Douglas Slocombe

Forename/s: 
Douglas
Family name: 
Slocombe
Work area/craft/role: 
Industry: 
Interview Number: 
68
Interview Date(s): 
22 Nov 1988
Interviewer/s: 
Production Media: 
Duration (mins): 
390

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BEHP 0068 S Douglas Slocombe Summary

[extracted from logsheet]

 

 

Side 1: Born in London 1913, went to St Pauls Primary school. At age 12 went to Paris (father Paris correspondent for Daily Herald newspaper) – educated in French schools, whilst at school ran the film club; was interested in photography and journalism, tried to get a job in France – met Korda – then tried to get into the Bush training school, no luck so went to Fleet Street where he joined British United Press as a “sub” responsible for French news. Also wrote the BUP Paris Newsletter for an extra 25 shillings a week. There is a most amusing story of him meeting James Robertson Justice. After 3 years he gave in his notice and started freelancing as a photographer and journalist. Picture Post, Lilliput, Illustrated etc,. took his pictures – also worked as an advert photographer. Saw headline “Danzig Danger Point of Europe”, so he went with his Leica and typewriter and saw the Nazi machine at work; came back after 3 weeks. Picture Post and Illustrated used his photos, and he received a call from Herbert Kline who wanted him to go back to Danzig with a 35mm [Bell & Howell} Eyemo [camera]. In Danzig he photographed the burning of a synagogue, and then Goebbels addressing a Nazi meeting. Got his film out via the Polish diplomatic bag. Returned to UK, then went out again with Kline to Warsaw – bombed out – to Latvia, then to Sweden. Lord Vansittart suggested he join the Ministry of Information as a cameraman. Cavalcanti wanted his material for his films from Ealing – became war correspondent.

Side 2: Filmed in the Maginot Line – then to Holland; bombed; returned; then with Atlantic convoys for three years. At Ealing he filmed Painted Boats, For Those in Peril; also second unit cameraman for Thorold Dickinson’s Next of Kin. Back at Ealing he worked on Dead of Night, using a Mitchell camera for the first time. One and only film as cameraman was Cavalcanti’s Champagne Charlie, lighting cameraman Willie Copper. Amusing story here. The there is some technical talk about cameras, meters etc, and colour.

Side 3: talking about the use of zoom lenses. After filming Saraband for Dead Lovers he did Kind Hearts and Coronets, Man in the White Suit, Lavender Hill Mob, Hue and Cry. Talks about the wonderful spirit at Ealing, all being in one family. After the sale of Ealing he went with Balcon to MGM, but the feeling wasn’t so good. He talks about Balcon, about Cavalcanti. Would he like to direct? He wonders if he would be happy. He talks about cameramen who became directors. After leaving Ealing(MGM) he went to Germany to film {The Mad King of Bavaria {Ludwig II: Glanz und ende eines konigs]– he talks about working on Huston’s Freud. Huston was “the perfect actor at all times” could be lazy, always had to have a whipping boy.  Various experiences meeting Jack Hawkins etc.

Side 4: The Mark, The Boy Who Stole a Million, The Young Ones (a musical), The L Shaped Room. He talks about Bryan Forbes “a literate man”. The about Joe Losey filming The Servant in black and white and got a BFTA award for that. 1964, 20th Century Fox offered him a 3-year contract, amongst his films: High Wind in Jamaica. Talks about Sandy [Alexander] McKendrick, about smallness of budgets, Dance of The Vampires – he says that Polanski is a brilliant and inventive director, who would improvise the script on the spot. He then talks about shooting The Blue Max, when he is hit by an aeroplane (interesting story). Talks about The Lion in Winter with Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn. Ken Russell’s Music Lovers is amusing about Russell.

Side 5: talks about Glenda Jackson and Katherine Hepburn, and then about the filming of Murphy’s War – an amusing story here – Went on recce with George Cukor, K Hepburn for locations on Travels With My Aunt, but Maggie Smith replaced Hepburn. His first US Oscar nomination. Worked with Norman Jewison on Jesus Christ, Superstar, his first American musical, taking over from someone else, a thing he never liked to do. Interesting talk about Jackie Clayton’s The Great Gatsby, another BFTA award. Amusing story about The Maids (Genet) directed by Christopher Miles. Love Among the Ruins. George Cukor with Katherine Hepburn and Larry Olivier; Rollerball, Norman Jewison the problems of huge sets with not many lights.

Side 6: Enjoyed working with Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Fonda on Julia directed by Fred Zinnemann, got a BFTA award and an Oscar nomination. Talks about making of Caravans in Iran with the equipment bought brand new by the Shah, then talks about working with Spielberg.

[End of notes]

[Editing by David Sharp].

Transcript

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Speaker 1  0:02  
Danny Slocum signed to right

Speaker 2  0:06  
you were saying about Maginot Line. What was the Maginot Line? Just for the benefit of Yes,

Speaker 3  0:10  
well, the line was was a was was was a fortified underground system with Frenchman had built and in which they they put an enormous amount of faith. The line ran the whole length of the frontier between Germany and France. And the French kidded themselves that this was impregnable, that ever since the First World War, that they just now needn't worry about anything at all. They rather, sort of kept their armaments at a minimum for that reason, thinking that the that nine and the guns pointing East was it was all they needed. In actual when I, when I went there to film it, it did look, it did look very impressive. I mean, these enormous underground systems, where they compete with whether sort of underground railway and these huge forts every 100 meters on the top with huge guns pointing out, it really did look something. In fact, as one knows the the German just practically jumped over the thing when the time came. And I don't think they were held up for 10 minutes, but the I got some, I got some fascinating material there, both both movie but also stills. I took a lot of still stuff in the imaginary line. I also, which I paralleled with a visit to the marine Chandon champagne. I have to call it the factory, because they produce so much stuff, but their underground network of subterranean passages was very, very similar to the and of much more use, as it turns out, actually, because a lot of interesting material,

Speaker 2  2:14  
what the Germans did was to go around it, really, in a sense, invading Holland.

Speaker 3  2:18  
Well, that's why something so they went through by invading Holland, which is exactly where, where I went. I think I mentioned earlier on that I did my second invasion was, was in Holland, which was only a three day one, as I say, once again, we from the 10th of the 13th of may. But as I say, the speed at which the the Germans took that place was really an indication of how quickly they would get, get through the Maginot Line eventually, or, as it said, to go round it, you know, everybody was so, as I say, it was really, so it was really after that. Anyway, I never got my chronology wrong. I'm not sure. I'm not sure whether, whether I was attached to reading studios after that, or whether it was in between, whether it was in between the two invasions, I'm not sure. But anyway, I was attached to eating studios for years for healing, I did a lot of Atlantic convoys, when I say for healing, Ealing were allowed to make use of any material that they wished to use from them. So I spent about three years on Atlantic convoys, on destroyers, most of the time, usually, usually these, well, they were usually v's and W's and and, and we nearly always used to go out out, out of Liverpool. And a lot of funny, actually, because, because I was always, I always been a bad, bad sailor. At least it was a bad sailor in those days. And I remember the destroyers, of course, they have have a horrible motion, actually, as I can imagine. You know, they're long, slender pencil like things, actually, and that they're not, certainly not built for comfort. And also the only one, as I was an extra person on board, always a one man band, of course, the only one for me actually was nearly always in the ward room. And I always remember sort of having to lie on sort of one of the sort of, sort of like a bench more than a bunk on in the ward room, and above me, there was really always a big sort of cabinet which contained a whole lot of rifles and revolvers, I remember in it. And there was always a sort of bar running through, through where the triggers were. And it. With the boat, the motion of the of the ship. I was member actually this awful clanking of all these guns and things, of sliding from one side to the other. And I was felt terribly queasy. Actually, men were all in their various quarters. So I was, I was in this, just in this empty ward room with my eyes firmly glued to the side of the ship, expecting any moment to suddenly see a huge torpedo blow water, and also feeling very, very queasy. Anyway, I spent months and months and months later different times a different, different convoys attack. So we were a number of attacks, actually, yes. I mean, we had a whole lot of ships go down, and we would, we would invariably have to, sort of, you know, run round where the attacks were dropped from, drop death charges. But we never saw any any positive result of our depth charges, things, things like that. But it was, it was quite an exciting time. What happened when you got to the other end? Well, no, what always happens. We always went. We always went out. But they were nearly always about 10 day trips. So it was only always 555, days out with one convoy, and then you'd meet another convoy coming, coming from the States, and then you turn around and you score the second convoy back. So, no, no, so. So we never were, never went further than, you know, the one way. And it was always at sea all the time. So there on the hill they were about 10 day trips. I was dealing always queasy all the way through, but nevertheless managed to get a whole lot of material, which was very intriguing. But the funny thing was, actually every time I got came back, we almost came back to Liverpool. No, everyone got back to Liverpool. There was always an airway. Because when got back in Liverpool, and all the sailors actually were almost terrified, actually being, being with all this, these airways going on. And whereas I, on the contrary, was so relieved to be something that wasn't moving about, they couldn't wait to go back to see but then every now and again, anyway, I did come back to Ealing, come to the studio and Kevin County, who was saying, of course, the one who got it really in the first place, he would almost see one company. He said, glass. He said, Yes, I want you to do your something. Rather, he always had something for me to do, but there were any questions about me having been away or what I'd been doing. So he was a wonderful man. First

Unknown Speaker  8:09  
actual film of any kind you did a healing.

Speaker 3  8:11  
The first thing is, yes, the first thing I think I ever did there was, let me just try and think, I think there's a thing called Find, fix and strike. Oh yes, which was about the feet Air Arm, well suitably. And as it turns out, yes. And for that kind of thing to it, I went off on the on the illustrious. Went off the illustrious to get some background material on that. And also, it's not very cold here, which I've forgotten, but the last years was the main one. And then, of course, and then a lot of stuff at various Fleet Air Arm stations. And then I did a lot of lot of filming from stations on swordfish and albacores, the two of the main planes that they that they used. So I shot a lot of material on that, and then also a lot of a lot of aerial activities, some enemy, enemy activity, or side shots, shot from those that was quite an interesting period, and that essentially gave me some of those planes, the light Sanders also we use, but, but the, but all the, all those planes had this Open, open cockpits at the back the observers. And I always find that very intriguing to be so sort of you're standing out in the open act with my camera. And that gave me a wonderful love of love of flying, and I very much envied the pilots who flew those things. And it. It was my ambition to fly because of that. And in fact, the at the end of the war, I took up flying myself, and I did get my my pilot's license, but because I think of my experience in those days.

Speaker 2  10:20  
So what then, what after fine, fix and strike and all the

Speaker 3  10:26  
so then a dealing how things went. You have anything

Speaker 2  10:32  
to do with yellow Street? No, no painted boats.

Speaker 3  10:36  
A paint located boats. Located boats was my first thing an evening that was on, on on terra firma nature, that was really straight from the studio, and that was on the on the barges and things up in the various canals of England that was interesting, interesting, if only as an excuse to escape from the Blitz in London because I lived in 100 the time story document. So yes, that's right, and I remember that, who directed that? Charles, Charles the First one, and then yes, and for those in Powell, was also Charles.

Unknown Speaker  11:21  
He rescued. Rescue, which was intriguing. There was nothing you'd done with him, just trying to take one other.

Speaker 3  11:36  
So those, I think, were the first years, the first two healing pictures, or his first two proper pictures that I'd ever been involved with, and then, from then onwards, well, I think I did. I was doing some second unit work for for one or two other pictures. There's one with coward Dickinson. What? Secrets? No, not secret people.

Unknown Speaker  12:02  
I know, I know that the wartime one,

Unknown Speaker  12:05  
I forgot the name of that,

Unknown Speaker  12:09  
the one about the dangers

Unknown Speaker  12:12  
of it was okay. I think it was careless talk. But that was, anyway,

Unknown Speaker  12:19  
the one famous picture

Speaker 3  12:20  
that was shorted in the in the south of England, Cornwall director that was quite next to Kin, that's right, so I just did some second unit work on that I never as Early days. But then, anyway, then, then, you know, towards the end of the door of the war, when there was less stuff to do outside, one was now doing more and more for eating itself, and then started to really Film it, film at healing. And then dead of night. So then dead of night, that's right, I did three of, three of the sequences. I think you met. No, four, four sequences.

Speaker 2  13:10  
Yes, you did all. You did all these sequences that I was connected. That's right, yes, yes,

Speaker 3  13:17  
Robert Heyman and Charles croyton and basil did and basil didn't hear their sequences. Yeah,

Speaker 2  13:22  
and that was, that was really your first feature. So, so that was, so that really was the first, was the first feature. That's why. Where did you start using a Mitchell?

Speaker 3  13:35  
I think on that, I don't think I'd ever use a Mitchell before, before, probably for that. That's why, because I think most of the material had been doing with Newman. Can

Speaker 2  13:52  
you find any problems connected with using a mutual

Speaker 3  13:57  
Not really, no, except that one had to remember to switch over to Turner? Oh, yes, no. And I should, I should say actually, that the on the yes on pseudo camera, actually, the moving finder used to give me problems sometimes, sometimes I'd forget to set it properly. To start with Paradise, yes, the parallax problem. And on the very first picture, actually, nobody had explained to me this, the fact that one had to set the Finder before one started. And there was, that was actually that, I think, on the very first picture that I ever wish I remember, there's only, there's only one picture I've ever operated on, and that was one that Wilkie Cooper lit the Cavalcante directed with Tommy twinner. Actually, I remember the name of what the name of the thing was. It's the only form I've ever operated on, the form champagne, Charlie. That's champagne Charlie and CAV. A. Wanted me to operate on it, because he realized that I never had to be studio experience. All the all the photographer I had done had always been on vacation, and every film I'd done it up till then, had been on vacation. And he thought that useful for me to see to get some feeding of the studio. So he suggested that I should be operator on that picture, and everything went reasonably well, except, except that I didn't realize actually, that one had to set the Finder. The Finder didn't automatically move in the right direction and always give exactly what the what the what they can what the films was registering. And also one famous occasion, actually, when suddenly on the screen, one suddenly saw on the right hand side of the screen a Wilkie Cooper, who was the lighting camera. You saw him walking along with a handbash open his hand beautifully.

Unknown Speaker  15:58  
And Wilkie gave you a plain look. Actually

Speaker 3  16:00  
give a very pain brushes. But from that moment, I did learn one lesson that was was that Michael set the Finder, and the second lesson I learned how she was not to be an operet. I think the only one of the few people who was ever kicked upstairs?

Speaker 2  16:24  
It's interesting Dougie, because it means all your cinematography, you had to learn on your own. Had to learn my

Speaker 3  16:31  
own way. I learned it the hard way, which is well, as I say, and that combined with a very bad memory, which, which you already you're already aware of now, I can never remember anything. Actually, I could never remember what I did yesterday. Every time I go and see rushes, I watch them with my mouth wide open. Absolutely amazing, this new stuff that I've never seen. So the result is actually about that having doesn't say learnt things like the hard way, in a way, however many times I've had to light a certain type of scene, because a lot of a lot of things in films are obviously repetitive, or would appear to be repetitive, however many times I've shot a certain type of scene, I never remember how I've done it. So therefore I always, I always treat it as a completely new thing. So in some ways, it's quite a good thing, because it really means I can think of fresh instead of just falling back on, you know, an automatic way of doing something.

