.), The Arts in the 1970s: Cultural Closure (pp. 226–249). London: Routledge. Hill, J.  (1992). The Issue of National Cinema and British Film Production. In D. Petrie (Ed.), New Questions of British Cinema (pp. 10–21). London: BFI. Hill, J.  (1993). Government Policy and the British Film Industry. European Journal of Communication, 8, 203–224. Hill, J. (1999). British Cinema in the 1980s. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill, J.  (2010). Revisiting British Film Studies. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 7(2), 299–310. Hjort, M. (2010). On the Plurality of Cinematic Transnationalism. In N. Durovicová & K. Newman (Eds.), World Cinema, Transnational Perspectives (pp. 12–33). London: Routledge. Horne, P. (2014). Lost and Found: Dreamchild. Sight and Sound, 24(3), 100. Jones, E. (1994). Re-viewing the Losey-Pinter Go-Between. In W.  W. Dixon (Ed.), Re-viewing British Cinema, 1900–1992 (pp.  211–219). Albany: State University of New York.

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King, P. (1972, January 15). Sincerely, Delfont. The Spectator. Klein, J. (1985). Making Pictures: The Pinter Screenplays. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Knight, A. (1981, August 20). Honky Tonk Freeway. The Hollywood Reporter. Lovell, A. (1972). The Unknown Cinema of Britain. Cinema Journal, 11(2), 1–8. Macnab, G. (1993). J  Arthur Rank and the Rise of the British Film Industry. London: Routledge. Marson, R. (2015). Drama and Delight: The Life of Verity Lambert. Tadworth: Miwk Publishing. McFarlane, B. (2007). Surviving After Ealing: The Later Careers of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 24(1), 65–71. Morley, P. (2006). A Life Rewound. London: Bank House Books. Murphy, R. (1986). Under the Shadow of Hollywood. In C. Barr (Ed.), All Our Yesterdays (pp. 47–71). London: BFI. Newland, P. (2009). On Location in 1970s London: Gavrik Losey. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 6(2), 302–312. Newland, P. (2010). Don’t Look Now: British Cinema in the 1970s. London: Intellect. Newland, P. (2013). British Films of the 1970s. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Norman, B. (1981, October 19). Honky Tonk Freeway. Radio Times. Palmer, T. (1972, January 1). Unholy Family. The Spectator. Pandit, S. A. (1996). From Making to Music: The History of Thorn EMI. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Park, J.  (1985). The Nervous Summer of the British Film Industry. Sight and Sound, 55(1), 9–10. Park, J. (1990). British Cinema: The Lights That Failed. London: BT Batsford. Petley, J. (1986). The Lost Continent. In C. Barr (Ed.), All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema (pp. 98–119). London: BFI. Petrie, D. (1991). Creativity and Constraint in the British Film Industry. London: Macmillan. Petrie, D. (1996). British Cinema: The Search for Identity. In G. Nowell-Smith (Ed.), The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pirie, D. (2009). A New Heritage of Horror. London: IB Tauris. Sconce, J.  (1995). “Trashing” the Academy: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style. Screen, 36(4), 371–393. Shail, R. (2008). Seventies British Cinema. London: Palgrave. Smith, J. (2008). Glam, Spam and Uncle Sam: Funding Diversity in 1970s British Film Production. In R.  Shail (Ed.), Seventies British Cinema (pp.  67–80). London: Palgrave. Spicer, A. (2004). The Production Line: Reflections on the Role of the Film Producer in British Cinema. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 1(1), 33–50.

