Patrick (Paddy) Carey

BEHP transcript Disclaimer

This transcript has been produced automatically using Otter, https://get.otter.ai/interview-transcription/.

It provides a basic, but unverified or proofread transcript of the interview. Therefore, the British Entertainment History Project (BEHP) accepts no liability for any misinterpretation of the content of this interview.

However, the BEHP wants to make every effort to improve the quality of these transcripts and would welcome any voluntary offers to proofread this and/or other interviews. If you want to help, please contact BEHP Secretary,  sue.malden@btinternet.com.

John Taylor  0:01  
 The copyright of this recording is vested in the AC t t History Project. Petty carry caramon interview, john Taylor, with Alan Lawson, recorded on the fourth Of March 1991. side one is done by the staff, with you to be born.

Start with where you live, where you live, where you live, we went to school.

Paddy Carey  0:46  
When the first school was a bit disasters, I think that was in Dublin. Oh, that's sort of kindergarten in London, which is where I was born. My father was in the civil service. And when he joined the civil service, of course, the Irish civil service was part of the British civil service about when Ireland became independent, independent, my father was invited back to Ireland. And he went back into the Irish civil service. So we went back when I was seven. So I grew up there. My first school was a convent school, which was far too Catholic for my Catholic parents. And so they cut me out for that and put me in a non denominational school. And I was nondenominational until I went to, at the behest of the bishop, I think, kill Catholic college, which is one of the big Catholic public schools. And that was murder. As far as I was concerned, we had to work very hard indeed. And we learned far too much religion and Irish language to be of any use to us. But it was denied in we but we have no art or no science. And those even when I went to that school were both interests of mine. And it was the interest in science, I suppose that can lead me eventually to natural history. But even as a child, I was interested in nature. And I know when we went for a picnic at Bristol Bay, or re or somewhere like that, I would suddenly be noticed as missing because I've gone off looking at butterflies. And I had won the bat class, I'm conscious that my parents were on the point of calling the police in. But that was only a taste of things to come. When I went to cast and knock all that was drummed out of me seriously. And really. And I went on, theoretically, I wasn't interested in science, but I got interested in science when it became mathematical. I was interested in it when you could mix two chemicals together and they either change colour or blue up one or the other. And, but it's the moment I got into science in school, which there was one of the masters who took me on under pressure from my father, but I should learn something of science. It was really a disaster. But nevertheless, neither I nor anyone else could think of anything for me to do in university except science. So I went to university in Dublin, and studied theoretically, science for two years. And then fair of my second honour, mercifully, I went to art school. And that was really the beginning I think of of what brought me to film. Many questions

Unknown Speaker  3:54  
as an actress,

Paddy Carey  3:55  
my mother was an actress and I think we joined her in front of our microphone at the age of 10. And the children's our broadcast, television, radio. My mother acted with the W Gate Theatre. She had acted with William poor who was either a pioneer in Shakespeare production in England

John Taylor  4:21  
locks his name,

Paddy Carey  4:22  
William poor po e L. And my father actually was also an amateur. Paul was a producer who had original ideas on how Shakespeare should be produced and he preferred working with amateurs. Because they were more malleable, as the, the experienced actors in Shakespeare sang the song of Shakespeare, I think, and they, they didn't really act it at all, I think in total was quite revolutionary in that respect. So he used amateur is wonderful means it actually was 87 and I'm sure there were other names as well. But I know my mother played Crestor. No, he just played Krista in a toilet and crested Oh, my mother played tarish. Polo had one other thing about using women in younger men's Park. So she played Paris and I think my father played Pandora. But anyway, I assume that rather slowed down a bit when the family started to arrive, which was actually quite a bit before my twin brother on I mean, my eldest brother was seven years old and my, my elder sister, who is still living is nine years old. But so we were sort of vaguely mixed up into theatre. And then when we moved to Dublin, after the Free State was formed, my mother started shoving people into production of one kind or another, she joined the civil service domestic society, which was quite a good one, and actually fed quite a few people into the Irish theatre scene. And she gave me our first experience of Shakespeare, which was first night in a hole in on O'Connell street in Dublin. And then, when the Gate Theatre was formed, she never acted in the Abbey, as far as I know, she acted in the Abbey, but in New Orleans Mabus Theatre Company production, and it wasn't now the play, but the civil service domestic society, I think, took the abbey sometimes and put on a showdown she acted with with some of those, then she was called upon by two young men in annual McMasters, who you will have no annual masters, Shakespeare Company, who wanted to set up a theatre of their own, and experimental theatre doing most classical plays, and Shakespeare and modern experimental players and all sorts of things, you know, and they wanted her to put some money in, but she said she hadn't got any money to put in. But she would act for them for nothing, but she did for seven years. And this was the Dublin Gate Theatre. And the two young men were hildren, it was from mighty mighty Mo, who, who ran it for years after that, and subsequently employed both myself and my two brothers. Acting Ennis at various times, both from my twin brother, Brian, and I were keen on the theatre, and I used to produce plays at the draft, not not very successfully on my dad. But I was better being produced them producing I made an awful mess. Still. Sorry,

John Taylor  7:58  
you did a lot of that.

Paddy Carey  8:01  
Well, school, we only did one play a year. But after that, I mean, my first professional job, if you can call it that was at the age of 10, with my mother, on radio, but that was the children's our programme. And both my parents were insistent that we couldn't do any acting until after we'd left school, and then we should finish we should go to university and all the rest of it, you know, but it never quite worked out like that. There's my other brother. And my twin and myself, both got mixed up in the theatre in one form or another. Most of the time we left school. And I had two years in Trinity College University, which I failed. I mean, I

won one reason for that, I think was that when when it began to get sort of mathematical, and it wasn't, wasn't to do with animals or initiatives of that kind it was. It was principally learn learning about physical Robin. I'd almost forgotten exactly what we were doing. But nevertheless, I found it boring. And so I didn't, I think worked terribly hard on it. But I failed my my second year, and went to art school, which was a lot more successful and which I enjoyed a great deal more. I think you'd better start asking me some question. When was the outset which article one?

John Taylor  9:48  
Sorry, which art school was?

Paddy Carey  9:49  
It was the Dublin art school? The principal,

John Taylor  9:54  
how many years were you there?

Paddy Carey  9:56  
I think I was there for four years. And it gave me an interest in art which I, I had had before. Remember, when I was nine, a travelling salesman sold my mother. The Children's encyclopaedia, and

I, my, my twin models are interesting, but I spent hours looking at it. And I learned something both about art, and about wildlife and nature and that kind of thing. And a little bit of everything you might say it was a very good encyclopaedia. And I've used to spend hours over it. But certainly it awakened to further introduction of interest in nature, which I'd always had, you know, like wandering off and never been heard of again. But am I speaking loudly enough about it. Now, that I think was what really started me and because not college, I think was what frightened me off it for quite a long time, because we had to work damn hard, you know, and get caned if we didn't come up with the golden door come up to a certain number of marks more or less business. And so I lost my interest in science, I think my interest in art was confined to doing funny drawings, which I did on the edge of my exercise book show that they would animate when you flick through them. And I also did one or two illustrations for the school magazine, which wasn't very good, either the magazine for me. Anyway, after I had had two years, trying to behave like a scientist, and failed. My father asked me what I wanted to do. And I said, I hadn't a clue. And he said, What do you used to be good at drawing? Why don't you go to art school. And very total, the father didn't kick me out and living, but he didn't anyway. And so I went to the art college, and it really instantly awoke to the fact that I was very keen on art. Indeed, you know, what, what, what

John Taylor  12:08  
kind of concentration did you do on? Was it drawing or painting, or both?

Paddy Carey  12:13  
It was basically drawing, I don't think I really knew what I wanted to do. And my father wanted me to go on for commercial art. But I didn't really know what I wanted to do, I did develop an interest in animals, I used to go to the zoo, you used to get a free pass for the zoo, and all monkeys and that kind of thing, which are my first step, and that that kind of direction. Otherwise, I I did on board the colours and things I think of trees and so on. I think I was doing mostly the new that the art college primarily because it was a good discipline. But I wouldn't say I did wonderfully well at art college, but I don't think I did badly. I think I got one small prize for something or I forgotten exactly what it was. But but it gave me an everlasting interest in in art and in doing something to do with art. And when I left, I got interested in photography have friend of mine, who was only what he was doing with photography, I mean, he did all his own processing and so on. And we went into partnership and opened a small studio, photographic studio. Sorry,

John Taylor  13:38  
what age

Paddy Carey  13:45  
are thinking about 34 by that time? There may be some gaps, which I don't know have you

John Taylor  13:51  
been acting all the time?

Paddy Carey  13:53  
acting was certainly something which I did in college in the college dramatics society. But there was always pressure from my parents, not to waste too much time adapting. But when I went to art school, I did more. And my twin brother had left left. I'd never gone on to university at all. No, I think he did about one year university. I did too. And then went on to article he did about one year and then went to commercial college or something of that kind but he was never really had any interest in it of any kind. And he went into the theatre early. I have no idea. This is my twin brother. My older brother was born in Rome before we were and I think possibly the first thing we we did professionally was a production of the comedy of errors in which my twin brother and I played one pair of twins that Romeo's which were my first was my first experience of acting or Shakespearean clown which I enjoyed very much indeed because it could hide my own shyness in In grotesquerie, so to speak, you know, and was tremendous from was that professionally? Yes. I mean, we were paid down badly. But the the filter didn't take very much at that time anyway, was this at the gate or the gate? Well, McLemore didn't act in that production. He was it was a double bill. There was the dawn fallen in housing from shores Man and Superman was a kind of curtain raiser which would, I would have thought would have bought him stiff, but it was largely a dialogue between Mephistopheles paid by his net worth and, and don't want played by Michael McLemore. And that was the kind of curtain raiser and then comedy of arrows which is quite a short play came after it. And we played in that my mother played our mother, actually, and not our mother. She played the the mother, which is the mother of our two bathrooms, the antipholus. Place what are the places I

John Taylor  16:06  
and we talk to the game company,

Paddy Carey  16:08  
I was never part of the gate company. I actually for mother and quite a few of her production she did quite a few independent productions. I did Steven in in major Barbara. I did brother Martin in St. Joe and that was for the Longford company which was a separate company from the I mean, they both share the Gate Theatre and Longford at one time but put a lot of money in behind the gates theatre but they were losing him so much money that in the end he opted out and formed his own company. And most of my twin brother and my early experience in the theatre was with with the lumber company, and my played lawyer Hawkins inshore shows Devil's disciple, brother Martin in St. Joan. Something in in one or two things in wild which I don't can't recall at the moment. I did. Ariel in the tempest. And during the test rehearsal, I had to jump on a barrel and sort of scare the comedy comic parts in the air. And the barrel healed over the rehearsal. And I hit something or other and apparently got out dabbling and walked into the edge of the steak point by staff and I think I passed outs like but after that. Yes, I hit my leg in the fall too. So that instead of almost flying across days, no. He is a spirit and being terribly light on my feet. And while the balletic I went around from one leg to it's improved a bit after that, and I enjoyed depart very much. Not at all. I mean, my brother actually had played I think my twin brother had been banned from playing longer than a certain time because he was in college and he my father insisted that he go back my older brother took over, he had already become an actor anyway. But he had already also been to school rather brilliantly. And taking a good degree in Trinity College before he went on to collect with full permission of my father after that, once he graduated capability like and of course he's still with the state, you know, except that he's more or less retired now. But when another we did quite a lot, we did a fair amount of broadcasting as well. I mean, acting in plays. Some of them were sort of children's plays for the children's which were written by by a local person and sometimes they were adapted stage plays and all the rest of it. But

John Taylor  19:04  
with all that experience, why didn't you go on to be an actor.

Paddy Carey  19:11  
I was in two minds about it. By that time, I was at the art school and beginning to get really interested in the drawing and painting side of art, you know, and I enjoyed the acting part time I think if someone had said look, we will give you a contract for so many years or so many months even or something of that kind I think I will probably have accepted it. And we did go on tours to Dublin gates theatre company that was in 1939 which was quite fun. I I had gone to Paris in advance of the tour because I had my feet up paid. I mean the the tour went to Paris. We were going by train, of course and the tour I went to Paris and I had a couple of weeks in Paris both on the way there and on the way back and attended one of these is live classes where you pay somebody pranks, and you can go in and talk and also went to the Louvre and entertain myself in that way. But the tool was interesting. It was 1939. And when I joined the touring company in Paris when they arrived in Paris when we went on from there, and my mother was acting with the mercy he had done from the very beginning. And I knew which they didn't knew that. The night before. It had been announced that Italy had invaded Albania, which was the start of the war. We were going to northern Italy The following day, and going into Yugoslavia, which was on the borders of Italy and Albania, of course. And so my mother was pretty scared with that. But my twin brother and I are most of the younger members of the company, found it more of an added excitement and a bit of adventure, you know. Anyway, we went to Europe, Jana Zagreb, Belgrade, and Bucharest and Sofia. And we played this duo of myrcene from they don't find in housing from Man and Superman, which Michael did Michael on Hilton did well as a double bill with comedy a version which my twin brother and I were in and the other supporting actors of the company, Christopher Kasem, lawyer thing and so on. They played the other two twins in it. And we also adjusted we do, we did Hamlet. And I think Macbeth, in which my twin and I were more or less walk ons or supporting bits and so on. There was certainly a wild play, I think it was. Can't remember which one it was now. Obviously, there was a part of my mother in it. She will be doing a doctor's or something of that kind. Oh, it was important to being honest. And she played lady Breton. There was not much for that's about all I can, I can remember offhand, generate them. When we came back I I stayed on in Paris for a couple of weeks drawing and I was fortunate in meeting someone who I knew in Tennessee college, we had managed to get this thing in between our courses in Trinity College. And I ran into him in Paris, and he introduced me to some artists and so on all the whole I had a good time there because I met some interesting people who probably some of the modules and probably disappear during the war. One was a photographer, which is my only experience I think of being a model because he did some fashion work. And I modelled a couple of sweaters for him. And that was all of that it It may have been that that eventually led me to go on for photography as being something of a more practical kind of artwork from what I had learned in the article. The article at that time certainly had no courses in photography at all. But Brandon Stafford, who was himself to become a camera man, he was really interested in films we were both moderately active in the in the Irish Film Society. And Brendan, Brendan was very keen to get into the business and he got into into films long before I did. He had done one or two films, I think sort of semi amateur films with with Liam O'Leary, or something of that kind.

Before he went to England and got into films, and I was more concerned, I think with possibly doing commercial art, I hadn't seriously thought of going into films, I think, till I went to him. And by that I think by the time I went to England, I knew I wanted to get into films. But I knew that the only way I could get in was to get some professional experience in still further professional experience and still, I going abroad and we had an open studio in Dublin. We're starting with Brendan in partnership, but he left after about nine months or a year to go to England and I carried on on my own The most interesting stuff that I did by far was pictures of actors and theatrical pictures on which you might say that I had an in the family until knowing, knowing all these people and so on. And certainly, the best photographs I took were of, usually actors in character. And I did civil thorndyke when she was on a visit to and Michael metalia mourn here with Ned would animate master and so on. But then, I got married to an actress to Vivian Gillan, she was called. That was her stage name. And he was Canadian. And we got married in 42. And I, but I, I wasn't doing very well in the studio, because the domestic photographs didn't pay very well. And I probably wasn't very good at you know, but also, Vivian wanted to go to London records, he was very ambitious to get on the theatre, as my wife. She had already shown that she was a bloody good actress at the gig. She acted mostly with the Longford company. But she did do one show with Mr. Belfry with the Dublin Gate Theatre Company with Michael which Helton was very keen on. I mean, he was very keen on her performance. But that was coming to very shortly before she went, went to England and she went into a factory, first of all, because you could get work on this day. She never really made it in England, which was great pity. But of course, the competition was pretty fierce. And I joined her in must be in the end of 1943. And the only way I could get over was to get a job in some kind of wall work. And I got a job with a studio in Cambridge way. Which did more work but when is employed me for other purposes instead, namely doing fashion work insofar as they were doing fashion work. It was rather a kind of make do and mend exercise, you know. And it was only when the war came to an end. And they began to sort of spread their wings again, they had been quite a prominent fashion studio before the war. They had to limp along as best they could with some government work. Who was the What

John Taylor  27:57  
was the name of the rock was the name of the studio

Paddy Carey  27:59  
Carlton's job was in Carlton Street, which is off Kingsway?

John Taylor  28:05  
You had Philly in time when you first came to him.

Paddy Carey  28:09  
We certainly didn't have any money. Jeff. Well, that was after I joined the industry. He I think we had a pregnant nine months before I gave birth to her film career, so to speak. And my first job was with the film Producers Guild, which was at that time, the largest documentary company in London, England. They comprise about 14 companies. When was that?

Unknown Speaker  28:42  
44 was it?

Paddy Carey  28:45  
I think it was actually at the tail end of 43. And I joined them as a camera assistant.

John Taylor  28:54  
And did you get a job there.

Paddy Carey  28:57  
My daughter took my photographs along some of them some of the stuff that I'd taken in Ireland and some of the especially the sort of glamour photographs and so on and other bits and pieces that I'd done for Carlton, but the karafun stuff was really boring. I mean it was there was nothing spectacular about it. And the photographer's that were there the other ones were not very spectacular and I think probably the best ones were in the army. But when I went to from produce Guild, I was an assistant for a year or two. And

John Taylor  29:35  
we are working with

Paddy Carey  29:42  
Bob Walker who is not a very good cameraman actually was the first one I worked with. Most of them are not very distinguished. I think the younger ones had all joined up and and the they began to sort of comes through again When the war ended, but the ones who are actually there. Did you know Jimmy Jimmy wants us at all? Yeah, he was now of course. And I did work with him eventually. Which is quite interesting. He was very good. He was a hard fella to work with. A bit cantankerous sort of, and but he he and his wife were interesting to talk to attenuate they travelled around quite a lot, you know, and knew quite a lot of people and he attenuated worked in Paris at one time and knew the early on documentary people in in Parrish.

John Taylor  30:39  
He worked at Carroll County, his Cavalcanti his favourite cameraman, okay, we'll go to I was always telling the story of Jimmy Choo to dance thing with and declare dancing himself.

Paddy Carey  30:52  
Well, certainly he he, I think they knew each other in Paris. And the only time I met calf was when we call it into calves place on the way home from somewhere after we've been away on location somewhere, but it was a very small unit, which I liked. I mean, there was Jimmy and his wife Eileen and myself. And that was rather good one was at least close to the centre, you know, where it was larger units one tended if one was a camera system you attended with on the periphery.

John Taylor  31:28  
And what what equipment was was Jimmy using that

Paddy Carey  31:33  
he was using a Newman he was also using an A clear occasionally, which was his only support. And that was really a much better camera. But mostly I didn't really

John Taylor  31:46  
using the Newman wasn't there cam motorised or system.

Paddy Carey  31:51  
He was motorised, but I can remember him not bothering to plug in the battery on one occasion and turning down is very hard. It's very hard

John Taylor  32:04  
to take or turn the camera with one hand keep a constant speed and pen until

Paddy Carey  32:09  
virtually Yes. Well, I mean, being able to pan until the two hammers needed a good deal of embodied engagement.

Unknown Speaker  32:22  
But can you remember what you're learning?

Paddy Carey  32:25  
Very, very little. I think the first time I even actually under minimum rate was when john employment and he he apologised for the fact that it was minimum, the gate didn't apologise for the fact that less than minimum, I think, therefore the way they worked, it was that theoretical when I wasn't actually a camera man. I was paid as an assistant, even though I was permanently employed, more or less. And then when I did some actual shooting or lighting or whatever, then I got paid the minimum rate of the camera man,

John Taylor  32:56  
the daily rate.

Paddy Carey  32:59  
No, no, the daily rate will be at the weekend. I don't I wouldn't have given me the daily software employed

John Taylor  33:06  
to remember any of this film. Sure. Why

Unknown Speaker  33:14  
did I focus

John Taylor  33:16  
on your photograph?

Paddy Carey  33:17  
It was a film called this farming business, which was a film which was made in Scotland, and oh, no, it was it was its final title, I think was 50 acres. And it was made on a 50 acre farm. And it was made for the the the electricity supply people whose name I've forgotten. And it was about it was really boosting electrification on farms, you know how even a small farm with only 50 acres it pays him to invest in in getting electricity. And so the film started with him in his home with a paraffin oil lamp and all this sort of thing, and finished up with him having milking machines and god knows what. But it was a modest little film and it seemed to work quite well,

Unknown Speaker  34:12  
who was the director of that?

Paddy Carey  34:15  
That's what that was for the guild was it that was for the guild. torch. And then my job I did was I mean as as a focus was one of the big fields, children feature films, which was directed by Bill Hammond. And that's quite a lot of fun. And the child star in it was Vivian he went on to become quite a frequently employed sort of heavy lead in in television film. She played The mother in Pride and Prejudice I think it was.

John Taylor  35:10  
Because within matching what are the Drake does? Did you?

Paddy Carey  35:17  
I don't think any of them are very keen men and not adapt? Well certainly. Actually, I never worked with Ralph Keane while I was on staff with the field as far as I remember. In fact, the first time I worked with Ralph Keane was was after I had left the Guild, and Mr. Taylor was largely responsible for finding the bits of work all over the place, through contracts in the Highlander, and so on. I've met john because he was living near us in wraysbury, where we lived out and I can't take.

Unknown Speaker  35:57  
But

John Taylor  35:59  
did you get fed up with some Producers Guild or having taxes? Or,

Paddy Carey  36:05  
oh, they were having customs and stuff. And went on to sort of freelance stuff. And as you know, I've worked with almost every company in the business I've had done my thing. But what we start this off from this particular something, which I did after I left the Guild, oh, it must have been the one I did with Phil Hammond was the children feature film called 40 children of the boat or something like that. It was made from Merrifield. And that I was, was an assistant Tommy went on for quite a long time. He went I did indeed, yes. That was it was the kind of farewell film made by the government. They were sort of getting rid of lambda. And this was a kind of Christmas card Goodbye, I think to Lou from land, and it was directed by Humphrey schwinger.

And the cost was all you've learned this, as you might expect. JACK Higgins was the sound man. Like, was with portable sound, which wasn't all that common at that time. And

the assistant director was pleased to plaskett the camera man was jack Jones still. And it was a kind of non fictional film designed to show as much of life in Newfoundland as possible.

With entirely Newfoundland data. Oh, yes, we were there for five months, I think.

We started in winter. And it was interesting in one way and that I think the COI put up some money. But the rest had to be found by the new finance government, which was agreed beforehand. Unfortunately, they were just coming to the end of the financial year. And a Newfoundland government didn't have any money by the end of the financial year. It and I'm free, went to see the commissioner, I think it was they didn't have ministers. They had sort of Commissioners for financial commissioners, where the fisheries and so on. And this man said, I don't have any money. I don't think the COI told him anything about the fact that he was going to be lumbered with a film unit at all. And anyway, he agreed to do what he could. So he, he rang around the other commissioners, and he sort of called up someone called Jacqueline fell and so on. He said, Hi, Kate, if you've got any bucks, and he sort of rummage around, and in the end, well, this was his mouth. And in the end, he rummaged around and scrounge bits and pieces of money from the other departments, just enough to keep us going until early April when the new budget would come in, and then he would have enough to feed us. Otherwise, we had just nothing. New from them was tremendous fun. It was my first foreign location. That was very exciting. Now, when was that then? That was 1948. I

John Taylor  39:52  
think you would have travelled that boat. Indeed.

Paddy Carey  39:55  
I mean, that was more fun.

John Taylor  40:00  
But that was that was that was big where you met up with those large 100 factories where

Paddy Carey  40:06  
was that? No that was actually on on the last job I did as assistant which was a film of Joe Mendoza directing so the the new flat job would have been before that when I suppose you must have had heavy batteries on that too but they didn't actually rupture me on that job. fiendish weight 90 pound battery's dead weight and they didn't have strapped on so you couldn't do the correct Sam. You had to bend down strain your back and rub to yourself which I did on this other film.

John Taylor  40:54  
Like pay you on your own hospital?

Paddy Carey  40:57  
I doubt it or if they did, they would have paid me sort of second assistant pay that kind I know about the AC t came up with 30 quid towards possible bills and things and 30 quid was a bit of money. Anyway.

John Taylor  41:16  
We did a film a German dose.

Paddy Carey  41:19  
The last one I did I think was with German dojo and I haven't heard about this stuff for years you know i'm sorry i'm not

Unknown Speaker  41:31  
sure you're rolling it out. Most people think the family did with Joe did you think you were the cameraman on that mean?

Paddy Carey  41:40  
Yes, I've done a couple of jobs with Joe as a matter of fact, but this last was I don't I kind of gratuity film like the use of land film. And it was about the land army. It was a kind of drama film about the land army as assigned kind of sank status, you know, to the land army. And it I think the only one I actually remember being in it was the star who was Gabriel blunt. You may remember her she was a sister of Joan Greenwood in whiskey galore. which had been just before she did this job with us. And it was quite fun but it was heavy. And I think that was one of the films on which I I had a hernia because there was a lot to carry about. I mean, we were shooting sync with a think vinten with a blimp that size you know weighed a tonne right so I put on quite a bit of chest expansion on that job because I think as as focused for I had the job of carrying most of the equipment,

Unknown Speaker  42:51  
you will focus but on the job

Paddy Carey  42:52  
I was focused a lot on that one and that was my last job as a as an assistant. The next next one was my first as a camera lens. But I mentioned turn over the lead

John Taylor  0:01  
Eddie carry signed to German dozer, you formed a working relationship with him at that time with hope with Joe Mendoza. Yes, tell

Paddy Carey  0:13  
me, we became friends, you

Unknown Speaker  0:15  
know?

Paddy Carey  0:17  
I've worked with him on one film before that, if not true, certainly there was one which I think was called this farming business, which was possibly for the further protect a company or someone like that who had something to market which farmers could get going with no. And there were two people who in it who don't remember their name is one of them was called Greg, who did a lot of sort of country matters. on the radio, there wasn't any television then. And someone else who was I think called her interesting. I don't remember.

John Taylor  1:11  
So there came a point when Martin calm down at Leicester at that point,

Paddy Carey  1:18  
that was the Crips budgets. I think that really, I hadn't. I hadn't worked for several months, I was employed by greenpark.

Unknown Speaker  1:28  
Did you get

Paddy Carey  1:30  
to pressure? Yes. When? When you were at the guild? That's right. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  1:37  
Tell us about the passion.

Paddy Carey  1:39  
Well, by that time, I was a camera man. And I went with Harry hooker as my assistant and the director was David Villiers, who was ex Air Force. He had a rather remarkable story to when he was in Bomber Command. He was a pilot. And the attrition, the loss of Bomber Command pilots was so appalling that they made him a Wing Commander, I think it was I'm not sure if a grade but I think they made him a Wing Commander in charge of training to our Bomber Command. At the age of 22, were 2000 a year, which is a sizable income at that time, a car, a chauffeur, and I think a house. And I did some work with him in Iran. on two occasions, there was sort of comedy drama things which were supposed to be safety films. I mean, the sort of unsafety situations were simulated by two quite funny men, one of whom was occurred, and the other one was a Pakistani occurred was an electrician. And the Pakistani was a lorry drivers, remember, but they were very nice pair. And they occurred in particular spoke English quite well. So he was able to get the instructions fairly clear. But it was quite fun to make. But there was sort of comedy drama films with a message about safety and so on. There were safety films for the oil company.

Unknown Speaker  3:18  
For the oil company

Paddy Carey  3:19  
and around your nose. It was there in in in Aberdeen and up in Mrs. masindi, sulamani. All of your place as well.

John Taylor  3:30  
What what equipment we're using out there?

Paddy Carey  3:34  
It was Newman, as far as I remember. Newman, Sinclair, no sing sound. I don't think there's anything sound. I don't remember anyone on sound at all. So write it. In which case, it must have been all mind, which they must have done really well. As far as I remember, anyway, but they were fun to do. And having and working with two men, especially working men, rather than office staff or something like that it was probably gave us a bit clearer insight as to what situations where they would talk quite freely, you know, as to what situations were there. And I mean, the company people gave us an insight into how the company was really sort of hand in glove with the government if you if you'd like to put it that way. But one thing it did for me, which again, was quite fun was it got me employed to film the child's wedding to Queen sariah.