Unknown Speaker  17:34  
And of course, it makes it changing.

Speaker 3  17:38  
And then the other thing is, too is exciting. So I had never seen, apart from that one occasion with Wilkie Cooper, I've never seen anybody else light a set. You know, I've no idea how people do their war, what they do. And I'd never seen anybody shoot a night. I mean, light and light shot, you know, so therefore I had to evolve my own way of doing things, I suppose, you know, a little bit from milky Did you Well, I might everybody, except that, as I was, as I was, you know, everything was new to me. One hardly ever saw what was going on outside, because one was, you know, worrying about the camera and how to keep will key, will key out of shot. I don't think he's I don't think he's ever forgiven me, actually, but he was very good. Kevin,

Speaker 1  18:37  
I'd like to come in, if I may, on this. But you know, first of all, the Newman, Sinclair, Johan, it was a pre war one. Was

Unknown Speaker  18:47  
a pre war one, actually, yes, that's right, yes, I can't live with it. Different times. I had different types. I had

Speaker 3  18:59  
sometimes have had one with the single lens, or sometimes I won the double lens, and then sometimes a full turret, one with a three lens turret. Did

Unknown Speaker  19:11  
you have any? Did you ever have one with a look through on it?

Speaker 3  19:16  
No, the thing I had, it wasn't look through, but it but it was a sideways look through one couldn't look through as you as the film was running you. They just had to make you sort of find a That's right, yes, that's right, but, but then the then the look through, she wasn't much help, because it was, it was an upside down look through the first one that the line. So it was only any good, really, for focusing, but otherwise, quite a good camera.

Speaker 1  19:50  
Then, then, you know, onto the Mitchell, you know, I was interested in what you said. You know about they taught me. I never wanted to be an operator again. Yeah. Yeah, that's one. That is what. And you also made, one of the points, which I think a lot of people have forgotten, is that there is so much to concentrate on when operator,

Unknown Speaker  20:12  
you know, lining up. Well, that's right, so yes, and

Speaker 1  20:15  
you, I agree with, you can't really see what

Speaker 3  20:19  
the other man is doing it. I think it takes time to absorb it really. I think it's only bit by bit that a person really is watching watching them. Because I remember, I noticed that people like chick, for instance, that I worked with Chick for years and years and years and and I've often so I asked him why he doesn't, you know, operate, right, I should say, and I think it's in his case, he obviously realized that, I mean, he must be the most experienced, and I think the best operator in the world, And I think he's conscious the fact that he must know that he's the he is that good that he doesn't particularly want to, you know, doesn't find any reason to move on, but, but I sometimes wonder, actually, whether he's been too busy to notice, you know, how things are done, whereas somebody else wants to send Robin, who was my Robin vision was my focus point for some next 26 years. You know, he had time to sit around and watch, and However busy he might have been in between, but he still had time to absorb. And he's turned out to be a very, very good camera. I think he came from strength

Speaker 2  21:41  
interject, just two things I prefer this. One is Jeff, see how another good operator only, and he didn't really want to light, I don't think, except that economically, there came a point where you could earn more money. That's right. Jeff really was one of nature's operators, yes. And the other thing was, I remember a German cameraman called Gunter cramp. Yes, we used to operate for himself as

Speaker 3  22:05  
well as he was probably the first one ever to do that, actually. But that was, of course, that was going back to the old far days. Yeah. Well, I think, I think that the cameraman Did, did do his own operating there was just one camera, man, lighting person, I think it was probably that, you know,

Speaker 1  22:29  
coming, coming back, when you, when you, when you take on a new film. Have you got a preset plan once you you know, once you've read the script and seen what the sets going to be like. Have you got

Speaker 3  22:50  
a picture? I verbally try and think, of course, what one would do on the whole I find that I don't know. Strange thing happens. I'm inclined to, I'm eccentric. The war can't have said without any strong preconception. And get to meet the actors or the director naturally see a run through once you know one, one's first, first scene. Alternatively, of course, on some pictures, I mean once they are week beforehand, and when we, a director, will rehearse the actors, you know, for a whole week, maybe, but on the whole anywhere, I mean time to see, to get to see the actors, to see a scene rehearsed, and then, then just suddenly, one's left on one's own, and comes the moment now where you've got To light the set and set the mood, let's face it, for the whole of that sequence, whatever sequence may be, and I'm inclined to that then do it as just instinctively, by that time, I just have a feeling of the scene that's going to be played there, what the scene means, how it you know, how it feels to be in the set. And I would have been in the set for several hours by now. And therefore we just get the feeling of the set, you know, one just somehow, you know, I got the feeling of the people and the an atmosphere. And I then start to, you know, put in my or paint my scene, if you like, you know. And then from that moment, almost, of course, one that's in my mind as a pattern, and then however many times one turns around, or any reverses, or anything, you know, obviously I stick, I stick to a pattern. So it all goes together. But, but as I say, my first, my first video time to leave to what I call the invention of the moment. I'm excited to find that if I do too much preconceiving, I'm tired of going with sort of a, you know, something less interesting than something that I sort of almost smell, whether, you know, with the people around me, you

Unknown Speaker  24:58  
know, how many talks with. The Art Director

Speaker 3  25:02  
Brazil, although, yes, I like to talk to them all, but I'm inclined to I'm inclined to whatever anybody says, including the director, even I'm inclined to go my own way. I remember one director a uh, making me see a whole series of pictures that he he well the liked, you know. And my first reaction was, what by the hell doesn't he get that gun instead of showing me these things anyway? So I look at these sort of things, oh yes, yes. But then I'd go off and do something completely different, actually, but he was still delighted.

Speaker 2  25:42  
Dahlia is reading, reading something that reminds me what you're saying. Reminds me about Sarah, band for dead lovers, and your approach to that was your first color, your approach. And I can still remember having read a previous article interview with you, what, uh, you caused quite a sensation. And I remember how much discussion was going on at evening studios at that time because of our insistence on doing what you just said, taking your own way, even on your first color picture. Could you say something about that? Yes, actually,

Speaker 3  26:14  
it's a picture I did enjoy doing. It's the first color picture, and also on that picture, I felt very much, and I I rather wanted to break any rules that existed at that time Technicolor, particularly as as the main color system, Technicolor, were fairly insistent that one should light fairly flatly. They thought that there should be a minimum exposure, certainly in shadow areas, and on the whole, actually, they should be a very low contrast ratio. The contrast ratio, shouldn't we? They said, shouldn't be more than two to one, what the very most, three to one. And I found that this, this was most unexciting. And I went to five, six, even up to 10 to one, actually in various shots. And I found that the most exciting thing in Undertaker screen was black. That just decided to have a real black with deep shadows and things I find very exciting. And I did. I went out of my way to do that sort of thing. On the whole, I think it worked fairly well. Isn't, actually, unless, incidentally, so it's one of the, one of the few times in my life, actually, when it when I've been, well, sorry that I didn't get that picture wasn't recognized, as, you know, I mean, for for an award, because I felt, I felt that at the time, it was, you know, it was a picture that I felt should have been at least nominated for something, an act of head. It wasn't, actually, but, but it was, but it was an interesting picture to work on.

Unknown Speaker  27:59  
Did you have difficulty with technical role.

Speaker 3  28:03  
No, no. It all printed very well, because, because of my contract, I tell you what the so called experts kept on coming on accounts and so forth. And I saw, invariably, came on the floor, I will invariably, sort of sort of sort of dash off and start me putting myself in lighting the backing or something.

Speaker 1  28:31  
The stories about the, you know, the I can remember Dick having a wonderful story when he was doing man of two wells, no, yes, they told him there was nothing in this camp far seen no. They said there's nothing on the blue registry.

Speaker 3  28:50  
Yes, they will exactly that. They verbally wanted all those things, but

Speaker 2  28:56  
they wanted to show off the system as such, rather than what it was being well, that's why.

Speaker 3  29:02  
And also they have sort of a whole lot of rules, a whole lot of hidebound ideas, actually. And then an awful lot of people, I think, whose jobs really depended on being able to say something, you know, it's rather like in these days, when you shoot commercials, as you know, you have a whole lot of penguins in the background without an idea in their head, but they sort of feel they've got to say something, you know, it should justify their job, actually. Then they, they just hold up the shooting issue where they say something ridiculous, if you have spent 20 minutes for shooting, you know, so you

Speaker 2  29:38  
were handling color, really, on shower, man, very much the way you would have, you had been, you'd done on, you would have been doing on black and white,

Speaker 3  29:45  
absolutely right. Actually, I gave, I gave exactly those. It's absolutely, exactly the same sort of, sort of consideration, and which I still do to this day. Probably enough. Actually, I still like colors today, although the requirements are very different. I. But I still, I still liked it very much as well. For black and white, I still see, still have the same same same ratios.

Speaker 1  30:09  
And tell me how learned. Well, first of all, you know, do you use a meter? No,

Speaker 3  30:15  
but as it turned out, I used to always use a meter in the old days. And of course, the old technique kind of days, you had to go well, with this funny box. Now, black and white, I used to say, obviously, use the meter on the other days, or had all sorts of different types. Now, tell me what they were, but that's all those years ago. I don't know. I haven't used the meter now for or at least 1515, years, at least maybe 20 years. The thing I found, actually, is people sometimes ask me about it on meters. Thing I found with the meters, if you have a meter, you're sort of hide, bound by it, you know, you go around suddenly, measuring everything and and I found that your I was if the exposure he was supposed to give us about 200 foot candles, shall we say. Therefore, what would go around, actually, with a meter putting 200 foot candles onto everything. And one day, actually, I suddenly said I just wanted a nice little effect on something. Was a piece of dark, dark furniture. And I remember sort of getting a lamp place there to give a sort of kick on it. And then they didn't look very good. So I remember sort of handing the gaffer to track it up and spot it up and spot it up until the end. It was false part, actually. And then it just started to give quite a nice little glint on this piece of furniture. And then I went around with a meter, and the meters, instead of saying, saying 200 foot candles said 2000 so once was feeling was, Oh, my God, you're going to turn this thing flat it out again sort of thing. And I just just about to say, you're flat out, and that sort of thought, This is ridiculous, actually. You know, it looks wonderful. The eyes getting wonderful. It's exactly the effect that I want, actually. So I decided from that moment I was I threw the beast away and said, never to use it again, actually. And sure enough, he looked in the rushes. The next day. He looked lovely, this lovely, Lent on this beautiful furniture, and I knew that the Beas would have prevented me from doing things the general feeling, you know, by after a time was was got to sort of recognize the values of life and so forth. So anyway, I never use one, even on exterior, exterior interiors, exteriors. I never use one. So someone's just got used to and the part is that every picture I make always seems to print, you know, in the middle of the scale. And very, very little variation. There's hardly any variation. So, as I say, one's eyes, I suppose one's eyes become accustomed to

Speaker 1  32:54  
when, you know, yes, you brought us in, as you know, printing in the middle of the scale. That brings us, really, onto labs. Do you keep a close liaison with the labs?

Speaker 3  33:07  
I don't know. I don't really know. I don't know. People got to come and say, no, no, what I saw? Some cameramen I know go and go to the lab every morning on the way to the studio. Then kind of go there at six o'clock in the mornings or something. I have enough trouble getting up at six o'clock. Can the labs. And so I hardly ever, you know, I don't really do as well on the whole, you know, I always feel that on the whole, every Labs is doing it, doing their best, you know, and and so all one can do is, you just, just leave it to them. In the days of science tests, I hardly ever looked at them. And now I do go and see Russia's and I see Russia's, but you know, I don't, I don't worry too much otherwise, but perhaps you did do more. Say on Sarabande, for instance, did you, oh no, in those days. I mean, those, these were early days, absolutely, I kept a very strict look on the on all the tests they gave one. And when in those days, on the free strip days, of course, you had a you had a record. All three records, you had a separate piece of film for Yeah. And I used to look at a look at one. Looked at those very carefully. And so, so I don't know, in those days, I mean, one really did look at everything. And also, yes, in those days, I think I use more more with the labs than I do now. I think, I think I'm obviously much more relaxed about it. Now.

Unknown Speaker  34:39  
Did you welcome, sorry,

Speaker 1  34:41  
when you were when you first started working in in the studio, were they doing hand tests? Yes,

Speaker 3  34:50  
they were doing fantastic. And as I said, I mean, it turns out one, one didn't make that much yourself. Noel, course. Because it was rather a legacy, time consuming process, so, but at the same time, but every now and again, I think one did, if one had time to pre light a set, well, then, then it was obviously useful, because you do a hand test, and then, you know, just, just do something else. If you did a set that took the whole morning, this is to light. Well, then you can do you can do a test over the lunch hour. Actually, they just take it up just before you shot in the afternoon. But those days, I began to take a whole morning to light a set a long, long since gone. I think that these days by you go on a set at half past eight in the morning, and if I was there much earlier. But anyway, if you have a lineup at half past eight on a brand new set, the questions asked, if you're not shooting by 10,

Unknown Speaker  35:57  
did you work on Eastman color when it came in three

Speaker 3  36:00  
script, oh yes, yes. On the on the earliest days of Eastman color, some of my yesterday, some of the earliest experiences actually weren't, weren't too good of that. You may still get some wonderful rushes on in Eastman color. But some of the, some of the printing sometimes was a bit peculiar, actually, because they used to, they used to, they used to do strange things with a putting in sort of printing band in between the negative and the and the and the car and the film and the positive. They used to do their corrections sometimes by putting a sort of nasty, a nasty piece of film that was itself tinted in different colors and different concepts running between the light source and the film, and that would very often give a nasty greeny Gray, you know, sort of smear right over your film. So your end result bore Noel, no relation whatsoever to the to the Russians. You know, that

Speaker 2  36:59  
sounds like that was very theoretical, like some of the stuff about Technicolor had to be done in a certain way, irrespective of how one had been shot.

Speaker 3  37:08  
Well, I think that's true. Actually, yes, yes, as I said, No. I think I think in those days, I think that the the, I think the various labs were experimenting with different ways of doing things and they were laying down certain rules at certain times. But with Easter because the Eastman color, I think, was, was changing all the time, whereas the Technicolor free strip hardly changed at all. There, I think they laid down, you know, that their rules much earlier than they did for Eastman color, where, I think everybody was quite literally roping in the dark. You know,

Speaker 1  37:47  
the thing that I want to ask you, did you ever have a chance to work on independent frame, or any of these?