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Spicer, A. (2014). The Art and Craft of Producing Films: Simon Relph. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 11(2–3), 236–251. Stubbs, J. (2009). The Eady Levy: A Runaway Bribe? Hollywood Production and British Subsidy in the Early 1960s. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 6(1), 1–20. Walker, A. (1983, January 4). EMI’s Film Chief Quits. Evening Standard. Walker, A. (1986a). National Heroes: British Cinema in the Seventies and Eighties. London: Harrap. Walker, A. (1986b). Hollywood, England: The British Film Industry in the Sixties (2nd ed.). London: Harrap. Walker, A. (2004). Icons in the Fire: The Rise and Fall of Practically Everyone in the British Film Industry. London: Orion Books. Walker, J. (1985). The Once and Future Film. London: Methuen. Wickham, P., & Mettler, E. (2005). Back to the Future: The Fall and Rise of the British Film Industry in the 1980s. London: BFI Publishing. Williamson, B. (1981, October). Honky Tonk Freeway. Playboy. Wood, L. (1983). British Films, 1971–1981. London: BFI Publishing.

Index

NUMBERS AND SYMBOLS 25 Years—Impressions (Peter Morley, 1977), 150 A Aces High (Jack Gold, 1976), 138, 139 Agutter, Jenny, 39, 40 Alfie (Lewis Gilbert, 1966), 11, 139 Alfie Darling (Ken Hughes, 1975), 139 All Creatures Great and Small (Claude Whatham, 1975), 138, 139, 150 All the Way Up (James MacTaggart, 1970), 98–101 Amazing Howard Hughes, The (William Graham, 1977), 149 Anderson, Lindsay, 1, 139, 182, 184–187 And Soon the Darkness (Robert Fuest, 1970), 14, 27, 30, 38 Anglo-Amalgamated, 14, 84, 85 Arabian Adventure (Kevin Connor, 1979), 153, 162, 164, 166, 193

Are You Being Served (Bob Kellett, 1977), 109 Ashton, Frederick, 41, 42, 78 Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC), 11, 12, 14, 27, 32, 35, 53, 85, 98, 144 Associated Film Distributors, 166 Attenborough, Richard, 15, 26, 32, 166 Aubrey, James T., 54, 55, 59, 65, 66 Awakening, The (Mike Newell, 1980), 167 B Bad Boys (Rick Rosenthal, 1983), 190 Bates, Alan, 59, 60, 63 Bates, Ralph, 91, 93 Baxter! (Lionel Jeffries, 1973), 132 Beale, Peter, 166, 187 Bennett, Hywel, 103, 104, 116 Best Pair of Legs in the Business, The (Christopher Hodson, 1973), 130 Billing, Graham, 68, 69, 75 Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (Seth Holt, 1971), 92, 167 ‘Bloody Sunday’ massacre, 47

© The Author(s) 2018 P. Moody, EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94803-4

213

214 

INDEX

Body, The (Roy Battersby, 1970), 83, 89, 142, 184 Bond, Alan, 203 Borehamwood, 5, 20, 54, 55, 57 Boulting, Roy, 71, 72, 74 Boyd, Don, 171–173, 175–177, 179, 188 Boy Friend, The (Ken Russell, 1971), 57 Brabourne, John, 41, 136 Breaking of Bumbo, The (Andrew Sinclair, 1970), 14, 36, 45 Britannia Hospital (Lindsay Anderson, 1981), 1, 182, 184, 186 British Film Production Fund, see Eady Levy British Lion, 22, 70, 71, 74, 116, 144–146, 149, 153, 165 Britishness, 8, 81, 195, 206 C Caine, Michael, 112, 139, 148, 197, 198 Can’t Stop the Music (Nancy Walker, 1980), 169, 170 Cannon Films, 168, 202, 203 Carreras, James, 91, 131, 164 Carry On film series, 84, 105, 107, 185 Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson, 1981), 166, 187, 193 Cheap Detective, The (Robert Moore, 1978), 147, 148 Cheshire, VC, 24 Christie, Agatha, 90, 116, 136, 164, 206 Christie, Julie, 59, 61, 63, 184 Cimino, Michael, 6, 9, 154–156, 158, 159, 171, 206 Cleese, John, 199, 200 Clemens, Brian, 27, 28