John Taylor  4:49  
It's about the wedding.

Paddy Carey  4:52  
That's a long story actually. Right. We were in Toronto at the time. We were doing work around various installations around town. And I always like to come around on it. And my first job is direct to camera man, oddly enough was for greenpark German doors or making a film, which they needed some material for apparently, of migrating tribesmen in the south. And I went south to mockups and stuff on people going across a river and goats can raft and things like that. But mainly, I was based in Iran. And I think it was doing these odd bits around anything I could, I could think up to do and I would talk to the both the publicity Office of Mazar tanto, Rainey and then or it was anger on both the people in the office there, and also with the newspapers. Certainly. I know quite out of the blue, I didn't think I'll be shooting the wedding at all. And then a telephone call the day before the wedding, I think, came from the palace, inviting me to go down for a sort of inspection of my equipment and inspection of me prior to and I yes, I think it was a weekend too. And so the other people who weren't staying in the same places I was, wouldn't even know that anyone had rung up our house, I think to tell us that we were in on the on the actual happening.

Anyway, we we went along with with camera and all the rest of it and examined all the equipment. And then we went back. I as far as I remember with the equipment, so that we could if we had wanted to do to put darts or something in the in the camera to move the Emperor, we could have done it. But obviously that wasn't what we were there for. And we were told to turn that time in the morning, which we usually did. And I think they examine the camera again. And we were shown a plan of attack around and where the procession would go. And we were asked where we wanted to move for the march and we waited hours now for them to come. I'm going to tie the bits together Yes, the celebration was in one place I think. And the in the celebration of the wedding was in one place and the after celebration within another never vote in palaces. And the first one I stationed myself at the door because I didn't have any lighting or anything like that I did had had lighting but i'd sent it back to the south to have a dam and whomever down didn't know that I was filming the wedding because there have been no means of getting in touch with them at all. So all I had I'd send virtually all my cameras except a little 100 foot Belen house clockwork when I met No, that wasn't an IMO, it was not as professional as an RC. What 16 mil was 16 million. That was withdrawn. And I think it only opened up to about I don't know 2535 something of that order wasn't a wide angle lens at all. And anyway, we had been asked if we wanted to go and I said of course yes. You know, I had Morris Pico was my assistant, he was from London with me. Otherwise, that was all and a car collected us I think drove us down. We shot at sort of checkpoints, not actual checkpoints, but a barrier where the police stopped us. And there was crowds all along the route and so on. And then suddenly the crowd parted was polluted folding the back and we were full, you know, and we had a great to a certain place I think to to get some first

Get a hold of. Yes, the place where they were married, which was the marble palace or something it was called, I think

I had opted to be outside, because I knew that I had a lens which was not really suitable for inside at all on the camera. So I thought I'd better be exteriors. So I parked myself at the doorway. And we were there for ages, but the shower didn't arrive. And I had the camera all set. And suddenly, there was a god or not. Nobody told me the showers was arriving. But the gardener suddenly stood to attention directly opposite us, you know, and I was just going to shoot them when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. And the last, I think it was a roll an old rolls, almost to up to me, and I swung the camera around and just got them getting out. Fortunately, the bride's dress, or the bride arrived first, of course, the binder, I first and her dress was so enormous that I had plenty of time to get one or two angles, because it took all day to get the thing out of the car. And then we just had to wait for the Shah as he got inside. And that was quite a sudden affair when I nearly missed him, but suddenly found the camera around and got him getting out of the car. And what happened then, then we went inside I think you Yes, it was a palace.

Unknown Speaker  11:53  
And

Paddy Carey  11:54  
we were taken into the room where the wedding was actually going to take place. And the shower was there. I nearly put my foot in it for some reason or another. But anyway, we walked in with our cameras and set up and and there was one army man, Iranian army man who had a light one night, I think one sort of floodlight, which was just as well, because we hadn't deserved the flow lens and no likes at all, Mark, like if it was the wrong was not a very big one, it had big windows. So there was a certain amount of light, but it was a filthy grey, dark grey winter's day. Now, there wasn't snow falling, but it was time and it was chilly. And we were able to set up on the sofa where they were going to set when the ceremony took place. And then we set up. But the light was so bad, I think that I tried running slowly, I think on the sharp because he was darkened in a dark uniform, I couldn't fit the two together. Because I mean the explosive, she was in flight with a rather pale face. And he was in a dark uniform with a rather swasti face. And I knew that one or the other will be underexposed or overexposed or something like that. So I shot the two of them separately. And I think I may have done a long shot a very long shot as long as I could, on the kill awesome. But I wasn't totally sure that I would have enough exposure for the shot or I was shooting wide open on this woman who was not a coupe or not not as pale as as a white woman would have been. But she was quite pale, and all in white, and so on. And I knew that at least for shooting, I don't know how I would have an exposure. I was not sure on him at all. And but I did shoot on him anyway. And then we went back into the ballroom, which was next door. And we were told that the Shah and his new bride would meet all their guests, the bride and all the rest of them all organised around the ward and there's huge or there was the only light with light coming into the window on a filthy day. And I was up at one and I told him to me up at one end where I knew that when they were passing me at any rate, they would get sunlight from the window. And the only thing I could do to try and get a bit more light was to flow. I didn't ask me but I think I shot about 16 frames or something I was that kind of gave me another half stop and I knew I'd done well needed it. But anyway, outlay came and drops off at 16 and ran out on that. I think eventually It worked came out. And I mean, I wasn't colour was it? No, it was black and white. And I put notes into the laboratory telling them what my predicament was into, boosted up as best they could and so on, which they duly did.

And then I think that was the end of that. Then we went on to the, to the reception thing at the end, which included another minimal bit of writing. Again, I think what the same army officer with a single floodlight, giving us the only light we had. And Michelle and his bride came in, and they were sitting at a table eating and this sort of thing. And then they were to come into a ballroom after that. And now they did have to have the toupees around, put in place by a Belgian, usually a camera man. And I stationed myself fairly near the door, fairly near where one of the spots was, there were two cases something but they were very inefficient, old fashioned in case there weren't any kind of models that I'd ever seen in my life. And he came in and we shot but the other fella stationed in stations himself further down. And the crowd was so interested to see the shot and his beautiful bride. She wasn't a beautiful that as the Shah and his bride moved down, the crowd went with the man they sort of compacted it like that, and gradually gradually won the land for two Ks. One 2k went over. And just as they were coming to the other cabin, and the other Tuesday went over and we're practically in pitch dark. And then the the Sean's his bride turned around to come out again and sort of halfway back down there on the bride fainted Mushaf COVID are out, which would have been lovely to get but nobody got it. But then also, in all of the case, this joint, I had left my camera in the room where the wedding feast was taking place. And going to case the joint in the next room where I knew they were going to be dead I couldn't get in. And there were two secret police waiting outside looking terribly secret. The only Iranians I think that what we're not in some kind of uniform with custard all over it sort of thing. You know, they were in in plain evening dress playing dinner jackets, I think. And one in here. One of them had thick glasses like Himmler the other one had a black patch over one eye. I mean, talk about secret police glare, there are character curves. And I mean, that was sort of just blocked my way more or less. In fact, not only more or less, it was more than less. And obviously thought I was up to something and if I tried to go back in, I think I would have been seized and rushed to the dungeon straight away or stripped or something. So I didn't get in until after the show had gone out. But anyway, I did get get in and got the camera easily set up. They've gone into an ante room somewhere probably to sign or register or something of that kind. And I was able to get the camera out and get set up. Now the doors are the ballroom and then it finished up with all the lights falling over and so on but, and I sent the stuff back and it came out apparently quite well. But I think the fact that some of us have been shocked at the slow speed. Their movements did look a little jerky. They didn't look over as if they were going very fast because they were going very slowly but they did look jerky. And the bride's dress was very heavy indeed. It weighed about 50 pounds or something idiotic it loaded with rhinestones and god knows what not all diamonds. The court said they were diamonds. One of the American journalist said on our rhinestone Anyway, it was great fun. Who what led presses

Unknown Speaker  19:18  
for you. Do you remember?

Paddy Carey  19:21  
I think it would have been Humphreys I think

John Taylor  19:24  
he would usually were to pass your classes on time.

Paddy Carey  19:33  
Yes. I was out there twice or three times.

John Taylor  19:39  
We went Did you fly or go by boat? Which year roughly with this being 50.

Paddy Carey  19:53  
Well, let's see. I was with the guild for four years. I think what did I joined continum 30 to 50 to sure I want to waste the guilt over things of time. It could have been about 50 I should take what I did in web clip before and killed

the Newfoundland film, which I did with Humphrey swingler. That was in 48. I remember left on that. I think what I was I was doing assistant on that.

John Taylor  20:45  
So it around about

Paddy Carey  20:47  
5049 I think it must have been about

John Taylor  20:49  
Were you there enough keen was there with Dylan Thomas.

Paddy Carey  20:57  
I think I was with a girl. But I wasn't working with

John Taylor  21:01  
Tasha at the same time is that they're in

Paddy Carey  21:03  
Persia? Yes. Yeah. So Whoa, we met Dylan there. And that was quite a lot of fun to of course, because because Jenna got pissed on odd occasions. And that was not the right thing to do at all. And we tried to think exactly they will make

John Taylor  21:35  
Kenan

Paddy Carey  21:38  
I think, yes, they weren't Dude, I had no connection with them. We were staying in the same house

John Taylor  21:42  
in Toronto came from the film Producers Guild sector.

Paddy Carey  21:46  
They were they were still part of the film Producers Guild set up. I think Ralph would come in. I'm not quite sure if anyone I've actually left the film produced Guild. He was certainly there when I joined them. He made cypresses. In Ireland, I think that was one of the first films he made, I assume after the war. And I joined them before the war ended.

John Taylor  22:13  
But you were all staying in the same set in the same.

Paddy Carey  22:16  
We're all staying in the same hospital, you might call it quits, was going on down down.

It was in Tehran, and it was a former palace of a kind. It was a white marble other imposing building, but didn't have anything like the number of rooms in it. Their rooms are very large. But it was more like a kind of Pavilion. You know, we had a very large room or two in the middle and sort of bedrooms or anterior ones around it. And we were there. And Ralph and his camera man, Andy and Latimer, who was his assistant, was his camera man.

John Taylor  23:01  
Was it George stone?

Paddy Carey  23:04  
I don't think it was George to

John Taylor  23:08  
anyone who took them until this person

Paddy Carey  23:11  
was asking for trouble. But no, I think actually, they didn't have a camera man there with them. At that time. This was a sort of reki. And Ralph took took Dylan out with him. Because Dylan was going to write the script. We had a lot of fun. We being outside it we had more fun than Ralph did, who was inside it.

Dylan, of course, had a tendency to drink a little heavily aside and this was always frowned on by the authorities. But one time he and Ralph had gone out with an Armenian man who was in the employment of the oil company. This is a sort of a sort of feature film which was being sponsored by the oil company, you know, Angel, Iranian. And this this guide of Dallas who was I think, an Armenian very charming man. And he was showing them around he was employed by the oil company in Iran. This was in the south. No, that was in Iran. And they would go off and grill him would misbehave himself rather I think. And the third scum comes touching in with were four of them. There was Liam Latimer was the assistant director. I think he was on it too. That was Bonnie keen, and there was Dylan and then this, this Iranian or rather Mainly a man who has something to Miranda. And the Armenian didn't believe in thinking at all. Thinking was a sin. And I can remember the for all from coming back. Funny, keen, very tense, he was obviously furious. Dylan was, I think, fairly high, but didn't show it. When he came starting in first he was very short man was coming. And then then Kane and Ian, I think we're frowning from what the last was this Armenian man who came in with a beatific smile on his, on his face, you know? And he said, I have committed many sins today, you know, meaning he had drunk, crack. I mean, he was holding himself very stiff.

Unknown Speaker  25:57  
But

Paddy Carey  25:59  
then Danny came in dented me to try and knock some sense into Dylan, I didn't want to be involved in it at least, I did agree to give him a bit of moral support. And we went up to Dylan's bedroom. And Dylan was many styles is nothing more, I think, not the most dignified living figures at all. And Keynes started to sort of pick into him. And aim, none again, call to me for corroboration of something which was most unfair. One thing he did say was that the day it was very bad form, so to speak, in Iran to to get drunk. In fact, even drinking was frowned on. And he was crying, isn't it, Patti? And I will try to say, yes, yes, I suppose, I suppose. And then at one point, I had tried to sort of soften things as much as I possibly could, but then at one point said, knock your block off anymore. And he meant it at the time, but and then the assistant director, who I think was also present, reminded him that he had threatened to knock my block off the following day, which was most unfair, and I was very close with the assistant director didn't have no recollection of it at all. Did I really shut down if he did, actually, yes, he should

Unknown Speaker  27:32  
be sorry.

Paddy Carey  27:34  
But anyway, I don't think we're in more trouble we're still on the in Iran anyway. And then they went off to the oil fields or down forever down or something like that. And we my small unit, myself and Tom, it his name escapes me, it's a mental doc. My assistant will left up there. I think mainly to photograph the wedding. By that time. I told you that wedding

Unknown Speaker  28:13  
is a

Paddy Carey  28:15  
lot of fun.

John Taylor  28:17  
But any computer to sit down

Unknown Speaker  28:24  
there.

Unknown Speaker  28:30  
Now, where do we go on from?

John Taylor  28:34  
Do we get to countryman?

Paddy Carey  28:39  
Yes, I think so. You just

John Taylor  28:40  
freelance?

Paddy Carey  28:42  
Well, I did do quite a lot of freelance work. Yes. in between. Was it documentaries? It was I think it was it was pretty well documented. I think there was one very cheap feature which was directed by a man I didn't know who who didn't know how to direct a feature, but always tried to put him on everyone else kind of thing. Or when it was neurotic about the fact that we have bad weather and everything was against him and all the rest already. He really did have a kind of prosecution. And the star of the film who was supposed to be a crook being coached by the police and the only stuff that I shot on it. I wasn't on the whole film by any means. He was not a very good actor, but it was I assume, fairly reasonably priced actor. And it was very funny but not not at all good. I think I saw the film eventually. I saw a rock or something of that kind. But the first one I actually the first one I actually photographed was to film the for the for the one One was a recruiting firm for the West and the other was the recruiting film for a range. I don't know, we seem to be up to on Asian women anyway, which I did not complain about at all. But

Unknown Speaker  30:15  
who are they made for?

Unknown Speaker  30:16  
I mean, what company?

Paddy Carey  30:19  
I think it was a small, private company that been set up to do them. The man who directed them was not really a director at all. I think he was an engineer. But and the CRI, I think it was sort of, he'd been in touch with him because he wanted to make technical films. That was it. Because he disapproved of the technical films. He said, they were all very pricy and all that. But technically, they were all wrong. Java c II got in touch with him to do recruiting films for the for the web. And he said nothing lows, and he went on with it. But I think I was directing the film, just that much. He was oh, I will tell you what my angle on it was. Anyway, it was quite fun. And the job was handed on to me by the film Producers Guild, what I was working on, I'd asked for opportunities to I'd been assistant all that time, I asked for opportunities to do a bit of lighting and so on, because I'd done still liking when I was still photographer

John Taylor  31:30  
would say, I mean, I should think we've done that section of your life when children start off in with congressmen and so I

Paddy Carey  31:38  
think yes, I think what do you want to start off on continent? I mean,

John Taylor  31:46  
with from a Europe, but it seems to me we've done that first. Yes. Another period?

Paddy Carey  31:57  
Well, obviously, I've been in in documentary when when the continent start 5252 so I've been in cancer in documentaries since

about 45, I think with a tiny bit of something to do with features.

And in the in the interim, there was these various bits and pieces, many of which you introduced me to and which got me around many of the documentary units and all the rest of it, you know, when I first looked john up, he hadn't he didn't have anything, I think you were probably planning the continents. But in a fairly short time, he he started up on the continent series and invited me to join them as cameraman

John Taylor  32:58  
well, and director because you did those various things

Paddy Carey  33:03  
fairly rapidly. But to start with, I mean, I was going out with Graham or you only on or someone like that. And then I started doing more and more on my own. I'm going to

John Taylor  33:16  
arrange a sequence of you on the top of the church tower putting a weather coat garden or summer. You are photographing, and they're grainy.

Paddy Carey  33:26  
That was pretty horrendous. That was a typical Jacko. I come Yes. I'll be recording or so.

John Taylor  33:36  
And it was a magazine mainly concerned with country matters,

Paddy Carey  33:42  
or content matters and and wildlife and so on. I mean, there was a lot about there was a lot of, of in from the very beginning, there was a lot of stuff on natural history kind of subjects. I think the first one I ever did was was Eric Hosking. And with Graham, of course, but the first wildlife stuff I did was shot from Eric Hoskins hide on Walden reservoir on harems. And then we had you may know the format of him it was about a nine or 10 minutes sort of major item or then a three or four minute item when I thought of two minute bit at the zoo or something of that kind. But, so we bought an item on herons at Walthamstow reservoir for one of the short items and then Graham and I, grandpa and I did an item on Eric costcutting, whose hide we were using had Waterstones and I shot some stuff for him in the hide and at home developing and various other bits like that. So it was a sort of nine or 10 minute item when the herons was the kind of two minute they probably didn't meet in the same issue of the magazine I think It was a fascinating series because it got me to meet a lot of people who I would, I enjoyed meeting and some of whom I knew of at a cocktail was one of them, because he was always appearing in photography and he was in that kind of thing. And those it was all on the outdoors, you might say, some of it on natural history sort of angle and some of it about natural ists. And then there was one about a lighthouse keeper. I don't think I did that actually. But

John Taylor  35:34  
there was one of our new debut and you know, one or two famous naturalist do have those focuses

Paddy Carey  35:43  
on chess, and one or two others max Knight, of course was on was in constant use of one kind or another, I think Maxwell Knight, a BBC broadcaster.

John Taylor  35:55  
He turned out to be the head of one section of EMI five or

Paddy Carey  35:59  
six at the end, I thought he turned out to be me he was pinched by EMI five or something. He was actually a German spy. As an infiltrator was I don't know

John Taylor  36:15  
he was just in charge of this section. In this quiet country, gentlemen, whenever we've shorted anything, we used to go down to Camberley, where he had hedgehogs and foxes and things like that. All day, gentlemen, they were to the golden child and crockery. And then years later, it comes out that he's head of EMI six

Paddy Carey  36:39  
that I never knew where I knew he was often mixed up. And his wife was German, of course. Yes. But no, I did quite a bit with Max and got on offence with him.

John Taylor  36:54  
And then one of the things you were going to do, but you never thought they were going to some kilter with Well, we tried but never

Paddy Carey  37:00  
got there. I mean, we went to a famous

Unknown Speaker  37:02  
American

Paddy Carey  37:03  
with Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher, and jack long, long, who had been an Everest climber. And it was a lot of fun, but we never got to St. Kilda, we got to one or two places on the sort of west coast of Scotland, but it never quite worked out the way it sorry. We were on a yacht, and the motor kept failing or something of that kind. A captain was a man by the name of torquil MacLeod, who's very, very much tougher talk than McLeod. But it was a lot of fun. But one of us I think, had to sleep on the floor, we had to sort of draw lots of the who slept on the floor. I remember Roger Peterson was constantly on Oh, and this is in the narrow passage and anyone going to the loo had to either step on or somehow around Roger, you know, you're that guy. But I saw quite a bit of light on one way or another when he when we went to Canada because he came to give one or two lectures and so on and show his own films. And I went down to his place and stayed with some in New England. Which very nice charming man very nice man.

John Taylor  38:24  
There's also I think they're a member of famous development who kept an eye on in his specific group.

Paddy Carey  38:31  
Yes, are doing dude. He was a wholesale butcher, I think from Chester le Street was it and he used to have pet tigers and lions and things like that. He was apologetic when I filmed him because he only had a lioness who had been very badly treated by her previous owners. And for that reason could be dangerous because you didn't all together trust human beings but she trusted him all right, anyway. And he'd had other things to where he had also nearly lost his life. A local photographer wanted to get a photograph of him. He just he just had a new my alarm call ago and it was in a cage in the garden sort of thing. And the the photographer wanted him in the cage. And he didn't want to go into the cage because he in the line of not being so to speak introduce they had they didn't really know each other at all. And he wasn't at all sure that it was the right thing to do. In the end they the photographer persuaded him to go into the cage and he went and he was okay he was very cautious to start with but he was in the cage and but the lie on was was covered. We didn't bother with the this man at all. He bothered with the photographer, who once you have the man In the cage started flashing his flash gun on this disturbed alarm and a great deal. And first of all, he, he bit, or he, he got hold of the man in the caves like that. And the flashing still went on. I mean, this is real drama. So the photographer went closer and closer with his flesh, etc. And then the gun and the lion really got annoyed. And I think he not our man, what was his name? I don't know, the butcher anyway, from Justin. He knocked him over. And he had him by the throat actually on the ground. But he didn't use any power or anything like that he hadn't really lost his temper. And but he had his his hand around his jaw, his teeth around his jaw like that. And fortunately, I think the two it is more or less caught, caught on the mastoid process that little down at the back there. And I think the photographer lost his head and tried to poke him with an arm bar that was out there or something of that Congress or the wrong thing to do. And that was when the yes that was that was what triggered the man to the lamb to go for the throat. But you still didn't rubbish his legs out or anything like that, which he could have done very easily, of course, and the teeth have lodged on these mastoid processes. And I've encouraged the photographer to do the same thing. He went in for the wife, and the wife saw what was happening when for a gun. And I think first of all legon misfired trigger off at all. But he and if you eventually thought the lion but only wounded it, but it shocked him enough to let him drop the the man and they opened the door and dragged him out. And then I think the some of the butcher had come home, and he went out with a heavy rifle and shot the line. Right. And the photographer went back to his office and all the rest of it, and all stories and pictures. And of course, it appeared in the local Picture Page magazine, you know, almost as a heroic effort by the photographer who's responsible for the whole damn thing. And in the meantime, a butcher had lost the line

Unknown Speaker  42:38  
to be killed by line.

Paddy Carey  42:40  
As far as I know, as far as I know.

John Taylor  42:44  
I know he we've come to the end of the tape.

John Taylor  0:01  
Penny carries side three.

Paddy Carey  0:05  
But anyway, we got something on this lioness Actually, he had all this land that had happened of course before I got there. But he had this lioness who would be badly treated and who therefore could have been dangerous but she didn't really give any type of no shot him sort of playing with this animal. And also he had a lion cub who was very fit indeed, but fortunately very small as lion cubs go. And this tiger cub, sorry. And this tiger cub was allowed to rampage around the house fairly freely about I had to shoot something obviously with a tiger cub. And it's rather nerve wracking experience even if the tiger cub is only that high. And he's going around with these enormous pores, you know, and all sorts of kittens have but especially tigers, anyone who are looking for something to attack, you know, and he put me in the car, actually, but it wasn't really bad. It was only a nip, you know, but nevertheless, I thought he might have a taste for me after that, but he didn't. And the butcher would pick him up and rub his nose, his nose like this, you know, rub noses with him and when you play with him and the tiger cubs seem to take it very well but they it was slightly tense kind of a thing you know, I think the most tense was being up on top of that damn chimney filming the the steeplejack with a Newman he has some auto vicious critters too. We had some baby crocodiles, which I never allowed to buy me but he had a brother in law who was was had had a nervous breakdown and was at home. This depot jack, I think had come to your notice to the unit notice, because there was an article that year with again, everything came from articles in the picture magazines of one kind or another and this man had been in because he had a live seal accounts. And I think he's seen all the force abaxial accounts and he had an ambition to overseas accounts. And somehow he got a steal account. And this is what got him into the news that when I was there, I think the coelacanth wasn't there, I think it had to be kept under special conditions or something like that. Anyway, I never saw it. But he was very interested in in beasts and birds and so on. And he had a kind of aviary come aquarium plus, plus some animals and all the rest of it in a big shed at the back of his house. And he was very charming man very kind to date. And he had some baby alligators, for instance. But he was hardly there most of the time that I was filming because he was out jacking staplers. His brother in law who had been a staple jack, but I think he'd had some kind of a nervous breakdown and and wouldn't couldn't go up to the police anymore. So he was around. And he was a funny man, he he I don't know why they had a kind of neuroses about not jacking steeples anymore, but he theoretically looked after all the birds and so on. And every now and again, if things were quiet, he would go into the background where there was a piano and play, I think it was through one of these by Beethoven usually, and then he would come back in again, and we will get on with it perhaps. But he was the only one who actually was bitten by a baby alligator while I was there, but he sort of shook it off, you know, the alligator let go but it was a it was quite an experience. But being up the chimney was the most unnerving experience of the life especially as the steeplejack has also loads had talked about seeing his mates or to go past him while he was jacking us before you know and go some common concrete or something of that kind. And just again, as it was probably what unnerved his brother in law.

John Taylor  4:14  
I was the chimney.

Paddy Carey  4:15  
It wasn't very well, very high, it was about 60 or 70 feet high enough not to fall up.

John Taylor  4:23  
Because I heights because I still remember that stuff of the putting the new weather caulk on top of a church in which you would pitch it on the plank off the top of the steam.

Paddy Carey  4:34  
Well, actually, it was a chimney Of course, but and they were putting a weather caulk on top of the chimney. And I mean, the way out was by ladders. A steel that was attached to it was all rusty and not really close to that. It was it was quite nerve racking for us on that particular one. I didn't enjoy it at all being upset that Germany

John Taylor  4:56  
lived in. Did you find climbing out with a new one It's a different thing than just climbing up.

Paddy Carey  5:03  
It's a different thing from climbing up. And it's a different thing from climbing out with a small camera, you can stick in your pocket or do something with

Unknown Speaker  5:10  
it. But there

Unknown Speaker  5:12  
is a difference, though.

Unknown Speaker  5:13  
I mean, you wouldn't be seen dead climbing opportunity, but put a camera in your hand. You can do it.

Paddy Carey  5:17  
Yes, I suppose. So. I think I might have climbed up a chimney but not with that rusty ladder. And also, I mean, manoeuvring around the top of the chimney was a tricky business, not just going out.

There was a tremendous amount of variety, of course, so that that was one of the things I liked about. When we were stuck for anything. We always went up to the zoo and Trump monkeys, or something like that.

John Taylor  5:46  
Then after that, we went to Nepal. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  5:53  
Was What was that?

Paddy Carey  5:55  
That was on the average, which john was involved in?

John Taylor  6:00  
The Euro union went to Nepal. Yes,

Paddy Carey  6:02  
yes. Myself and Leon claw. We only went after the mountain was actually climbed. Because I think there wasn't the money before that.

John Taylor  6:13  
One knew no, there was a unit with and then you went into the extra material. Yes. And yeah, I can remember so you know, you're shooting stuff and coming back from from the primitive breasts, less than cotton is that for the more coming down a mountainside tuition.

Paddy Carey  6:31  
I don't think I shot coming down a mountainside. I mean, we got to the end of the road. We never actually, if we'd known the score better, we'd have gone up to the mountain, but we never got that far at all.

John Taylor  6:45  
Big Shot and come back.