Speaker 3  37:58  
You know this? No, knew what about it at the time. I'm just trying to think. I was trying to think whether I did anything, anything on it, actually, no, no, I don't think I did. Actually, I was present at all the, you know, all the discussions and saw, saw everything, everything that had been done,

Speaker 1  38:19  
what was, what was your impression about that. Well,

Speaker 3  38:23  
the thing itself, I thought was very good. I mean, it was, you know, it was a perfect form of BP. The mistake they, they made was in trying to oversell it the just because they had evolved the most advanced BP system in the world. They thought that this, that from now moments, actually, that films could only be made that way. So it was, if ever there was if ever there was a case of a mechanical dog's tail wagging, the mechanical dog. This was it so from that moment onwards, every script had to be written with this ghastly process in mind. And no actors from that moment onwards would ever be required to walk on a normal set where they would suddenly feel at home and sit on a sofa, you know, in front of a fire or whatever. Here everything was that they were told, and everything was was on a screen that was behind them they couldn't see anyway. And things were that so, so, so it was really crazy. The only, the only good thing about it was that it did enable this country, at least, to acquire a whole lot of wonderful machinery, which which is still in existence. I mean, in Pinewood, they still have these wonderful, you know, rostrums, which will hold quite large sets and which can be very easily manipulated to almost any height. You know, they've got things. Like that. And also, I don't know whether the lighting gantry still exists, but they used to have a telescopic lighting gantries too. Anyway, there was serious, a whole lot of machinery that was very effective. And also some of the projectors that they acquired, especially those triple head machines, you know, all that, of course, actually was to be used later on in a much more selective way. So it did enable us to have to get very, very good back projection in this country, which is probably a sec second to none you know. So, so at least we can. We can just thank the process for that, but it's a lesson to not to be with, not to allow techniques to invent.

Speaker 1  40:48  
Did you ever work on shift and process at all?

Speaker 3  40:52  
No, not as such. I mean, once one's made use of one's made use of a half married glass. Someone's used it in various forms, but not, not as a certain person. What

Unknown Speaker  41:11  
was it called? Hanging miniatures and things?

Speaker 1  41:20  
You didn't have any did you have anything to do with high definition films?

Speaker 1  41:29  
Actually Tell me, have you ever worked on a film with the television camera? What I mean is the television viewfinder.

Speaker 3  41:42  
Did do you mean? Do you mean a separate tele? You mean separate tele recording. You mean

Unknown Speaker  41:49  
a monitor with a monitor

Speaker 3  41:51  
on the set? No, I have, actually, no. I mean, in recent days now, of course, what when? Nearly always has a television attachment to the camera. One can record what one's doing and playback on the set. In other words, Spielberg uses it all the time. Now, for instance, what

Unknown Speaker  42:14  
do you feel about that?

Speaker 3  42:16  
Well, I tell you what. It's a two edged thing, actually, on commercials, actually, I'm not sure about it, because on commercials, what it means is, if you got 10 penguins around you, all watching, you know what, what you're doing, and they all look at this screen, and every one of them feels they've got to say something. So it holds you up. No end. You know, everything you shoot, you have to shoot over and over and over and over again and then in 100 different ways, because they've all, you know, they've all had a go about what they've said. I mean, about that time, even the director actually has rather lost his way, and he's lost confidence, whereas without the director, you know, so as the actors don't fall over, it's hard to say you have to take two. That's it. We now have to take 30 he's still not sure. So from that point of view, I sort of feel that it's a double edged thing. It's not, it's a very mixed blessing unit. But have you said that? I mean, there were times when it has a certain use, and Steven, Steven uses it quite lots, on these, on the on the indie three, the 13 yellow Jones thing that we've just done. He used it all the time, actually. And there, I think it had sometimes it had its uses. You know, I

Unknown Speaker  0:06  
Dougie, Slocum, side three

Speaker 1  0:09  
Dougie zoom lenses. What do you have some point of view about that? Well, the thing I

Speaker 2  0:16  
think about zooms is it's a very useful tool. No doubt about it, combining so many things in one lens as one knows. I think that most people have learned now that it's a dangerous tool to use in terms of zooming in and out, like at trombone. One does that, I guess, an awful effect, but if a zoom is used carefully, either as a selector size lens. In other words, just just you, just you settle on one number somewhere in the middle of the range, or at any end of the any part of the range. It's obviously useful also in enabling you from a given from a set camera position to really sometimes find the exact size that you want, which would which would otherwise be between the ranges, between the range points. But the danger, one knows is of using it as a trombone. But if a zoom in or zoom out is combined with a pan so that the movement is disguised well, then of course, it's a very useful piece of equipment. And if it's used on a track, it's also useful, actually, to names one to to do something on a straight track that one would otherwise need a whole series of curves in and out to give the same effect. So, so it's obviously a useful tool, but like all these things, actually should be a should be a tool just to be used when you need it, and not otherwise.

Speaker 1  1:45  
I've always felt with the zoom that there's a difference between an ordinary tracking shot and zooming in. You know, if you because you're not moving, you're not really moving through space. Oh

Speaker 2  2:00  
yeah, you're absolutely right, because there's no change of perspective if you use it that way. She is, your perspective remains the same, and obviously it doesn't, doesn't give the same effect. But it's a useful piece of equipment. Otherwise, actually, there's

Unknown Speaker  2:17  
an easy way out.

Unknown Speaker  2:20  
Sometimes use them as an easy way,

Unknown Speaker  2:23  
which is in television, because

Unknown Speaker  2:31  
so anything else?

Unknown Speaker  2:35  
Go back on to actual films, really

Speaker 3  2:37  
directors and so forth, yeah, well, except I suppose there is something Yes, I would like

Speaker 4  2:43  
to ask. I mean, you know, you learn really the hard way by doing.

Speaker 2  2:49  
Yes, I've taught myself in the world, but

Speaker 4  2:54  
were any particular technicians, if you like, who helped you along? I don't know.

Speaker 2  3:01  
I don't know. I don't think anybody has ever, no, I don't, I mean, I mean, nobody has ever shown me how to do anything. Or, I think that one, you know, I suppose one sees pictures that one is, you know, impressed by likes the look of, you know, in early black and white days, I'm almost impressed by people like Greg togan, for instance. Actually people like that actually

Unknown Speaker  3:33  
use the wrong word, encouraged you.

Speaker 2  3:38  
I mean, obviously Kenneth must have Yes. Well as, I think an entire encouragement extent of getting me into the film business. No, I think, I think one thing coach oneself, really, that's all I can say. I've always been very excited by the by the job. And I've always, I always been conscious of the fact that there are no rules in a way that you know you have the limitations, but, but, but within those within those limits, there are no rules that the only rules are artistic ones and and so, you know, I mean, it was one of the Things I found on Saturday. My love was that the fact that one was told that you there should be certain minimum exposures actually in blacks and things. And I found, on the contrary, the most exciting, the exciting thing on the screen actually was, it was the was the Technicolor black, actually, so things like that,

Speaker 4  4:42  
when I think, I think this is really where we come now really down to the actual business of the films. So

Speaker 1  4:48  
after Sarah Ben, for instance, how, how did things go? Yes,

Speaker 2  4:55  
Sarah bene was the first caliph. I should say, just, just eating out to say. Urban Of course. I mean one when I did Sarah Ben, I had already had, in a quite an exciting period dealing with kind hearts and clarinets, one of the exciting things that I had done with Robert Hamer. And also, sort of the first time, I think, that I met Alec Guinier. Guinness, you know, and Dennis price, Dennis Price said

Speaker 1  5:32  
Joan Greenwood, where was Dennis price? But Dennis held the thing together. Since

Speaker 2  5:39  
just talking of it, I always felt that what was sorry for Dennis, because I think that that because al Alec had played so magnificently those five or 666, part thing he was and played them wonderful, wonderfully, and it was such a feat at the time, I think that Dennis was almost forgotten, actually, in everybody's adulation and worship of Alex. And I think Dennis suffered very, very badly from that. Actually, he felt that he wasn't he didn't get the recognition that he deserved on that picture. And I think that the rest of his life, actually, I think was, was, you see, something was colored by that said, but that was an exciting picture to do. It was, it was the of all the scripts that I'd ever read, and I'd say most of the scripts that I read, since it's one of the ones that stands up as as one of the few scripts out of several. I mean, it's several 1000 that once read by now, one of the few scripts that really stood out as something that was that was really worth reading in its own right. It was quite a literary piece and full of full of wonderful jokes, and just something that has withdrew the test of time. And in fact, every time it comes on the box, I think it still has a new audience, or even the old audiences like it just as much. One of one of the things, the man in the white suit is another black and white. I think that was before the Sauer band. Someone looked back on that with affection. The love and hell mob was another black and white film at Ealing. So as a films like that that had some he would cry with Charles Crichton, again, they were all black and white things that one, that one enjoyed. Sarah band, as I say, sauerburn was the first case, the first color picture that Ealing had ever made. It meant also doubling, if I remember rightly, and Sid probably knows more than I do about that, but it meant more or less almost doubling the Ealing budget. Oh, yes, our budgets were usually, I think, right, about 80,000 or something? Yeah. Well,

Speaker 1  8:01  
I remember the I remember very well, because both Sarah band and I was doing with Charles friend, doing Scott with the Antarctic parallel with Sarah, and I think our budget on on Scott was 300,000

Speaker 2  8:14  
that's several million. That's right. I mean, that's when, I think it was one, about 200,000 but Scott was even more. And in fact, since mentioned Scott, because I just did a very small part on that, I remember when, when Jack hardiff fell ill, and I just took over on the floor for, I think it's about two weeks on on that on the floor, which is very intriguing. We

Speaker 1  8:44  
had lots of cameramen on that, because we had Osman shot something Jack card, last

Unknown Speaker  8:56  
but not least, myself. And that

Speaker 1  8:58  
was interesting, if I you know, diverting. That was the first use of what was, I suppose, eventually became Eastern color. But was serious on Scott That's

Speaker 2  9:09  
right, the single strip, that was the first that, that was there, you're quite right. That was the first time, because

Speaker 1  9:15  
I remember Gordon downs going to Hollywood to look at the stuff that had been shot in the Antarctic, because they'd cabled the technical the Boris had cabled through saying the stuff was on 90% unusable, and Gordon went out for a couple of weeks, and finally cabled us, saying it was 90% usable, because they were still ironing out all the problems on that. That's Yes, I said, But reverting to eating as such. Of course, there was a great a member. It was a great sort of solidarity, really, between all of us. Wasn't

Speaker 2  9:46  
there? This was a wonderful thing in that studio that first of all, because it was a very compact sort of studio with about five stages, I think, all told what. Big ones, small ones, really. And, and there were, what about six directors, three, I think associate producers, you know, and then the overriding Mick bulkin. And then I think there were about three camera men who were share, shared between them, although one or two of us did more than some of the others, but it, but it was a was, it was a very tightly knit sort of place, and and all of us somehow shared an interest, I think, in everything else that was being done. I think that the Mick, I think, asked the producers and the directors to sort of talk to each other and share in some of their problems, you know, things like that. And then, as I say, people like myself, cameraman, I would go from one to the other, and one was so one would be involved in a whole series of projects, and one took even a picture that one didn't work on. One sort of was very much part of the family, because whatever happens, it would have been done by one of the directors that one had either just worked with or was just about to work with. So you had this thing with this rapport all the time.

Speaker 1  11:20  
I remember, I remember on dinner night we had two units which shop who shot, that's right, we used to see each other's rushes. And yes, that's fine. So that was a sort of challenge to all the directors.

Speaker 2  11:32  
One person did something that was particularly good, the other one better twice.

Speaker 1  11:38  
And of course, the word, the word, the name The Red Lion, comes in at this point, doesn't it?

Unknown Speaker  11:43  
Yes, our home, our spiritual home, spiritual. The word spirit being common,

Speaker 1  11:56  
but it is true, wasn't it? About the sessions in the red line and produce people you did discuss

Speaker 2  12:04  
stories and yes, that's where they say until far into the 90s, a long past closing time actually, usually.

Speaker 1  12:14  
So after evening, well, because evening went on after the actual studios were sold. Evening as such, went on for another two years, three

Speaker 2  12:24  
years. Yes, looking back, I must have done at least 3030, or 40 pictures, actually, code evening. I was there for about 17 years, but of which, I think in your 15, I think were in the original studio. And then, then, of course, when they closed, we then went to MGM. Things were never quite the same. I think that the Yes, it was somehow very much, very much like living in living in digs rather than having your own, yeah, and also a slight feeling of being unwanted there or being a bigger poor relation, I think in the studio, the

Speaker 1  13:12  
tell me about what you felt about Mike Walker and Nick Baker.

Speaker 2  13:19  
Was there never quite, never quite sure what to think they're actually, well, I was thought he was slightly, slightly remote. I think that very few people could really talk to him, man to man. I think, I think very few people could talk to Mick in the same way as as they would talk to each amongst themselves on the floor, or especially over at the red line. I think Mick sometimes used to, he used to be jealous of the red line and the fact that we used to all get together there and and I think that his jealousy must have partly sprung from the fact that he himself must have been aware of the fact that he didn't have that thing in common with us, that ability to, you know, to discuss the sexual, say, very often personal things, as we would do across the red line there was this remoteness. I don't think anybody could certainly have not, not used a four, four letter word in front of me. Or is he like that? I think, I think was very, you know, he had a strict sort of set of rules, actually, that his immediate entourage respected. You know, he was a difficult person to I think that Mick himself, he was a very insecure man. Was very aware of that. I think one was aware of that at the time. And I think he was afraid, in some ways, of of saying all the. Saying too much in case he was misinterpreted, or, you know, or one saw something perhaps shallower there than than he would have cared to admitted to, you know, he

Unknown Speaker  15:14  
was very straight laced, wasn't he said

Speaker 2  15:16  
I was a member with, obviously, what was the film? Trying to think what the film was always with Robert Hamer, a film always rains on Sunday. It always rains on Sunday. I was the simplest thing. Actually, It always rains on Sunday. There was a case where, where the men on the run. Played by John McCallum, who was on the run from jail, he grabs of a bicycle somewhere in the road, and he pedals away at night, because the whole picture takes place at night, and then he comes across, he comes across a urinal in the in the street, and puts the the bicycle up against it, and then he goes inside and and nothing happened. The cabin doesn't go inside or anything, but it just suggests that he's got a pee, you know. And Mick couldn't accept this at all. Actually, this was something completely unsavory, that it was something completely unmentionable that anybody should ever have to relieve themselves, especially in public. And this had to be excised from the film. It's not in the film, actually. So there were a whole series of things like that, actually, that Mick took exception to, and sometimes the producers or associate producers or director would have to have arguments with him, but very rarely was swayed. He did. He always had this very strong veto on anything suggestive like that, and certainly nothing ever suggesting sex, ever be at his ugly head in the healing film. And this is what you entirely can

Speaker 1  17:08  
make, well, except that Robert Heyman got away with it in a sense, in kind hearts and coronets. But I think perhaps that was interesting. Well, what occurs to me that was because of the thing you referred to, this prover thing about Guinness performance sort of took attention away from those from the fact that, you know, the Dennis price character was having an offer to two different young women at the same

Speaker 2  17:35  
I think He didn't quite, he didn't quite get the point.