Clement, Dick, 111, 112 Clinton, Ed, 172, 174, 177 Clockwise (Christopher Morahan, 1986), 199, 200, 203 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977), 6, 149 Cohen, Nat, 10, 14, 16, 35, 41, 42, 45, 46, 50, 79, 80, 84–86, 90, 94, 96, 98, 100, 101, 103–105, 111, 112, 118, 119, 122, 123, 125–130, 133, 134, 136–138, 140–142, 145, 146, 150, 151, 164, 200, 205 Columbia Pictures, 66, 68, 147 Comfort and Joy (1984), 194 Connor, Kevin, 6, 153, 162 Convoy (Sam Peckimpah, 1978), 6, 153–155, 161, 163, 180, 206 Cracker Factory, The (Burt Brinckerhoff, 1979), 149 Cross Creek (Martin Ritt, 1983), 191 Cross of Iron (Sam Peckinpah, 1977), 151, 153 Croydon, John, 70, 72–74, 112, 115 D Dark, John, 162, 193, 196, 199 Dartnell, Gary, 188, 202, 203 De Niro, Robert, 155, 156 Dearden, Basil, 14, 31, 32, 34, 37 Death on the Nile (John Guillermin,1978), 6, 136, 138, 153, 164, 167, 180, 183, 187 Deeley, Michael, 144–149, 151–161, 163–167, 180, 198, 205, 206 Deep, The (Peter Yates, 1977), 6, 147, 161 Deer Hunter, The (Michael Cimino, 1978), 6, 9, 153–157, 160, 163, 167, 180, 190, 206

 INDEX 

Delfont, Bernard, 12–14, 26, 27, 35, 36, 39, 46, 49, 50, 53, 54, 63, 65–67, 76–80, 84, 92, 103, 123, 128, 134, 135, 137, 140, 143–147, 149–151, 155, 157, 163–166, 168, 170, 180, 205 Demons of the Mind (Peter Sykes, 1972), 93, 122, 142 Diablo, El, 198 Diamond, Neil, 168 Dove, The (Charles Jarrott, 1974), 133–136 Dreamchild (Gavin Millar, 1985), 197 Driver, The (Walter Hill, 1978), 153, 159, 180 Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (Roy Ward Baker, 1971), 93 Dulcima (Frank Nesbitt, 1970), 14, 43, 50 E Eady Levy, 4, 5, 134, 192, 198 Edzard, Christine, 42, 162 Elstree Studios, 12, 13, 18–23, 26, 29, 35, 42, 43, 54, 55, 65, 73, 74, 76–78, 86, 90, 91, 113, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140, 180, 197 Endless Night (Sidney Gilliat, 1972), 116, 117 Entertaining Mr Sloane (Douglas Hickox, 1970), 86, 107 Essex, David, 119, 121, 122 Evil Under the Sun (Guy Hamilton, 1982), 136, 182 F Family Life (Ken Loach, 1971), 125, 128, 142, 184 Fear in the Night (Jimmy Sangster, 1972), 93

215

Fear is the Key (Michael Tuchner, 1973), 6, 114, 133, 142 Ferman, James, 9, 122, 154, 157–159, 184 Film Finances, 70–72, 74, 104, 112, 115 Final Programme, The (Robert Fuest, 1973), 131, 142 A Fine and Private Place, 14, 25, 43, 70, 154 Fonteyn, Margot, 78 Footsteps (Alan Parker, 1974), 135 Forbes, Bryan, 1, 2, 5, 10, 13–27, 29–32, 35–39, 41–43, 45, 47–55, 57–81, 85, 86, 90, 94, 100, 115, 127, 128, 133, 139, 141, 142, 146, 152, 154, 164, 171, 180, 189, 194, 205 Forsyth, Bill, 187, 194, 195 For the Love of Ada (Ronnie Baxter, 1972), 109 Frances (Graeme Clifford, 1982), 183 Franklin, Pamela, 28, 37 Franklin, Richard, 198, 199 Frazer, Austin, 14, 18, 20, 50, 52, 53 Fuest, Robert, 14, 27, 131 G Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982), 166, 193 Garnett, Tony, 89, 126, 127, 183, 184 George, Susan, 38, 86 Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971), 57, 112, 134, 196 Gilliat, Sidney, 71, 116 Globus, Yoram, 202 Go-Between, The (Joseph Losey, 1971), 6, 14, 15, 22, 36, 57, 59, 61, 67, 70, 75–77, 84, 133, 137, 142, 194 Golan, Menahem, 202