Paddy Carey  6:47  
I shot them coming back to Kathmandu. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  6:51  
Which which expedition was that one? The first

Paddy Carey  6:56  
on the Hillary. And it got more more fun, actually, as we approached Kathmandu, and also was the light was getting progressively darker and you might say I was cheating by going along for the ride towards the end of it. And one fellow we'd had quite a lot of contact with the four was the physiologist Griff Pugh. Griff had found out that the most comfortable gear for him to walk in and so on was pyjamas. So he went up the mountain in Pyjamas he never he never got to the top. I mean, he. He wasn't. I mean, he was the physiologist. And that was all he did. He must have got pretty high, I think. But anyway, when he came down, which was the first time I met him, I think he was in his pyjamas. And the whole expeditions sort of staggered down through this fabulous countryside, and I mean, the villages and towns and so on was unbelievable. It was extraordinary temples with very ornate kind of carving on them and so on. And every village, we had to stop while the expedition was officially welcomed by the male. And so it was rather a slow process in the end, taking the stills camera man who we had met before, and Griff pill, the physiologist, we went ahead to our hotel, and they were hungry. And we gave them scrambled eggs or something or whatever they the hotel could come up with. And then they join the rest of the expedition for these otter tie on for March to town. And we were behind in energy behind the main lot of and directly in front of us with George Lowe, who was the other one of the two New Zealanders and someone else. And drawers was just over fitting on this Jeep on the edge of it as anyone might I mean they weren't passengers in the ordinary sense at all. And he was sitting on the back and place was crammed I mean going through the streets you could hardly move the procession move fairly slowly. And all around the streets which were sort of half timbered houses very very like two door Elizabethan houses. Western sort of jutting out windows and balcony not exactly balconies, but the windows are so to speak, can't leave it out a bit. They didn't have glass in them because I think they didn't have any glass but they had sort of fretted panels that they put into the windows for houses must have been pretty damn cold. But this meant there was a deep window sill along all the all the houses and under these house Martin for built their nest and it was nesting time and family time. And these unfortunate house Martins were terrified and there was a lot of zooming into their nesting. Then feeding the kitchen faucet they possibly could, you know, but it wasn't that there was a single nest under each and there wasn't room for all ins. So you might say there was a kind of block of flats of nests built underneath and upside down you're saying they were sort of full shelf at the top and then gradually narrow wants to come down to a point that a vast population of house markets and they really live in the close up quite a bit. But I think we went to the Durbar Square first, which is rather fantastic small square with the sort of mazz Palace or whatever it is, it was probably one of the minor Ron was palaces at some time. And there they were welcomed by the the expedition was welcomed by the mayor. They had been welcomed as I told you earlier, Garland's of Mary marigolds also put down their necks, and you know, instead of throwing confetti, they throw a red die, which is a sort of ritual thing to do. And by the time they arrived at the app, there's Durbar squares, it was called. I mean, they were read from down the road faces everything. This is mainly the leaders, the other people didn't get quite so much attention paid to them, which enabled George Lowe, the other New Zealander who is right in front of us to start fooling as we went along. I mean, he sort of spotted us behind him and he turned around and thought this type of business turning around, but at least it was sort of relieved the points where we'd actually come to a stop. But Durbar Square had a lot of very ornate buildings one or two temples I think and and various spectacular and some of them with erotic carving on them and so on. But

from after being welcomed by the mayor and possibly getting more Garland's and so on, they then went on their way to the Royal Palace. And by this time it is pretty dark, but obviously Rory and I was at Raleigh, Raleigh and I sorry, we didn't want to be left out. So we went on sort of madly shooting with an empty camera like up until we got to the Royal Palace and then went in with the, with the rest of the expedition. And we were in a long hole. And Katmandu was rather odd in being a very mediaeval city, but it did have electric light, but it also it it had electric light, but not enough. I mean, each bar was about one candle power sort of thing, you know. And down this long hole was the king at the end, and I think a couple of his wives and so on sort of in attendance, he at least was just in height. So you can see this very quiet figure down at the far end of the very dimly lit ceremonial Hall. And each one of them starting, I suppose with Hillary and Tenzing went down and collected a medal. I think Hillary and Hillary Clinton tensing got a special kind of medal and the rest got what you might call an expedition medals, and red faces, nor most of them. I think Griff and Gregory who was the silk camera man had had time to come back with us and have scrambled eggs in a wash. So that at least looked fairly normal. But when when growth, the physiologist went up, he was still in his pyjamas to receive his medal and he came down and that I think was about the end of these celebrations, more or less, but it was terrific farm. It was pitched it was pitch dark. I think by the time we came out.

John Taylor  14:00  
And of course in those days, Nepal was a closed country.

Country.

Paddy Carey  14:07  
Yes. I mean,

John Taylor  14:08  
there was no one that I can remember vividly one of the sequences your shot of carrying and then drove drove the now. And there's no road it was was it a Landrover steam engine?

Paddy Carey  14:21  
It was a Land Rover, but I think they had brought in the steam engine at some point in the

Unknown Speaker  14:25  
road road I hadn't

John Taylor  14:29  
heard many cases didn't know. Know, you couldn't go in without permission. The nice stuff of monkeys running around the temple.

Paddy Carey  14:42  
Yes, that was bad gone. I think there are some marvellous temples. And we've got talking to one of the monks whose English was was very weird. And Leon was much better sort of interrogating them than I was I've forgotten what he what he said. But he said everything. I mean, the principal thing I think was to get rid of devils. David as he calls them, and the devil for here and the David's were there and all the rest of it. There was a kind of fetishism about evil spirits and all that kind of thing. It seemed to be a very primitive kind of religion, but they had some marvellous temple thurb with eyes on them. This was the Buddhist ones, there were Hindu ones as well, of course. But the Buddhist ones had a big eye on each other. Ah, I mean, there was a kind of pointed tower on the, on the top of, of square pediment, which had doors in it and so on. But and it had a big eye on each side of the square, sort of symbolic.

John Taylor  15:53  
So, what happened after that?

Paddy Carey  15:56  
What to me?

John Taylor  16:00  
When that when did you make journey into spring masterpiece?

Paddy Carey  16:11  
It must, must, must Indeed, I think it was made in. Can't think.

John Taylor  16:23  
Did you work on the second series of World of life?

Paddy Carey  16:27  
Yes. But not a third, there was a third, I think it's very positive. I

John Taylor  16:31  
think they're ready to.

Paddy Carey  16:35  
Certainly Larry Pizer took over and did some. And I thought it was a further series. I think more or less immediately after working on world of life, I think the first thing I did was go to Indonesia on our job there for Green Park. And with guy which guy Brenton, which was there. It was a film really for the oil company. And one of these kinds of films, which all companies made to sort of replicate or flatter the governments of the countries that they're working in, and it was a kind of featurette in a way, you know, there was more or less artificial characters in it. There were three brothers who were involved. And it was, it was held to make because guy was, was held to work with as a matter of fact, he talked very much like something out of sight and sound and seem to be terribly theoretical. And I mean, his idea of a close up and my idea of a close up, we're really two quite different things. Forgotten exactly why but he would, he would ask me to set up for a close up and then complain about it. But and we never really got home very well.

John Taylor  18:00  
They're quite a long time.

Paddy Carey  18:01  
A long time. Yeah. So I think it was about four or five months anyway. While you were there, did

John Taylor  18:06  
you meet Kay out there? And

Paddy Carey  18:08  
yes, it was Carrie, I think who she was working out there with rod with a kind of Film Institute sort of thing and production school or whatever. They were sort of their training Indonesians to make films, and it was they who, who supplied us with assistance and advise us on any kind of facilities we needed and what kind of Gen, we needed to know when we should handle things and so on. Short silence Yes. Recorded quite a lot as far as I remember, but I don't think any of us think at all, but a fabulous country. But I have a job. I must admit. He seemed to guys seem to take so long to sort of make up his mind what to shoot. He would spend most of the morning doing that. And he should have known for well that morning was the time you shot. It always started raining at lunchtime and it was pouring. He started nearly if we had to put it off until the following day this this sort of thing seemed to happen all the time. And it was shot off the cuff then really was it? Yes. Pretty much. guy would go into a deep sink so to speak and come up with what he wanted 30 and we will try and shoot it. But very often, I think as I'm sure you found in the topics, it's it seems that very often today is a fairly regular certainly in, in. In Kenya, for instance. It seemed to have the same pattern every day. We got that this was for John's company as well as matter of fact going to be found later on. I think it came more or less immediately after that. De Indonesia

John Taylor  20:04  
you went to Kenya before you went to Indonesia? No,

Paddy Carey  20:07  
I think I think it was after. But

John Taylor  20:12  
were you within Kenya

Paddy Carey  20:15  
to add more thredbo? No, we got on very well, I think but it's funny we It was a long location and it was pretty tedious. It was quite difficult I mean will sort of work with a man to my mouth rather, I was trying to light factories with no light tall with reflectors outside windows and, and this was quite a big sort of factory This was in creature in Africa. And I had with some difficulty had reflective boards made and stirrups made to fit them on to show that we could actually adjust them outside the windows of this factory and you go down to the end and set them all and by the time you arrived at the camera, the sound moves around a bit and that will change you know in this frame. But on the whole life I was fairly satisfied with what I suggested was doing quite large exteriores was just reflectable they still black and white. No No this is this is not a thing which was added to the nation It

John Taylor  21:20  
was 16 milk

Paddy Carey  21:21  
16 more Kodachrome yes so that it was it was pretty slow

John Taylor  21:26  
you know, any bar any single strip colour proper cabinet certified cabinet system um there was the technic Not a single strip that that was used this.

Paddy Carey  21:38  
Yes, it was no this is this is certainly Kodachrome. The single strip technically

John Taylor  21:43  
was about FHA or VA or was a Camry about the precise

Paddy Carey  21:51  
well kinda wasn't much better. Actually, the Kodachrome commercial which I first used in the Arctic had I think, an exterior rating of six it was it was not bad in smell. Trying to like without colour try new. practically impossible add bits of silver. Fortunately, it was a small set it was not official. igloo we had built out of slabs of of Styrofoam, which they had up in the Arctic at that time, they were experimenting with building semi permanent houses with styrofoam. And, but it was a very small area to light. But nevertheless, shooting with this stuff admittedly went up to a speed of eight inside, you know, with artificial But nevertheless, it's practically impossible. I have one lens. I think it was 14 mil or something like that it was not the wide angle, which I would have been better off with. I think it was about 14 mil or the 16 equivalent of a 40 mil I mean, 14 mil would really be about like a 75 and in on 35. But and that there was one lens, which was I think to one day, we were sort of expected to use most which I think was certainly had a wider stop than any of the others. And I had to use that all the way through regardless of whether it was the right length or not. I end on those interiors. But they work quite well actually. They look quite nice. Thank God I had a lot of silver papers.

John Taylor  23:31  
A lot of time overseas in those days.

Paddy Carey  23:34  
Yes, fair mark. I mean, I was in Iran. The thing that got me to the the Shahs wedding was the fact that I I was there, really? And even before this, this, of course was before I joined cockman, wasn't it? Yeah. And I think I went out to Iran three times. With with David Villiers who was an ex ex RF man.

John Taylor  24:09  
He tells us that aha, you have him.

Paddy Carey  24:13  
Did you know about his, his own experiences? I mean, he was he was in Bomber Command.

John Taylor  24:20  
You told us that? Yeah. The daily videos he was killed in the steelworks. Yes. The day was shoot, I didn't I didn't know which company it was. But Fred damages the cameraman.

Paddy Carey  24:34  
Yes, I think it could have been Verity.

John Taylor  24:37  
Yes. It was shooting in a steelworks in southwest

Paddy Carey  24:41  
or else Ronnie Riley, something like that. And

John Taylor  24:44  
they poured hot metal into a giant label labels that headquartered in the bathroom, and it exploded. And videos jumped and was frayed got splashed with on his legs. I think the assistant

Paddy Carey  25:02  
county helper no hay Hooper was injured in another,

John Taylor  25:07  
I think I think they would come in terrible bad luck on this man videos because you've done everything during the war in the way of every Dangerous Johnny to think of and then, you know, someone makes a mistake in the Steel Works.

Paddy Carey  25:24  
Well, I mean, almost the most fatal job you could be was a bomber pilot. But no, I went out with him. And we had Harry Hooper as my assistant. And we were doing doing films for the for the oil company, but there were safety films. And he had the idea of doing sort of comedy films about safety where they all do I have I told you,

John Taylor  25:55  
I think we've done that we could move on

Paddy Carey  25:59  
to the natural history bit thought of I mean, starting with the West content. And this first

John Taylor  26:06  
real natural history film, I suppose you did, because James?

Unknown Speaker  26:09  
Yes.

John Taylor  26:11  
Anything to say about James?

Paddy Carey  26:15  
Well, it was very nice to work with all that when we forgotten that the average film never, you know, journey just being with, as you say, the first sort of proper

John Taylor  26:28  
Natural History of that first of the natural history films ever was net really sorry, it was it was one of the first of the natural history films that was made. I mean, I think it was it was, you know, the first in the in that type of film.

Paddy Carey  26:45  
I don't know, surely there are a series before that of all theatrical shorts on nature subjects. Merrifield for many, many years,

John Taylor  26:56  
but they have different secrets of nature.

Unknown Speaker  26:58  
Yes.

John Taylor  27:02  
You know, this is the first of the kind of good productions in Cape

Paddy Carey  27:07  
Town that time. Well, I mean, not technical. East McCollum was was fairly new. I

John Taylor  27:15  
directed it.

Paddy Carey  27:16  
Ralph keen. Oh, yes.

John Taylor  27:19  
And the tours that the tour systems on network tape, Scott,

Paddy Carey  27:23  
Ted's got McLeod

John Taylor  27:29  
and Cain, where we imagined was a good director to work for, apart from his peculiar heritage.

Paddy Carey  27:35  
Well, this the first time did I mentioned, this is the first time we were in a hide, tell us about Yeah, you know, you told us No, we'd set up in the hide, or I'd set up in the hide on I was either dad kicks nest, or certainly nest in upon, and we were on the edge of the pond. And I told him, that he would have to leave me alone, and go away and forget about it. And I will put a handkerchief out at the back when I was ready to be relieved. So he or one of the assistants could keep an eye on me. And when they saw the handkerchief, they could come and get me out. Because if I just emerged out of it, the bird theoretically attenuated would realise what it was for. Whereas if they saw me in because they couldn't even count up to one or two, you see, if they saw me in and then one walked away, they would assume that it was empty. This is a whole philosophy attenuate I've never really subscribed to it. But anyway, I mean, it's a mesomorph patients, I think men eating out. And so they put me in this is, was Ralph and Ted Scott, and left me to it. And I said, I would put a handkerchief out at the back if I wanted to be relieved. And I sort of sat down to wait because I knew the bird would not come back for a little while. But after about 15 or 20 minutes, there was a hoarse voice outside just when the birds were beginning to come back on the nest, and with a hoarse voice outside from bunny keen, who had sort of crawled up perhaps on all fours, but I can't really see it. And he said, Petty petty is getting on. And by this time, the bird had already registered and flown. And I said, Fine, until you turned up, you know, so he sort of swung on his head on his head. And I think he did that once more. And then he left here was to it all the time. It was really nice actually working on that kind of stuff, which I had always done on black and white before, and having a bit of a budget and being able to do things reasonably well and pay some attention to something other than water based or birth or whatever. And have a body at least was artistic director. And from that point of view, we got on fairly well, I think. And he was very hot on composition. But my composition wasn't too bad either. You see, so I would, I would get him a setup. And he would, he would have a look and say, yes, it's very nice. But go quickly go a little bit further. That way, it looks a little bit out nicer. Yes. But if you move a little bit further that way, which I knew, you'll get that Browns coming in, and it won't look very nice at all. But he still wouldn't believe me. And he would try panning a little that way. And of course, the bloody thing came in, and he would say, Yes, I see you're right. And he would leave me to it after that. But he was a lot of selfish director actually, I think and, and he, but we got on surprisingly well. But

John Taylor  30:51  
into, you know, from the outside, it seemed to be a happy production feeling to

Paddy Carey  30:56  
the country. So indeed, he was got a composition. And I mean, he picked nice angles and paces, and so on to shoot it. And I think, probably having been on on the continent series before that, I will probably paid more attention to, to animals, and birds and so on, then and cover the film, perhaps with animals. So I've been entirely on my own. Instead of paying so much attention to the scenery,

John Taylor  31:27  
there's been nice stuff with rocks nesting, I remember in the spring, we did to build a platform that

Paddy Carey  31:35  
we built a pile on hide from our gopher construction thing, and set it up there and waited for them to get used to it. And then I went off. But one of the more comfortable highs. I've had, in my experience, not that I've done all that much of sort of climbing trees and shooting birds. I haven't really. But we'd learned a bit of course from I mean, I was able to say what I wanted. From the experience of Eric Hoskins hide on the very first thing I did with with countryman.

John Taylor  32:07  
Well, at that time, you must have known more about photographing birds and animals than practically anyone else. I would have thought because you'd have more experience.

Paddy Carey  32:14  
Yes, indeed. I mean, that was that was why I got it. I think it was you who recommended me to engage. And

John Taylor  32:20  
I mean, it was it was a very successful film all the way. And that was it. Read the commentary,

Paddy Carey  32:27  
Laura Lee, really lovely. commentary on any film I've ever had, I think

John Taylor  32:34  
it got 10 numerous awards, didn't it? Yes, it did. I can't remember which Oscars got the ticket and American or Oscar.

Paddy Carey  32:43  
It was nominated for an Oscar. I don't think it got one. It got the British Academy Award. And I think it got others. But of course, I didn't get them. So I and I wasn't working for transport immediately after. So I wasn't working for transporter peptides.

John Taylor  33:01  
I think I think the film itself had better had a big effect on other film production, you know, but there's a lot of films that sparked off how the films in the same way, and probably had, you know, quite an effect on people like atom Brown, and so on who, up until that time been doing your note that not? much simpler form of stuff.

Paddy Carey  33:24  
And there would have been a much lower budget, of course.

John Taylor  33:29  
But do you know that? And in between it it was one of those rare films that you know, it was kind of? I don't know what the right is this seminar?

Paddy Carey  33:37  
Yes, I would think so. Yes.

John Taylor  33:39  
I always struck me as being any.

Paddy Carey  33:43  
But last time I was down at, at the

John Taylor  33:49  
staybridge.

Paddy Carey  33:51  
Know, at the new festival of Natural History films. Yes. Last time I was there, which was a few years ago now. It was shown as a classic

John Taylor  34:04  
question, which I think I was trying to say yes. Yes. And no, I would have thought that. I might

Paddy Carey  34:11  
add, incidentally, that the original idea came from Mr. Taylor.

John Taylor  34:16  
I guess that was the one that one of the ones that I didn't make.

Paddy Carey  34:24  
too modest.

Unknown Speaker  34:26  
Oh, well, but

Paddy Carey  34:27  
it was a lovely film to work on.

John Taylor  34:29  
And he was a very good filmmaker. Oh, yeah. I mean, way but, you know, he

Paddy Carey  34:36  
was very selfish man. But he was a very good filmmaker and, and he had more sort of artistry in his background. I mean, he had been mixed up in art with artists and galleries and all the rest of it. He'd been a buyer for two scalloway I think for a long time.

John Taylor  34:52  
In one of the books that goes around. I don't know you know about that period. There's Benjamin a while Both them say he worked too scattered again he said he said they tooth is key

so what happened after that because you're you're just did that one film at transporter that time?

Paddy Carey  35:22  
No, I mean it wasn't all that long after that before I did was it done? Wild Wings or something later on

John Taylor  35:31  
last night but no it couldn't do it must have been roughly that time.

Paddy Carey  35:35  
Roughly that period I think

John Taylor  35:38  
this is with Ralph again.

Paddy Carey  35:39  
This is Ralph again and they voted on it. Yes, when you came on and finished it the house

John Taylor  35:44  
made you really made it I mean, you did all that stuff at peacock

Paddy Carey  35:54  
peacock and Slimbridge. But I mean, Ralph was a menace. I mean, there was no hard to stop in there. So he he wanted some stuff on my guns and things like that. And and I mean, I wasn't getting the stuff because I was waiting for it to happen. So he would chase them into doing something and of course it was unusable but he was a very impatient man. And he was he was a bit naughty on that I think that nautic is a bit lackadaisical in a way I mean he he handed me sequences to shoot like the rigging of birds or peacock or somewhere and then when I showed you to me and I done the same thing before for continent quite a few times and he was a won't cut won't cut you bloody well it will cut and of course it did perfectly straightforward I mean it's kind of thing you can shoot in long shot meet up close up and all the rest of it No, but but he will he didn't like people to have it too easy I think

John Taylor  37:01  
it suffered from nervous tension of some kind I never thought it would get there in there.

Paddy Carey  37:08  
I think his wife would heal at that time we're going to well yes he was

John Taylor  37:13  
but after that I mean the death while wings as a whole was very successful and you really made that made it he was the thing that went right the way through and this question is about wildlings it was mainly it was with Peter Scott pants book on you

those that are you started shooting at that at that theatre pika gas on the on the track for

Paddy Carey  37:44  
progress very difficult. I mean, it's very difficult to to filter it show that people could see how it worked and I'm not at all sure that I succeeded any

John Taylor  37:52  
of you did I can remember sequence perfect is large an enormous kind of track for catching

Paddy Carey  37:59  
recorded a pipe it was a cube of net netting, you know,

John Taylor  38:03  
and a dog jumps through place plays through it shows itself at the side and drives the map it's like it doesn't drive them up they

Unknown Speaker  38:13  
follow him

Paddy Carey  38:13  
follow him up in here but they follow it see what's

John Taylor  38:17  
going on mean that's amazing. And then and then I'm in there's a beautiful winter sequence

Paddy Carey  38:27  
of the geese and so on Yeah.

John Taylor  38:30  
And there's also you know this this sequence of the rocket netting a piece up in Scotland or wherever I was with you in a row with Peter Scott Bradley we're doing I did he has no i think i think he had rally one

Paddy Carey  38:51  
I think he had a row with everybody at that point as a matter of fact I don't actually remember him rowing me I can remember him filming about some damn thing but i don't i don't think i felt that generate put it that way and other people sort of hung their heads a bit I think and let let him rage on I think it was quite unnecessary whatever it was but certainly would be very good friends should

John Taylor  39:23  
establish remembers tension to Pauline rocket they named the end it always struck me as being one thing about NEC there's they've got no ceiling for their subject matter at all. You know bring it to NEC and have a look inside and see what it's got in it

Paddy Carey  39:45  
one of the one of the other nice content on the items of course with Conrad Lawrence, because we are someone other things. Did I show him shoot him three I don't remember that. I know he came out and picture post swimming well or something of that kind but I don't think I shall I'm actually swimming I don't know it's a long time since I've seen it God knows but he was a fascinating man to be with of course and a very valuable very very good talker

John Taylor  40:16  
he became very good friends with Scott to train

Paddy Carey  40:21  
I used to pop in and see them when I went down and they were always very kind and I saw his wife at the last week it wasn't wasn't the rundown there was the one up here I mean the wildscreen at the wildscreen thing and she was very warm like God guides me in a way not that I hadn't got on well with her but that really my main my main dealing was with Peter

John Taylor  40:59  
Well, one of the things that was even more successful really than the first one was net because that when you've got an American Academy Award

Paddy Carey  41:09  
with Rob wildlings well I didn't get it

John Taylor  41:18  
but it got it got the the American Academy Award

Unknown Speaker  41:22  
definitely

Paddy Carey  41:23  
I thought it was nominated but

John Taylor  41:26  
they got an American Academy Award because they know where it is sitting on the stove in this house.

Unknown Speaker  41:33  
It will be

John Taylor  41:36  
it was awarded the company

Paddy Carey  41:39  
indeed it was more of a bit of a celebration I think about it

John Taylor  41:45  
sorry in its own strange way to transport was a very good place to work.

Paddy Carey  41:49  
Yes, we was and the only place that we're doing that kind of budget of nature films at all.

John Taylor  42:00  
You had the latitude to know what that was like working for film Producers Guild has enough latitude in the money if it didn't work this time

Paddy Carey  42:12  
on you didn't have to shuffle takes two takes up most of my life is impossible anyway.

John Taylor  42:22  
So one of the things what happened next?

Paddy Carey  42:25  
What happens next?

John Taylor  42:29  
If you hadn't done that you hadn't particularly went to Canada ratio

Paddy Carey  42:34  
right now to Canada first and then to Ireland after that. But me in Canada Of course my first job was in the Arctic in which I had no experience at all and we're shooting on on commercial corridor comm which is talked about I've no speed at all. This is Eskimo bit you know

John Taylor  43:00  
these are estimates

Paddy Carey  43:03  
Yes, mainly. And the first one did very well it was nominated for an Oscar and got various other awards for

John Taylor  43:10  
McKinsey working with what you're what you're doing on them directing.

Paddy Carey  43:13  
No I was I was coming down and the

John Taylor  0:02  
Eddie carry sign for you were saying the the Eskimo film. The first one

Paddy Carey  0:09  
was the first one was the first thing I did. Yeah, actually,

John Taylor  0:12  
this is a Canadian National Film Board.

Paddy Carey  0:14  
Yes, with a New Zealander called john Feeney directly. And that was it. The unit

John Taylor  0:23  
had to be that was it?

Paddy Carey  0:24  
I mean, that was the entire unit and loads and loads of supplies and god knows what not.

John Taylor  0:32  
What what time of the year did you go to the

Paddy Carey  0:35  
we went there and only spring? I think it was it was still all frozen up and all the rest? Oh, it was certainly early spring in Arctic terms. I think we actually went in May. But I mean, in the Arctic, where we were at that time, I think June or July, will perhaps the most where you could expect it to see what was under the snow. But I may be inaccurate on that we were there for five months to 10 away. So I mean, the winter was was coming right back in when we pulled out

John Taylor  1:12  
what was the image was that in one place?

Paddy Carey  1:14  
That was all in Cape Dorset on on Hudson's Bay

John Taylor  1:20  
and film about the Eskimos themselves?

Unknown Speaker  1:24  
Yes,

John Taylor  1:25  
it might kind of way anthropological or

Paddy Carey  1:30  
no, it was theoretically it was a story in more vaguely story form about an Eskimo family, and to show how they lived but I don't think there was much in the way of commerce. It's so long since I've seen it. And of course, I had nothing to do with the finishing of the film at all. So long since I've seen it, but the commentator was, I think theoretically an Eskimo. And the hero of the story is, it started with an old man telling a story. The story of this particular hunter with a cop sitting in an Eskimo with a couple of kids around him that he's telling this story to. And it turns buyers though you don't you know, you only know it by colour. We have a tattoo on his hand. And he mentions this tattoo as the protagonist in the story, having this tattoo on his hand. And at the end when we returned to the old man telling the story with some kind of gesture here he feels that he has it was a nice film I think it was but he was the title. Sorry,

John Taylor  2:51  
What's the title?

Paddy Carey  2:55  
Yeah, me. I think I've been working too little that I didn't think we had to go I can't think of it

John Taylor  3:14  
because I've got the catalogue upstairs. When Edward with me and we can have a look at that.

Paddy Carey  3:22  
But we were there for five months. And where were you living then? Mostly we were living in Cape Dorset in what they weren't. It was a house house. It was a wooden house built on on top of a bed of stone and cooking. Good milk our own cooking we have an Eskimo woman who did some and she baked bread for us. She was also one of the protagonists in the film, she was the wife of the family and she did a bit of cooking now and again but mostly it was done by john Feeney who was a very capable cook and he'd done all the commerce area before we came in. So if that wasn't what we wanted, it was largely his fault of course now and again we got a bit of seal or something of that kind as well. And rated very well i think one or two we went out to camp on one or two occasions and other things. Some of the the first clip out particularly was was lovely it was spring was just coming on. There was water puddles on the ice and a bit of water here and there and ducks and other waterfowl are coming in and they were using the water and and you have a lot as the season advanced Of course you had a lot of the lights began to extend all the way around the clock and in spring one did have a sunset and the sun So it just sort of went on and on got a bit faint and then began to come up again in the dawn, you know. And I enjoy the fact that the, the eyes have more crisper travelling, we travelled with a dog team at that time. You were travelling with a dog team? Oh, yes. There were no schedules up there or anything like that time. There were one or two sort of Bombardier, as they call them Bombardier sort of attack vehicles for the luggage tank. Which one or two of the military establishments not actually in Cape Dorset. But in another place where I went later on. But mostly it was all teams and all doors or walk one of the other ideas?

John Taylor  5:44  
Did you run behind the sneakers or ride on them?