Speaker 1  17:44  
So that a lovable band, I suppose, a great one, which I think you agree Doug, at any rate, he gave us all sort of backed his hunches in that way.

Speaker 2  17:56  
Yes, actually, that was, that was the great thing. Nothing about him is the fact he did get a team around him, you know. And that may sound pompous for any members of the team, you know, to say he must be a genius, because he had the likes of us working for him. Nevertheless, actually, on the whole, he did, he did. He did pick an interesting bunch anyway, and he did on the hulking their heads, didn't he? Yeah, and it's not funny, actually, really, because he artistically. Whenever he came to Russia, he was very rarely able to to make any sort of artistic comment, comment. It was nearly always, he nearly always took refuge in picking, picking out some obvious, shall we say, a mechanical mistake, like a hair in the gate or scratch on the on the bottom left hand corner of the screen, something that nobody else had ever noticed, because either, either the the acting was so appalling actually find by that therefore you couldn't go again for that reason. Alternatively, actually, the, you know, everything was so it was so funny or, you know, or interesting from another devil that wants children to see the scratch or the hair and the gate, actually, but he varied. He never had any comments to make. Him about the acting or storytelling actually

Speaker 1  19:22  
is a little bit like that. As I remember, in terms of script conferences, very rarely went into great detail. He would just have one or two general points and say, well, that that's it, and leave us to get on with it, which is a good thing. Point of view, yes, that's true. She wasn't like some of those Hollywood executives try and dictate exactly how something should be done, but

Speaker 2  19:47  
sometimes, also, sometimes because he also turned down on for the hunt she sometimes turned down, I guess some films that some subjects that were subsequently made by other studios. Yeah, and. Might have been, you know, I mean, shouldn't have been, with hindsight, certainly shouldn't have been turned down. So his hunters weren't always right.

Speaker 1  20:09  
Now, I remember as a novel that Robert Hamer wanted, and, in fact, the studio bought, and then he changed his mind because of the, you know, the elements of sexual relationships and so on, which he didn't really book and didn't really approve of, and that broke, tended to break Robert habers heart, because he was very set on it. I can't remember the name of the subject, but that's an example of that sort of, yes, sir,

Speaker 2  20:33  
yes. I've forgotten some of the subjects that were, I mean, one of the, one of the things I did that was offered a town like Alice, that was one of the things that didn't get made. Leaning could have been made there. But what else were there were whole series of things that could have been done. Yes, I've got, I've got the moment.

Speaker 1  21:00  
Yeah, about to about directors, because town, like Alice, was done by, eventually, by Les Norman, wasn't it? Worked at evening, wasn't it? No, I

Unknown Speaker  21:10  
don't think les did not in the end,

Unknown Speaker  21:14  
but you worked with Les. I can't remember.

Speaker 2  21:16  
I didn't know. I didn't work with Les as as an associate producer, not as not as a director, but dealing otherwise, of course, I mean, everyone worked with all the with, as I say, Charles Wynn, Bethel Dearden, Robert Hamer, Sandy McKendrick

Unknown Speaker  21:46  
and Charles last

Speaker 2  21:48  
but not least. Of course, Charles Crichton, so many and Seth Holt, did you Seth Holt? Yes, Chef Holt and Michael Truman and Michael Truman. Michael Trueman, so one wonder, did most of actually Dickinson, I never worked with. He did one picture dealing, didn't

Unknown Speaker  22:11  
he? Yes?

Speaker 2  22:19  
And directed the dealing. It's almost I saw a psychic director, because I think he was, he was a, he was a great producer, yeah, and in a different director,

Speaker 1  22:32  
well, you speak good. He did one picture that I edited, actually called, went the day well, which, I think,

Speaker 2  22:39  
yes, I did some second unit on that. Yeah, yes, yes, that's right. Actually, that was quite effective. I've forgotten he did that sort of store. Yes, tell

Unknown Speaker  22:51  
me, did you never want to be a director yourself?

Speaker 2  22:54  
I've often, except I've had several, several offers through my life at different times. Funny of the first time actually was, was, was one I was in dealing John girls asked me to go around and see him. He, at that time was we had, he was running group three, I think it was called South Hall. It was serious about South Hall. And at the end of the days shooting, he asked me to go out there, and I met him, and he asked, he asked me. He said he was going to do a series of pictures, and he asked me to do, well, I do one of them. And I just said, Actually, I was quite intrigued. It was quite a good script as good, intrigued. And I said, well, because I was under contract, really, I can only do it if, if Mick would, would release me for that picture. And I remember, you must get in touch with Mick. I remember the next day Hal Mason, who was this student, Emerick, was the studio manager. The only time I could ever leave the floor was at lunchtime, and I'd go into the men's room, of course, and while in the hell basin, sort of came in, and he said, he said, he said there was a terrible way. He said, Girls sort of rang up Mick to ask you whether I could be released to do a picture home, and Mick absolutely screamed down the phone, so I'm not gonna have my people taken away from me. And this has the other you know, and absolutely see they me through the phone. They got all this. And how has it helped me there? So anyway, I never got any further with that. And in the end, it was done fully. If it was, it was, in the end it was he still chose a camera man. It was, he was, it was photographed by a camera man who, they, who used to work for them. I got his name now, Who? Who? Who was offered to me as a camera and had I, had I. Had directed it, but anyway, that was the first time they offered it. I've been offered once or twice. The thing I feel on the whole is that once I'm still so excited by what I am doing for my job, I've often wondered whether you know, whether I'd feel that happy in going outside, when I'm with, when I'm with a bad director, I that sometimes would feel, well, this is crazy actually, you know, I would like to, you know, I like to doing it because I know I can do it better. And, you know, one, obviously, one helps every director. Ones with, to a certain extent. When one has a, you know, one's obviously bubbling over the idea. Someone tells an idea. So if one, you know, if one can help in small areas, one sometimes feel, well, obviously, you know, by now, one should know the rudiments anyway of doing a film. But on the whole, you know, the same the other day that the so few cameramen who have really made good directors. You know, we still talked earlier about that, only about five or six who, the one knows, who have crossed the line, so to speak. And of those, actually, I can only think of one really Nick rogue who really has become something you're quite outstanding, very different anyway. And it could be that since his early days now, but could be the Chris Mendes might make the transition to, but otherwise, you know, all the others have been, I mean, highly competent, you know, but, but, but, they've perhaps missed that spark of genius, or spark of something that the great directors undoubtedly

Speaker 4  26:50  
have, would you, would you? What about Ronnie name, although, because he's really a producer?

Speaker 2  26:54  
Well, one, CC, one, yes, you see now, I mean, one has done some good, good stuff, but, you see, but, but not outstanding. So I'm not trying to belittle any of the good, very good commercial director, good commercials. I'm not belittling anything all that. Yeah, I can think of 1010, names. They're all, you know, reasonable commercial directors. But there wasn't, there wasn't the spark amongst them, which, which there might have been in some of them as as cameraman, people

Speaker 1  27:26  
like, people like, also did some very good one, two good pictures. Bernie Noel, for instance. Well, yes, very good. Breaking camera, moderate, I suppose. But yes,

Speaker 2  27:37  
guy, guy Green has, has done some very good stuff. He was great hammer man, as has done some good, good work as director, but not that great you have, perhaps he hasn't had the opportunity. Freddy Francis, you know, it's okay, you know. But

Unknown Speaker  27:59  
Freddie created a niche for himself. He

Speaker 2  28:04  
perhaps hasn't had the opportunity to do something great. Guy goodness mentioned. But

Speaker 1  28:16  
you know, many more directors have come from being editors, in fact, haven't they? Well, they have

Speaker 2  28:24  
David. Well, he is here. He is the one who really, really has got something. But not all ex editors are made good directors. On the other hand, they come from various, as I say, some of the best directors probably come from the stage or, you know, from ex writers, you know, nearly is, yes, funny enough, nearly always the ones with a with a story to tell. Funny enough. I mean, who are really imbued with the story telling side, rather than the than the physical, you know, filming approach to something which is perhaps where we're cameramen on the whole. Go Wrong. Cameramen don't kind of think of images, oh, yeah, you know, rather rather than the actual storytelling, the like a close up of a tear in the corner of an eye, rather than what makes the tear in the interesting?

Speaker 4  29:23  
Can we talk about some of the coming away from healing? Talk about some of the films, Sun sealing?

Speaker 2  29:31  
Yes, so when I, when I left healing, I first, I should say I first broke away from healing just before healing clothes. I mean, all that I was still half attached to, I nevertheless grew wings and sort of still left the nest once or twice before. And one of the occasions was to go to Germany to do, to do, to do a picture in Germany based on on good week, the second of the. Bavaria, with which it was a completely German German film area. Wolfgang Reiner, heart was, was the producer of it, and Helmut koitner, the German director who was, who was known mostly in this country for a German film called called the Bridge in English, which he'd done, which had a quite success at the time. Anyway, I was asked to do this thing. It was the biggest, the biggest color picture made in Germany since the war. And I think they because it was going to be made in Technicolor, they wanted either an American or an English camera man to do it. And for some reason, although I was chosen, and so anyway, I went over there. That was a very interesting picture to

Speaker 4  30:49  
do. What about how did you find working in German?

Speaker 2  30:55  
Well, actually, I thought they'd been tweaking, I should say that I was the only English person there, in effect, apart from walking, the only non, non German, I think they are so. So my all the actors were German. Strip was in German. My entire crew were German, my Gaffer, all the electricians, my camera, my camera systems were all German. And in fact, I never spoke a word of English when I was there. Fortunately, my at school, I was very good and German, and that helped me in good stead. But on the other hand, at school, of course, they never taught you to say, I want a boot with a bangle on it, on a 30 foot roster, a lot

Unknown Speaker  31:44  
of that words are international.

Speaker 2  31:45  
I suppose some of them are actually maybe International, but international doesn't go as far as German.

Unknown Speaker  31:55  
Where did you shoot it?

Speaker 2  31:57  
Yes, in Munich, in Geisel, Gasteig, which incentive were great studios. And in fact, later on, actually, I went there again to work with John histon. Actually, we shot Freud in geyser gas dying also, what year was that German picture? The German no German picture was in 1955 that was quite soon our training. So that was yes, you see. So that was a 55 and I can't remember when, Oh, yes. And then John's picture was much later on. It was in about 1962

Unknown Speaker  32:37  
probably. That was in black and white. Wasn't Freud

Speaker 2  32:40  
was in black and white, but the other one was black and white. But I think, I think he felt that the subject of Freud, I don't know why, somehow it seemed to be, I thought being b I know which is, I think being a period piece. I mean, they felt that somehow black and white seems in the period, from my point of view. Incidentally, that was an interesting film, because it was a film, I should say that was was almost decimated when, when it was finally shown, because the film ran for four hours. The original cut was four hours, and it was cut down to one and a half. So we think they two and a half hours. I mean, there weren't, you know, something like 200 scenes that were cut out. There were hundreds of actors who, not just, not, what, not one of them in the in the film, you know. So it was sad from that point of view, but, but from my point of view, interesting, because the film demanded at least four different styles within the film. There had to be flashbacks, dream sequences, you know, the things that sort and to develop several styles in a black and white formula. You know, did demand quite a quite a lot of thinking and and I did come up with a your series of different styles within the same film, so that one could, you could tell where you were. You know, all the time was quite an interesting thing actually,

Speaker 4  34:08  
about working with with Houston. I mean, we've, we've had Aussie talking about,

Speaker 2  34:16  
well, a very fascinating man, undoubtedly fascinating man and a great actor, a great actor all the time. I don't think, I don't think he was ever not aware of himself. I don't think for one second, I don't think he was ever not aware of the way he was sitting, the way or the way he was standing, the way he was posing, the way in which he would be, you know, formulating his, his his speech, you know, the way he was dressed, everything about him, even his setting. I think that he, that he would invariably sit, you know, with his back to the white backdrop. He was, he was that conscious, I think, of his personality. He. Yeah, I think, I think he was, he was a great storyteller. He could tell a wonderful story, but he was just talking to he could describe anything in beautiful language, and always very graphically full of images that you could that you could visualize it, that you could see, having said that, and also actually in his writing, he could make his point. He wrote very well and very dramatically. He had, he had a way of of just giving you the elements of a scene so you knew where you were. Now, having said that, he was also a very lazy man, and he having just talked on the set about what he wanted, he would then go off, and he'd be only too happy to sit and read or play cards or just, you know, gossip with people. So so he was sort of like that. Also he would like to leave, if he'd like to leave things like setups and things, as much as he could, actually to other people if he could, the less that he could be involved actually, in setting up or or tending to anything on the set until, until everybody was ready, The happy he would be. What else can I say about him? Tremendous sense of humor. Otherwise, as one knows, also, a sense, a malicious sense, too. Actually, I think he was a bit of a bully. He liked to he liked to hurt people. He liked to have a whipping boy. I think on every film, he always had a whipping boy. And on this one, of course, he had the most perfect one, because he had, he had the

Unknown Speaker  36:51  
main act, yes, Montgomery. He

Speaker 2  36:55  
had Montgomery cliff, who, at that time had just, well, he just recently suffered from a bad motoring accident. His his skull had been, I think, damaged, and I think he himself had undergone a certain amount of surgery and so forth. Was certainly under, under influence of drugs. I think he was concentrating the drug. And also, I think, was suffering from a lateral memory with which he has my complete sympathy, because I seem to have this as a permanent state. But in his case, he was particularly vulnerable, because in the script that he now had to he was involved in, he had a part that was, was longer than that of Hamlet, you know, that with, with, with speeches that are much longer, longer than some of the speeches that the Shakespeare wrote. So it was, it was a very awkward, you know, a picture for him to do, and and John took it out on, on Monte Carlo from, from the word go, you know. And there were all sorts of scenes actually that took place which were very painful at times. You know, it was a sad picture from that point of view. But the picture, anyway, in the end, as a scene, was still so destroyed, you know, in the cutting rooms that, through no fault of the editors, I mean, I think it was, it was the fault of universal, international, who were the distributors and producers. They just felt that four hours was too long, which it probably was. And, you know, I should say thing is that they had that film been made. Now, for instance, I think they could probably they could. They could have withdrew the four hours by simply putting it on the box and either having two two hours sequences or four one hours. I think it made a very good it would have been a very good film. You know, at the time, it obviously was too long, but it was an intriguing picture. I was funny. I've never seen it because when it came out, I was in Africa. I can't know what I was doing, but I was in Africa and it came out, I think it ran for all of two days somewhere in London. I missed it.

Unknown Speaker  39:25  
You can't remember what you're doing in

Speaker 2  39:27  
Africa, what they want to think was at the time. No, I can't remember.