216 

INDEX

Goodwin, Richard, 41, 42 Grade, Leslie, 11, 94 Grade, Lew, 147, 150, 164–166 Greatest, The (Tom Gries and Monte Hellman, 1977), 147, 148 H Hammer Films, 90, 92, 131 Handgun (Tony Garnett, 1982), 183, 184 Handmade Films, 164 A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester, 1964), 4 Hargreaves, John, 14, 21, 26, 35, 36, 43, 73, 74, 79, 80 Harlech, Lord, 89, 159 Heath, Edward, 17, 28, 29, 96 Henry VIII and his Six Wives (Waris Hussein, 1972), 129 Highlander (Russell Mulcahy, 1986), 203 Hoffman (Alvin Rakoff, 1970), 14, 27, 29, 30, 43 Holcroft Covenant, The (John Frankenheimer, 1985), 192, 197, 201 Holiday on the Buses (Bryan Izzard, 1972), 96, 97, 130 Hollywood, 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 18, 51, 57, 59, 129, 136, 137, 143, 146–149, 152, 160, 166, 167, 171, 172, 177, 182, 183, 188, 203, 205, 206 Honky Tonk Freeway (John Schlesinger, 1981), 171, 175, 176, 178, 180, 206 Horror of Frankenstein (Jimmy Sangster, 1970), 91 House in Nightmare Park, The (Peter Sykes, 1973), 107 Howerd, Frankie, 104–108

Hurt, John, 68, 69, 72, 75 Hussein, Waris, 129, 130, 134 I I am a Dancer (Pierre Jourdan, 1972), 78 Imi, Tony, 48, 78 It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet (Eric Till, 1976), 6, 150 J Janni, Joe, 117 Jazz Singer, The (Richard Fleischer, 1980), 168, 170 Jeffries, Lionel, 1, 6, 14, 38–41, 132 Jones, Geoffrey, 23–25, 79, 80 K Keep it up Downstairs (Robert Young, 1976), 109 Kellett, Bob, 6, 85, 104, 105, 107–109 L La Frenais, Ian, 111, 112 La Rue, Danny, 108 Lady Caroline Lamb (Robert Bolt, 1972), 6, 133 Lambert, Verity, 188–190, 192–202 Launder, Frank, 71, 116 Lean, David, 192–194 Letter to Brezhnev (Chris Bernard, 1985), 201 Likely Lads, The (Michael Tuchner, 1976), 111, 122, 138 Link (Richard Franklin, 1986), 198 Lion, 165 Loach, Ken, 48, 85, 89, 125–129 Local Hero, 187, 194