Paddy Carey  5:47  
I think run will be quite impossible. I mean, they had snow shoes, and they were used for running and we had snow shoes too. But it

John Taylor  5:57  
clothing and all sorts of things.

Paddy Carey  5:59  
Oh, yes. But we had military clothing sort of down quilted things. But as soon as we got up there we've got the the Eskimo to make clothes for us. And they made they were made out of duffel with with a zip down the front or no, the first one didn't even have a zipper at all. You just put it over your head, which was the right way to be. And it had a cover of Grandville cloth, which is pretty windproof. And further to mount the patient conical thing on it. look very pretty.

John Taylor  6:40  
Did you have any luxuries like whiskey?

Paddy Carey  6:44  
I think we had about one bottle of whiskey, which was drawn out and drawn out and drawn out. And we may have succeeded in getting another bottle when the ship came in. But I think probably not. We certainly didn't think it just wasn't there at that time. And one reason it wasn't there was the the way it went for it. Very hard, apparently. But I know when we had our crew, so to speak in on one occasion we get them. We did give them a tiny bottle of whiskey reach which they sank at one gulp with no bother at all. So obviously they knew a thing or two about spirits. But there was as far as I know, no moonshine made or anything of that kind

John Taylor  7:33  
whether it was illegal, wasn't it.

Paddy Carey  7:36  
But they could have made it if they're going to do

John Taylor  7:39  
anymore. Again, they

Paddy Carey  7:41  
know and as far as I know, there are deep problems up there. Which wouldn't surprise me because the neuroses involved in adjusting to white man's authority must advise anyone to search based on this

John Taylor  7:53  
one after another didn't.

Paddy Carey  7:55  
Yes, I was there four times altogether. The first was on that one. And the second one was on my film without a mixed community, namely the relationship between the the white civil servants basically, and, of course, the Hudson's Bay trader, with the Eskimos that shot in Pangnirtung on Campbell and found

John Taylor  8:21  
that silent film was that

Paddy Carey  8:26  
we had no sync sound at all.

John Taylor  8:28  
And it was a small unit

Paddy Carey  8:31  
illustrating a man john Feeny. But it wasn't as good a film. It was a bit more sort of standard kind of documentary. No, and it didn't didn't go together as well, I think at least with this nuclear family and so on the first film sort of held together much more but the second one second one I didn't think did did to the same extent, he was a bit more bittium pc chopped up.

John Taylor  9:03  
And the third one,

Paddy Carey  9:04  
the third one was not with that outfit at all. The third one I think was a feature film. I'm not quite sure of the order, it must have been the feature film. The third one was a feature film with FTK camera directed by actually directed by Nicholas Ray, but he was never with us. We were second unit all from our own shooting sort of background material and so on. And it was quite large screen film, whatever the hell it was. We had a vision

John Taylor  9:41  
was around a vision lose a

Paddy Carey  9:44  
pan of vision no until they

John Taylor  9:46  
one of those things

Paddy Carey  9:48  
sorry. No, it was it was in a kind of into all that intermediate time. I think and I know certainly a tech neuroma I think it was. And we had a technical assistant with us. I think we had two technical assistant with two assistants, myself, and Doug Wilkinson who is a Canadian man who had worked for the film board and had quite a lot of experience of the Arctic. He was theoretically the director. But for some reason or other, he eventually went out and I was there on my own, with these two assistants, and of course, we had Eskimo with us as well. Dog team. Well, we moved about a bit, it will be somewhere around Hudson's Bay. But you flew into Julian, we flew in. And we went in by Cambridge Bay, as far as I remember. And I think we were on. We're on an island in the north, north of her just north of Hudson's Bay or in the mouth of Hudson's Bay. My initial thought at the time anyway, and we were shooting to a script. Not really, theoretically, I think we're, we're fitting in with a script when when budget was a full feature, most of which was to be shot in the in Hudson's Bay in Churchill and around there with a variable unit indeed, with your Kotani playing on Eskimo woman and Anthony Quinn, I think it was paying an Eskimo man and

John Taylor  11:57  
the name of the film,

Paddy Carey  11:59  
savage innocence. I never saw it. Every time I tried to catch up with it, it came to an end of its run by the time I got there, or something like that. I never attacked her armour and we we did quite a bit of wildlife of a kind. Mostly, it was rather difficult kind of because it went away as soon as we got anywhere near the first things we chased. Were musk ox. Berg was with us at the time, this is the director fella. And he at least was able to lay on what was necessary. We were based near an Air Force Base, that should be easy enough to identify which was the farthest north I ever went actually, Rosalind de. And out this Air Force Base. They had had a few actions into one kind or another, shoulda, sort of just to remind you to be careful there were sort of wreck craft at the far end of the runway, you know?

Unknown Speaker  13:09  
And

John Taylor  13:11  
did you fly in small planes to the locations

Paddy Carey  13:14  
where we flew in and our largest plane, and we flew out in an otter, I think it was to do the location. And one day, when I was on my own, I think the thing it was an Italian production. And what we were supposed to do, I think, what's really quite impossible. And Doug Wilkinson was constantly in touch with Rome, telling them it was quite impossible. And the producer, which I wonder how long ago a while ago, you know, I thought I and so we will sort of go out and try again. But in the script, I mean, the scriptwriter, I'd obviously looked at the sort of basic story and they produce I'd said, we're gonna have a hunt there. So he he does a hunt of a polar bear, which he just, it comes straight out of a novel, actually top of the earth, I think the novel is called or top of the world. And he sort of took a hunting sequence out of that, broke it down into long shot, mid shot close up, and all the rest of it did close up of poor tapping bait, and all this stuff, you know, as if the wild polar bear was an actor and could be directed. And well, of course, I mean, we all we could do was trying to do something. And I, when Doug went out, they didn't come back. And I was I just bailed on sort of shooting background stuff and some action stuff. Because the Italian said they would send another director in. The other director turned out to be the associate producer who was Italian very nice man called back to Add. And but he really didn't have a clue, of course. But he, he tended to agree with us that obviously I mean, from what he could see a very first sight, it was quite impossible to shoot the sequence the way they the way that it was scripted. So one thing you tried to do was, we went after the polar bear, we actually shocked well then scuttling around the Arctic in a Dakota, and this bloody great camera looking for polar bear. And they would see one, but they would, the pilot was there, but I can't get down there, for God's sake, you know. And eventually, we saw one out on the ice on a moderately sized frozen lake. And we decided, we all the pilot decided we could get down there. So down we went, and we taxied up towards this polar bear, who sort of watched us coming until we got quite close to it. And just didn't know until we opened the door and started all piling out and getting our equipment out. And then it took off. But we had to two dog teams. One was at the suggestion of the Eskimo dog, by the way, wasn't there. By this time, I think we had two teams one which we would let off. As soon as we opened the door, it would chase after the bear. And he would go to Bay somewhere with all the dogs yapping around him. And he would stay there. In the meantime, and district what happened they laid off a bunch of dogs they took off after the polar bear could which could easily have killed the whole lot if it's actually sense at all. And then we unloaded this hefty gate camera, geared head the lot, you know, onto our specially especially built sled which was enormous and weighed for far more than any of the camera equipment in and the other dog team. And we set the camera up on this so that we will be ready wherever we arrived. And we took off after the polar bear and we just followed its tracks. And as the Eskimo predicted it had backed up against a hunk of ice, which really looked like a film set. I mean, it was quite spectacular balls not a big pillar of ice, like a dome and or something behind it. And ice water coming out from it sort of you know, so that dogs could get round behind or anything of that kind and the dog roll out. And I think I have been told anyway that there was no danger because I mean, if if the bear started coming towards us, they'd shoot it. I mean, it was all they could do.

And the director insisted on are going shorter, closer and closer, and we were really getting quite close. And it was only then that I noticed that the Eskimos were only at that point, sort of opening up their gowns to sort of clean them out and put some ammunition in it you know, so if the photo bad taking these into his head charged at that moment, he could have done quite a bit of damage to the unit. He did charge now and again. But he only followed the doors for so far and then went back into his hole. But the script actually called for nearly 30 talks tough battle between the Eskimo fella and this bear. I think the Italian was by that time resigned to the fact that the only way we could go there in the script, he kills him with a harpoon, or a spear. And so we shot quite a lot on the on the bear in this very idyllic surroundings if they can never be idyllic for bears, I don't know. And they do it to said well that's, that's enough of that. Now we'll have to kill it. So he gave the order to the Eskimo to shoot it. Or what he wanted, of course, was something very dramatic where the bear was a real rock narara had this sort of thing and eventually expired dramatically, which he didn't Of course I mean, he asked him I shot it. So I just went so we didn't get the death of the bear. And then they skinned the bear which was a very beautiful, young female, lovely bear. And we took him home and the meat of course he asked most of the meat and they clean the skin up. And at the Italian suggestion. He tried putting the skin on and vaguely imitating a player which was I mean, he came back after I'd sort of watch the rehearsal or short something or whatever, and say, is that ridiculous? No. He was later killed in a Moto X isn't overly but he was a very charming man, nice man. And he had far more sense than the producer. Obviously, back in Rome, he was telling us all the way to go on. And it was rather like that more or less all the way through was what we did. We didn't do an awful lot except for sort of rather spectacular. See Nixon, there was a woman who went out in the snow to die I think I've found woman but the family was starving, and she had to go out into the snow to die. So we had clothes for her, which we put on an Eskimo woman and she went out into the snow sort of thing. And with the kind of ICC, you know, a one handed probably look quite nice. But then we tried to do a walrus as well. mask off. And all of them are really sort of slightly calming the mask ox. We saw some muskox again, near a small lake where we could put down and we put down and I think as soon as the Muskoka source, they were off. And was there we got out our dogs got out the equipment, and trudged and we charged and charged and charged. And eventually, we caught up with the mask auction. And we set up the camera at a good distance away from and when arranged up, houses are slowly and we were still quite a bit away. When one older male you know what musk ox looks like, they look like sort of home cattle with a tattered carpet over the back right down to the ground. So we're just going to feel when they decided they'd had enough and they they tossed Cathy carpets in the air, so to speak, khaki skirts and flounced off. By that time, I think we'd already spent most of the day just gradually getting there. So really, there was nothing for us, I think, but two, I think we got something on a ring of mascots. First of all, there was another adventure with masks, I think. Yes, hmm. No, after that, the Eskimo told us, what we should do was if we wanted to get close to mascot, which was he would let out a dog or two. And the mascots would go into their defensive circle with the cars and the cars in the middle and all aboard on the outside and

guard the rest of the herd. And then we could creep up and get quite close to them, which we did, actually, with our cameras lead and so on. And then the dog would Yeah, pat them on, the ball would come charging out. And I don't know whether they I don't think we ever actually shot one or actually, they again, took it into their heads to bugger off. And they did do what we did get a bit on them, even if it was only rather static, and our guy doesn't defensive every now and again, charging us a dog. And then there's all the same sort of thing. The guys come out, spot it tomorrow, he used to go off on walks while we were having lunch or shooting or something. And he'd found some bows on the ice somewhere. And we chased off after them with this enormous sled and the equipment and so on. And we got near enough to get the kind of launch off the wall, and then began to sneak up and it was quite a lot of progress. We got closer and closer. And really we were just running off stuff which so that they will have a sort of range between that, that that that because I mean they might run away at any time or do something silly or silly to our purposes to generate. And we got closer and we was fairly close, I think. And I think they do it or decided that we probably had as much as we could do. They wouldn't do anything that would sort of give us anything dramatic or something like that. And then they wouldn't go away. For me, really.

Unknown Speaker  24:50  
And

Paddy Carey  24:53  
I think we tried banging off rifles and all sorts of things but they wouldn't move on. I wanted to get them going out. into the water and so on. In the end, our Eskimo guide, went out with a harpoon on tap to tap the big ball on the nose and he still wouldn't move. And I think in the end, he probably left off our shot and there is almost, and then they hastily sort of backed away into the water behind them. But it was quite a lot of fun. It paid well.

John Taylor  25:27  
What was the next that you did for in the Arctic?

Paddy Carey  25:31  
Yes, the other one was an expedition or scientific expedition, which was doing research into the physiology of cold. And the place where they had chosen I think, was

Cambridge Bay that was on the way out. It was Pangnirtung, actually where, which is where I done the second film, film on sort of Eskimo life and so on. Beautiful place, lovely sort of long fjord on it. But

it was an international team of physiologists or scientists was one or two of their own technicians, not film people at all. And we all went up. I think someone called Bob Anderson in Ottawa, who I think you knew in June, I did use mixed up in their scientific, yes, physiology. But anyway, it was he who kept me on the job. And there was, there was one Norwegian one. One Englishman, I think. Mostly, they were American. Or, though theoretically, the expedition was led by Canadian courts, it was all sort of inter governmental kind of thing. And it was from the National Research Council in Ottawa. But I don't think there were any serious problems. They used to sort of protest Eskimos to sleep in control conditions of temperature. They had electrodes stuck onto them and things stuck up their bombs, and God knows what not you know, which will be measured all the time. And it wasn't the most exciting film by any means. No quite nice bunch of people to be with.

John Taylor  27:48  
What, what after after the Arctic, what else did you do in Canada?

Paddy Carey  27:54  
I did a film about schools, which went from Winnipeg over to Nova Scotia. I know very little after that, for the National Film Board, I forgot why they were they were beginning to cut Yes, they were beginning to cut back on outside cameraman. And I of course has notes like cameramen, I might have tried to get in on a kind of permanent basis. But I wasn't at all sure that it was right thing to do. Because the cameraman in their eyes are doing the sort of things which I didn't want to do, and enjoying it. And I knew I couldn't, or else. The general trend of things seemed to be in a more frigid, rigid direction than it had been. I mean, the fact of not using outside cameraman was one of them, because I think probably outside camera man brought in a bit of new blood and it was a bit sort of feeding on itself. If they were only using the same people all the time.

John Taylor  29:04  
whereabouts are we in time now?

Paddy Carey  29:13  
I went over there in 57. And left I think in 62 762. Yes.

John Taylor  29:28  
We finished getting re finished with Canada to move on to Ireland.

Paddy Carey  29:32  
Yes. And the first place I went with Ireland because Joe Mendoza, who you know, I'd always been in touch with him because I'd worked with him quite a bit. But he told me that Ireland was beginning to wake up to the idea of films, he'd made a couple of films now that he won't affect when I got there. I found that all his films were sponsored by oil companies or something of that kind and he'd only made two or three Anyway, I think you have another one in, in the pipeline. And really, it wasn't working out to the extent that it appeared to be. So But nevertheless, I like being back in Ireland so much that I was quite happy if I could get work in England to work mostly in England and live in Ireland, and wait for things to happen. I did go into the government, and tried to nag them into starting a kind of National Film Board, which they sort of considered my report and eventually sort of set one up about five years later. But I think I worked quite hard at it for a while. And I saw a few government ministers and so on. That was one that I had known fairly well as kunju, those who I've met attenuate, I knew my father knew him fairly well. And he was the first one I met. And he was very helpful. He was the Minister of Transport, which had bad fortune under his wing. And he pushed me out to see the headboard fortunate at that time. And he also gave me an introduction, I think, to one or two other government ministers. And, but nevertheless, they all really took their time without making their minds about anything. And I was probably quite wrong in pushing the idea of a kind of National Film Board sort of setup, I would have probably succeeded far better if I had gone and said, I am Patti Carey, I have been making films all over the bloody world, or whatever, you know, and I've come home and, and I'll show you some of my films, I'm sure you will want to make this sort of thing. But I think one thing that certainly helped was, I think there was a showing of journey into spring, English British Embassy, used to give an occasional showing of films, and they would invite government ministers and so on. And this went down all the well. And then on I began to slowly get to getting some money out of them for film. But the first one I made in Ireland was was for the H and T.

Which was 1965. I think it was, where am I in time now?

John Taylor  32:37  
We're looking at one it's kind of three years after you've got that can get another?

Paddy Carey  32:41  
Yes. In the meantime, of course, I've been working with his new

John Taylor  32:47  
battery. We've been made for about good traffic on the railway.

Paddy Carey  32:55  
But actually it was then that I made Wild Wings with neck after I'd come back. And why wings is one of the first things I did when I came back as the wildcard which again, was useful in making my number one point that we

John Taylor  33:12  
make, we make it we have

Paddy Carey  33:15  
enjoyed making them making

John Taylor  33:17  
those we've made a monumental killman better good handling for British Airways in Bolton. We'll have a nice day.

Paddy Carey  33:28  
And we did the film's on port two,

John Taylor  33:31  
we get the South Wales docks.

Unknown Speaker  33:33  
Yes.

Unknown Speaker  33:36  
Yes.

John Taylor  33:38  
Is a series of those that I that we I would use sometimes. We use we use Southampton as well.

Paddy Carey  33:45  
We did Southampton certainly. And the South Wales ports we did I think the devil

John Taylor  33:49  
drives as they say.

Paddy Carey  33:52  
Yeah. But my crotch in charge anyway.

John Taylor  33:58  
It was nice of you live with you and Rory and Liam, we're able to get pleasure working.

Paddy Carey  34:06  
It wasn't. No, it was for me too. But and especially as I mean with this policy of the National Film Board, I hadn't done an awful lot of work in in the last years in Canada. What I had done, I'd been freelance with other companies or something like that

John Taylor  34:26  
come to this country because this is really the first film that you really wanted to make and made in your the way that you wanted to make

Paddy Carey  34:33  
more or less. Yes. It was up to me put it that way, but

John Taylor  34:40  
it was this is what you say personal and number of personal films that you've made.

Paddy Carey  34:49  
Yes. And it certainly was the first I mean, actually the by the time you saw it at the end, I think the problems have been sorted out the problems have all been with the government. The sponsor the sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs for the youth and teenagers. And they had never made this department had never made a film before and didn't really have the faintest idea how to go about it. But they knew what they wanted in. So the first draft of the film, you might say, which we showed to Edgar was in two parts. One you might call the government's film, which was all introductory, and a whole lot of stuff, which really had nothing to do with gate at all, but they want to get in. And the second part was my film. Except for some stuff, which rather introduce the sort of gates background to the other film. But anyway, we eventually showed that to Edgar, they wanted to know how they were going to depict it or something like that. And I arranged to show it to Edgar to see what he thought about it against him. And he had a look at it and said, the last part is lovely. The first part much too long. Like, you're just what I wanted to hear, not that I'm primed him or anything like that I hadn't. And then my suggestion, the civil servant, who was with us, who was the civil servant in charge of the whole project, my suggestion that he talked distribution to Edgar, about where the film would go, when we had cut it down a bit in the front, and so on. And he also had the impertinence actually to ask Edgar, how much journey just bring her cost, which you had seen. I when I was budgeting, the youth film, and when I first went over to all of them was trying to get him to set up a National Film Unit. I had a lot of talk with Edgar, about production costs and all the rest of it, which I knew nothing about at all, really. And he was very helpful, very helpful, indeed. And I've done a fair amount of work on it myself talking to john and other people. And I said to Edgar, I suppose journey into spring would have cost about 15,000. And he thought for a minute, and he said, Yes, I suppose it would have cost about that. And then this, I told this fella in foreign affairs that john is a favourite cost 15,000. Because gauge Conti cost 660. I mean, that was all I could screw out on. And I left him with a car. One of the first questions he asked him was, how much what was the budget on? January has been Episode 7500? Well, I knew. I mean, I've been up against the ignorance of these people, total ignorance. I mean, they'd, when I had first approached them about cost, and all sorts of things, they had gone to the COI, and said, How much do you think 6000 pounds is enough to make a film about create country and see a lie, of course, always worked on Penny pinching budgets. And people consider them about the meanest and worst sort of sponsoring agent in Britain. And he also went to the rank and said, who they had some dealings with for their own films or something. And he asked them the same question. And they said, Oh, yes, we could make a film for 6000 pounds, because I knew they would make the film in two weeks. They would distribute it in their own cinemas, edit it in two weeks, the lot, you know, and they would, they would make it for 6000 pounds or make a profit on showing it in their own cinemas or something, you know, certainly it'll be no problem. But you can't go on collecting people indefinitely. And when he came out after seeing a guy and said that he had told him that Keanu just been cost 7500. I mean, I thought, gee, I mean, I knew that Edgar was theoretically not allowed to make an expensive film, he had so many overhead and the actual cost of production wasn't was only half for all the budget was half for the actual cost of production. And my estimate of about 15,000 was called a reputable data on that. I mean, one was up against this kind of thing the whole time, and also having to be pressured into shooting a whole lot of stuff, which I hoped and eventually did get thrown out in the final film, but it had nothing to do with Martha.

But fortunately, it did very well no hidden got another one out of them or the next one favourite

John Taylor  39:59  
game, this one There's a film of set of

Unknown Speaker  40:02  
metastatic pets. It's

John Taylor  40:03  
named a pack that films often had. I mean, it was the first of its kind Really?

Paddy Carey  40:09  
Yes, I should think so.

John Taylor  40:11  
I mean, it was the first of your personal life.

Paddy Carey  40:15  
As far as that's concerned, certainly, it was the first film that was my film.

John Taylor  40:19  
And as I was telling, making was gonna sound the way you use things as terminal kind of thing. I would definitely say these things, but I can

Paddy Carey  40:36  
mostly what was the next film you made the next one for, for Irish television.

And that was mists of time, which was a film about myth. And so it's like, of which Ireland has plenty. This set

John Taylor  40:57  
of pattern, a whole series of films didn't, that have your own type, which you wanted to make?

Paddy Carey  41:04  
Well, you might say they all developed clearly one from the other to a certain extent, I mean, the mists of time developed out of out of each country because there was a bit of mythology in each country and a bit of the old storms will take all the dorms and things like that, you know,

John Taylor  41:18  
what kind of budget you get on the myth of time.

Paddy Carey  41:23  
I think I had $8,000. slightly better off than you were on the slightly better I was able to squeeze a bit more understanding actually,

John Taylor  41:40  
because the gates country was successful, although,

Paddy Carey  41:43  
hey, I mean, it was nominated and got a Golden Bell and things like that. But and also gonna rock climber who was heading up. RT at that time, he had actually been nagging me to make a film for for some time, but I didn't want to make a half hour film. And they were all I mean, 25 minute films. And I felt that what I wanted to say about something was, could very easily be said, in a kind of gauge country length, which is quite two or even shorter. But he kept nagging at me, and he said, about a film about archaeology, which he was rather keen on. And of course, God knows there are plenty of archaeology in Ireland. But the thing that attracted me to archaeology or the the idea was that I knew that I mean, the ancient monuments have all sorts of myths and tales about them. And much of what one might call a basic Celtic mythology of Ireland is interwoven with these these prehistoric monuments which were actually built before the club's ever set foot on Ireland. And I knew this, I knew a lot of the stories and I felt something certainly could be done with it, I'd hinted at it in a way and in some of the stuff on in each country. And so I got a tiny budget out of them to go around and seeing what I thought I could do. And it gave me a nice chance to see Ireland again after a while, and also to connect a bit of one messed with another job because quite a few of the ancient myth, the tales of Finn McCool and so on, and dealing with and growing Yeah, where do you go on your were chased by Finn McCall all over Ireland. And, and the story is that do you unburden I mean, every Dolman in Ireland almost it's called dealing with going to bed because this is theoretically where they slept all the way around Ireland until they were cornered in in Sligo which is mentioned in the end of each country.

John Taylor  43:49  
Changing

John Taylor  0:02  
Eddie carry sign for you were saying the the Eskimo film. The first one

Paddy Carey  0:09  
was the first one was the first thing I did. Yeah, actually,

John Taylor  0:12  
this is a Canadian National Film Board.

Paddy Carey  0:14  
Yes, with a New Zealander called john Feeney directly. And that was it. The unit

John Taylor  0:23  
had to be that was it?

Paddy Carey  0:24  
I mean, that was the entire unit and loads and loads of supplies and god knows what not.

John Taylor  0:32  
What what time of the year did you go to the

Paddy Carey  0:35  
we went there and only spring? I think it was it was still all frozen up and all the rest? Oh, it was certainly early spring in Arctic terms. I think we actually went in May. But I mean, in the Arctic, where we were at that time, I think June or July, will perhaps the most where you could expect it to see what was under the snow. But I may be inaccurate on that we were there for five months to 10 away. So I mean, the winter was was coming right back in when we pulled out

John Taylor  1:12  
what was the image was that in one place?

Paddy Carey  1:14  
That was all in Cape Dorset on on Hudson's Bay

John Taylor  1:20  
and film about the Eskimos themselves?

Unknown Speaker  1:24  
Yes,

John Taylor  1:25  
it might kind of way anthropological or

Paddy Carey  1:30  
no, it was theoretically it was a story in more vaguely story form about an Eskimo family, and to show how they lived but I don't think there was much in the way of commerce. It's so long since I've seen it. And of course, I had nothing to do with the finishing of the film at all. So long since I've seen it, but the commentator was, I think theoretically an Eskimo. And the hero of the story is, it started with an old man telling a story. The story of this particular hunter with a cop sitting in an Eskimo with a couple of kids around him that he's telling this story to. And it turns buyers though you don't you know, you only know it by colour. We have a tattoo on his hand. And he mentions this tattoo as the protagonist in the story, having this tattoo on his hand. And at the end when we returned to the old man telling the story with some kind of gesture here he feels that he has it was a nice film I think it was but he was the title. Sorry,

John Taylor  2:51  
What's the title?

Paddy Carey  2:55  
Yeah, me. I think I've been working too little that I didn't think we had to go I can't think of it

John Taylor  3:14  
because I've got the catalogue upstairs. When Edward with me and we can have a look at that.

Paddy Carey  3:22  
But we were there for five months. And where were you living then? Mostly we were living in Cape Dorset in what they weren't. It was a house house. It was a wooden house built on on top of a bed of stone and cooking. Good milk our own cooking we have an Eskimo woman who did some and she baked bread for us. She was also one of the protagonists in the film, she was the wife of the family and she did a bit of cooking now and again but mostly it was done by john Feeney who was a very capable cook and he'd done all the commerce area before we came in. So if that wasn't what we wanted, it was largely his fault of course now and again we got a bit of seal or something of that kind as well. And rated very well i think one or two we went out to camp on one or two occasions and other things. Some of the the first clip out particularly was was lovely it was spring was just coming on. There was water puddles on the ice and a bit of water here and there and ducks and other waterfowl are coming in and they were using the water and and you have a lot as the season advanced Of course you had a lot of the lights began to extend all the way around the clock and in spring one did have a sunset and the sun So it just sort of went on and on got a bit faint and then began to come up again in the dawn, you know. And I enjoy the fact that the, the eyes have more crisper travelling, we travelled with a dog team at that time. You were travelling with a dog team? Oh, yes. There were no schedules up there or anything like that time. There were one or two sort of Bombardier, as they call them Bombardier sort of attack vehicles for the luggage tank. Which one or two of the military establishments not actually in Cape Dorset. But in another place where I went later on. But mostly it was all teams and all doors or walk one of the other ideas?

John Taylor  5:44  
Did you run behind the sneakers or ride on them?

Paddy Carey  5:47  
I think run will be quite impossible. I mean, they had snow shoes, and they were used for running and we had snow shoes too. But it

John Taylor  5:57  
clothing and all sorts of things.

Paddy Carey  5:59  
Oh, yes. But we had military clothing sort of down quilted things. But as soon as we got up there we've got the the Eskimo to make clothes for us. And they made they were made out of duffel with with a zip down the front or no, the first one didn't even have a zipper at all. You just put it over your head, which was the right way to be. And it had a cover of Grandville cloth, which is pretty windproof. And further to mount the patient conical thing on it. look very pretty.

John Taylor  6:40  
Did you have any luxuries like whiskey?

Paddy Carey  6:44  
I think we had about one bottle of whiskey, which was drawn out and drawn out and drawn out. And we may have succeeded in getting another bottle when the ship came in. But I think probably not. We certainly didn't think it just wasn't there at that time. And one reason it wasn't there was the the way it went for it. Very hard, apparently. But I know when we had our crew, so to speak in on one occasion we get them. We did give them a tiny bottle of whiskey reach which they sank at one gulp with no bother at all. So obviously they knew a thing or two about spirits. But there was as far as I know, no moonshine made or anything of that kind

John Taylor  7:33  
whether it was illegal, wasn't it.