Speaker 1  39:31  
Let's go on with some of the pictures that you made afterwards. Yes.

Speaker 2  39:36  
So leaning in a certain thing, yes, I saw kneeling. I must have, must have done at least 40 pictures there, then, oh yes. Well, then the be, the first thing I think I did after healing was, was, once again, should have been leaning picture. It was with, with one. Reading and do issues and basil Bild, Basil asked me to do a thing with Peter Sellers about a projectionist. What was it called? Smallish, small show on earth. That's right, Peter Sellers, which was a charming, charming script, quite funny. I had one or two things wrong with it. Probably it wasn't an enormous success, but, but it was, was a, was a pleasant, a pleasant picture. And I think this was quite nice, and Peter Sellers was delightful in it. I was asked to do that one then, well, then you did a picture called daily. Oh, that's right. No, no. David, Well, Dave, no. David, was done, I think, is that was done for healing. That was, that was he? That was GM. Now, that was in that was only interesting from, from the, from the point of view of the of the process, when one used, it was, and it was, it was in in Vista vision. So, so that was the full Vista vision cameras, the first time that one had, had used that because imaginary, they should say. And the funny thing was that usually that, I mean, that process with a very big negative, it was normally reserved for sort of, well, things on an epic scale, you know, huge landscapes and, you know, that sort of thing. Here we were doing a picture about, about the Early Music Hall, you know, and small, small theaters and backs and back room, little back room, back rooms in the theater and little corridors and all that sort of thing. And apart from one or two scenes on the stage and within the theater itself, the camera hardly ever went outside. So in some ways, one couple said it was a waste of a, you know, of a process, and using something so small, the only thing I found was that that, on the contrary, by being widescreen as well as high but being widescreen, it it enabled once to get to get the feeling of claustrophobia. But you would in it. You would in it in the corridors, I mean, in dressing rooms, you were aware of the after off the side walls, the end of the session. Now you had the set the walls wrapped around you, and you've got the complete cost of food. So it was interesting from that point of view, that was that was with God, what was his name?

Unknown Speaker  42:35  
Michael Ralph. Michael

Speaker 2  42:36  
Ralph. Direction, I'm trying to think of the of the of the singer, Harry Seacom, yeah, who was quite intriguing, nice man. That was an Ealing Yes, that was an evening before Ealing left, I mean, broke up completely. Also an evening before they broke up at MGM, at another thing with David Charles Creighton and a Flying Picture a man in the sky with Jack Hawkins. How did

Unknown Speaker  43:14  
he get on with Jack?

Speaker 2  43:15  
Jack was an enchanting man plus one, and known for through the years, as we all did. He was an enchanting man, and always, always very relaxed with him. And I loved him dearly, lovely, lovely man.

Speaker 1  43:34  
And what else after that smaller show that was that was non eating.

Speaker 2  43:39  
So this was a non elite as I said, that just got to be very known skies on that because that was a picture shot a lot of that little narrow dome up in Wolverhampton. That's where I learned to fly from him at the end of every day shooting, I used to climb into a Noel to then go off from the last house of sunshine. And it was a famous occasion, actually, when, yes, I just hear the story, because it was, was quite funny. I at the end of the shooting, I sort of, since Charlie has also said, Okay, print, I sort of ran over to the the plane that was waiting for me and swung the prop and climbed in, and then then text it out and getting the right way off I went. And on one occasion, at the end of every day, I did this, and on one occasion, does exactly the same thing. Went off in the sky, and I had registered a flight plan that one would do, a sort of triangle, that one would go show me to Derby, and then it cost us to Newcastle or something, and then back back to Wolverhampton. And anyway, registered this pipeline. And then just suddenly, anyway, after I beat us, it worked out. Say, after 23 minutes, they launched into a right hand turn, you know, and I would set the camp. US, shall we say, to 18 degrees, and then, you know, they're not another 31 minutes or something, you turn right again, then you'd go around, say, 160 degrees. Anyway, it set the compass. And every time I set the compass, we checked. It seemed to me something was wrong. Actually, somehow, it never looked it never seemed to be where I expected to be. And then I would do I realized it was slightly lost for some reason. Well, if I must have overshot of Mark, so I then do 180 and retrace my steps and then find that going back, I couldn't recognize anything that I'd been over just before. I thought this was absolutely crazy. I.

Speaker 1  0:02  
Are going absolutely crazy, I'd be changing direction according to my flight plan, finding that I was completely lost. And then then to 180 degrees, and then suddenly find that I was retracing my steps. At the same time, didn't recognize anything. And then suddenly found that that it was getting darker and darker and darker, and I suddenly realized that's completely lost. And I looked around for somewhere to land, meanwhile, also getting slightly worried, because knowing that at nine o'clock at night, when had to see rushes in water Hampton, but your whole unit would be waiting for me. So anyway, I looked around for somewhere till the I'm just wondering where I was. And I thought I sort of land somewhere, and then just try and find out, you know, just before the light faded completely, so I'd have time to get to regain the the the Wolverhampton. Anyway, I couldn't find any, any field that looked nice in a fading light, something that looked like a fairly decent field. I'd come down low. And then suddenly we found that when you were close to it'd be full of bumps and, you know, ditches and God knows what. So I'd take off again, gain height again. And then eventually we just as I was giving up all hope, and it was getting quite dark, suddenly I saw a proper aerodrome with, with, you know, the proper landing strip. I thought, Michael, this is, this is wonderful, after the green grass of Wolverhampton. And anyways, so I then did a circle, and then noticed at the end of the landing strip there'd be a white cross crossbar, like they were, like crossbones, which means, actually you're not allowed to land. And I sort of thought, Well, damn that. Actually, I don't wonder why he went off land, actually, in emergency. Here goes. I took a circle, and then came in and then found, incidentally, that what I thought was a nice landing strip. It was absolutely full of huge ridges. It was obviously a disused war landing strip full of ridges, and the earth had obviously been coming up in between the concrete slabs. And the plane was bouncing up and down, and then I suddenly saw in front of me there were a whole lot of huge, big boulders that had been put in front of the feet. So I had to do a horrible, sickening swerve. Landed up in the grass, sideways on but the cat the the plane was still more or less intact. And I then, anyway, sort of heart beating, nevertheless tax it back to the beginning of the runway again and faced him to win, so that I had to take so I could take off as soon as I could win in the fading life. Then, anyway, I looked around one day, you know, where I could find some habitation to find out where I was at that moment, actually, a motorcycle suddenly appeared with somebody in RAF uniform, and also another RAF chap behind, actually with a gun in his hand. And I now actually escorted to a decent hut that was after I hadn't noticed on the side then I was held prisoner, actually. Well, while these chap goes onto a fuel telephone or something, and they get some, some higher up person from the RAF to come out, and I have to So explain, actually, I'm not a spy or anything, you know, the middle of making a film and so forth, actually. And meanwhile, can I wing them up? Because there'll be a, you know, five county alert out for me, which there was at that time, because they know that I'd be due back because of my flight plan. Anyway. Couple of story short, I found that I was miles away from the place. And I will say I just can't understand this. How can I this could happen, actually? You know, I put my hand in my pockets as I doing that, and as I put my hand in my pocket, my hand suddenly came across something hard, and it was my exposure meter, and my exposure meter was in my right hand pocket. Now, as it turns out, on it was an oy on the OST, the the if you're solo, you're like on all planes, you're on the left hand side. And as it turns out, on this austr, sometimes the auster, there's an upside down compass with a mirror on the roof of the thing. Or sometimes it's the middle on sometimes it's down the side in between the two seats. And this, this, this thing. This last year, had they had the compass in between the two seats, right, touching my my exposure visa, which, of course, has big magnets in it. Wherever I went, the needle, we straightened my Lisa turned out to be always a 360 and I was went straight on. So as it turns out, I was now about 200 miles north due north, a long, long time before I finally got back now. And by now, of course, it was a very red face sort of thing. Usually you. And that explained to a whole lot of very angry people, including a very angry child. I wasn't that much. Is one of the reasons also why these days I don't use a Beatle.

Speaker 1  5:17  
So Carrie, how are we for time so now, since evening, let me just try and think is going back to sort of my digressions, just trying to think how things are gone since healings films. That's why, yes, I should have gone some home, and my memory so awful. They should do some homework, but it's really it's only since then I suppose that my, you know, life was really well now, as I said, the second half of my firm makes where has gone on? I should really have got a list of stuff in front of me. One leaps ahead. You then could backtrack,

Speaker 1  6:07  
yeah, yes, so as to say, a study of since eating that's right apart from the mouth with Guy green, the taste of taste of fear. Was with Seth Holt, who was was, of course, one of, one of the Ealing boys, as we know. He asked me to do that. That was, that was for hammer and rather an interesting film. Actually, I enjoyed doing that, and I thought it gave me a chance to do some other spooky photography. It was quite a pleasant thing to do. It was a horror picture. That was a horror picture, and if it was on the box just recently, actually, and it still holds up as something quite interesting. I thought Seth did a good job on that. Following that I see actually looking in the Peter Noel book, there's, there's another one, the Charlie quieten, so, so one or two of the healing directors sort of came back for one, the BECTU still a million, the Charlie quieten that we shot mostly in Spain. And that was with the George Brown, I think his producer. So we did that following, following, that was the young ones, which was the first musical I think I'd ever done. There were very few musicals, I think, made in this country, anyway, and and the young ones with, with Sid Fiore was the director. Was quite interesting. It was following that, that I did Freud. I thought, I thought Freud was, well, I was still a leaning, but obviously not. It was a Freud with John Huston and and it was funny that that I did the L shaped one. That's one of the pictures working now that Brian Forbes, how did you get on with Brian and Brian? Brian, I found very intriguing to get on with, actually, very much a literary person in many ways, I think he was, he was very, very conscious of, of the value of, you know, of the written word. I think that also he Attenborough as producer or as associate producer, I should say, which was all too interesting. I um, someone else that wants to talk about there it was following that, actually, that I was asked by Joe loe to do the servant. And that was one of the message to pictures, I think, however, again, you reverted to black and white now that, now that once again, now most of these were black and white, come to think of it, no, I forgot, except the end of the young ones was in color. The taste of fear the boy who saw the meaning was black and white. The young the young ones was in color. Freud was in black and white. The L shaped one was black and white, and the servant was still black and white. Now, incidentally, from my point of view, I had developed on Freud, a way of getting quite strong contrasts on black and white, and and, and was, it was very keen, keen on, on the way I was doing that and and on, on, on the servant I was able to read, you know, we do some of that sort of, that sort of feeling, um. The servant I won, also the British Award, which was all the nice that year. And also actually that on the servant, because I got to know Joe Lozi very well. And finally, my most exciting man, I must say, to work for, and very much regret his passing. After that I did another another picture with Charlie Crichton the thirds, the third secret, which was for 20th Century Fox and that was in black, and that was in black and white show. And I think that was the last of the black and white films I did anyway. So there's one after that. I'll come to in a minute. But the but that, that one is a black and white was also in CinemaScope, and and because it was for 20th Century Fox. And on the strength of that picture, 20th Century Fox offered me a contract. Elmo Williams was was presiding over the over the English end of 20th Century Fox, and they gave me a three year contract. On the strength of that I did a number of pictures for them afterwards. And so that would be about 1964 this is 1964 and then, following that, for for Fox, I therefore, then did guns at batazi, John gilliman directing, which was quite interesting, and which had Nicky Attenborough in it. Where did you shoot? That was shot at that was shot at Pinewood, shot at Pinewood, and then that was followed by that was followed by high wind in Jamaica, also with 20th Century Fox, which, which was, was Sandy mccandry, yes,

Unknown Speaker  12:08  
while he was still shooting films that was shot, of course, in in Jamaica and Also at Pinewood, that the interiors were at Pinewood and it

Speaker 1  12:22  
had a big American actor in it, and that had Anthony Quinn, shouldn't stumble it. He wouldn't be very pleased if he knew I was stumbling over his head. Was stumbling over. You have any special problems on high winds? On high wind, people say yes, Anthony Quinn and Sandy McKendrick. The only thing I remember on that picture was, I remember, I remember throwing my meter is because it shows I had a meter in those days. I never throw my meter at Sandy. Once, what for? I think he'd irritated me. Once too much, fussing over something that I was doing. And then on one occasion, I remember also throwing a 2k at him, which is normally mean feats, because the two key in those days was a very heavy,

Speaker 1  13:29  
loud, I'm not normally like that, but I think Sandy does, certainly did anyway. But otherwise, I thought it was a great director. He couldn't be Aaron. And I think a great loss to a great loss to, you know, to films today. I mean, I'm sure he's helping a lot of other people make films, but I think he's think it's a great loss to us, you know, yes, well, when you think of Charleston is just sort of made a break. This has come back after Sandy disappeared. Yes, that's where, early, that's right, yes, I couldn't be mine. So anyway, where was I? On high wind? On high wind, they were trying to think now high wind, once again, was was in the scope the white process, again, it was in color. It was not, not particularly, actually, we, one of the problems I remember we had on that was, was to do with the box, sorry, which was able to do with the shed, with the No no, to do with to do with the budget. That's the word I'm looking for. I always started with the word budget. Someone like to forget that. Anyway, the budget finance, we had its ugly head on. Of that. And I always remember elbow Williams, almost, almost crying, actually, what he was telling, telling us how little money he had to do the to do the picture. And the upside of it all was that the one of the ships, which was a three mated bar, or three moss embark, which we had to have half built for us. They managed to get a hole, but they couldn't, they couldn't get the full rigging on it. So we had, we had to have that made and and that, they found that that there wasn't enough money to have the full rigging. So they decided that, as it was in cinema, Scar pictures long, no screen. But maybe if they just had two sets, two, two tiers of sales instead of four, we could get away with that. So you'll find all the pictures of this day, every single composition the ship is always at the top of the screen.