 INDEX 

Lockwood, Sir Joseph, 12, 38, 135, 137 Longest Day, The (Ken Annakin, 1962), 24 Long Good Friday, The (John Mackenzie, 1979), 164 Long Loud Silence, The, 22, 116, 152 Losey, Joseph, 6, 14, 49, 59–67, 85 Love Thy Neighbour (John Robbins, 1973), 6, 97 Lumley, Joanna, 45, 46 Lust for a Vampire (Jimmy Sangster, 1971), 92 M Made (John Mackenzie, 1972), 117, 118, 122 Madwoman of Challiot, The (Bryan Forbes, 1969), 17 Man at the Top (Mike Vardy, 1973), 130 Man Who Haunted Himself, The (Basil Dearden, 1970), 14, 15, 27, 31–34, 36 McDowell, Malcolm, 48, 185 McShane, Ian, 63, 112 Memoirs of a Survivor (David Gladwell, 1981), 182, 184, 187 Mercer, Bob, 125, 127, 176, 178 MGM, 4, 5, 22, 54, 55, 57, 59, 64–66, 112, 135, 143 Mills, Hayley, 68, 75 Mills, John, 43, 44 Mills, Reginald, 6, 42 Mirror Crack’d, The (Guy Hamilton, 1980), 167, 182 Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979), 163 Moore, Robert, 147, 148 Moore, Roger, 15, 31, 33, 34, 37 Morons From Outer Space (Mike Hodges, 1985), 192, 196, 201

217

Mr Forbush and the Penguins (Al Viola, 1970), 14, 22, 68, 75 Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet, 1974), 6, 105, 136, 138, 205 Murphy, Stephen, 88, 96, 106, 110, 111, 117, 119–122, 126–128, 130, 131 Mutiny on the Buses (Harry Booth, 1972), 6, 96, 133 My Beautiful Launderette (Stephen Frears, 1985), 7, 201 N National cinema, see Britishness National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC), 5, 70, 74, 87, 120–122, 126, 140, 143, 182, 184, 189, 192 Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width (Ronnie Baxter, 1972), 109 Newman, Barry, 114 Newman, Nanette, 13, 17, 48, 50, 131 Nickelodeon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1976), 145, 147 Not For Publication (Paul Bartel, 1984), 191 Nureyev, Rudolph, 77, 78 O On the Buses (Harry Booth, 1971), 6, 83, 84, 94, 96, 97, 99, 101, 106, 128, 130, 137, 145 Orion Pictures, 162, 167 Orton, Joe, 86–88 Our Cissy (Alan Parker, 1974), 134 Our Miss Fred (Bob Kellett, 1972), 108 P Paddick, Hugh, 105, 107 Paramount Pictures, 25, 133, 135, 153, 164

218 

INDEX

Parker, Alan, 43–45, 134, 135 A Passage to India (David Lean, 1984), 192, 193 Passion of Remembrance (Maureen Blackwood and Isaac Julien, 1986), 7 Peck, Gregory, 133–136 Peckinpah, Sam, 6, 151–155, 206 Percy (Ralph Thomas, 1971), 6, 83–85, 103 Percy’s Progress (Ralph Thomas, 1974), 104 Phillips, Leslie, 98, 108 Pinewood, 18, 78, 197 Pinter, Harold, 59, 61–63, 66 Polanski, Roman, 92, 132 Powell, Michael, 15, 42 Puttnam, David, 119, 121, 122, 140, 141, 187 Q Queen Elizabeth II, 150 Quota films, 134 R Raging Moon, The (Bryan Forbes, 1971), 47, 49, 50, 67, 77, 78 Railway Children, The (Lionel Jeffries, 1970), 1, 6, 14, 27, 36, 39, 41, 42, 60, 69, 77, 83, 132, 133, 142, 143, 169, 206 R and R, 198 Rank Organisation, 6, 12 Reach for the Sky (Lewis Gilbert, 1956), 24 Read, John, 13, 22, 26, 47, 51, 54, 137 Relph, Michael, 32, 37, 173 Restless Natives (Michael Hoffman, 1985), 195, 201