Paddy Carey  7:36  
But they could have made it if they're going to do

John Taylor  7:39  
anymore. Again, they

Paddy Carey  7:41  
know and as far as I know, there are deep problems up there. Which wouldn't surprise me because the neuroses involved in adjusting to white man's authority must advise anyone to search based on this

John Taylor  7:53  
one after another didn't.

Paddy Carey  7:55  
Yes, I was there four times altogether. The first was on that one. And the second one was on my film without a mixed community, namely the relationship between the the white civil servants basically, and, of course, the Hudson's Bay trader, with the Eskimos that shot in Pangnirtung on Campbell and found

John Taylor  8:21  
that silent film was that

Paddy Carey  8:26  
we had no sync sound at all.

John Taylor  8:28  
And it was a small unit

Paddy Carey  8:31  
illustrating a man john Feeny. But it wasn't as good a film. It was a bit more sort of standard kind of documentary. No, and it didn't didn't go together as well, I think at least with this nuclear family and so on the first film sort of held together much more but the second one second one I didn't think did did to the same extent, he was a bit more bittium pc chopped up.

John Taylor  9:03  
And the third one,

Paddy Carey  9:04  
the third one was not with that outfit at all. The third one I think was a feature film. I'm not quite sure of the order, it must have been the feature film. The third one was a feature film with FTK camera directed by actually directed by Nicholas Ray, but he was never with us. We were second unit all from our own shooting sort of background material and so on. And it was quite large screen film, whatever the hell it was. We had a vision

John Taylor  9:41  
was around a vision lose a

Paddy Carey  9:44  
pan of vision no until they

John Taylor  9:46  
one of those things

Paddy Carey  9:48  
sorry. No, it was it was in a kind of into all that intermediate time. I think and I know certainly a tech neuroma I think it was. And we had a technical assistant with us. I think we had two technical assistant with two assistants, myself, and Doug Wilkinson who is a Canadian man who had worked for the film board and had quite a lot of experience of the Arctic. He was theoretically the director. But for some reason or other, he eventually went out and I was there on my own, with these two assistants, and of course, we had Eskimo with us as well. Dog team. Well, we moved about a bit, it will be somewhere around Hudson's Bay. But you flew into Julian, we flew in. And we went in by Cambridge Bay, as far as I remember. And I think we were on. We're on an island in the north, north of her just north of Hudson's Bay or in the mouth of Hudson's Bay. My initial thought at the time anyway, and we were shooting to a script. Not really, theoretically, I think we're, we're fitting in with a script when when budget was a full feature, most of which was to be shot in the in Hudson's Bay in Churchill and around there with a variable unit indeed, with your Kotani playing on Eskimo woman and Anthony Quinn, I think it was paying an Eskimo man and

John Taylor  11:57  
the name of the film,

Paddy Carey  11:59  
savage innocence. I never saw it. Every time I tried to catch up with it, it came to an end of its run by the time I got there, or something like that. I never attacked her armour and we we did quite a bit of wildlife of a kind. Mostly, it was rather difficult kind of because it went away as soon as we got anywhere near the first things we chased. Were musk ox. Berg was with us at the time, this is the director fella. And he at least was able to lay on what was necessary. We were based near an Air Force Base, that should be easy enough to identify which was the farthest north I ever went actually, Rosalind de. And out this Air Force Base. They had had a few actions into one kind or another, shoulda, sort of just to remind you to be careful there were sort of wreck craft at the far end of the runway, you know?

Unknown Speaker  13:09  
And

John Taylor  13:11  
did you fly in small planes to the locations

Paddy Carey  13:14  
where we flew in and our largest plane, and we flew out in an otter, I think it was to do the location. And one day, when I was on my own, I think the thing it was an Italian production. And what we were supposed to do, I think, what's really quite impossible. And Doug Wilkinson was constantly in touch with Rome, telling them it was quite impossible. And the producer, which I wonder how long ago a while ago, you know, I thought I and so we will sort of go out and try again. But in the script, I mean, the scriptwriter, I'd obviously looked at the sort of basic story and they produce I'd said, we're gonna have a hunt there. So he he does a hunt of a polar bear, which he just, it comes straight out of a novel, actually top of the earth, I think the novel is called or top of the world. And he sort of took a hunting sequence out of that, broke it down into long shot, mid shot close up, and all the rest of it did close up of poor tapping bait, and all this stuff, you know, as if the wild polar bear was an actor and could be directed. And well, of course, I mean, we all we could do was trying to do something. And I, when Doug went out, they didn't come back. And I was I just bailed on sort of shooting background stuff and some action stuff. Because the Italian said they would send another director in. The other director turned out to be the associate producer who was Italian very nice man called back to Add. And but he really didn't have a clue, of course. But he, he tended to agree with us that obviously I mean, from what he could see a very first sight, it was quite impossible to shoot the sequence the way they the way that it was scripted. So one thing you tried to do was, we went after the polar bear, we actually shocked well then scuttling around the Arctic in a Dakota, and this bloody great camera looking for polar bear. And they would see one, but they would, the pilot was there, but I can't get down there, for God's sake, you know. And eventually, we saw one out on the ice on a moderately sized frozen lake. And we decided, we all the pilot decided we could get down there. So down we went, and we taxied up towards this polar bear, who sort of watched us coming until we got quite close to it. And just didn't know until we opened the door and started all piling out and getting our equipment out. And then it took off. But we had to two dog teams. One was at the suggestion of the Eskimo dog, by the way, wasn't there. By this time, I think we had two teams one which we would let off. As soon as we opened the door, it would chase after the bear. And he would go to Bay somewhere with all the dogs yapping around him. And he would stay there. In the meantime, and district what happened they laid off a bunch of dogs they took off after the polar bear could which could easily have killed the whole lot if it's actually sense at all. And then we unloaded this hefty gate camera, geared head the lot, you know, onto our specially especially built sled which was enormous and weighed for far more than any of the camera equipment in and the other dog team. And we set the camera up on this so that we will be ready wherever we arrived. And we took off after the polar bear and we just followed its tracks. And as the Eskimo predicted it had backed up against a hunk of ice, which really looked like a film set. I mean, it was quite spectacular balls not a big pillar of ice, like a dome and or something behind it. And ice water coming out from it sort of you know, so that dogs could get round behind or anything of that kind and the dog roll out. And I think I have been told anyway that there was no danger because I mean, if if the bear started coming towards us, they'd shoot it. I mean, it was all they could do.

And the director insisted on are going shorter, closer and closer, and we were really getting quite close. And it was only then that I noticed that the Eskimos were only at that point, sort of opening up their gowns to sort of clean them out and put some ammunition in it you know, so if the photo bad taking these into his head charged at that moment, he could have done quite a bit of damage to the unit. He did charge now and again. But he only followed the doors for so far and then went back into his hole. But the script actually called for nearly 30 talks tough battle between the Eskimo fella and this bear. I think the Italian was by that time resigned to the fact that the only way we could go there in the script, he kills him with a harpoon, or a spear. And so we shot quite a lot on the on the bear in this very idyllic surroundings if they can never be idyllic for bears, I don't know. And they do it to said well that's, that's enough of that. Now we'll have to kill it. So he gave the order to the Eskimo to shoot it. Or what he wanted, of course, was something very dramatic where the bear was a real rock narara had this sort of thing and eventually expired dramatically, which he didn't Of course I mean, he asked him I shot it. So I just went so we didn't get the death of the bear. And then they skinned the bear which was a very beautiful, young female, lovely bear. And we took him home and the meat of course he asked most of the meat and they clean the skin up. And at the Italian suggestion. He tried putting the skin on and vaguely imitating a player which was I mean, he came back after I'd sort of watch the rehearsal or short something or whatever, and say, is that ridiculous? No. He was later killed in a Moto X isn't overly but he was a very charming man, nice man. And he had far more sense than the producer. Obviously, back in Rome, he was telling us all the way to go on. And it was rather like that more or less all the way through was what we did. We didn't do an awful lot except for sort of rather spectacular. See Nixon, there was a woman who went out in the snow to die I think I've found woman but the family was starving, and she had to go out into the snow to die. So we had clothes for her, which we put on an Eskimo woman and she went out into the snow sort of thing. And with the kind of ICC, you know, a one handed probably look quite nice. But then we tried to do a walrus as well. mask off. And all of them are really sort of slightly calming the mask ox. We saw some muskox again, near a small lake where we could put down and we put down and I think as soon as the Muskoka source, they were off. And was there we got out our dogs got out the equipment, and trudged and we charged and charged and charged. And eventually, we caught up with the mask auction. And we set up the camera at a good distance away from and when arranged up, houses are slowly and we were still quite a bit away. When one older male you know what musk ox looks like, they look like sort of home cattle with a tattered carpet over the back right down to the ground. So we're just going to feel when they decided they'd had enough and they they tossed Cathy carpets in the air, so to speak, khaki skirts and flounced off. By that time, I think we'd already spent most of the day just gradually getting there. So really, there was nothing for us, I think, but two, I think we got something on a ring of mascots. First of all, there was another adventure with masks, I think. Yes, hmm. No, after that, the Eskimo told us, what we should do was if we wanted to get close to mascot, which was he would let out a dog or two. And the mascots would go into their defensive circle with the cars and the cars in the middle and all aboard on the outside and

guard the rest of the herd. And then we could creep up and get quite close to them, which we did, actually, with our cameras lead and so on. And then the dog would Yeah, pat them on, the ball would come charging out. And I don't know whether they I don't think we ever actually shot one or actually, they again, took it into their heads to bugger off. And they did do what we did get a bit on them, even if it was only rather static, and our guy doesn't defensive every now and again, charging us a dog. And then there's all the same sort of thing. The guys come out, spot it tomorrow, he used to go off on walks while we were having lunch or shooting or something. And he'd found some bows on the ice somewhere. And we chased off after them with this enormous sled and the equipment and so on. And we got near enough to get the kind of launch off the wall, and then began to sneak up and it was quite a lot of progress. We got closer and closer. And really we were just running off stuff which so that they will have a sort of range between that, that that that because I mean they might run away at any time or do something silly or silly to our purposes to generate. And we got closer and we was fairly close, I think. And I think they do it or decided that we probably had as much as we could do. They wouldn't do anything that would sort of give us anything dramatic or something like that. And then they wouldn't go away. For me, really.

Unknown Speaker  24:50  
And

Paddy Carey  24:53  
I think we tried banging off rifles and all sorts of things but they wouldn't move on. I wanted to get them going out. into the water and so on. In the end, our Eskimo guide, went out with a harpoon on tap to tap the big ball on the nose and he still wouldn't move. And I think in the end, he probably left off our shot and there is almost, and then they hastily sort of backed away into the water behind them. But it was quite a lot of fun. It paid well.

John Taylor  25:27  
What was the next that you did for in the Arctic?

Paddy Carey  25:31  
Yes, the other one was an expedition or scientific expedition, which was doing research into the physiology of cold. And the place where they had chosen I think, was

Cambridge Bay that was on the way out. It was Pangnirtung, actually where, which is where I done the second film, film on sort of Eskimo life and so on. Beautiful place, lovely sort of long fjord on it. But

it was an international team of physiologists or scientists was one or two of their own technicians, not film people at all. And we all went up. I think someone called Bob Anderson in Ottawa, who I think you knew in June, I did use mixed up in their scientific, yes, physiology. But anyway, it was he who kept me on the job. And there was, there was one Norwegian one. One Englishman, I think. Mostly, they were American. Or, though theoretically, the expedition was led by Canadian courts, it was all sort of inter governmental kind of thing. And it was from the National Research Council in Ottawa. But I don't think there were any serious problems. They used to sort of protest Eskimos to sleep in control conditions of temperature. They had electrodes stuck onto them and things stuck up their bombs, and God knows what not you know, which will be measured all the time. And it wasn't the most exciting film by any means. No quite nice bunch of people to be with.

John Taylor  27:48  
What, what after after the Arctic, what else did you do in Canada?

Paddy Carey  27:54  
I did a film about schools, which went from Winnipeg over to Nova Scotia. I know very little after that, for the National Film Board, I forgot why they were they were beginning to cut Yes, they were beginning to cut back on outside cameraman. And I of course has notes like cameramen, I might have tried to get in on a kind of permanent basis. But I wasn't at all sure that it was right thing to do. Because the cameraman in their eyes are doing the sort of things which I didn't want to do, and enjoying it. And I knew I couldn't, or else. The general trend of things seemed to be in a more frigid, rigid direction than it had been. I mean, the fact of not using outside cameraman was one of them, because I think probably outside camera man brought in a bit of new blood and it was a bit sort of feeding on itself. If they were only using the same people all the time.

John Taylor  29:04  
whereabouts are we in time now?

Paddy Carey  29:13  
I went over there in 57. And left I think in 62 762. Yes.

John Taylor  29:28  
We finished getting re finished with Canada to move on to Ireland.

Paddy Carey  29:32  
Yes. And the first place I went with Ireland because Joe Mendoza, who you know, I'd always been in touch with him because I'd worked with him quite a bit. But he told me that Ireland was beginning to wake up to the idea of films, he'd made a couple of films now that he won't affect when I got there. I found that all his films were sponsored by oil companies or something of that kind and he'd only made two or three Anyway, I think you have another one in, in the pipeline. And really, it wasn't working out to the extent that it appeared to be. So But nevertheless, I like being back in Ireland so much that I was quite happy if I could get work in England to work mostly in England and live in Ireland, and wait for things to happen. I did go into the government, and tried to nag them into starting a kind of National Film Board, which they sort of considered my report and eventually sort of set one up about five years later. But I think I worked quite hard at it for a while. And I saw a few government ministers and so on. That was one that I had known fairly well as kunju, those who I've met attenuate, I knew my father knew him fairly well. And he was the first one I met. And he was very helpful. He was the Minister of Transport, which had bad fortune under his wing. And he pushed me out to see the headboard fortunate at that time. And he also gave me an introduction, I think, to one or two other government ministers. And, but nevertheless, they all really took their time without making their minds about anything. And I was probably quite wrong in pushing the idea of a kind of National Film Board sort of setup, I would have probably succeeded far better if I had gone and said, I am Patti Carey, I have been making films all over the bloody world, or whatever, you know, and I've come home and, and I'll show you some of my films, I'm sure you will want to make this sort of thing. But I think one thing that certainly helped was, I think there was a showing of journey into spring, English British Embassy, used to give an occasional showing of films, and they would invite government ministers and so on. And this went down all the well. And then on I began to slowly get to getting some money out of them for film. But the first one I made in Ireland was was for the H and T.

Which was 1965. I think it was, where am I in time now?

John Taylor  32:37  
We're looking at one it's kind of three years after you've got that can get another?

Paddy Carey  32:41  
Yes. In the meantime, of course, I've been working with his new

John Taylor  32:47  
battery. We've been made for about good traffic on the railway.

Paddy Carey  32:55  
But actually it was then that I made Wild Wings with neck after I'd come back. And why wings is one of the first things I did when I came back as the wildcard which again, was useful in making my number one point that we

John Taylor  33:12  
make, we make it we have

Paddy Carey  33:15  
enjoyed making them making

John Taylor  33:17  
those we've made a monumental killman better good handling for British Airways in Bolton. We'll have a nice day.

Paddy Carey  33:28  
And we did the film's on port two,

John Taylor  33:31  
we get the South Wales docks.

Unknown Speaker  33:33  
Yes.

Unknown Speaker  33:36  
Yes.

John Taylor  33:38  
Is a series of those that I that we I would use sometimes. We use we use Southampton as well.

Paddy Carey  33:45  
We did Southampton certainly. And the South Wales ports we did I think the devil

John Taylor  33:49  
drives as they say.

Paddy Carey  33:52  
Yeah. But my crotch in charge anyway.

John Taylor  33:58  
It was nice of you live with you and Rory and Liam, we're able to get pleasure working.

Paddy Carey  34:06  
It wasn't. No, it was for me too. But and especially as I mean with this policy of the National Film Board, I hadn't done an awful lot of work in in the last years in Canada. What I had done, I'd been freelance with other companies or something like that

John Taylor  34:26  
come to this country because this is really the first film that you really wanted to make and made in your the way that you wanted to make

Paddy Carey  34:33  
more or less. Yes. It was up to me put it that way, but

John Taylor  34:40  
it was this is what you say personal and number of personal films that you've made.

Paddy Carey  34:49  
Yes. And it certainly was the first I mean, actually the by the time you saw it at the end, I think the problems have been sorted out the problems have all been with the government. The sponsor the sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs for the youth and teenagers. And they had never made this department had never made a film before and didn't really have the faintest idea how to go about it. But they knew what they wanted in. So the first draft of the film, you might say, which we showed to Edgar was in two parts. One you might call the government's film, which was all introductory, and a whole lot of stuff, which really had nothing to do with gate at all, but they want to get in. And the second part was my film. Except for some stuff, which rather introduce the sort of gates background to the other film. But anyway, we eventually showed that to Edgar, they wanted to know how they were going to depict it or something like that. And I arranged to show it to Edgar to see what he thought about it against him. And he had a look at it and said, the last part is lovely. The first part much too long. Like, you're just what I wanted to hear, not that I'm primed him or anything like that I hadn't. And then my suggestion, the civil servant, who was with us, who was the civil servant in charge of the whole project, my suggestion that he talked distribution to Edgar, about where the film would go, when we had cut it down a bit in the front, and so on. And he also had the impertinence actually to ask Edgar, how much journey just bring her cost, which you had seen. I when I was budgeting, the youth film, and when I first went over to all of them was trying to get him to set up a National Film Unit. I had a lot of talk with Edgar, about production costs and all the rest of it, which I knew nothing about at all, really. And he was very helpful, very helpful, indeed. And I've done a fair amount of work on it myself talking to john and other people. And I said to Edgar, I suppose journey into spring would have cost about 15,000. And he thought for a minute, and he said, Yes, I suppose it would have cost about that. And then this, I told this fella in foreign affairs that john is a favourite cost 15,000. Because gauge Conti cost 660. I mean, that was all I could screw out on. And I left him with a car. One of the first questions he asked him was, how much what was the budget on? January has been Episode 7500? Well, I knew. I mean, I've been up against the ignorance of these people, total ignorance. I mean, they'd, when I had first approached them about cost, and all sorts of things, they had gone to the COI, and said, How much do you think 6000 pounds is enough to make a film about create country and see a lie, of course, always worked on Penny pinching budgets. And people consider them about the meanest and worst sort of sponsoring agent in Britain. And he also went to the rank and said, who they had some dealings with for their own films or something. And he asked them the same question. And they said, Oh, yes, we could make a film for 6000 pounds, because I knew they would make the film in two weeks. They would distribute it in their own cinemas, edit it in two weeks, the lot, you know, and they would, they would make it for 6000 pounds or make a profit on showing it in their own cinemas or something, you know, certainly it'll be no problem. But you can't go on collecting people indefinitely. And when he came out after seeing a guy and said that he had told him that Keanu just been cost 7500. I mean, I thought, gee, I mean, I knew that Edgar was theoretically not allowed to make an expensive film, he had so many overhead and the actual cost of production wasn't was only half for all the budget was half for the actual cost of production. And my estimate of about 15,000 was called a reputable data on that. I mean, one was up against this kind of thing the whole time, and also having to be pressured into shooting a whole lot of stuff, which I hoped and eventually did get thrown out in the final film, but it had nothing to do with Martha.

But fortunately, it did very well no hidden got another one out of them or the next one favourite

John Taylor  39:59  
game, this one There's a film of set of

Unknown Speaker  40:02  
metastatic pets. It's

John Taylor  40:03  
named a pack that films often had. I mean, it was the first of its kind Really?

Paddy Carey  40:09  
Yes, I should think so.

John Taylor  40:11  
I mean, it was the first of your personal life.

Paddy Carey  40:15  
As far as that's concerned, certainly, it was the first film that was my film.

John Taylor  40:19  
And as I was telling, making was gonna sound the way you use things as terminal kind of thing. I would definitely say these things, but I can

Paddy Carey  40:36  
mostly what was the next film you made the next one for, for Irish television.

And that was mists of time, which was a film about myth. And so it's like, of which Ireland has plenty. This set

John Taylor  40:57  
of pattern, a whole series of films didn't, that have your own type, which you wanted to make?

Paddy Carey  41:04  
Well, you might say they all developed clearly one from the other to a certain extent, I mean, the mists of time developed out of out of each country because there was a bit of mythology in each country and a bit of the old storms will take all the dorms and things like that, you know,

John Taylor  41:18  
what kind of budget you get on the myth of time.

Paddy Carey  41:23  
I think I had $8,000. slightly better off than you were on the slightly better I was able to squeeze a bit more understanding actually,

John Taylor  41:40  
because the gates country was successful, although,

Paddy Carey  41:43  
hey, I mean, it was nominated and got a Golden Bell and things like that. But and also gonna rock climber who was heading up. RT at that time, he had actually been nagging me to make a film for for some time, but I didn't want to make a half hour film. And they were all I mean, 25 minute films. And I felt that what I wanted to say about something was, could very easily be said, in a kind of gauge country length, which is quite two or even shorter. But he kept nagging at me, and he said, about a film about archaeology, which he was rather keen on. And of course, God knows there are plenty of archaeology in Ireland. But the thing that attracted me to archaeology or the the idea was that I knew that I mean, the ancient monuments have all sorts of myths and tales about them. And much of what one might call a basic Celtic mythology of Ireland is interwoven with these these prehistoric monuments which were actually built before the club's ever set foot on Ireland. And I knew this, I knew a lot of the stories and I felt something certainly could be done with it, I'd hinted at it in a way and in some of the stuff on in each country. And so I got a tiny budget out of them to go around and seeing what I thought I could do. And it gave me a nice chance to see Ireland again after a while, and also to connect a bit of one messed with another job because quite a few of the ancient myth, the tales of Finn McCool and so on, and dealing with and growing Yeah, where do you go on your were chased by Finn McCall all over Ireland. And, and the story is that do you unburden I mean, every Dolman in Ireland almost it's called dealing with going to bed because this is theoretically where they slept all the way around Ireland until they were cornered in in Sligo which is mentioned in the end of each country.

John Taylor  43:49  
Changing

John Taylor  0:00  
Paddy Carey sidesix.

Paddy Carey  0:04  
But he was always had a vague I think in his instructions to me except once or twice. And in fact, the last thing which I didn't do, because I think I couldn't was a interrupted my shooting at one time by sending D, the prop man, Eddie Farley who was a kind of he always had an odd kind of position in David's court, so to speak of David, I was listening to him whether he was worth listening to or whether he wasn't mascot, sort of Yes. And anyway, there was one scene that they wanted to have a footprint in a cave. And or one shot, I mean, it was really close up to fit in with the sequence they'd already shot. And I was ordered to do this because it was the last chance I would be to do it. Because the the spring tides were coming in and the cave will be sort of swamped and all sorts of things. So I felt a more or less had to do it. But nevertheless, at the time that they came up to me, I mean, I was getting fabulous cumulonimbus beginning to develop an eye, but I was just going to shoot it. So really, I didn't really like working for David because he was very capricious, you know, and yet usually quite unclear as to what we wanted. Whereas with a gentleman, I always felt that I would give him something that he would want, and he will use it. And but it wasn't the same as with lean at all I saw very little offering really, I mean, I had our messages come to me sometimes by Tony hammerlock Allen, who was the producer or something of that kind, I mean, it all seemed a bit Dotty. And then at the end, I mean, he was a gentleman used an awful lot of my stuff, I think, David, you all.

John Taylor  2:12  
But still, let's let's talk about Caroline lamb,

and Robert ball.

Paddy Carey  2:20  
Well, Robert had to poke me sort of fairly early on, he wanted me to do with a title, background and second unit and so on. But it wasn't easy stuff to do a lot of it because Robert very often was fairly specific, but a lot of the things that he thought were very easy to write down, but were not all that easy to get. Or else you might say the natural history of them was incorrect. I mean, during the storm sequencing lady Caroline LAN had, he had written in a couple of scenes, which just didn't work, I tried to get them. For him. There was one for instance of a spider's web being just blown apart by a gust of wind and point of fact, spider webs are much stronger than that. As we found out, we went to the zoo and got some webs from a whole collection of orb spiders. And I first of all, I was able just able to light them so that you could see them but I wasn't 100% sure that I could see them very well and I sprayed them with softer look like jus and I probably should have sprayed them with glycerin or something which might have stuck on better. And then we turned a wind machine onto them. And a wind machine was supposed to blow the spider's web away. We read the bloody wind machine arm and the first thing that we'll do drops, of course, then we weren't we read those, the wind machine update hell, you know, and the spider's web just ballooned out. And when the wind machine was taken off, it just came back again. You see, it may sound a bit but it didn't blow away or anything like that at all. I mean, it's quite as revenue, very strong stuff. And then there was another one where there was a rabbit in a field, I think, and supposedly beside a Haycock. And the rabbit, I think, was, was supposed to bolt in underneath to Haycock, but we turn the wind machine along again, and the rabbit just hunker down. We build them to take off the way

a lot of that kind of thing on it. It was unfortunate because I would have liked to have done a good job for for Bob, but I, I didn't really think it was very good

John Taylor  4:40  
with the writer.

Paddy Carey  4:42  
He was the writer and the director, and the director mostly directed it to and Sarah his wife, of course, was lady Caroline.

Unknown Speaker  4:51  
And what after that,

Paddy Carey  4:53  
feature wise, Lord, I don't remember at all. I haven't done all that many features.

John Taylor  5:02  
All right then. Well, in the meantime, you were making documentaries.

Paddy Carey  5:06  
Yes. And what were you making? Well, after all she wanted to do after she No, she the next one was waves no flamingos. Laughter wait. Which was I think I told artists television that I wanted to do for Oh no, it was BBC. are gonna rag on those at the BBC. And yes, I've seen a gone down very well, apparently with the BBC and I was invited to a small lunch with Gunnar and Robin Scott. I think it was it was returning to. Yes. And we had a very decorous little lunch in Robins office. And I was offered another film with my own choice, more or less. And I said, I think at that time, I said I wanted to do a sci fi and they should okay. But as far as the money was concerned, they weren't prepared to offer it any more than it had before you know why But typically, and anyway, I got the money to do a film about Percy and I had originally intended including fair amount of wildlife because really, I didn't think I would ever get away with a film of it without a fair amount of wildlife. In point of fact, I think there are about 10 or 12 shops in the whole film have one or two or three or one or two or three guys one or two of seals. And a couple of cormorants which you shot and that's about it. The rest is a sea and it went down very well it was it has no sound but for sounds I see and I had loops and things like that to give a kind of rhythm to it at times. But and sometimes it was slowed down for some reason, although i mean i use fairly slow motion on some of the sort of West Coast stuff simply to make it seem slower and heavier and therefore more sort of oceanic and also slowed the sound down which made it seem heavier and going into the double bass kind of instead of the violin cello kind of rains but it had no music in it at all and not sure that it had any for Sega but you also shocked actually I think I don't think I had any bird calls I think I had wing noises which of course were artificial otherwise I think it was all Sanders

John Taylor  7:50  
I did think a unit

Paddy Carey  7:56  
he was stationed on the islands you know on our an island

John Taylor  7:59  
Did you get the BBC provided a producer Do you feel you or did you did all on your own the whole thing?

Paddy Carey  8:06  
Oh, well I did the whole thing or we did

John Taylor  8:10  
what was it budget?

Paddy Carey  8:13  
I think it was 8000.

John Taylor  8:17  
Then after that,

Paddy Carey  8:21  
after that was Flamingo. I think I got 8000 out of the BBC for that and $4,000 of Irish television or something of that order. I think the budget was 12,000 we have is that made that was made in Kenya.

John Taylor  8:45  
Hence the appian price.

Unknown Speaker  8:45  
Hence the up in price.