Unknown Speaker  15:57  
I The missing bits. Apart from that, it was incredibly the other, the other thing I remember about that films, the fact that

Speaker 1  16:13  
the book, of course, as I said, as one, as one knows as a classic, and that the film originally, apparently belonged to, yes, I think in which they belong to 20th century folks. I think they had bought, bought the rights in the year dark, which, I just thought it was written. They bought the rights of something like, something like $500 and then they did some work on it, who couldn't, couldn't make the film. And then they sold it for, shall we say, you know, for $2,000 after they spent so so much on writing scripts and so forth. And then it was bought by Paramount, who then spent another $20,000 on it. And by now it was then sold, you say, $500,000 to somebody else. By the time he got back to Fox, they now had a bill for something like, you know, a million dollars from Skip that they once owned. And meanwhile, host trigger writers had all been working on, including one I remember Nana Lee Johnson, who was the last one, and Natalie Johnson himself had been paid a fortune next year for his work. And then, meanwhile, shops now put their own writers onto it and so forth. Anyway, all this stuff was was in existence, and the script was so awful. But Sandy then went off, actually, he bought a paperback of high wind Jamaica. And on the Saturday, she went around actually directing from this paperback, which is by far the best thing, and it was, it was, anyway, a lot of things in the film were, that's a great thing, is that it actually, but unfortunately, it's really, it needed to. It needed really to been that much longer. Though they could have done with another half hours. They said another half hour on the screen, I think. But it made that picture a better one. It seemed like I remember seeing it, and it seemed like it was sort of scenes from, please farm them. So that's fine, yes, because it needed that much more until the all seems here. They had to, they had to start the edition. They just started at the point of the hurricane, instead of all the stuff that went that went on before, I mean, in the book, was all the idyllic life, you know, on the island before that. So, so, so they saw that, you know, it was there was never attempted, but never had some nice things in it. I think I've got a recording somewhere. So let me look back on some of the other things I wanted to make this a fox, that's right. Then Polanski came into my life with the dance of the vampires, which was very exceeding. It was an interesting thing to work on. We had those wonderful sets, huge there. So that was shot at, shot mostly at Elstree, at both MGM and Elstree, and also, and also Paul wood, I mean, the,

Speaker 1  19:18  
yes, whatever there's what to call it anyway, and there. So it's man mostly in those two studios. And I think we did do something at Shepparton and something at Pinewood. I know that we ran our studios and had so many sets to do. It also ran very heavily over schedule. There were various reasons anyway, but it was an intriguing thing to do. Had some wonderful sets in it, Jonathan that Polanski. Polanski, there's no doubt about a brilliant person, you know, full of invention, and I mean tremendously filming. It goes without saying. I. He was inclined to irritate a lot of people by sort of somehow wanting to do everybody's job. I think that the people on the floor, very often, the props and so forth, would get started irritated with him, because he would, you know, he would want to pour things out because they weren't he thought that they weren't doing it properly. And whatever it may be, he always seemed to seem to want to do everything. The point was that a lot of the things he was capable of doing better than the did he interfere anyway with your photograph? No, that's one thing, one thing he was, he was, he was, he was good about it. He never, never influenced me that way, but, but he was, but he had a tremendous sense of invention. I sort of felt, you know, one was very conscious the fact that he was always able to find a new twist to almost any, any any angle, or to into any, any shot. So I had great, great faith in him. Did he come on sector already, you know, with a very close idea of what he was, mainly improvised. No, he was he trying to improvise, improvised on the spot? Yes, yes, although some time back he did improvise, yes, yeah. There was a tricky, tricky picture to work on. And of course, it was difficult from his point of view, because he he was, he was acting as well as, you know, as well as to acting in it. While he was acting, one felt that he probably could have done with a producer being on the spot to, you know, to take the reins at that moment. But nevertheless, he somehow managed. Did he not have anybody? As it were, to sort of, No, nobody's anything, no. So

Speaker 1  22:12  
anyway, that was that was done. It was called Dance of the vampires. In the end, I think there were different titles at different times following that, another one for for, for 20th Century Fox. I should say that that Fox load me out to Poland ski when he was making his beating, because that wasn't, that wasn't done under the fox flag. It probably made a pocket out of you. So that's right. I'm sure they did. In fact, you're quite right. And and the following that there was another one for Fox again, that was the Blue Max, once again, John gilliman, who I'd known on council, patarsie, and the Blue Max, anyway, was shot in, it was shot almost entirely in in Ireland, in the studios at gray and on vacation out there. We had all those planes, you know, social made for us, and so forth, and on that picture. The end of that picture, I got actually hit by a plane. And there's a sequence where, where, where George Peppard is standing in front of the camera, and he's, he's, he was sorry, was well, war one you may remember, and Jordan was in front of camera. He's just in his splendid new uniform. He's just, he's just been, he's just joined the, I suppose it was called the Luftwaffe in those days. I don't know anybody, whatever the German air force was called. And and one of the one of the one is just standing there. You once sees a whole lot of bedraggled planes coming back from some sort. You see them in the distance doing a circle of the field. And then they all start to land, some on fire, and some have broken under characters or whatever. And one of the planes detaches itself from the group and comes down and is supposed to beat up the george peppa character, who throws himself on the ground as the plane flies over the camera low. And John gilliman, when we did this, so after the very first take, John gilliman, you're shouting into the into the into the microphone to the pilot film, need to come, you know, that was too blankety, blank high. You got to come down lower, you know. And I remember what turning around to him as well, said, You know, it's more than when it comes over here, it's more than filling the screen. You know, you can't what it can't appear to be any lower than that, because it's more than filling the screen. And it said, anyway, it seemed to me to be terribly low. And in fact, when it came and I was on a piece of myself, and I hadn't flinched, you know that somehow, you know, I was leaning by the camera as we all were, and I was telling dad that one hadn't flinched, the old nerves in all right. Anyway, he said. He said to get the guy come around again, so the chap go around again, and once again, put George Pavel in the front that the player. He comes towards us, George on the queue, ducks white down to flat, flat on flat in the mud, as he says he's supposed to do. And something told me that whether I'd been kneeling, I'd be kneeling up till then, but that plane was too damn low, actually, and I just suddenly threw myself flat on my face, and the next I knew was a sickening crunch, and my back as the wheel of the plane hit my back and took me about 50 yards down the 50 feet, I should say, down the airfield. And you know, one, one just came to in a, you know, pile of pool of blood, and you know, blood stained shirt and this hat and the other and the play. What had happened the plane, the wheel, the undercarriage. The plane was rather, it's a biplane, rather steep the wheels the way they stuck down the undercarriage. And anyway, the wheel, the wheel had hit, the camera had hit. The was a Mitchell had hit the very heavy motor of the Mitchell had torn that motor off, and that went shooting down the airfield. People thinking it was one of our heads which it could have been spun the spun the Mitchell round, oh, he tore the magazine off, spun the Mitchell round, the Finder hit chick. Chick was looking through like hit hit him in the forehead and gave him a whacking great bump. It looked like a 10 like a tennis ball sticking out there. And then the wheel, of course, then then hit me in the middle of my back as I was laying down. So it landed on my back, so to speak. So it hit me at about 100 miles an hour, and then then hit the ground a couple of yards behind me, then bounced off and bounced up into the air, then you went round in the air again. And anyway, the upside the door was we had a helicopter on the field, as it turned out, the helicopter took me to hospital. And as far as I was concerned, that was the end of the picture. For me, this was about a week before the end, you know, two weeks before the end and and so, so I was able to finish. I was in hospitals the rest of that time, and they found that that when they when they examined me, it apparently just missed the center of my spinal column by about half an inch. Otherwise, God knows what would have happened. Actually, they took all the skin off my back, and I've seen weeks before, before I was seeing well, I will say that never came to sleep in the hospital. Actually, a thing I have against him, but maybe he was, he was too busy. That's very generous. But anyway, what does I say about the check out? What happened with no so? Well, check came with me the hospital in the head of the helicopter took us both, but he was sent back right away because there was just a bruise on a bump. So he was, he was lucky, but, but there's been strange three years. I should say that the magazine, of course, was torn off the camera, and the film was, this was ruined, but so therefore, but fortunately, we had changed magazine. So therefore, in the picture is the take before the one I'd said was perfectly right. Anyway, the film, you see the picture, you know, you see this thing scoops right over the camera. And here's the shot. Is all that was needed. And incidentally, I've got a picture still somewhere upstairs. I must try and find it. I've got a still taken by the stills guy. I think it's Bobby Penn, if I remember, actually, anyway, he might have been Bobby. Who was, I wasn't eating, I think it was Bob. You may have been somebody else. Anyway, a still, and it's of the take before, and it's a wonderful story, because he had, he has stopped the plane in mid flight, exactly the middle of his plane, and it's right above the camera. You see us all around the camera, and the wheel is just above my head, and you see me kneeling there, and you could not place a hand between the wheel and my head in that take, you know. And that was, and, yes, John Little said, you know, too, got it high. It's going to come down. Well, you're insured, so I wasn't, No, I never had a penny in charge. And, you know, they went on paying, but they went on pain. Is that the main thing? Well, for as long as they know, of course, I was still under Contact. I forgot, yeah, so that was, anyway, so that was, that was in Canada, of course. And that was, and that was sort of a scope again, actually. So anyway, so where were we? Max, yeah, Max. That was probably actually by another film outside, yes, outside Fox again, I think called a girl called fathom. That was Fox. And then, oh no, no. Then, then I did a piece called robbery. I. That was no, that wasn't Fox anyway. PT eight, that was interesting. That was with our own Peter O'Toole. And that was very, I'm jumping pictures, I'm sorry. We? I'm sorry. PT, eights with no, with, with, with, with a boy. Actor, yes,

Speaker 1  30:42  
I Stanley Baker, Stanley Baker, Stanley Baker. And the interesting thing about that was, it took 58 to Hollywood, actually, that took PDS to Hollywood. Any special problems on that. No, there was a lot of that was, was, was a lot of night work on that, of course, and and very, very intriguing it was that was just trying to see without said black and white, all colors, there must have been colors. Have seen that interesting picture to work on there. And anyway, that was followed once again. Now Joe Losey, once again, came back with with boom. Now, Joe had asked me to do one or two things before that, which I wasn't able to do because, you know, Sunday contract with Fox. And anyway, came back to be to ask me to do boon, which was with Elizabeth Taylor and and Richard Burton, and also actually brought into it Noel Coward was probably intriguing, because Noel Coward was asked to play the part of an individual called it, called Mrs. Go forth, who was the the main character, played by Liz Taylor. And in the play, she has a sister, a wealthy American sister, who was, who was also called a Miss Go forth, I thought, and but that's a part that they offered not to be played in drag, but play moldy by Noel Coward. She was very funny detection. That was, I think, the first time I worked with Noel Coward. I worked with him later on. I mentioned that presently, but that was the intriguing picture to work on, wonderful sets Done, done by Dick McDonald, who always worked with Joe and but interesting, mostly, of course, because, because of Elizabeth Taylor, I think, and Richard Burton.

Unknown Speaker  32:55  
They were, you know, I suppose one can only call her, actually a very lovable man made monster. When they get to that stage, that's all they could be, but

Speaker 1  33:14  
very intriguing lady all the same was getting to the point then people begin Goon to feels no longer could they afford to have both of them in the same picture, I think, well, that's essentially, that's right. Well, that's why. And actually, the funny thing about that, about boom, was, originally, you know, the show originally, wanted to do that for something like, I think about, he had a budget of about 600,000 for that, and he, he wanted, he wanted see, I think was Simon senior a to play, to play, Mr. Go forth and, and I know, and it may have been James Fox to play, to play, the the angel of death. And anyway, nobody would back it. And then one day, Elizabeth Taylor just happened to read the script and said she would love to do it, but she'd only do it. And of course, she'd have to have Richard Burton as the angel of death and so forth, and right away. And because right away, it meant that she had to have a salary of a million, and she insisted that he should have a salary of a million, so it didn't look as if, you know, he wasn't as good as she was. They don't just got married, and so they so therefore, now you had 2 million on the picture before you start, you know. And in the end, the picture cost millions, and people were falling over each other to back it. You know, it's astonishing what names can do. And meanwhile, you know, Joe had admitted he'd far wild have had his original cast and his original budget and this very celebrated cast and over the top budget. Anyway, the picture was made. It wasn't a great success. As one knows, it was an expensive flop, actually take but, but it was intriguing all the same. How did you get on with trailer? Well, actually, one got on with her, as I suppose, as anybody did, really, you know. I mean, never, never, particularly intimately, you know, but, but she was pleasant enough, actually. One enjoyed, you know about, you know, her key lights and that sort of thing. The only thing I remember her saying to me about about key lights was not in terms of where one should put it to make her look good. But do I have to have that freaking thing in my eyes? Words? But I don't like using myself actually, and I particularly dislike hearing the part of on a ladies, what about Burton? Was he more approachable? He was actually delightful. Actually, I knew several times often said, you know, on days off, actually, sometimes he'd done he'd be swimming things that sort we shot him. We shot that. We shot national picture, as I say, in Sardinia on vacation, which was a lovely island. And for some of the time, the Burtons had their yacht there. They insisted on having their yacht. And it was a sport. I must say it was a sport house swimming, because the effluent from a yacht actually is not, is not that good, especially, especially when the when it's board in Marvel small bay where we were we, nevertheless, we could be content ourselves with thinking, Well, after all, it's the newest thing to royalty amongst the you know what? Next one that was followed by, oh, that was fun to be intriguing the man in winter. Yes, Tony Harvey directing. That was into that. But that was very intelligent. Peter O'Toole, once again, actually, who was wonderful in it. And of course, the first time I got to know Katie Hepburn very well indeed, I thought she was a lovely lady, most most professional, very generous in her attitude to people, tremendously professional in every way and and I enjoyed everything about that, that film, because, first of all, I thought it was. It was a very good script. It was. I've always enjoyed a literary script, which this was, I mean, so many scripts actually, you can hardly bear to read through. Well this, I mean, the one enjoyed every word in it. I thought it was extremely well written piece, and it was visually an exciting thing to do. But she was great in it, actually, and and after that, worked with her again, and I was also asked to do a number of things with her that I wasn't able to do, unfortunately for other reasons, but she's great lady and tool. Are you gonna make a very good sort of drinking companion. And you know that sort of thing, he's entire to be too good, too good as a drinking companion. But his, his different difficult in some ways, he, I think he, I think he can be difficult. I think he, I think he can, he can be edgy, I think perhaps if he doesn't know his lines, or if he's nervous for any reason. And the one person used to put him in his place, I must say, was Katie Hepburn. Katie Hepburn was always on the set. It was an 830 call. She was on the set exactly at 830 and on the first day, he didn't know I was in about 1010, 10 to nine, and she saw to it that he never did that again. And if we say after that, he was always on the set at the right time, same time she was and she was always Word Perfect. And if he wasn't, she let him know it. So I think all that made him a bit bit nervous, you know, but he was a very interesting person. Otherwise, I worked with, of course, several times after that, I'll mention him one or two later on. So anyway, I just got through one or two things there, the landing. We. It's like the end of the Italian Job. Oh yeah, that was, that was with Peter Collinson was the director. And once again, because that brought back Noel Coward, she was intriguing. And last but not least, of course, so yes, Kane and and, and so, so that that was intriguing on a lot, a lot of counts and, and also quite a very amusing story, you know, I think, I think it's still, still, still holds up. And as I say, it was the first of a number of pixels I done with Michael Caine. So it was great pleasure to start it off on that. I don't have many stories about coward. Let me try and think,

Speaker 1  40:57  
not particularly exactly, except to say that on boom, it was all said because on boom, on boom, one felt that coward, coward's memory was failing him a bit. And whereas he'd always been so Word Perfect, especially, of course, everything he'd written anyway, now he was, I think his memory was failing himself slightly. And whether he was, whether he felt, I don't know whether he felt slightly uneasy with the with the temperaments around him, of Elizabeth Taylor and Burton. I don't know. But he also has a lot of difficult speeches to say at times. So I think, I think that there was slight problems there, but, but also, also, I think I was very conscious of fact, also with him, that people were always inclined to wait for the criticisms to drop, you know, and I think he, I think he rather felt that he wasn't being treated quite sort of casually enough. I think he felt that, you know, people were sort of weighing on every word, which I think is difficult, you know, for anybody, but you're enchanting character. Otherwise, actually, I'm just reading, for God knows, the third time, all his various memoirs, and, you know, his diaries and so forth. Actually, it's very interesting to go back on some of that. Should I go on with the other things during the line the wind side, an Italian Job I just got. There was a thing called the butter chain, Buttercup chain,

Unknown Speaker  42:40  
with, with an American director. Must have made a great impression on him. You don't have the time. Actually,

Speaker 1  42:51  
my mind's gone suddenly. Anyway, intriguing, nice picture to work on. Then a new director for me, Ken Russell, the music lovers. Ken because what come and say about him, absolutely brilliant in many ways, absolutely impossible, which he knows himself and completely monstrous. Every adjective that anybody can think of is absolutely true, unbridled in every way, undisciplined, you know, unprincipled. You know, everything suits him, but he is. He Is he is he is he's a great filmmaker. There was no doubt about it, actually. And this was a, it was a wonderful thing to do. You know, one love every minute of it. How did you get on with him in terms of your job? Well, once again, well, on the hill, he left one very much alone, you know. And he would, he would, he would talk, talk about things, but, but Well, on the whole, you know, be happy. I think he was happy with what I did. So that was the main thing Stop.