Richard, Cliff, 12, 52, 118, 119 Roar (Noel Marshall, 1981), 164 Rock Follies (Brian Farnham/Jon Scoffield, 1976), 189–190, 197, 198 Russell, Ken, 57–59, 186 S Sangster, Jimmy, 91–93 Scars of Dracula (Roy Ward Baker, 1970), 91 Schlesinger, John, 85, 171–178 Second Thoughts (Lawrence Turman, 1982), 190 Sellers, Peter, 29, 31, 37 Seven Nights in Japan (Lewis Gilbert, 1976), 138, 139 Sherrin, Ned, 105–107 Silver Bears, The (Ivan Passer, 1977), 148 Sinclair, Andrew, 14, 45 Sink or Swim (John Michael Phillips, 1978), 149 Slayground (Terry Bedford, 1983), 192 Some Will, Some Won’t (Duncan Wood, 1970), 98 SOS Titanic (William Hale, 1979), 149 Spanish Fly (Bob Kellett, 1975), 108, 138 Special Olympics (Lee Phillips, 1978), 149 Spikings, Barry, 144–149, 151–153, 155, 156, 158–161, 165–167, 171, 172, 176, 177, 179, 180, 182–184, 187, 188, 190, 193, 198, 205, 206 Spring and Port Wine (Peter Hammond, 1970), 86, 98 S*P*Y*S (Irvin Kershner, 1974), 133, 135, 136

 INDEX 

Stamp, Terence, 198, 199 Stardust (Michael Apted, 1974), 6, 120–123, 140, 182 Steel Cowboy (Harvey S Laidman, 1978), 149 Steptoe and Son (Cliff Owen, 1972), 6, 110 Steptoe and Son Ride Again (Peter Sykes, 1973), 111 St John, Earl, 16 Stories from a Flying Trunk (Christine Edzard, 1979), 162 Straight on Till Morning (Peter Collinson, 1972), 93 Strange Invaders (Michael Laughlin, 1983), 191 Summer Holiday (Peter Yates, 1963), 11 Sweeney! (David Wickes, 1977), 6, 162 Sweeney 2 (Tom Clegg, 1978), 162 Sykes, Peter, 93, 94, 107, 108, 111 T Take Me High (David Askey, 1973), 118 Tales of Beatrix Potter (Reginald Mills, 1971), 6, 27, 41, 83, 84, 162 Tales of Hoffman (Michael Powell, 1950), 42 Tender Mercies (Bruce Beresford, 1983), 190, 191 That’ll be the Day (Claude Whatham, 1973), 6, 119–122, 133, 134, 182 Thatcher, Margaret, 181, 182, 184, 189, 192, 199 Times Square (Allan Moyle, 1980), 168, 206 To the Devil a Daughter (Peter Sykes, 1976), 94, 138

219

Transnational cinema, 9 Trevelyan, John, 30, 45, 87–89, 98–100, 105, 106, 113 Trick or Treat?, 140 Tuchner, Michael, 6, 111, 112, 114, 116, 138 Twiggy, 57–59 U United Artists, 4, 22, 153 Universal Studios, 6 Up Pompeii (Bob Kellett, 1971), 6, 83–85, 104 Up the Chastity Belt (Bob Kellett, 1972), 6, 85, 105 Up the Front (Bob Kellett, 1972), 107, 108 V Varney, Reg, 95, 96, 130 Villain (Michael Tuchner, 1971), 112–114, 122, 142 Viola, Al, 14, 71, 72, 74 W Warlords of Atlantis (Kevin Connor, 1978), 6, 161, 180, 193 Warner Brothers, 12, 159 Waterman, Dennis, 92, 162 Watson, Paul, 15, 25 Weekend of a Champion (Frank Simon & Roman Polanski, 1972), 132 Welcome to Blood City (Peter Sasdy, 1977), 151 Whatham, Claude, 6, 119, 134, 138 White, Carol, 43, 44, 117 Wild Geese II (Peter Hunt, 1985), 192, 197, 201

220 

INDEX

Wilson, Harold, 86, 104, 143, 145, 150 Wings Over the World (Uncredited, 1979), 149 Wolves of Willoughby Chase, The, 198

Y Young Ones, The (Sidney J Furie, 1961), 11 Your Undoubted Queen (John Trumper & Ronald Webster, 1978), 149