Paddy Carey  8:50  
The open price actually it was used for the cooperation of Rs television. I've always been very supportive, supportive. Really it's our contribution whenever it has come in has always been out of proportion to the facilities that other partners have put in. But anyway, it had music because a flamingo i think is is really a bit bit limited in his vocal musical range. So it did have music composed by James Harper. Another connection with the Taylor family. You

John Taylor  9:34  
mentioned Dodo?

Paddy Carey  9:35  
That's disgraceful. I must admit I don't know Dodo was as Dodo Humphreys whose toes work mostly with our husband a moment. knocks them I regret. She first worked with me on her thing. She was mentioned to me by someone in the natural History circuit so to speak in in Ireland, he was actually a solicitor, but he was a member of various Natural History societies. And I'd met him. And he, he might not know exactly how he met Dodo. But anyway, she rang me up and asked if he could meet me that. And she was a very enthusiastic woman, and a very good looking young woman who, who was far more qualified as a naturalist than I was, and still is. And she wanted to work in films and nature films. And she had also been brought up in France, but she was Irish by birth, Irish American by birth. And she'd always wanted to come back to Ireland, and she had come back to Ireland in the hope of making Natural History films or something, you know, and I took her on, I had two others, actually, on that unit, which was unusual for me. One was a naturalist who was very experienced in the field, he was a young fella, with relatively little education, other than I mean, he hadn't any university education, but he used to go out and sleep in a sack on the Dublin mountains, and listen for fractures, and all sorts of things. And he was very, very good indeed, on that kind of thing. He hadn't done any work on films at all. And I took him on as a sort of Natural History advisor primarily, but he also recorded some sound for me. And then under pressure, more or less, I had a third one who was the son of Liam Miller, who had been my eighth advisor on each country and home had been very friendly and supportive ever since. And any way he could have helped me, he always did. And he asked if I would take this young fella on. And I did I never regretted it actually gave me and who was the young naturalists couldn't drive a car, where as Lynn could, and did, and I used to send the two of them off to get a natural phone to do some recordings. And my daughter and I went off and did the photography. It was a fine unit, actually. And I enjoyed having them very much. So I don't think except on features, I don't think I've ever had that larger unit on one of my own films ever since that machine was was very successful as, like, each country, got a number of awards, and quite a few awards, which each country did not get. And it's always been either, perhaps, perhaps my favourite film in that it was the first in which I had succeeded in what I had been aiming to do ever since I started to make films, namely, to make a film without commentary on music. And I did it and it worked, and people liked it, and so on. And it did get some distribution in the cinemas, mostly, of course, in new places like the academy and so on. But nevertheless, I mean, the fact that it was nominated for an Oscar meant that it was seen by people in on the west coast and it had two very good reviews from two prominent American critics, one of whom is still appearing weekly on television now he has his own corner I forgotten his name. So it was probably I suppose from most points of view, the most successful of my films, but in many ways I've always I I'm ambiguous really as to which is the best it depends on the kinds of criteria I think one is applying each country machine waves and Flamingo are as far as I'm concerned the for best I like each country very much it could do with a bit less at the beginning, it's already been cut down substantially, but I think it could do with a bit less of the introductory stuff. Really, I I've always felt that the film actually starts the film is the film plus first and nothing else You know, I mean, the the the four part is merely introductory things which would take three lines in a textbook on put on the age 30 or something like that.

And ocean and waves, I think have no music, of course either. And one very fond of both of them for mango I'm fond of too. And I've wondered that because I think visually it's possibly the best of the lot and it's it's where our Each country i think is each country is a film of visuals and poetry are seen as a kind of poetic film. Whereas I think of as audio visual music and Flamingo I think of as being a kind of ballet thing you know, and it has music, of course. But I mean the way the beach moved and group themselves norm restaurant, which is very balletic, which is one thing, I think, which has been sadly neglected in nature films, in fact, the whole aesthetic viewpoint has been very sadly neglected in nature films, largely because of the prominence of the kind of fine scientific, where we look at everything. I mean, we analyse things and classify things, all of which is part of the scientific ethic. And the the fact that they may appeal purely to our senses, and our spirit or whatever, is something which is mostly neglected, or it's secondary to the main purpose of the films I saw in Bristol was wanting to Paul felt very much a kind of classic documentary. It was one of the trilogy, I didn't see the others. And it was close, it was own man's relationship to the camel. And the camera apparently would literally have been become extinct if it hadn't been for man's use of it. And similarly, I mean, man in the desert just couldn't have survived without the camel. But the version was the way it was presented. And all the rest of it was really superb. Very good indeed. So it was a poetic kind of a film. But nevertheless, it wasn't a film which relied solely on its kind of visual or sound. content. It did have words and as far as I'm concerned, I think words unless perhaps they are part two sometimes. But okay, and visuals can meld into a different kind of metaphor, which I think each country did sometimes with some of them. I mean, some of them are mere illustrations of the verse are those I think are, do have a kind of metaphorical relationship between the visual and an actual sound. And the words of this, I think is is, is a poetic form, put it that way. But on the other hand, a human can stand up on its own without need of words at all. And this corresponds far more to the way we actually experience nature as I said a bit earlier. I mean, you don't really even want to put murmuring sweet nothings into your ear. If you're if you're out to enjoy nature.

John Taylor  17:37  
What was the name of the one with the chieftains music on it? Well,

Paddy Carey  17:41  
that was one quick was sponsored by Irish television in conjunction with the Irish Tourist Board. In fact, the Irish Tourist Board first of folk to me to, to make a film for them, and gave me a fairly free hand. But on the other hand, if I had to have a tourist message,

Unknown Speaker  18:01  
perhaps the title

Paddy Carey  18:03  
is called reflections on

John Taylor  18:05  
reflections.

Paddy Carey  18:06  
Yes. It's a nice film. And it's a fun film. I think it's a film that almost anyone can enjoy.

John Taylor  18:17  
Tony it gave me great place. I mean, it really I want to do here I saw it was like when they went and sat down and all my sins are washed away. And never really I mean it I mean, I mean that. When when was that made?

Paddy Carey  18:34  
When was it made? It was made? See? God, I can't remember. I mean, I'm terrible on dates. I mean, and UK, and Canada to

John Taylor  18:53  
make it. What did you make before you went? No, I

Paddy Carey  18:57  
don't think it was made after I came back from Canada. And all the talking I did with the I think I was I was living in Dublin at the time. And for some reason or other I think quite a lot of the talking with safe with the Tourist Board. was done in London.

John Taylor  19:21  
There was no commentary on it, but

Unknown Speaker  19:22  
no, no. Paris music.

John Taylor  19:26  
Music We nailed it well.

Paddy Carey  19:30  
Oh, no. And I known Paddy Moloney form hot.

John Taylor  19:36  
Yes, even men who plays?

Paddy Carey  19:38  
Yes. Paddy Paddy used to turn up at parties given by Richard Ryan who lived across the road from us in Pembroke Park. And he used to bring these pipes along to the parties and played them. There was also a man called Martine Martin And he was a tiny little man is older than I was he only came up to my my shoulder but he had an enormous beard. And he played the fiddle extremely well. And I mean, a traditional fiddle, but and he had to do all sorts of things. You had a very big beard, had to do all sorts of things to get the blood out of the way before he could fiddle. And as he he came to this party, at least twice, I think it was an annual event on the street. And he came to this party a couple of times, and he had he would play the pipes, and he would play or sometimes the tin whistle, I think, and he would play his fiddle. But by the end of it, I think probably would have a skinful, but Martine would have won over the top and he will be lost. But he was a charming man, and a very good Fiddler. Indeed, those parties were grateful

John Taylor  20:54  
that the reflections in Ireland in either English I wasn't you didn't come back from Canada that you've been in Canada for 11 years? About 11 years?

Paddy Carey  21:06  
Yes. We're living across say I'm trying to I think that's I was living in caution.

John Taylor  21:18  
They moved, they moved from point to point frequently, heavy lifting. And then you move to caution in workshops.

Paddy Carey  21:27  
Not my wish I would have preferred to stand up in Mexico, but family pressures. I think I must have been in caution by that time. I really should remember the dates of all these films, but I don't. I mean, easiest one to remember is a huge country under shooting because they were made for special events.

John Taylor  21:50  
Well, then, at some point, you decided to get back to Canada. Yes, Ben, his wife is Canadian.

Paddy Carey  22:00  
And I wouldn't say I wouldn't really say that. I was enthusiastic about it. But my wife and my daughter both wanted. Well, my daughter was going to go back anyway. And I think Vivian thought we should. I certainly wasn't doing very much. I think at the time. I think the last time I made actually was

what is a flamingo? No, it must have I think it must have been reflections.

But flamingos are certainly not all that long before we went back to Canada. And then we have some time to remember how Barry Lyndon came in because that I think they hunted me out in Dublin, that I had left Dublin and actually I was in caution when they were in Corsham court. And I think they had just left or something like that. But they were still looking for me. And I forgot I think I must have gone up to London for that. And I think, no, I can't remember when the when things, you know.

John Taylor  23:25  
And what did and then this last period in Canada 11 years? Yeah.

Paddy Carey  23:33  
Well, as far as Canada is concerned, I don't think it's been a great success. You might say,

John Taylor  23:37  
you know, your work and your work over that period.

Paddy Carey  23:43  
I mean, the main thing which I started out to do, which was Algonquin. And our did get that together with contributions from various people, including I think Artie and I think the BBC chipped in something to CBC chips in something. So it was a whole lot. And of course, to get all these bits and pieces or promises and so on takes forever, especially for me, because I'm not very efficient at all. But we do get enough together to, to educate, and as you know it, you've seen it. Well, it's it's three films. And I mean, I wouldn't have wanted to shoot three films. There was Yes, a key figure in this was was Louise O'Shea, who was actually a French Canadian, married to an Irishman. Now dead, unfortunately. And he was a great fan to Bill Harper in Archie. And Bill Harper, I think had got her on to helping me and she had offered assistance, but she rather laid down the law as to what her assistance would cost. And when I say cost, I don't mean money at all, but certain certain things that I had to recognise that the way the cookie crumbles on television is you're gonna have commentary. so on. So it is actually made in two versions, one with commentary and one without, and the commentary.

John Taylor  25:30  
What length three films?

Paddy Carey  25:31  
They're all half an hour and

John Taylor  25:35  
an hour nail Conklin National Park,

Paddy Carey  25:39  
they were all shot in concrete.

John Taylor  25:41  
What is that just does each one have a title? Sorry, does each film have a separate type?

Paddy Carey  25:48  
Each one has a subtitle. I mean, one is called voices. That's the first one, which is the thunder one. And the orphan one is called Exodus. Really, I never got Exodus to imply the place empty out of noises and people, or the birds and things not that I got much on new migration. I didn't I mean, the main cause of migration bypass is concrete. And the third one was called introduction. In other words, things coming back again

John Taylor  26:28  
in 1616

Paddy Carey  26:33  
How long does it take to make I think it was about two years. You might say it took a year to get the promissory note together to make it two year as a two year project really.

It sort of covers the seasons as you know. I didn't have an on that, or and I think it wasn't bad. I had I had

some music on it originally. But no words and quite a lot of natural sound. The CBC who had agreed to put money into it insisted on it having a commentary. And I didn't like the commentary really. And I didn't particularly like the speaker comedy either. But nevertheless, it had to be done in a bit of a rush because the CBC will sort of create a deadline regardless of the fact that the delay which brings you near to that deadline is their fault

Unknown Speaker  27:52  
This is justified

John Taylor  27:53  
justification of their fault

Paddy Carey  28:00  
there's some there's some very nice bits in the the Algonquin three but there was too much hassle in it and too much failure if you like in the fact that it eventually went out with accommodate and I didn't want to complicate let alone language I didn't particularly think a great deal of hope still.

John Taylor  28:23  
Did you get any more features in Canada? Nope. You started that goose thing.

Paddy Carey  28:32  
I started the goose thing. Yes. That was all shot in it was a Canadian film. Of course it was based on a novel which is set in Scotland and and Canada. And the most of what I shot was on geese in in the Hebrides. After that, I think he

John Taylor  28:56  
didn't materialise the production.

Paddy Carey  28:58  
No, no, he could never get the money he wanted to do to actually do it. I think he was he was asking a bit too much really and had too grandiose too grandiose ideas for it, of perhaps the people who wanted to start and it was really far too expensive for them or something of that kind. I don't remember very well exactly what the problem was.

John Taylor  29:21  
That piece in the wind tunnel.

Paddy Carey  29:27  
I shot a bit in the wind tunnel, but I think it was ever

John Taylor  29:31  
again

Paddy Carey  29:31  
may remember that he had it made already. He'd been setting it up with a naturalist cinematographer in Toronto, who I think was training the birds to fly in it, which they did. Nevertheless, it wasn't very good. wasn't ideal by any means. And allows you to kind to the birds either, and sort of evolved more effective ways of using birds in flight as you probably They know i mean with model aeroplanes and with a camera on board and all this sort of thing, which, incidentally was, I think partly pioneered in Canada, some of that stuff

John Taylor  30:09  
is amazing stuff. radio controlled model aeroplanes to the camera, I mean, but if you want to close up on flying or appear, or black, but they just said that they have no fly zones, to take no notice.

Unknown Speaker  30:25  
Ordinarily,

Unknown Speaker  30:27  
I couldn't believe it.

Paddy Carey  30:31  
There was some pretty spectacular stuff in Bristol on that, I think

John Taylor  30:35  
that I think I don't know that I actually thought that people have done it, but the biggest stages series, and the last one of the series, where they showed you how they did it, sorry to ramble on.

Paddy Carey  30:49  
I suppose I I feel are going for failure well, because it went out with a commerce. But after that, after that, really, I think there's been very little of any anything at all.

John Taylor  31:08  
You went to China,

Paddy Carey  31:09  
went to China, but didn't shoot anything. And we were I went to China at the behest of our derangement of party. But nothing really came of it. I mean, it would have been happy for me to make a film there, I think it would have been beyond There is also if we would have had to have backup from elsewhere as well. But it certainly would have been very difficult. And the things which I wanted to see the kind of material which I include in my films, I never saw, I was met by Chinese officials taken to an enormous meal in a posh restaurant in Shanghai, and all kinds of thing of which I had a fair amount one frequently had the impression that these slightly slightly, slightly impoverished looking people who were officials in the China Film Corporation. And were not very well paid. And never, it was their chance to have a really good meal, you know, sort of classical celebrator kind of mood. Most of the people you saw in the hotel restaurants and so on who are eating enormous meals are probably came from calm Hong Kong. But they, they never really, I mean, they resisted any attempt for me to tell them where I wanted to go, or even to stop the bloody car so they could get out and have a look. I mean, my wife and I were taken from one place to another place to another place. And we saw most of the usual tourist things of Forbidden City and so on. I didn't, we didn't get to the Great Wall. But that didn't worry me at all. And but I don't think they would ever have allowed me to make the kind of film that I wanted to.

John Taylor  33:05  
So after China was

Paddy Carey  33:09  
after China, I think most of the rest of in stores in the wind. I mean, I've been to South Africa. But that wasn't on our film, though, I wouldn't mind filming there at all. But my son is out there, he's working in the section of a Polytechnic. And he lives in in Pietermaritzburg. He's married a South African girl, whose family has always been heavily involved with the AMC, and therefore not very popular with the government at all. And her father had about six years in prison, and 15 years of house arrest, which made him rather like a bear with a sore head to live with quite impossible so could go had a terrible upbringing.

John Taylor  34:02  
We still record Yes, yes.

Paddy Carey  34:05  
So I mean, I enjoyed South Africa, very much. beautiful country. I saw very little of it, but what I did see was ultimately feel mobile, you might say, very beautiful indeed. And lots of stuff there. That one.

John Taylor  34:21  
Looking back over it all, which is the bit you've enjoyed most.

Paddy Carey  34:28  
You mean, the work I've enjoyed most?

Unknown Speaker  34:30  
Yes.

John Taylor  34:31  
Was it the theatre? What was the documentary was it well?

Paddy Carey  34:39  
I think on the whole I didn't I quite enjoyed features, but they weren't very high on my list of enjoyment. I enjoyed him, Man for All Seasons most because I really felt wanted not just an additional member of a cruise or anything like that. Where as with David, I think everybody will know Assemble the crew. You might say, Bob was was nice to work with, but it wasn't his his ideas didn't coincide with mine. I would have felt a lot happier if he would have given us a

Unknown Speaker  35:15  
script writer and not

Unknown Speaker  35:16  
a direct.

Paddy Carey  35:18  
I think perhaps that's true. Yes. But I mean, even as a scriptwriter he can. I suppose that's the thing that he tends to rake in things for me to do. I mean, when, when I'm working for him, and there are maybe visual images and, and they undoubtedly are, but not

John Taylor  35:35  
practically

Paddy Carey  35:36  
like, like spider webs blowing away and all the rest of it, they often work out but they don't work out. And I felt with some of his other things. And David, I think is at fault here too, that some of the images they use become very rapidly sort of cliche. Which is a pretty great pity, because he's very clever, man. I think very nice, man. Well,

John Taylor  36:09  
I think I don't know. I think so. I think we could pause anyway.

John Taylor  0:01  
The copyright of this recording is vested in the back to history project. The subject is Paddy Carey, film producer, director and cameraman in documentaries.

John Legard  0:13  
interviewed by John Legard

Unknown Speaker  0:14  
the date is pretty third April 1993.

Unknown Speaker  0:18  
And this is side seven of the second session.

Unknown Speaker  0:23  
File Number is 188. So,

Unknown Speaker  0:32  
Paddy,

Alan Lawson  0:34  
nice to see you here again. And we'll continue with your Well, I gather you did an interview some years ago. And this is like part two. And I suggest that we start off perhaps you'd like to tell us about how you got to know john Taylor in the first place. And what are the first films you worked on with him?

Paddy Carey  0:51  
Well, we were neighbours actually john Taylor. And I, I don't mean immediate needs of neighbours, but he was just down the road and raised me from where we are. And wraysbury is near. And it was Bessie bond, who said you should look up john Taylor. And then john appeared on the doorstep before I even got that far, you know? And he said, Hello. And we went on from there.

Alan Lawson  1:15  
Well, you've been just cut back a tiny bit. What have you been working on just before then, and what was a I had an aspect of filmmaking where

Paddy Carey  1:23  
I hadn't actually I had worked for, I think, six years for film Producers Guild, and they were cutting back madly, and they eventually cut back me as well. And I had no experience of the market at all. I mean, the guild was the only thing I'd done. And they of course, had a lot in production at any one time, some of which, like the children's feature films, which I touched on once or twice, but mostly I had nothing to do with. And I was employed First of all, as an assistant camera, man, and then as a camera, man.

Unknown Speaker  1:57  
Are we talking about Paddy?

Paddy Carey  2:00  
I think 1940 about 1943 until six years later, so to speak about 1949 or something of that kind. And then. So I was out of work for a while. And it will quite unused to he didn't know any other outfits in Soho at all. The Guild was at the bottom end of St. Martins lane and seem to be rather out of touch with everybody else. But then Bessie told me I should look john up. And he was just down the road.

Alan Lawson  2:33  
What was john doing at that time? Hey, that was I suppose before he went to cram Film Unit. This is really

Paddy Carey  2:40  
before he went to crown Film Unit? No, I don't. I don't think so.

Alan Lawson  2:46  
He went to Grand Dominator at the beginning of 1947.

Paddy Carey  2:50  
Well, he may have been down by that time in that case, because I think it must have been all of 1949 by the time I met him. Yeah, I think of really, of 1950 was the time that I started with him. But anyway, he was out of work. And he said he'd look around and see if he could, or he used to go into the Highland dine in Soho. I think on a Friday, when everybody was in the Highlander that was in the business at all. I'd never been in the heartland. It was out of my sphere of influence altogether. But he used to go into the Highlander and he would come back and he'd ring me up. And he'd say, realist are looking for a camera man. So a new job that they've got somewhere, you know, and then another time it will be someone else. And then again, he said Who was it? Someone was looking for a camera man to go out to Egypt. He was just starting on a new supposed to be starting on a new project. Robin kurata. Is that right? Yes. And I rang him and he said, Come and meet with a drink in the Highlander. And I went to the Highlander and he was drinking with Captain Cook Jerome a Captain Cook. A regular nothing to do with the film business. He lived in Soho and he was always there. But he was boozing with Captain Cochran they were drinking whiskey and Guinness which is a very powerful mix. Very good drink indeed. But rather expensive for someone who's flat out of work and a camera systems pay at that. But anyway, they offered me a drink. They said, the jobs off. We tried to get in touch with your budget has been cancelled this afternoon. For some reason, I didn't know have a drink. So I had a drink. And obviously I had to buy one of these expensive rounds of a drink which I didn't really want anyway, but anyway, that was just one story I think of going then I started getting jobs with people like realist and what wide and so on, you know, but nothing came from the Guild, I think for quite a long time. And then I think they came up with one of the children's feature films or something of that kind with Kay mondo. And that was wild a new experience for me. Working with Kay was quite a new experience. I got on very well with her as a matter of fact. And Rob, of course, was on

Alan Lawson  5:28  
it to rod was that Rob was producing presumably,

Paddy Carey  5:31  
he was I think he was associate producer or something like that. He was certainly unit manager and all the rest of it. And she she can run of course. floor is arguing about something or other.

Unknown Speaker  5:47  
Yes.

Paddy Carey  5:49  
But it was it all added up to some experience and I was beginning to get known and so on. Then. JOHN started up his new word of life here is and he called me to come in and join him on there.

Alan Lawson  6:01  
Were these the ones that were eventually released in the cinemas? Yes, one Reelers. Released by Columbia.

Paddy Carey  6:08  
I think there were Yeah.

Alan Lawson  6:10  
And I just quit. I'm just seeing some of them. And you had john a lot as your as your commentator.

Paddy Carey  6:17  
Certainly on some of the we have Bob Beatty on, as well. And

Alan Lawson  6:22  
and how did that all start in the world of life? Was that something that was?

Paddy Carey  6:26  
Well, I don't know exactly how it started. But his co producers and it will go up and Leon claw. But and the first one I did was

Alan Lawson  6:36  
decided to matru countryman films one day, this is country, countryman films that produced conquest of Everest, as I

Paddy Carey  6:44  
come to man was a bit later in I'm not

Alan Lawson  6:48  
sure. It wasn't called. At that time, it made all those people I remember groundstaff and yes, Leon and john produce conquest of Everest. So this was before conquest of Everest. Oh, yes. 123 years before

Paddy Carey  7:00  
Everest, I think was 1953. Yes. On the actual Yes, that would have been net.

Alan Lawson  7:08  
So anyway, you started off.

Paddy Carey  7:10  
And it it was another very interesting job, actually. And I liked nature very much anyway, I was really interested in that kind of thing. And I met you might say, everyone in nature from, from Peter Scott down sort of and went to the wildfowl cluster and shot down went to various islands around the coast and short naturalists working there and nature stuff as well. And I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was it was very low budget. Indeed, I was about 1000 pounds picture of which, and they had to come in under that or else.

Unknown Speaker  7:48  
I'm just about.

Paddy Carey  7:50  
Yes. And but I enjoyed it very much. And then the

Alan Lawson  7:56  
concentrating mainly on British Isles.

Paddy Carey  7:59  
I mean, yes. I mean, they couldn't afford to go abroad lunch at all. We went to France once, as far as I remember, for something particular. But I don't remember what it was.

Alan Lawson  8:11  
And how often did you I mean, they come out at a regular so once a quarter or once every three months. I don't

Paddy Carey  8:17  
remember how often in a way you might say that. I was busy running around shooting with john and sometimes with Leonor Graham as well. Or not as well but William or Graham instead, they could all direct and then as time went on, I got more and more experience. I think john was the first to say you go out and get this you know, you know what to do. And this is what really started me on he came around direct a bit I'd done a tiny bit before but always as incidental stuff to being a second camera man on something else, you know, but he always showed great Justin what I was doing, and he was a wonderful man that way always had been. And then as time went on, I got to do more and more. Some of the main jobs which were above equivalent to a one Lila sort of thing you would edit down to nine or 10 minutes sort of on just warms my thought someone like that. No. And there were interesting there was water heavy going because you were doing it all and you had to sort of organise people and so on. I had an assistant with me, but this is Peter wind green was one of the first I think, and the charming man to work with, but I think he was really learning his way all the time on that.

Alan Lawson  9:52  
Who actually were these sort of commercial ventures these worlds of life? Well, they were they sponsored and Any way to do heroin

Paddy Carey  10:00  
sponsored in any way? I know, there were a deal with Colombia for 1000 pounds a picture for 15 minutes. Right. And with a sort of guaranteed number of of productions to do, otherwise, it wouldn't have been economic at all right. And some of them, I think were really quite remarkably good considering the restrictions on the budget. You know,

Alan Lawson  10:22  
they were, presumably most of the shots in black and white, where they all give you the colour

Paddy Carey  10:26  
or black and white, they were all black and white.

Alan Lawson  10:33  
Is that when you say that system, Adam Smith said there were other productions as well, this was just one aspect of the work going on with that group?

Paddy Carey  10:40  
Well, I mean, every film usually consisted of 110 minute item, and sort of one three minute item, one two minute item, or something like that. And the two minute item was usually on someplace that was crowded with wildlife, like a sea cliff, or something of that kind, and use all of them tried to get a sequence of two minutes of bird flapping around and hopping around displaying if you could get it and so on. And, I mean, she had multiple places to be for that.

Alan Lawson  11:13  
In a way this was quite sort of pioneering, isn't it? I know that films were made before the war, you know, like the private life of the Gannett and Kodak film. But these were the sort of prototypes of the films that started later would journey into spring. Yes. But that was that was sort of five or six years later, wasn't it? Yeah. Oh, anyway, that's some so continue. Yes. What happened next, then, when presumably, they carried on for a year or two? Did they welcome? Well, they

Paddy Carey  11:43  
did indeed, yes. I think they carried on for about five years, as long as that. And actually, john, of course, was, they were involved on the Everest film, which I think was really due to john knowing Eric Shipton, who was the prime advisor, and really the top one mountaineer in Britain himself. But john knew him quite well. And I think ship can respected john as a man who is honest, he couldn't question or there was no bullshit about john at all. And we shipped a new it. And I think the as you know, the expedition was organised like a military operation by Colonel john hunt. And I think the film might have been organised in the same way, if ranks who are angling for it as well, and had their way there have been a huge unit on it, and so on, as it was, I think one man was about the limit, which was set by the expedition. And of course, he had to be a climber. And I went into the office one day and and john said to me, you're not a climb I carry By any chance, are you? And I said, No. And he said, pity because I've been on average film if you were right to be in on the average film, but I didn't miss it. Really. I mean, I, I couldn't have done it, possibly at all one needed to experience any stamina, stamina and

Unknown Speaker  13:15  
training.

Paddy Carey  13:18  
He got Tom Stovall Stover,

Alan Lawson  13:19  
but then Tom Stover was sick quite a lot of the time, wasn't he? I understand.

Paddy Carey  13:23  
He was a bit. Yes, yes. There's also Tom. They'd had experience with Tom before he'd done all the things for them. I think for word of life or something. He

Alan Lawson  13:34  
will I worked with Tom Stovall, actually, because he did a film called The white continent when he was a crown Film Unit, but that was after john had left crown. And I think probably, I can't remember who was a producer of that. 15 that was a trip to the Antarctic.

Paddy Carey  13:50  
Yes, that must have been very john met, still bought in the first instance. storebought, I think was a better still photographer. And he was a filmmaker. And I mean, he tended to line up the whole expedition, like a school photograph on film.

Unknown Speaker  14:07  
Smile did.