Unknown Speaker  0:01  
Dougie Slocum, side five. You wanted to say something

Speaker 1  0:06  
else about Ken Russell? Yes, talking of the music lovers, apart from being the first time I met Ken Russell, there was also the first time I got to know Glenda Jackson, oh yes. Tell us about us. I got to know her later on as well. Glenda, of course, is a tremendous character, a most wonderful pro she, you know, I think that she and Katie hepburns have a lot in common there. They're always, you know, absolutely professional, word perfect, and both very remarkable ladies in every way. So it was great. It was wonderful working with her

Speaker 1  0:53  
penitents on automatic. Now, what else can I say? Anything else I'll say on that at the moment, it except that, like, like all the ken Russell films are not so that I agree with everything that was done to poor Tchaikovsky, but nevertheless, I will say The music was nice and I enjoyed listening to it. So what was that? Was the music lovers that, now that was forward, if I remember, actually by Murphy's war, that's Peter Yates, again, Murphy's war, once again, Peter Yates, and once again Peter. This is Peter O'Toole, this time, that's right. And but the second time I'd worked with Peter, because obviously I'd known him on the line in winter and, and that was quite, quite a picture, actually, because it was, it was shot almost entirely in South America, in Venezuela and and On the Orinoco River and a horrifying picture to shoot, in many ways, because, for some reason, well, they decided, instead of putting us in a town or in a hotel in the usual sort of way, somebody had the idea of of hiring a Greek ship, which we were told was going to be a Greek luxury liner, they hired this ship, which they said that they would moor in the mouth of the Orinoco. And as it turns out, when we came to finally go out there, we flew out to Venezuela, and we then joined the ship, and we then discovered, actually, a number of things. First of all, somebody hadn't done their homework, because the captain of the ship suddenly found, in no way could he, could he place his ship in the mouth of the Orinoco? There wasn't enough draft, so he had, they had some more, something like about 20 miles out. Now, this was now out of the sea, you know, where there were raging winds and, God knows what. So, so that was one thing, and and the other thing, of course, we also discovered, actually, that when, when we finally, when you were finally on board that ship, it was anything but a luxurious liner. Actually, somebody discovered that one of the old life boats on the ship, which certainly wouldn't have been safe in any sea, somebody suddenly noticed, actually a scratched out Irish name on it. And it turned out to be that some old ship that used to ply between Plymouth and Don Lewis and had now been bought up by some enterprise in Greek who painted the whole thing white, had managed to put on, put a sort of small swimming pool on one of the desk depths, which I don't think they ever dared fill up with water in case it sank, or maybe they hoped that one day, when it was sinking, that the water would finally find its way into the into the dry swimming pool. Justified their paperwork on it anyway. It was also a disaster, because it took us ages to go to and from this ship. It was bloody dangerous because we used to have to leave our shooting during the day on the mainland, and it would have to leave as the sun was setting, and then go out at night in a pitch dark sea without any radio or anything like that, and try and find a ship, actually, which you couldn't see because the waves were so high, you couldn't see the horizon, or you couldn't see any partnership. So it was terribly, terribly dangerous. And also to transfer from a ship to a small boat, or small boats or launches anyway, that was bobbing up and down. So very often, we would have to turn around and go back and then spend the night on shore, where we hadn't got proper camps or anything. So the most terrifying things happened, you know, but nevertheless, the film was made like all sorts of films. And anyway, that was, that was the second time when worked with Peter Yates, who one had known before, of course, from robbery. I

Speaker 2  4:58  
seem to remember that never. Actually some communication with, act, about, about, about that actually

Speaker 1  5:05  
might well have been, actually, yes, yes. Actually might well have been because, because the conditions on the ship, the

Speaker 2  5:13  
crew, I think the crew, you know, complain back to the office. I don't know that well,

Speaker 1  5:17  
they might, they might have done because obviously, the whole thing, I mean, it really didn't work in such a disaster. And I think in the end, what they had to do was to, in the end, find accommodation in some small town which was quite long way away. It meant that you had to go about 50 or 100 miles every day to this nearest town, and they'll be put up in whatever hotels they could find. It wasn't that bad in the end, but, but there were problems. I think there were problems.

Speaker 2  5:46  
Interesting picture actors, I remember it, but it was quite, was quite an

Speaker 1  5:49  
interesting picture, actually. And once again, that was Peter O'Toole. So that was, that was just, I think, some other things following that, I got to know somebody else, George kuco For the first time, with Travels with my Aunt, which was a fascinating, fascinating picture. And originally that was going to be done, of course, with Katie Hepburn, again, George, as you know, had done all the early pictures with Katie Hepburn, and he obviously wanted her to be in that. And I went on a very interesting record with George and Katie to Paris, to Madrid and various places, and tried to find anyway, said the finishing up in Rome to find locations for the Graham green book. And I remember towards the end of the of the week when the working was over, but back in London, uh, a who, incidentally, had been disagreeing with everybody all the way along the line because they wanted to cut down all sorts of parts of the script, which she felt was completely wrong. And she was quite right in saying that she was obviously being difficult with the producers. And she was quite right at the end. Anyway, she rang me up two days after being back, said, Dougie, I'm fired. I'm off the beach. I've been for and she'd obviously just, you know, that they had decided, I think, to replace her, which they did actually be with, with Maggie Smith, who was very good in the picture, quite famous. She was very good in it. But the point is, you see, whereas Katie Hepburn would have been a natural eccentric, and she was just wonderful, she didn't have to act to do the part, Maggie was inclined to play the, you know, play the eccentric. And in actual fact, was, I think she was over the top in it, you know, I think I want to spot the thing. But nevertheless, it was an interesting picture to do it gave me my first American Oscar nomination. So from my point of view, it was quite a quite an interesting thing. And that's all I think I can say about that. But

Speaker 2  8:15  
you just ask your daddy, probably you were on the picture anyhow, perhaps because of Katie Hepburn.

Speaker 1  8:22  
I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. I hadn't thought of that, yes, but you're quite right, because that followed, that was after the Laude winter, and because she knew she knew George. You're absolutely right. That's exactly why I was so it was

Unknown Speaker  8:36  
ironic that, after she didn't,

Speaker 1  8:39  
she didn't do it rather sadly. Afterwards, later on, I did another thing with her, which I'll tell you about

Unknown Speaker  8:52  
if I remember it in time, fellas of my aunt, oh yes. Then came Jesus Christ Superstar was, I think, the year after that,

Speaker 1  9:06  
that was, that was the first time I met her. Norman joyceman, another one, very interesting man, a difficult man to get on with. Most people found but, but a very good filmmaker, and once, once you knew him, actually one, I think one couldn't but respect him.

Speaker 1  9:35  
Quite a different thing. That was a very different thing, yes, first of all, it was, it was once, I would say, once the first musical, because one had done the young ones with Cliff Richards before city or directing. But this was the first. This was the first real, real American type of musical, if you like, and, and it was a fascinating thing to do. Also. So it gave me is the first and only time I've been to Israel, which was a fascinating experience, and we shot a lot of stuff in the the measure of desert and places like that we and also on the Dead Sea. It was, it was, that was absolutely fascinating.

Speaker 2  10:25  
You have any special problems from your point of view?

Speaker 1  10:29  
Nothing, very, nothing, very much. Actually, the third thing in the picture was the fact that I, when I was asked to do it, I actually took over from somebody else, who, after a week, after a week's work, obviously didn't get on with the director that vice versa. And I hated, actually, I've always have hated taking over a picture, but I think this was a case where I was told that it had to be there had to be a change, and it was early days, and therefore it would be all right. But I was sorry I'd have to do that. But nevertheless, it was a picture that I I look back on with some pleasure. Did you reshoot in your previous cameras? It was just, I think there were just one or two small sequences, but otherwise, the director wanted to reshoot everything, and I said he I suggested he shouldn't. I thought that the other ones were very good. So, so I thought that he was quite wrong. So I took it, in the end, to be a, to be a personality thing, you know, I think sometimes that's chemistry doesn't work. And I thought the chemistry just didn't work there. But it was bad luck, because the the other man was very good. Following the Oh yes, now follow, follows, following. That is one of my favorite pictures, The Great Gatsby Yes, with Jack Clayton directing. That was shot half in America and half in this country. And as one knows, was the Americans considered to be a sort of runaway production, in the sense that here we were making, after all, an American classic, and we were making it Park in Americas too, but with an English director and an English crew, or partly English crew, and a lot of it being made in England with the English director and a totally English crew. So I think they did feel that it was wrong and but especially as the money was it was a paramount picture, and it was an American, you know, really American picture. So they were very much against it. We had enormous trouble with the unions over there, although we had, we had American standings, or did we call them more backups for every one of us, nevertheless, they, although they were willing for me to do my stuff untouched, they wanted The they wanted the operator and the focus puller. They wanted their people to do it. They didn't mind ours being our people being paid, but they wanted their boys. And Jack backed me up on that. He was wonderful, as I said, he wanted this crew to remain untouched. And in the end, there were, there were, there were tripping union blackings there, though there were, there was, there was a court case. They they had to go to court while we were shooting, and to go to court in New York to put a lien on the on the on the on the American unions and so forth. It was almost terrific trip thing going on. And also, there was a famous occasion when chick Robin and myself went back to our hotels in New York one evening, at the end of the day shooting, we just quickly changed to go out for a quick bike because we were working early as usual the next morning. And when we came back from our bike to eat in the restaurant around the corner, came back, and each one of us found our room had been completely, you know, turned upside down. They'd gone through absolutely everything. And as the police said, When the police arrived, they will say, Well, thank God that we weren't there, because we would have been beaten up. So that about it. So one felt that, you know, there was something going on between the, you know, the unions and the unions over there, they're not, they're not, like over here, that they're, you know, they've got a sort of funny hinter ground sort of thing, yeah, so we won't go into that, but, but anyway, so, so what had a straight experience There, nevertheless, apart from that, it was a piece that one was very excited by. And I did, you know some some stuff here, some interesting stuff here, too. We shot the most of it in Pinewood. When we came back,

Speaker 2  14:52  
I remember one shot in that Dougie union is correct me, if I'm wrong in detail, but it seemed remarkable to me. It started in the garden. Garden. Was there a party or something, and you followed the leading man and through in into the house, to French windows, then out into the house. And I remember seeing that and thinking, I can see Dougie saying to the director, well, that's what you want. Now you can send everybody else home. Tell me about so

Speaker 1  15:32  
many different it was, it was the most, actually, was one of the most intriguing shots, I think the most I've ever done in my life, because it did as Sid Exactly, exactly as Sid explains. It is slightly just started on a car that was just a car. The door opens. Me Farrow and Robert Redford get out. They walk. They walk at the camera follows them at night through this huge house. It goes right into this house. There is this huge ballroom with, you know, hundreds of people there dancing, and all the Chantel there bright and then goes right through there as they walk, and follows them into this huge guard through the French windows, as you said. And now you suddenly see this huge party in progress outside, and it finishes up by then, then going towards me of Pharaoh, which I forgot, because Mia wasn't in the beginning, Amir Pharaoh, who now find at the at the at the at the by the side of a fountain, and you see the fountain behind her, and, of course, all the party in progress around her. And it was an exciting shot to do and assay. It was, you know, one had to go right through that ballroom with all the panning and tracking and so forth without, of course, seeing a single lamp everywhere. And obviously there had to be lamps everywhere on both sides, and there must have been at least 50 lamps inside the ballroom itself. So everything had to be hidden, you know. And of course, all this was in a wheel house and so forth. So it was, it was a complicated thing that I felt, you know, very pleased with when I finally got it. One sad thing I find about the shot when I finally saw it was we, in the end, we, we did two takes on that, only several takes, I should say, but two variations. One variation was starting off with a fairly wide angle lens, so that when at the end you burst through the French doors, and you sit now on the on the wide angle shot, you now see this huge party with all the marquees as well as the fountain, the huge marquees, and hundreds of people doing things all over this huge garden. This must have been several acres, and so in size, we did that as a wide angle lens. Then we did with them. We did a closer version, more or less on the end of the Zoom when we get through the doors. So all you really see then is, is mere far standing by the fountain, and the fountain just part of the fountain out of focus in the background. And the sad thing is, the shot they used was the one with us, with the shortest, you know, with a long focus lens at the end, which is, I think, a terrible shame, because I felt, you know, there's so much close enough in the picture. Anyway, I'd rather have seen that, the breathtaking feeling that one got on the on the original take. And I often think that's what you're talking about, zooms earlier on. One danger of the Zoom is the fact that it will give you both ends, you know, yeah. And the other thing is, too, I think one of the great danger too, is it when you when you take a number of takes and things, I think a director very often, he takes, he takes a he takes a long shot or wide, wide shot or something, and then says, let's go in close or something. But the point is this, from that moment, almost go in close, well, in the back of one's mind is, is the wide shot? Because you've seen the wide shot, but it's only in the mind, you know also, to get a film somewhere else from that moment onwards, you're stuck with all the close stuff. And it's a great danger that actually, and it's also a great danger in cutting, you know how very often, at the end of in cutting, a lot of a lot of things are very often cut out of the picture, which shouldn't be cut out. It's simply because every that from the director through to the editor and so forth, they're cutting out stuff that they think that you don't need to know because, because you already know it. They forget they know it. The audience doesn't know. The audience has never seen it. You see

Speaker 2  19:20  
how long, then, certainly the honest, a minor but interesting point. How long did, in fact, did it take you to light that shot? We were talking, just

Speaker 1  19:26  
been talking. Very good point. I would think that. I can't really go back on it. I would think about six hours. He would, I think he would have taken, he would have taken, shall we say, from six o'clock in the evening until about midnight. I think one would have, one would be ready, ready, ready to start at at midnight, about the whole of the halfway, that halfway mark, because there was quite a, quite

Unknown Speaker  19:52  
a shot, presumably.