Paddy Carey  14:11  
But he, I mean, the thing that he he really used his head on was when the assault party was coming back down. He sort of held on to john hunt, until he had the camera set up. And john hunt came charging out of the tent, and they embraced and sort of jeden all sorts of things, you know, and also, Hillary was primed by steel bar beforehand, because he was able to run ahead and and get hold of Hillary, and Ella was primed not to signal that they got to the top until Hank was out of the tent and they were face to face. I mean, he did that. There was somebody that was very good. Thank

Alan Lawson  14:59  
you. That was good. That was pretty, very clever. Yeah, the results are marvellous. They were Chapman George Lowe, one of the climbers he also he had a small yes 16 mil camera was emitter heat shocked some of the high altitude stuff

Paddy Carey  15:13  
he did he was he was a better much better climber them still bark. I think he was very much a mate of what you name Hillary. The two of them were a bit of a team. He was a clown. torus is very nice fella George Lowe. He was when when the expedition came down. I was sent out to film them coming into Katmandu. And there was a kind of triumphal procession, you know, but most of them were sitting in landrovers. And George Lowe was in the Landrover immediately ahead of us. And he kept on clowning and going like this and shooting back towards us, you know, with his fingers in the middle of all this cheering crowds and gardeners, whatnot.

Alan Lawson  16:00  
So it was used, it should use quite a bit of footage, would you say was yours? Was it uncompressed of airbrush? Oh, no.

Paddy Carey  16:08  
No, I mean, some of the preparation, there was, I think I shot a little preparation, but I think that was shot on 35.

Alan Lawson  16:14  
And the stuff in the tent, you know, the interiors ever done.

Paddy Carey  16:18  
Presumably, I don't think I did anything on interiors I may have done.

Alan Lawson  16:23  
Hey, there were shots back here. What do they did they reconstructed the end? Yes.

Paddy Carey  16:27  
Yes, there were some that were indeed. And they had to have very powerful lights, I think for the very slow film that they were actually using. Yes, I'd forgotten about that. There were also some retakes at the end, because stilbite hadn't really filled in on details very much. And we shot some stuff at Pinewood. And our boots going through ice, I mean, we bought in blocks of ice and things are boots going to ice and ice actually is sort of backing away at ice and various little bits like that. But we're needed to cut things together. And but they made the serious mistake of shooting it in technical on 35. Across, it's stuck out like I'm 16 No, it wasn't until

Alan Lawson  17:16  
that was no sorry. Yes, that the payment stuff was shot on 35 years. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So you mean Yeah. So it looked rather obvious, I'd forgotten that. This is quite a successful film, wasn't it? Well, it was. It was big news. And that

Paddy Carey  17:32  
wasn't being.

Alan Lawson  17:34  
So you were with them. Obviously, during that all that time. And us and what else was being done? presumed everything stopped forever as obviously because that was

Paddy Carey  17:44  
no, no, no, I think as far as I remember, the

Unknown Speaker  17:48  
the

Paddy Carey  17:48  
series just went on

Unknown Speaker  17:50  
they carried on.

Paddy Carey  17:52  
JOHN may have been very busy with Everest. And perhaps Graham and and Leon may have taken over I don't remember. But certainly I think it went on word of life.

Alan Lawson  18:07  
So what happened next? And I mean, you will you You carry on with them for quite a bit of time after Everest as freelance or whatever

Paddy Carey  18:16  
you. Certainly I was freelancing. I did a feature film with Oh, I told you about that. Children feature. Sorry,

Unknown Speaker  18:33  
what was the what was it your own feature

Unknown Speaker  18:35  
called? What was the

Unknown Speaker  18:38  
nothing matters. But to be interesting for the records?

Paddy Carey  18:44  
Can't remember we might come back come back a kid from Canada. That was

Unknown Speaker  18:48  
Oh, yes. kid from Can you remember?

Paddy Carey  18:52  
That? Sorry. Well, where was I? Well,

Alan Lawson  18:54  
I was just really wanting to know what the next stage was. I mean, you've done that series, one of live or you continue with that. And you were involved in the conquest of air, so therefore, you're working pretty continuously at countryman films. And then came a point when? Well, john used to join us every now and then a British transport film. At about that time, he directed two or three films. Remember, the heart is Highland was one of them.

Paddy Carey  19:23  
But I think what began to slow down, industry is started to do a minor collapse or something of that kind. I think what it was was television, knocking shorts out of the cinema. And that, of course, had very serious repercussions for the documentary industry. And my wife was Canadian. And he said, we ought to go to Canada, which we did.

Unknown Speaker  19:53  
The first time we went

Paddy Carey  19:54  
to Canada in 1957 months there downs in 62.

Alan Lawson  19:58  
All right, yes. But before that, Am I right in saying that? You did journey into spring? Yes. Or British transport films? Yes. That was about 1956 I should think.

Paddy Carey  20:08  
I think it was 56. And I never thought until about 1958. And most of it in Canada, you know, but I think the film border brought it over something. And the film board was doing some very good stuff at that time. Very interesting stuff. And also, one way and another. I think they sort of tied me out of my first year in Canada, by sending me out to the Arctic for the whole summer.

Unknown Speaker  20:36  
Oh, this is interesting. Yes,

Paddy Carey  20:37  
really. And we didn't know that. It was a film about anyway carving or Eskimo carving up they called that time, which did a lot of well, it was terrific experience, as you might imagine. And the Eskimos a wonderful, charming people, they very engaging. But shooting inside with just three or four photo floods or something like that. You could just get away with it. Because it was snow and there was quite a lot of light looping and leaking through the snow house that you were in, in the blue.

Alan Lawson  21:11  
colour

Paddy Carey  21:12  
in colour is 35 1616. Yeah, it was it was Kodachrome sick, Kodachrome commercial, it was called, it was good quality stuff. And it gave you a good quality picture. But the asaa rating was six which was the lowest film or lowest film waiting on record? That has been a huge, you know? Murder, absolutely murder. And then typically, you know, I'd had the same thing with no and had the same thing in Indonesia, where I was working with guy Brenton

Unknown Speaker  21:56  
Oh, some of the garbage.

Paddy Carey  21:57  
And I was we had very little available in the way of lighting at all. We'd borrowed some, I think from Kay Mondo who was working out there from the government Film Unit, or whatever it was. And guy was always complaining that I would never give him what he wanted. Because he was always demanding stuff in low lit places, which had to be lit with two K's and so on. And we hadn't got them. I mean, we hadn't, we may have had one or two. But that was nothing like enough to demand to cover the kind of thing that he wanted. And I said, No guy, you can't do it. Because at that time, the first Eastman colour, which you thought we were using, was pretty damn slow. It was a lot slower than plus x. And he said, but Walter lastly gave me stuff in conditions just like there's a motor worth shooting in black and white, of course with and directors never really get that kind of message. I had a director New Zealand, a very nice man and a good director to a bit, a bit slower news thinking but very meticulous indeed. And with Kodachrome with an as a weighting of six was very, very limited. I mean, the exteriors were okay, even indoor light, and you're shooting on snow and so on, it didn't really matter if the figures came out more or less as a silhouette, if you want in close up generate, but on interiors, with about the equivalent to do photo fraud, you just had no stop at all. And we had Kodak specials, you know, Kodak special, which I had one lens, I think which opened up to f2 to everything else didn't open up at all. No, I mean, they were about to wait or kill five at best. So really, you just didn't have enough You didn't even have the kind of

Alan Lawson  23:53  
amazing really how you managed to get decent stuff at all. And then when when you look at what he's like today, you've got so much at your disposal, haven't you?

Paddy Carey  24:01  
Yes, and on tape, too.

Unknown Speaker  24:03  
And you've got videotape, which is still pretty crude, but it's still But no, that's

Paddy Carey  24:09  
that was quite next year

Alan Lawson  24:11  
that was in Indonesia before we went out to obviously probably went to Canada. You did a stint in Indonesia with guy Brenton. That must have been quite an interesting exercise in itself.

Paddy Carey  24:20  
It was I mean, it's a gorgeous country and the culture is so so vivid and and lively. And there was dancing and all this

Alan Lawson  24:27  
was that a commissioned film? I mean, obviously it's one that what aspect of government or travel?

Paddy Carey  24:35  
I don't, it can't. It must have been commissioned. I think it must have been commissioned. It was produced as far as I remember by Green Park, I think it must have been the Indonesian government or something like that. Because no British department would ever sponsor.

Alan Lawson  24:56  
Please don't know unless it was a travel organisation Yes, anyway, so that you did that. And then you went to Canada. And you were on up in the Arctic with the Eskimos. And that was, again, that was a National Film Board of Canada. So you were in with them. And you became Yes. Okay, well on the staff there as well as

Paddy Carey  25:19  
well, they sent me up to the Arctic every summer for the next two year. Having done reasonably well, on this first one, the first one actually, it was the most interesting film of the whole lot. The second one was also with the same director. And it was, it was an artistic film, it was in Pangnirtung, which was a settlement on the east coast of Hudson's Bay. And it was about the way the settlement operated and sort of self governed and all the rest of it. And it was quite interesting to shoot, but it wasn't exclusively on the natives themselves at all. But it was more on what was being done for the natives. And I had tied as I always tied whenever I was on location anywhere, to try and pick up a bit of the language. And I felt very proud of myself in Pangnirtung, because once the school teacher was trying to tell her janitor who was asking what you wanted him to do, and you couldn't get him to understand. And I asked if I could try, which is all I could do, I could only try, you know. And I made him understand. She had been there for 27 years.

Alan Lawson  26:30  
And she was a teacher, you just thought you might have picked up a bit?

Paddy Carey  26:33  
Well, he always taught through the medium of English as I think most Canadian teachers teaching natives did. I think it was the wrong way to go about it, but nevertheless. But that was the second one. Then the third 1/3 one is a bit hazy. And then there was I was up again, I think shooting some I think it may have been the fifth some of it, I was there that I did some stuff for an Italian feature.

Unknown Speaker  27:13  
On

Paddy Carey  27:17  
one of the big formats, we had a camera weighing a tonne on a sled, you know, and it was screen that wide. And so one shooting, at least in 35. And the film went that way. So do you write this sort of thing?

Unknown Speaker  27:31  
Yes. What do they call that this division or what?

Paddy Carey  27:33  
It wasn't actually this division, it was another another word. But this division was like that

Alan Lawson  27:41  
there was division was that that was sideways. They call it late, do something called lazy eight to have something different,

Paddy Carey  27:48  
perhaps. And then there was another one which I worked with late, I think which had a letterbox screen running pretty well, all the way across the film. I think it only had perforations on one side, something like that. Would you like coffee? Oh, this is my kind.

Alan Lawson  28:06  
Yesterday, he was saying that. You work with Parker wood National Film Board of Canada. And then there were other other companies out there.

Paddy Carey  28:14  
Yes. And I worked a bit with companies in Toronto as well. But nevertheless, I rather relied on the National Film Board. I did some stuff in southern latitudes for the first quarter as well. I mean, in mainland Ontario, and I think I went out. I saw a lot of Canada at that time. My first experience of Canada, though it wasn't Canada at that moment, was Newfoundland in 1948. When I went out with a Green Park unit Humphrey swingler was directing really, and Paul Fletcher was producing, he was back in in England. And it was really a kind of Documentary Feature about Newfoundland. George still was was liking I enjoyed Newfoundlanders lots of fun, very like Ireland, in many ways that

Unknown Speaker  29:08  
your first trip to that part of the world.

Paddy Carey  29:10  
That was my first trip to North America at all. And but it didn't, it was no introduction, really, to Canada proper, you know? Well, while we were there, they held a referendum and decided that they would like to be part of Canada. Rather, they were given the choice. The film was sponsored by the Colonial Office, really, I think as a parting gift to Newfoundland, which they didn't particularly want, you know, but they couldn't say that. And the Newfoundlanders were given the option of staying the way they were, as economy. Responsible Government, their own government, or becoming part of Canada, and they chose the give me a Province of Canada obviously, where the provincial government not their own and that wasn't The interesting thing to cause we met all the, all the leading candidates and so on, including Smallwood, who was prime prime minister of Newfoundland for about 20 years, I think. And we thought

Alan Lawson  30:14  
that was a film for showing worldwide as well as Redmond Seattle was,

Paddy Carey  30:18  
I suppose so and and for distribution by the Colonial Office or by the COI.

Alan Lawson  30:28  
co production? Yes, I seem to remember a budget. I never saw it.

Paddy Carey  30:33  
I think it was called a new finance story, but I'm not sure. Yeah.

Alan Lawson  30:38  
So that was you say 1948. And now we're talking about now we're on to sort of several years later, eight years later, as well as 1956, whenever when you went to Canada, to live? And 5757 now,

Paddy Carey  30:55  
I think Johnny was made in 56.

Alan Lawson  30:57  
All right, yes. So after journey into spring, you went to Canada, and you were there for some years.

Paddy Carey  31:04  
I think journey and just being did me a lot of good actually, because it was much the best film that I'd photographed up until that time. And the film was, which was really well, this new tea, I think about British film, you know, they were doing a lot of, well, they were doing a lot of adventure stuff themselves. And they had normal McLaren. Of course, it was breaking new ground in animated. But nevertheless, they were fairly open to new kinds of films. And I, I rather had hopes that some of my own ideas for nature films and so on might get a budget from them in time. But as time went on, I think things got worse rather than better. Namely, they were being squeezed from the top. And they had to cut back on their budgets and so on. So that it began to look, I think one of the first things that had to be cut was using outside cameras at all. So that meant that I really had no sort of staple there. The only alternative was crawleys. There was hardly from my recollection, there wasn't much else in the way of an industry. No, there was a bit doing travelogues in Ontario, and so on, which I was to do a bit later on later.

Alan Lawson  32:20  
So when you you came back to England in 1962? Yes, a new chair. You left? I mean, you said right. We're getting back during the night Look,

Paddy Carey  32:29  
I wanted to go back to Ireland, which I do. I develop my own ideas I'd done with the film board, I've done quite a bit of nature shooting as well. And I knew I was in touch, you might say was film as an art form period, with the film board. And they, I think they had tried one or two documentary features of some kind or another. But mainly, they were into shorts and shorts was what I thought was certainly the kind of market that the nature film would do best in. And I early on, I thought of film as being the ideal art form for nature, you know, it can convey the experience, as opposed to telling a story. And that was what I will really went back to Ireland to do was to develop my own kind of film. And I did each country of course, I mean, I want to make a film without commentary. And the first film I was offered was yet to come to do you know, but nevertheless, and it was

Alan Lawson  33:40  
about the first one you did that was the first one you did was it when

Paddy Carey  33:42  
that was the first of my own production.

Alan Lawson  33:45  
Your own company, which you call What was it called? Or is mingoes is it

Paddy Carey  33:49  
Angus Phil? Who is a mythological figure story.

Alan Lawson  33:54  
So you first you formed them Angus so founded Angus

Paddy Carey  33:59  
Angus, incidentally, it was a kind of half God figure he was he was the son of Finn McCall. And he was called Angus of the birds because he always had half a dozen birds floating around his head, which would be most distracting for I think, but nevertheless, he was he was very pelted with the birds. Which is

Unknown Speaker  34:18  
appropriate.

Paddy Carey  34:19  
Well, that was what I chosen.

Unknown Speaker  34:20  
Yeah, you were very clever.

Paddy Carey  34:24  
But he can't he was very, very successfully government. They hadn't had a redhead ha hardly any films at all. And the principal maker of films for them, was a German pilot to her down during the war, and had landed in Ireland with his arriflex 200 foot camera. And he had done some shooting for them. But really he was an unusual camera man on a wartime museum camera man. And I think he never really he never made a film that told us to properly, you know, nice man. I knew him quite well. And then along came the H come T and the first award at one was the Golden Bear of Berlin. And then he got the gold, he'll go into Fargo and a gold medal in Barcelona. Good

Alan Lawson  35:16  
you do it a hell of a bigger is the post production of each country in Dublin and up there? Or did you edit it?

Paddy Carey  35:25  
It was a bit half and half. I mean, it was obviously essential that I had a good editor. Yeah, right. And I got an check wooden, who was very good indeed. I mean, really, she made the film, you know, I mean, she says herself, you know, that she looked at all this stuff and said, God, what do I do with this with this, but then, looking at it again, she decided this fellow's got something to say anyway. And he It was really the sort of what I knew of the countryside, and this sort of background of mythology that underlay it, you know, it was rather like the whole country was like a historical monument, but it wasn't history, it was missed, sort of. And a lot of this was the stuff of VHS plays. So in shooting the Irish landscape, I could really connect it to the myths with quotations of hates perfectly over its own venue. And it well worked very well, but how to get it in sort of recognisable form, I really had no idea because it, it had no narrative forms as such at all. It wasn't what I was trying for, but nevertheless, obviously it had to have a shape and and gave it to shape. And she was right, I think in sort of devoting about the first seven minutes to a kind of documentary introduction. And then the poetic film. I mean, all the poetic material was poems spoken over it or musical for or something like that. And a composer was very good. Well chosen, you know.

Alan Lawson  37:10  
Who would who did dumb can remember the music? Sorry, can you can you remember who did the music track?

Paddy Carey  37:17  
It was an Irish composer band by Dell.

Unknown Speaker  37:19  
Oh, yes.

Paddy Carey  37:21  
And he was into the mythologies stuff as well. And he knew just thought I was so it worked well no. And that was I think the reason why it did so well. And the government having won one award promptly popped it into festivals all over the place which I I couldn't be bothered doing and it really did get them quite a lot of kudos and

Alan Lawson  37:46  
so yes, unfortunately I had never seen it I don't know why a few that some of your films died Oh

Unknown Speaker  37:57  
well, I'm

Alan Lawson  38:00  
not talking about the edge country that was made who say in 1965 64 or 465.

Paddy Carey  38:11  
And then you then I made another one which was sponsored by Irish television on various budget radiators this new budget to Irish television didn't have a lot of money and this was on really on Miss and landscape in Ireland as a follow on from the eight if you like that the I mean, the public should know something of their legends and that's

Alan Lawson  38:41  
what what was that one called the one of the

Paddy Carey  38:43  
mists of time.

Unknown Speaker  38:48  
And also, when did you make ocean

Paddy Carey  38:52  
was made for 1970 it was a European conservation year, and it was Ireland contribution, so to speak to European conservation for that for

Unknown Speaker  39:00  
whoever transcribes this ocean is spelt Oh II s

Unknown Speaker  39:04  
i M. s.

Paddy Carey  39:07  
All the Scots pronounce, spell it. Oh, w SIAN. Oh, yeah, like you said there's the same character but a regional variation.

Alan Lawson  39:20  
I've done that. Yes. Can you tell us a bit about him? Because I'm

Paddy Carey  39:23  
about 15.

Alan Lawson  39:24  
Yeah, that was a fascinating film anyway, and how did how did it

Paddy Carey  39:28  
materialise? early? Oh, he was just a name. On the film. The film was said nothing about a human at all, except on a main title up front. We said a tiny bit about him. But mainly it was that he sort of symbolised the natural world to some extent. And there was nothing else at all. There's no comedy, no music, just natural sound. And this, of course, was what I had been aiming at all along. I mean of the early films, each country, of course, had more comments in any of them and the poetry But nevertheless, the purchased film was something which I was quite glad to have done and to have short film which didn't illustrate problems as such, but it it helped to give it a feel often, you know, and Mr. Time was really well, the lack of

Alan Lawson  40:29  
pair those two Mr. Time and

Paddy Carey  40:31  
they followed on attenuate, you might say there's a bit of a progression from certainly in the first four films that I made. But I can remember meeting someone in Sligo, which is the centre of the age country. And I was introduced to him as the maker of each country. And he said, You made each country you change the way we look at our country, you know, which may be all other I woke them up to it, you know, but because they hadn't, that least it gave them a kind of images which they could latch on to. But And in a way, I think most of time was aim aiming in the same way at the Irish people and our region's as a whole. Because certainly, even if they learned the legends at school, they could then go out and forget all about it in relation to the landscape. And then the last one, the last of the three, the first three, was a film about a mountain in Donegal, which oddly enough, it's a striking mountain, it's comes up to a quart light cone at the top. So it looks as if it's got snow on top, but it doesn't. And it in view of the fact that it's striking and has always been striking, very much a landmark. It had no stories about a storm, no old stories, no mist or anything of that kind. And I felt it shouldn't have. I don't mean to say that I I invented a myth for it. But I tried to make the mountain come alive as a living organism, so to speak, you know, nice idea. And that was a shortest one that was 15 minutes. What was that called? It was called Aragon the name of the mountain? Oh, yes.

Alan Lawson  42:25  
I know. under the title, I haven't seen the film. So that again, was without

Paddy Carey  42:31  
words. No, it it had about one and a half minutes of commentary. On the very beginning, I kind of introduction, you know, what I was aiming at. And then it was up to you. There was some music in it too. Quite a lot of music, because obviously, mountains don't make much noise on their own. And there wasn't it was thought in in the start period of the year, and there wasn't a lot of wildlife around it or anything like that.

Alan Lawson  43:02  
The track must have been very important. The tech

Paddy Carey  43:04  
was important. Yes. But I think the BBC showed it, it was certainly shown in the West End. The Academy,

Alan Lawson  43:15  
presumably you get a good distribution of neuron country. I'm in Ireland.

Paddy Carey  43:19  
Yes. Well, the government can impose it if it wants to. And right. And arugula was again, a government film. As mists of time had been an Irish television film.

Alan Lawson  43:34  
How I mean, it's pretty enlightened dog, isn't it? Obviously, you worked hard. And you had a good minister of arts or whatever.

Paddy Carey  43:43  
It was that so much actually, I think that Yeah, to come to bed that made a big impression abroad. I think they couldn't have cared less. If they've been successful in Ireland, it would be the IRS patting themselves on the back or something like that. But when it started to win gold medals all over Europe and that sort of thing. And suddenly it was the Department of Foreign Affairs, not the Department of arts until and it was the foreign affairs with a slightly larger budget, I think it was 12,000 or 15,000. On the mountain film,

Alan Lawson  44:21  
which is quite a bit in those days wasn't a manageable amount.

Paddy Carey  44:26  
A manageable amount, as you say, I mean,

Alan Lawson  44:30  
a bit. Sorry, it would have to be at least 10 times that today. I'm sure 150,000 was present day

Paddy Carey  44:41  
and then finally with an A sponsored machine as well, but that was for a particular purpose.

Alan Lawson  44:48  
How did those How did mists of time and ocean era go do overseas? Did they get shown a huge opposition in England but well, you Didn't great thing as it did as it didn't have much commentary. There was no budget expense about foreign versions and so on. Nothing at all, really.

Paddy Carey  45:10  
With our seeing, I think I may have translated the that sort of title card in effect won't explain what it was about. I may have had that translated into French and German I don't remember. I certainly could have done and the Ergo film had French and German versions as well. It also had a Gaelic version.

Unknown Speaker  45:36  
Did you have

Alan Lawson  45:37  
when you were preparing these films you have a sort of, like not not a script because there wasn't a spoken word but sort of storyboard or sort of you have in mind the stock shots you were going to get a world or did he grow as you

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
This is slide eight.

Alan Lawson  0:03  
Big all on Mr. Time and oshin Did you have a shooting script or a storyboard? Or did it sort of grow? As you went along?

Paddy Carey  0:14  
You might say both in that. Most sponsors our first script, whoever they were, and so there was got a script. But I knew that as scripted, I probably couldn't shoot it that way. I mean, I don't mean to say the script wasn't practical, it probably was, it was probably more practical than the final film. But nevertheless, it I knew that I had to go on the feel of what I was trying to do. And, and it was not really a sort of feeling that I could put into a script at all. And but most people took it very well put it that way. They didn't very often, they didn't even raise the point at all. Look, the final film had no resemblance to the script, as long as it was a good film. Right? They were happy. And very often, the more perceptive of the might recognise that it was a better film than what they had had in the script form. Yeah, especially with our sheen. Yeah, I forgotten what I wrote what, for a sheen. But it was more or less a kind of document, yes, to get a pager to outline treatment. And I tried to, I think, into what I might call poetic ideas for a sequence here and there or something of that kind. But nevertheless,

Alan Lawson  1:47  
these films and the way they write personal films, we awesome day, and I'm Well, after it all been shot. I mean, you're obviously involved in editing all the time. I mean, unlike other films where you can leave it to as they get on with here, I would have thought you'd have to be in.

Paddy Carey  2:03  
I was breathing down the editor's neck all the time. Yes. I mean, I learned to leave me alone, if you wanted to be

Unknown Speaker  2:11  
added and created all these.

Paddy Carey  2:13  
No, she edited eriko I think he wasn't available for most of time. He was

Alan Lawson  2:23  
very busy feature editor in a month.

Paddy Carey  2:30  
But I don't think he did either of the middle to put it that way. So you waited to dust yourself? Did you know I hadn't read it off? Well,

Unknown Speaker  2:42  
no. And obviously, I

Alan Lawson  2:43  
mean, in the sense you did it at the mall, yourself? Because you were very I mean, it was a very sort of personal films, and you had to be there.

Paddy Carey  2:49  
Well, certainly as time went on, I knew more and more exactly how I wanted it.

Unknown Speaker  2:53  
Yeah, I didn't do the physical.

Paddy Carey  2:55  
Whereas with each country, I really had very little idea, I think, I think I had the idea that I wanted to sort of document introduction to a poetry film, but that was about as far as it went. And I knew that even though nothing that I shot, I think there may have been one or two bits, which could be said to illustrate certain lines in the poems, nevertheless, trying to evoke the kind of atmosphere which the poems evoke, rather than illustrate, as such,

Alan Lawson  3:24  
it must be very interesting working on the soundtrack of those because they're all shot mutinous, obviously, and then you were building up an effects track? Yes. Some of it was sort of an ocean and falling members sort of fairly literal in the sense that it was country zones. But I think remember at one point that the sort of musical Well, it was like a heartbeat came into it. Yes. Yes, that's where it sort of suddenly became personalised in a way Yes,

Paddy Carey  3:48  
I think actually. No, it was, I think it was only one of the later films that I had a wintop which was the composer's own suggestion.

Unknown Speaker  4:05  
A wind hop

Paddy Carey  4:07  
he sort of hung it up on it made noises in a wind sort of thing. very ancient idea of course.

Alan Lawson  4:18  
But you can actually you can compose for that I mean, its properties

Paddy Carey  4:22  
with electronics and so on. You can compose any sound your life. And so we did. It wasn't it wasn't tuneful as such, I think grey and we didn't try to make it tuneful at all, but it worked quite well.

Alan Lawson  4:41  
Atmospheric. And who did the Where did you do the final dubbing and Johnny it was that was Ken Cameron.

Paddy Carey  4:50  
Certainly some were done with Ken Cameron, I suppose.

Alan Lawson  4:54  
And little films. Probably They were shot. Although she never never shot on Islam Carla was living Yes. And presumably processed linen colour. And it was a 35. mil have they been shown on television? I'd like to see a shooting again, because

Paddy Carey  5:17  
I think was shown on television. Yes. It was it was very successful indeed.

Alan Lawson  5:23  
diminished Of course on television, whereas I remember seeing it posts I shows a BAFTA are somewhat terrifically powerful. Impact amazing really use. But it's like you say a work of art image? Well, it's how you react to everybody reacts to different kinds of reactions.

Paddy Carey  5:44  
Well, it's the sort of personal reactions from the audience. That's right. Yeah,

Alan Lawson  5:47  
it's fun to be able to do that. But anyway, I mean, you couldn't be doing that all the time. And those are, those are for films that you did some more later that you did you

Unknown Speaker  5:57  
do? Yes, you did.

Alan Lawson  5:59  
But in between times, for example, you came along to British transport films and worked as a Grand Slam did with john Roden. I didn't get what

Paddy Carey  6:09  
he certainly did work with john word. Yes.

Alan Lawson  6:13  
Did you work on any other the natural history of films for?

Paddy Carey  6:18  
For budgetary

Alan Lawson  6:19  
transport? Yes. Oh, yes. Wild Wings?

Unknown Speaker  6:25  
Yes, of course,

Alan Lawson  6:26  
is that type of assembly? I mean, had you worked with john Taylor, in between this when you were the early days? And now when had you been doing work with john Taylor at all? Or was when he came to work with you on Wild Wings? Was that a sort of art some years gap? Yes.

Paddy Carey  6:42  
And Wild Wings, of course, started out with Ralph Keane,

Alan Lawson  6:45  
rockin hood, last ideas. Mm hmm.

Paddy Carey  6:47  
And then Edgar asked john to take over. And john said, use a penny carrier to do it. And Edgar said, No, he hasn't the experience or something like that. And so john came onto it. And he worked on it for quite a while, and then he got mumps.

Unknown Speaker  7:14  
I never knew that.

Paddy Carey  7:16  
I think it was mumps. He got a mumps or measles or you know. And so he was able gracefully to bow out and think I mean, really, Edgar had no choice but to leave the rest to me by that time.

Alan Lawson  7:35  
So how far do you got? Because it was shot over a period of time, wasn't it? I

Unknown Speaker  7:39  
think it was indeed. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  7:41  
I mean, there's some of the video there's scenes were in fact, I mean, Ralph was still alive. And

Unknown Speaker  7:44  
yes, I think yes.

Alan Lawson  7:48  
And then you went right through to late summer enjoy, I suppose.

Paddy Carey  7:51  
Yes. As far as I remember. I don't remember that. Very well. I you know, once you're off of film, when you're photographing it, and it's been handled by something like that is transport, who can push it right through and all the rest of it, and you are in another island altogether foreign place to all intents and purposes, you don't get to see it, except once perhaps when you go to London. And once there's not enough really

Alan Lawson  8:21  
no quiet now I remember working very closely with Peter Scott. And I didn't know I think he was then because suddenly when we when we recorded the commentary, which was done simultaneous, remember with the opening scene where you have Peter talking to camera, we shot that you know, you were directing that and so on. And then we carried on with the with a commentary and the commentary was recorded at Slimbridge. Yeah and if you listen to it carefully, you can hear the ducks

Paddy Carey  8:55  
quacking in the background. That's I think what you ordered in, recorded in Peters sitting on a vast window looking out on the pond. He was after that. I mean,

Alan Lawson  9:07  
you were actually you you were fairly closely involved in the later stages I supermoon. But by then john possibly had, I mean, he wasn't there then because he was

Unknown Speaker  9:17  
he must have had

Alan Lawson  9:21  
dropped out Mr. Lippe left it to us. Do you finish it? Yes. But you must have done quite a few films for British transport.

Paddy Carey  9:32  
I think I did. I did a few railway films. Yes. With john.

Unknown Speaker  9:37  
That's right. Yes, because

Paddy Carey  9:39  
it was about really instructional films.

Alan Lawson  9:42  
At that time, we were doing a series of rail reports and a rail report number six on a seven with john directed all the early ones are those maybe you shot one or two of those.

Paddy Carey  9:55  
I certainly did quite a lot of shooting in engine shed for the stations and god knows what

Alan Lawson  10:03  
But then there's the Natural History films. Well, we didn't do any more after that hangar Wild Wings was about the last one. But, but nevertheless wrapkin and john carried on with Julian winterland independent artists, they made quite a few natural history if

Paddy Carey  10:19  
they did it.

Alan Lawson  10:21  
You weren't? Well, you're not involved in that. I

Paddy Carey  10:22  
don't think I was involved on those at all. I think by that time, I must have been busy in Ireland.

Alan Lawson  10:27  
Because those things like C centre and river river of life, the ones we saw accept from the other day. No, you weren't. And so you got you went back to learn a new way. So what were you doing? Here?

Paddy Carey  10:40  
What year? Are

Unknown Speaker  10:40  
we talking? About? 1965 66?

Paddy Carey  10:43  
Yes, I was back in Ireland, and more or less lost contact with British transport anyway, I think. Yes, I know that when I came back from Canada, that certainly I did do some work with john. And it took a couple of years in Ireland to get my first home, which was huge country, as long as that as long as that. And well, I had to sort of do a bit of pushing up the government and then go to England to earn some money in the Julian winter film, or whatever the hell it was, you know, and then come back again, and push them again, and so on until eventually, they came up with something that they knew they wanted a film in celebration of geeks and TV. And that was what I got. And

Unknown Speaker  11:36  
that sets you off. And

Paddy Carey  11:39  
I'm glad it did well, because it even though I was asking for film, without commentary, I couldn't have handled it as well as I eventually handled it on machine, for instance, you know?

Unknown Speaker  11:53  
Quite

Alan Lawson  11:56  
so. Well. So you carried on, did you put a number of films in Ireland after I mean, after you finish the British transport? So we're talking about 1967 819 70, that sort of time. So you were doing various songs, we

Paddy Carey  12:11  
were certainly 1970 was the year for which a human was made.

Unknown Speaker  12:16  
That was the latest that wasn't yours.

Paddy Carey  12:20  
But what am I doing in Ireland at all at that time? I mean, if there was, it was a foreign feature at Ardmore, or something of that kind. And the film industry in Ireland was not really off the ground. Peter hump was doing a bit there. For sound and and Corcoran was doing a bit of filming, I think on various other things, but I don't know, I don't remember the scene at that time. But certainly it it was not enough to keep me going in Ireland alone, I had to come back to England and and get worked out. For certainly for a few years. I mean, sort of five years or so that I was making films in Ireland, I was commuting backwards and forwards to England to sort of fill in the gaps all the same.

Alan Lawson  13:20  
I know you talked to Alan Ross, on your previous interview about the work you did with them on the features, you know, cinnamon and so on. So we probably don't need to talk anymore about that unless you have

Paddy Carey  13:33  
no, no, I think it's

Alan Lawson  13:37  
that at what time did you I mean, you've been in our in Canada now for some years, haven't you?

Paddy Carey  13:43  
Yes. Well, we went to Canada in 57. And I came back to Ireland in 62. And then we went back to Canada again, because it didn't seem to be an awful lot doing in 1980. Oh, yes, I see. And actually the the one an awful lot going in.

Unknown Speaker  14:00  
Really? Yes,

Paddy Carey  14:01  
let me know, there was more. But it wasn't the stuff I was looking for at all. And the National Film Board, for instance, had done sort of the private life of the honeybee and various things like that. And it had had a natural history unit. But it was natural history, period, you know, it was getting into the scientific details of things. And so analytical picking Yes, it was. It was well done. But nevertheless, they weren't. I was quite friendly with Joe Durden, who was head of that. But But really, it wasn't the kind of stuff that they were aiming for. And outside of that day, he really showed remarkably little interest in, in nature and even in the landscape, you know, which I think was very much a fault on their side because there's so much landscaping Canada that you can read They go to town on it if you want to. And I mean, the arugula mountain film was purely a landscape film, really. There was just the odd crow sort of calling and the odd curry or something of that kind of thing. But so

Alan Lawson  15:13  
I'll there are a number of films in you made for the National Film Board or in Canada, which we ought to be seeing, you know, which we ought to know about. I mean, I, I just don't know. I can't think of any of your sort of Canadian films. I mean, Italy offhand? Well, perhaps I should

Paddy Carey  15:29  
know. There are three films, which I made when I went back to Canada

Unknown Speaker  15:37  
in 1980.

Paddy Carey  15:38  
Yes, made took me a couple of years of shopping around to get enough money together to make them. And then it was they were made for television, which is why they were in a bunch of three. I mean, television is not interested in single films at all. So I offered them an idea for a trilogy of films about Algonquin Park, which is one of the provincial Wildlife, Parks and so on, and made three films there. And I'd already specified the kind of films I wanted them to be that no commentary and possibly some music, but mostly natural sound. And the natural sound in Canada can be quite fantastic. The night sounds a God really, you know, but there are all sorts of frogs and toads that make very funny noises, some of them, some of them quite entertaining, and some of them very listenable to, you know, sort of curling no correction, toads and so on. And when you get a sort of turning note, which is everywhere. I mean, it's you are in sound.

Alan Lawson  16:44  
Yeah, it was sort of orchestrated almost Yeah.

Paddy Carey  16:46  
Well, yeah. And it's, it's not only stereo, I mean, it's sort of surround sound sort of thing. It's like a fluid, you feel that you're in it, yes. And so that I had no fear really all making films with natural sounding in Canada for that reason. And then the very evocative bird calls the most evocative, I suppose being The Loon, which is a kind of music way, or you might call it genuinely coming from the middle of a lake and nighttime kind. And that was the way I wanted them to be. But then when they were shown to the CBC, I think they had already scheduled them, they may have seen a fine cut or something of that kind. But they'd already said your room, unless it was the commentary. Well, I mean, really, more or less put it on the line that they either hate commentary, or there was no deal sort of, I don't think the I don't think I could never have sort of held them to the films as they were, I don't think they would ever have shown them, you know, and a comedy was written, the writer was very sympathetic to my ideas. He agreed that they didn't need comedy at all

Unknown Speaker  18:14  
get in a chapter, right? No commentary.

Paddy Carey  18:18  
Yes. And at least he kept in common to minimum, so you obviously kept it very sparse, very compact. Yeah. But then, by this time, it was more or less out of my hands. You know, I had a distributor who, who arranged I think, for a comedy speaker to do it. And the CBC In the meantime, it should yield the damn things for showing about a weekend or something of that kind. And it all had to be done in order I hardly allow to my control. And the man who they chose to speak, it was a sort of talk show host or something like that. Someone who is quite adept at speaking, and giving a kind of running commentary on things. But when I heard his reading of the commentary on the first film, I thought, he doesn't know what he's saying, is the trouble. And I mean, it turned out he hadn't read the script beforehand at all. He was reading blind reading. And I sort of recognise that at once. But by that time, it was still photography days to go and he was unobtainable, you know. And the other two were not so bad, because please read the bloody script. But even so that has been a chapter in my Canadian experience, which turned me off, you know, I mean, it took me two years to get enough money to make those three films on a small limited budget. And then they screw up the whole thing. When they're FDA

Alan Lawson  19:55  
complicated, so much packaging of merchandise. Yes, completely. insensitive. But pity you hadn't got any other people who could argue on your behalf and of course, very difficult to find.

Paddy Carey  20:07  
You need people who can really fight. And I mean, from their point of view, I'm a Brit coming from Britain telling them how they ought to do things. If I do that kind of thing. You know,

Alan Lawson  20:17  
what, I suppose it's better to have it like that or not at all. I mean, I mean, obviously, did you get any audience reaction that was a result of analysis of the going figures or whatever?

Paddy Carey  20:30  
I haven't had? Well, certainly, I mean, most people is even like,

Alan Lawson  20:34  
because you get a huge audience since you're a monster. That's it at a primetime or whatever.

Paddy Carey  20:41  
Well, certainly they were shown primetime on CBC. And then they were shown, I think, on the public service network in Canada, as well, as there are two public service networks. One is the American one, which we get from sort of across the border in Buffalo. I mean, we get it in Buffalo, other people, it gets us along, all the way along. And it relies very heavily on British productions. And for that reason, the standard of stuff that they show is, is much better than most of the local things, which, because things are not interrupted by commercials. Whereas most American television I remember when I was in Edmonton, for some reason or other. And this is the first time I was outside Toronto, more or less, and staying in a hotel. And I turned on the television because I wanted to see what TV was like all. Yes, TV. And every time the action started, that'd be a break for commercials. And I tried American channels, they were worse. I mean, there was sort of shouted commercials almost. And really, it wasn't worth having do anything Dijon at all. One thing about the Algonquin films was that they I think were shown without commercials. And the CBC could do that it was

Unknown Speaker  22:09  
a half an hour,

Paddy Carey  22:10  
there were 25 minutes, yes. Whereas so much on on the other networks, I mean, on all the commercial networks, it was about seven to nine minutes, no nine to 11 minutes, I think, of narrative or whatever the programme was, and then about five or six minutes, quite enough just to take your attention completely off what you are watching, have nothing but commercial, dreadful, palling. And I found it quite unbearable. We used to watch PBS all the time. And turn on CBC for the news. And that was about about it. But they certainly I know they they showed the three films, I think three times in fairly quick succession on CBS. And then it came on this local public service television network in Ontario as well. Well, it was shown in the same sort of way, in the other provinces, I just don't know probably it was,

Alan Lawson  23:19  
would we be able to see these songs? Will the Canadian What is it the National Film Board library and Grosvenor square, would they have copies of it to us?

Paddy Carey  23:28  
They might I don't know. Because really, it wasn't more the CBC. CBC. Yes. Yeah.

Alan Lawson  23:38  
But anyway, that those three, obviously they might do one thing I would like to see does, but who you're doing a lot of other stuff as well, sort of ordinary or sponsored material.

Paddy Carey  23:48  
Well, after that, I gave my thoughts to writing and sort of clarifying my ideas on film resin aesthetic sort of thing. Oh, yes. I'd had the idea for a long time, really, because I thought, as I said earlier, that I thought that film could was a landscape art much more than any of the others that it was more convincing, because it moved, and it had sound on it, you know. But it still needed a fair amount of imagination for it not to be some kind of documentary or something like that. But the main thing, of course, to do first of all, is to cut out any commentary or cut out human beings do for that matter. Not so much that one one absolutely has to, but because the audience identifies with that little figure in the middle of the screen and straight away, you know, just a

Alan Lawson  24:49  
limitation occurs where that sort of appreciation so and when you've been getting this down on paper is this is this some sort

Paddy Carey  24:56  
of philosophy which you've been well I've been trying to articulate but. And I've been thinking of either doing a programme or series of programmes or something. But first of all, the main thing that I need to do first of all, is get the idea down. In short form, I mean, the audio, you might say the idea is visible in my own films. But to get it down in words is absolutely essential. And yet, it's difficult to express in words, especially in sort of two or three paragraphs, which somebody will actually take the time to read now. And I mean, sending it in Tuesday, the BBC or someone like, well, BBC should pay attention to it anyway. But do the CBC, or any of the American networks or anything like that, or even some other sort of arts, art council people or their equivalent in North America, say, the PBS people or something. Anyone with any influence is probably getting letters by the score. And so you want to send him something that, you know, is interested in our goal, for instance, you know, Vice President of the United States, one of the one of the things that interests me about the US at the moment is that the environmental movement has never really got very far it hasn't taken off. Because what we need, someone else has said this to what we need is a new way of thinking about nature altogether. This has been said, I don't agree at all, I think we need an old well. Or wide open wherever nature, we need to look at it from a new point of view. And the point of view, which is born with the safest is the child's point of view, or in other words, you have a completely open sort of mind and sensibility and all the rest of it. And this, this was confirmed, you might say, by my own grandson, who was 15 months, I think, when we had him staying with us for a month. And he had eyes, his fingers for everything, you know, he was just a wide open, receptive system. And it was really wonderful to watch. And yes, all of us were like that at one time. And then, as we get older, and and more and more involved in, in our modern, most modern, in modern society, yes, we get banged up with all sorts of preconceptions and duties, and income tax and all the rest of the garbage, which is our civilization, you know, civilization Jesus.

Alan Lawson  27:51  
The only advantage of getting older is that you don't take it all for granted, you realise, what what it all consists of, it's all enormously complex. Whereas when you're a small child, it's just you take it for granted, because it's all there, you're discovering. But you just take it for granted, you don't give it a sort of second thought. And as you acquire wisdom, you're therefore everything becomes more extraordinary. I mean to me, the older I get, the more extraordinary the world becomes.

Paddy Carey  28:25  
Yes, he. But you know what I mean by Conrad Lawrence, do you?

Unknown Speaker  28:31  
Yes.

Paddy Carey  28:32  
We filmed him years ago, actually, when I was Wisconsin, Grandpa, I think it was an I went down to Germany. And he said in his last book, which he called the waning of humaneness, which is significant, I think. And he said that it's vital for us, he starts out by saying the future for mankind is exceptionally dismal. But,

Unknown Speaker  29:01  
of course,

Paddy Carey  29:02  
yes. And he said, the only way to turn it around is to the young. That the the old, the he pointed out, I think that every other Nobel Prize winner in biology, all of them had grown up in contact with nature. It may have been a beautiful garden, or it may have been in the middle of a forest or something. But all all of these Nobel Prize winners, all of them had started out as children. No feeling nature, absorbing nature and so on. So it's, I think it is very, very important indeed, that instead of learning to write at four, they should learn to appreciate nature to

Alan Lawson  29:46  
doing the three R's. That's right. Yes. Yeah. I mean, well, yeah. As well as Yeah, several times

Paddy Carey  29:50  
or even before that. Yeah, right. I mean, like my 15 months old grandson, grandson, because once they have it I'll go I think had something to say on that, too, that once they have it, they, they never really let go and the business of art as a means of communicating it. I think I mentioned Arthur Koestler, his definition of art as a means of communication, which aims to elicit or recreated echo. In other words, that the thing in any work of art that really rings a bell with you, is some make some connection with what's in the back of your mind a long way back and sort of, you know, it rings about Yes, that's right.

Alan Lawson  30:37  
You get a resonance, don't you?

Paddy Carey  30:39  
Yes. Yeah. And I think that I think that film can do that, as such that the kinds of films I've been trying to make, I'm not suggesting I should make, or anything like that at all. But nevertheless, the approach I think, is important in the context of the environmental movement, you know, if we're ever going to avoid an apocalypse at all, it will have to be to a different attitude towards nature, which is, I mean, at the moment, it's largely utilitarian Whaley. That was summed up. He wasn't summing up at all, he, this was one of the big men in one of the, I think he was the boss of one of the 10, or one of the big lumber companies in Canada. And he said, in the course of an interview, which I heard, I wish I'd had his name or even the name of his company. He said, a tree is of no use until it's cut down. Which is about the most barbarous thing you can say, you know, it's bizarre. So until, I mean, without trees, they would hardly any animal life because they couldn't breathe. The air would have smothered aeons ago, I should think.

Alan Lawson  32:03  
So, I'm just going to be an area of enlightened sponsorship, if you're going to be able to express this, and the way you describe, you know, on film, which you could I mean, it obviously can be done

Paddy Carey  32:14  
well, even if I don't I mean, I'm 76 now. Are you? Yes. Because I think I could teach or something I could. And I got something to show which couldn't express my ideas. Do

Alan Lawson  32:31  
you talk? Do you lecture, man?

Unknown Speaker  32:33  
No. I probably should do but film schools?

Unknown Speaker  32:39  
Do they have film film schools in Canada?

Paddy Carey  32:42  
Like they do? They do. And they have a film section in art school. When I went to art school in Dublin, there was no such thing. I mean, no such thing certainly in Ireland as a film.

Alan Lawson  32:55  
Because I mean, it's really comparatively recent, isn't it? None of us, none of our generation did that did well, you know, we just started. But now there are so many opportunities of learning about potential throughout art school, through film, which can be at once or both advantage and a disadvantage.

Paddy Carey  33:16  
But there, I mean, comparisons with the art world and so on. For instance, it was john cage, I think, who had the first had the idea that all sound is music. But that was better expressed by a Canadian composer called Marie Schaffer, who wrote a book on more or less the same subject. But you really needed to be a musician to read it, because he had a lot of sort of quotes of notes and bits and bars of this stuff and the other, which I couldn't read. And it was a bit long winded anyway, but the thing was the very idea of the experience of nature being it is closely akin to a musical experience. And one young naturalist and musician, come musician, friend of mine wrote his master's thesis in environmental studies on the idea that our perception of music and our perception of nature are the same of the same kind. And john Fowles said somewhat the same thing in one of his books. He wrote a book called The tree, a very nice little book, it's not a natural history book at all. But in that, I think he said, art and nature are siblings, branches of the one tree. And this is, this is a big part of it. Really, I think that when you get down to the nitty gritty of the ordinary personally, many of them think of the, of the of beauty primarily as being something which is inherent in the natural scene. You know. I've heard that before.

Alan Lawson  35:01  
That sounds a very, very simple but profound philosophy, isn't

Paddy Carey  35:06  
it? Yes. Well, I think the idea of nature being music in the raw, if you like, is probably to have all art, that you can say that nature is sort of the idea of this idea of a combination of all the arts,

Alan Lawson  35:26  
music and radio, it's only a response, isn't it? Yes. To what people acquire knowledge and see experience in their life?

Paddy Carey  35:37  
Well, it's the experience that's missing from so much of nature television, because it's all really in the form of a natural history lecture. And all right, yes, it's a sort of updated form of the illustrated lecture. It's a

Alan Lawson  35:51  
difficult thing. And the film is such an extraordinary medium, isn't it? I mean, it's marvellous telling stories. And it's very good at informing not many people have used it successfully for, you know, in the way that people compose or paint. And anyways, it's a commodity and it's not a marketable thing. I suppose that's

Paddy Carey  36:11  
one of the that's, I mean, with with, with television, and the fact that cinema has cut back on their shorts, programmes and started showing features, just features, features, rights, you know, that was the end for the art film, really.

Alan Lawson  36:26  
But in a way, Erin was john Taylor said in a little bit to the clip to the show that his attribute the other day, he said, people, when when they go to the cinema, they want to see a bloody documentary, they want to see Betty Grable, you know what it was in those days.

Paddy Carey  36:41  
But on the other hand,

Alan Lawson  36:42  
if they get lumbered with a documentary, although it's on and it's pleasing for us to know that it's being shown, they haven't actually come to see that. No, he's very good. I mean, you know, like, they will obviously just want to say, wasn't it marvellous, thank goodness for the documentary, at least, that was good, even though the feature was lousy. But in theory, I mean, we should be able to do much more with television, because it's something you choose, you know, you can select Well,

Paddy Carey  37:04  
I can remember to critics in Toronto saying that choice was a phoney. I mean, you choose what you're given. And you're given what you have been trained to accept? Because it's all you get. And I think it's quite true that you can't choose on television at all. And the fact that you may have in the very near future sort of 500 channels or whatever, it makes it really beside the point, you know, beside the point, I suppose certainly, I mean, on American channels, all you get is one damn soap opera after another, I didn't usually switch channels at all.

Alan Lawson  37:43  
Yeah, Lucky over here, actually, we have got some remarkably good television.

Paddy Carey  37:48  
You have and now principally in drama. I think. I mean, I saw Hedda gobbler, recently, it's very good indeed. And acting on television, I think is, is even better than it is on film sometimes. And I mean, the actors have really got the message, probably because they can see it so easily on cassettes see themselves over and over again, if they want to. And they know that a twitch at the corner of the mouse can tell a lot. And they can really Yes. And also, I imagine that, that with television cameras, they can see precisely what size of image they are making in the process, you know, in rehearsal or something like that, and even asked to see it, so that they can analyse their own performances and work on them. And they obviously do that

Alan Lawson  38:38  
for the new technology is raising the standard isn't an old time

Paddy Carey  38:41  
of performance of performance. Yeah. But I mean, as as an art of perception, like painting or sculpture or music or something like that. It as its smothers itself in information, and in dramas, telling stories. Yeah. And when you when you tell people that all the nature they see on television is information. They say, all British, I mean, a lot of it's beautiful, you know? Well, nature is so bloody beautiful. You can't avoid it.

Unknown Speaker  39:20  
Why not leave it defeated?

Alan Lawson  39:22  
It's very transitory medium. I always think television because however good, you know, I mean, you see something marvellous, and then the next day or two, and unless it's exceptionally good, you tend not to keep it?

Unknown Speaker  39:34  
Indeed. Well, it was,

Alan Lawson  39:37  
you know, cinema is still very, very strong and early occasions when you do get ready. Good.

Paddy Carey  39:41  
Well, I feel they're getting value for money somehow. But there was another. There's a fellow who's very good on, on my writing on television, I mean, writing about it in the television set called Neil Postman He's an American professor of educational writing, actually. And he's very good. But he has one or two one lines about it. And he says, we're just drowning in information and

Alan Lawson  40:17  
drowning, you're drowning in information now.

Paddy Carey  40:19  
If it's not, if it's not gone by telling your story, we're drowning in information one or the other

Alan Lawson  40:24  
drowning. You're dulled by it. I mean, there's no more that you can take in. Well, that's why you have to be so very selective. And of course, a great many people. I mean, I have led television sets on all the time, and it's just

Paddy Carey  40:35  
their and I get dumped in front of Yeah,

Alan Lawson  40:37  
that's, that's another problem like

Paddy Carey  40:39  
monsters.

Alan Lawson  40:42  
I mean, it's an easy way of keeping the kids quiet. There's literally a lot of things going on. And desk glazed, I think that's one of the very, very serious problems, but

Paddy Carey  40:50  
it's very destructive. Activity very disruptive. Mm hmm. I mean, you're destroying children, really.

Alan Lawson  41:00  
And what happens next, I mean that to talk about the dismal future, I mean, that is a problem, which is going to be here, more and more so

Paddy Carey  41:07  
well, with with people who are conditioned to watching soap operas all the time. Even if they sell poppers for the kids, it doesn't matter what

Alan Lawson  41:16  
one does, of course, for kids growing up and television all the time, I mean, they just say take it for granted, like the fact that there are books on the shelves on those, you know, it's just part of life. Whereas when we were young, television was a great adventure or going to the movies was a great thing, because it was an isolated instance.

Paddy Carey  41:31  
Yes. But it was an isolated. Yeah. And in that way, I mean, we can at least stand back from it. But these kids are being imprinted on it. Yes. And they Yes, that's a word I find commonly quoted in people are working on this apparently came from Ben Johnson, it's ingest children ingest nature ingest.

Alan Lawson  42:05  
anymore. input of the thoughts, we challenge looks as though we might have sort of, if you've got any further thoughts, perhaps we've done enough, do you think? Because that's coming to an end that tapers? Because I've got to go and get my car in a minute. We've got two minutes.

Paddy Carey  42:25  
I'm sure there are.

Alan Lawson  42:28  
But anyway, you're you're off back to Canada tomorrow.

Paddy Carey  42:33  
And back to Ireland,

Alan Lawson  42:35  
again to Yes. But I do got any, obviously not production plans at the moment. I mean, really working on your different ideas.

Paddy Carey  42:48  
But it's, I don't know it. Certainly I think that it is very important, better, a different way of looking at nature should appear on television or on video or some damn thing. Because it undoubtedly can help a turnaround in the way we look at nature, because we haven't got one. And I don't see any other one. No. And without that kind of turnaround, I think the future is really dismal. And this is the future of our children, not yours. And my grandchildren. So

Alan Lawson  43:26  
yes. On the other hand, I suppose looking on, on the plus side, I mean, the television is marvellous for imparting knowledge in that sense. People? Well, I think, yes, sort of is popular, isn't it? It's sort of popular fact, it's not not wisdom, but it imparts the fact that you were able to see about different parts of the world and learn, you know, what they look like and what people sound like and what people do. I mean, I suppose that is more for the discerning adult rather than for the

Paddy Carey  43:59  
baby. But I mean, john Fowler's had something about this too. When writing about television, he said that and nature on television, I think he said really that to show the private life of the lion or the elephant is irrelevant to someone who's living in in Britain or Ireland or knowledge irrelevant all the time, is quite irrelevant to that player as really what he I don't think he used that kind of thinking exactly. But what he really meant was that what you need is something that's going to evoke that echo that little ring that little bell in people you know, and remind them that there's a lot more to nature than simply seeing, seeing it in the form of elephants and giraffes.

Unknown Speaker  44:50  
Well, that's only one aspect of life.

Unknown Speaker  44:52  
Yes, well, life. I

Alan Lawson  44:53  
mean, we've got all the

Paddy Carey  44:57  
I mean, I think myself that there's too much emphasis This on wildlife

Alan Lawson  45:01  
thought Archer. It goes on ad nauseum doesn't do survival programmes,

Paddy Carey  45:07  
I suppose in a way. I

Alan Lawson  45:08  
mean, again, it's economics isn't I suppose they're fairly cheap to produce because right, you're doing a sort of, you're buying material from individual.

Paddy Carey  45:17  
That's another thing. That's another thing is the, the emphasis in television, on personalities, called personality. And this, this gold is second banana kind of thing, you know, which is pervasive throughout television, nearly all personalities and so on. Yeah. I mean, did you ever see a film called The year of the wildebeest,

Unknown Speaker  45:41  
the year of the wildebeest, very,

Paddy Carey  45:43  
very good film, indeed about the wildebeest in Africa, which is made by Anglia I think it was, and it had a commentary, which I think was spoken by James Mason. It was really a top line. Speaker anyway, but he never appeared on screen at all.