Speaker 1  19:56  
Oh yes, also forgetting the. And, and last, but not least, I would say also Robin, who had everything from, you know, he was at one foot too, with people coming out of the fact the grips and everything, the grips pulling this exactly I mean, Manning, Colin Manning, who was our grip, you know, Cowell would have to, you know, drag this thing, you know, all the way through all these things. And also to to go from, was three different levels, the level of the house and the level of the front garden in the back garden, you know, would have been three levels that would have had to be negotiated somehow with building up tracks, you know, so, so it must have been. It must have been quite a railway that he must have built there. I can't remember quite what it looked like now, but he must have been because I had troubles of my own, obviously. But he must have had, he must have had troubles too, yeah. And last, but not least, I would think the actors must have had trouble negotiating quite a lot of different things as they you know, not, but it was a fascinating picture. And as I say, we then finished up in, finished up in England, at Pinewood, where, for instance, to the the final scene of the picture, one of the final scenes of the picture, of the picture, where, where Gatsby is shot in the swimming pool. The swimming pool was was built in in Pinewood. So we had to go all sorts of things that were that we had to match into bits that we'd shot in Newport, Rhode Island, and other bits in New York, and other bits in Pinewood. But the swimming pool was built in Pinewood. And that's the interesting point about that also, is that the studio at the time was asked. They were told, Look, we've got to build a swimming pool just outside this stage, not stays outside, the outside the old house and all the admin blockers. And said, anyway, we were going to build this thing. And the port is this is going to cost us something like 100,000 pounds to build and and now the port is this for another 50,000 pounds, shall we say, if we made it 150,000 it could be a real going concern. Which can you know last forever? You know, the most wonderful swimming pool, probably the best one in England, certainly the best one in any film studio. You and but you have to pay the extra amount, and the studio said no. So in the end, we built this 100,000 pounds of meaningful which, you know, for the film had to work. So it had all the filtration plants, all the water heating stuff, you know, everything was there, except that, you know, after three weeks, it was, it was all pulled away, and all the ground we filled in again where it had been dug. And this, that the other, I think it's a shape actually, because it would be losing where the carp talk is. Anyway, it was, it was, it was not far from the car. No idea what it was really. It was on the Noel. It was near the, you know, the cutting rooms that are by the, the cutting rooms that are by the side of the of the old block. Yeah, it was just, it was just really behind those, how I say it was, it was so it was on part of the old building, and partly near those cutting rooms. It just went about there. But it's a shame that those cases where they where they missed an opportunity. So anyway, that so that was so, that was Jack, Jack Clayton, Noel Swami, and that, yeah, it's a great guest, please. Yes, I had a I won an English a BAFTA Award, I think for that, what do you do

Unknown Speaker  23:52  
with your awards?

Speaker 1  23:54  
Well, I got some of them upstairs in the in the in the study, somewhere around, somewhere somewhere in just the nomination, things are in boxes I don't know generally around the thing. What am I gonna say now, I wish there's one in this one in the the dining room. There's a, there's a one of those BAFTA masks. But it's only there because it's in silhouette. It hides, or it hides the lamps, and lamps rather a glaring bubble. It makes a good, you know, good shield. Now, where am I next

Unknown Speaker  24:29  
picture after the Gatsby?

Speaker 1  24:31  
Oh, Gatsby, ah. Now the Gatsby is all these were new, new people, in a way. The next one actually was, was the thing called the Marseille contract. Not a very great picture, but, but some nice, some good things in it. It was the first time I met Bob parish. Robert Parish was who is a wonderful man and and also, actually was a few Scott. The other by Judd Bernard. Bernard, he was produced writer, and he was quite frank about it. He said he suddenly discovered that, I think he started off with Michael Caine, that Michael Caine suddenly had a free period in between two films. And about Michael, as you know, nearly always is he's working continuously, year in, year out. Anyway, there was a two, two week gap when nothing was happening. And he also then found that that by being able to say that to to to Anthony Quinn, he was able to get to Tony Quinn, and he was also able to get James Mason, he played each one, one against the other, to say that the other two were going to do it. And therefore, with the third so worked out. And in the end, he had no he had it was wonderful cast of three people, but no script. And then he sat down at that time, I think, the whole series of sort of films being made called the something contract what they were called. But all sorts of these sort of, you know, things were happening. Tell me what the original one was called. Anyway, there was an American one that was very famous with a car chase in it. And anyway, so he then sat down and he wrote in all of 10 minutes, because it doesn't wouldn't be fair to him to save you taking longer. So in all the tables, he wrote this script. And on the basis of that, we suddenly all found ourselves in Marseille, actually. And I can think of better places to be in the also winter in Marseille. So we went to the Marseille and also, you know, places to the east of that along the river coast. It was very pleasant finishing up in nice town in Monte Carlo. And so anyway, anyway, where we shot. The only thing I should say, say about it, apart from a very interesting location, also, we shot in Paris, I should say, at the end of the particular memory about it is that, is the fact that, because of the script, every one of those actors, every every the end of every day shooting, they'd all disappear to their rooms, and every one of them would write feverishly overnight, but write their parts for the next day, knowing that they could, could, could not but improve on the original script. But the only trouble was every morning, when they arrived with with their new script, you found that each one of their parts was now enormous. The other two, of course, had actually hadn't had a chance to just see the script anyway. So one of the more invariably, according to which day it was, one of them was in every word perfect with a part the size of a hamlet, insignificant. That password I was used to anything but Word Perfect, partly because there were no words, I suppose. But anyways, but the film anyway, was, was, was, I can't say it was a great success already, but from my point of view, it was interesting, because all day was only shot in I think it was less than eight weeks. I think, like only six or seven weeks. Every location was a different one. They were very hard locations. We had enormous, you know, things like marshaling yards. We shot inside that big railway station, which is now the now being turned into into a museum in Paris. The kid, I'll say, we shot underneath. The kid, I'll say, where the where the where the trains are as well. We, you know, all sorts of things that we do. A lot of night scenes in Paris, as well as day scenes everywhere else and and so interesting locations. And it was done, it was done in record time. And from my point of view, I thought, you know, he wasn't, he wasn't bad. I was quite pleased with it. So it was quite interesting. And anyway, one met a lot of nice people or interesting people. So that was the Marseille contract, a small thing after that, called the bade with Glenda Jackson again, and the maids, yes, the amazing journey. And August actually talking against me. Finish this thing. I go back to Jean Jane, the minute with Christopher. No. Who'd I say? Directed that? Yes, yes, yes, Christopher miles. I think I might see my mind's going suddenly, yes, it is Christopher miles directing, that's right. And he had it, had his sister in it, and he was wonderful in it, and Glenda Jackson was also wonderful. Anyway. It was an intriguing thing, but that was, that was a short. Thing, there was just one thing to say about Jeanette. You mentioned that I've gotten that. That goes back to the Polanski, the Poland ski picture, when we did, what was the thing called

Unknown Speaker  30:13  
God dancing the vampires. Dancing

Speaker 1  30:15  
vampires. One day, Jean show me came, came down, and because Polanski knows that I speak French, and he speaks quite good French, well better still now, because he's been living in France for a long time, but that time he spoke quite good French, and it's a common thing. But actually, Polanski went to a film school in Paris, also when he left Poland. So he knew French, obviously, for that reason. And Emerick originally came down. So the three of us, only one more there was also the producer,

Unknown Speaker  30:50  
God, I've got his name a Polish, a member of the Polish name, I've got his name for the moment. So we were for lunch anyway,

Speaker 1  31:02  
we're talking about various things in French and and, you know how, if one's got a sort of, if somebody's got a got a got a water on their nose, or that sort, you know, the one thing that you shouldn't mention so obvious sort of thing. And in extra, one of those drunk one of those John please figures came up, but not being beastly to the Germans, one of those, one of those sort of programs. He showed that very well. Anyway, here we were having this lunch, and suddenly I found myself they brought up some person, a some director, and rather unkindly, because on the hell I don't think I'm an unkind person, but rather unkindly, I saw said, Oh, him, he's a pedal asked, because we Were speaking in French, he's a PED asked, and I suddenly got a working great bang on my shin, which has never felt the same sense. It was the it was a producer whose name will come to me in a moment and obviously give me a whacking. But the point was that he wasn't inside. The words had had stumbled out of my out of my face, which by now had become BECTU and Jean Jane stood up. He's quite a big man. Was dead now. Anyway, he suddenly stood up, actually, and thunk his chest and said, watch your sweet Penny. And in fact, he'd only just come out of prison. What

Unknown Speaker  32:46  
did you do? Apologize.

Speaker 1  32:47  
Then had to start my study comes in very handy at times. So I had to stand. I didn't mean this in that sense, you know? I mean what I admit, but what I was trying to say was, that's why he was such a good director.

Speaker 1  33:10  
So that was David, again, you know, apart from from Sarah miles, who's the members of the servant. Let me go back to

Speaker 1  33:27  
try to find my things. Oh yes. Now then, actually, that was then followed by love among the ruins, which is the thing that George Cukor again, George came back with Katie Hepburn, and also with, with Lawrence Olivier. It's the first time I met him. And it was, I must say, a most fascinating picture. It was okay. It was a picture that actually was made, I think, for for NBC. So it was really a theatrical thing, which I think they'd hoped, they'd hoped to have a to have a film, a film release, as well. But I have an idea that, like so many of those things, it came unstuck on the film side by, you know, contracts having to be we drawn up because of a film, you know, a theatrical release. So I'm not sure that it ever saw the light of day that way. But it is, but it, but it was a great success in America. And anyway, there it was. It was a wonderful performance. And both, both, both Larry and Katie. So it was the enchanting thing. And I remember one moment actually, that after Larry had had made one speech. Funny. I figured out was only at that stage was only ever to do one take. He was always word perfect on take one, and then would if the director wanted to go again, he would fall to pieces. Actually, he was no longer word perfect but, but his first take was nearly always magnificent, and he was absolutely terrific on this. And I remember that the whole stage, everybody on the floor, was absolutely they were just riveted. It's one of those, you know, every now and again, there's an electric moment in films and on the floor. And I remember there's one was mine, with Katie Hepburn on, on, on the line in winter. But this one was, this one was Larry on, on, on this picture. And, you know, we were all absolutely, you know, there was, there was, like a funny single on the back of one's neck. You know, it was a very, very strange, strange thing, quite wonderful. Anyway, so that, so that was that. And dear George Cukor, again,

Speaker 1  35:48  
some of the other things there was Noel. Then after that, actually, then back to Norman Joyce. And again, a rollerball, very different from Jesus Christ. Superstar. Now, you know you had a you had a story that was that, you know, BELONG TO HELL while but a fascinating, a fascinating thing. It was Shots, shots, largely in the state, on the states, in Germany, and it was a way, anyway, very intriguing thing to do a lot of problems on it, from my point of view, because I had huge sets tonight with not that number of lights, as it turned out. So, so I had quite interesting things to do, but it but it was very successful.

Unknown Speaker  36:44  
Have a different, tiny, different

Speaker 1  36:48  
style. I had a different style for that. I had to make something. I wanted to make this hard and glinty. And it was quite an interesting thing to do. I enjoyed it. And then, of course, when I was over there, one had one had a German unit while we were in Germany, which was rather interesting. There was a small one out there called it, called Heder, based on he once again with Glenda Jackson, which was a fascinating thing now, that was directed, that was directed by the theta, a man term, God,

Speaker 1  37:39  
my mind is going? Peter, no, no, no, no, not Peter, no, not Peter. Book No, Oh, silly British, British so well known is crazy.

Speaker 2  38:00  
Come back here tell us more about it. Meanwhile, was that shot in Norway?

Speaker 1  38:12  
That's why, no that was shot in this country, shot in, I think, I think it was shot in, in Shepparton, I think just two too silly. Actually, it comes to him in minute. We'll have to go, we'll have to go back on that he's, he's a man. The only other time I worked with him, in fact, the only other film he ever did was, was, was Lady Jane, which was about two years, two or three years back.

Unknown Speaker  38:50  
I can't think of one of,

Speaker 1  38:52  
one of the one of the best known, apart from Peter Hall, the best known theatrical director. No, no, after Peter Hall, Noel, that's right, none. Funny. So anyway, so that was the first thing he'd ever directed. But once again, that was really for that was for television. Really, we're supposed to have theatrical release once again, but once again. Oh, no. And I think that one did have it, because I remember now when I was in in Philadelphia. That's why I was in Philadelphia, and I suddenly saw it in a cinema there, which was all strange. So that did give the theatrical release. Well, then, then, anyway, then another film, The sailor who fell from grace on the sea, which was a very, very, a very long title. I don't know whether the film got anywhere in this country, but, but that was based on a book by by Mishima, and it was very a Japanese story that was supposed to be set in Japan, was translated into into a story. Setting. It sits in a Devonshire, small Devonshire town, Falmouth, actually. And it was a very intriguing story. I've had a lot of letters funny now, sent to me a lot of sort of fan mail from from America on that picture. So it was quite an interesting picture. But anyway, it's not one that's this generally known. Also, I think it has some rather, I won't say salubrious, but some mother, some other dodgy scenes in it, you know, although I like to think that they weren't done with them, when you say we're done with the certaint Act, I'd like to think now then, well, then following that, one of my favorite pictures, once again, with the new director, Julia, with, with, with Fred zinneman. Now, I never went with Fred, but the first time I got to know him was was, was when he wanted to do

Speaker 1  40:57  
man's fate. No Noel, it was always after that,

Unknown Speaker  41:03  
you mean the picture they didn't finally make.

Speaker 1  41:05  
The picture he didn't finally make, but was finally made. Yes, yes. Just say one thing. I'd forgotten, that the director of head over was Trevor none. We gave him the one more on the name. Just now, that's right now. Apologies to him, as if forgetting your name like that. Anyway. Where was I now? Fred cinnamon, the film he was originally going to do was the French lieutenants woman and I'm thankful to him, first of all, that he drew my attention to the book, which I hadn't read at that time, and which I thought was a wonderful book. Then anyway, he was going to do it. I was delighted that he'd chosen me. And we went, actually, we went down to to Denton, and we went to nine regions, Dorset lakes County. We went to Dorset. We went to nine regions where we met, of course, the author, and we had a wonderful time. There, working out how the thing was going to be shot and and anyway, after that, back in town, cinnamon produced the script, which I can remember, who wrote it. Now anyway, produced the script, which he asked me, you to eat, which I did, and then asked me for my opinion, and I said, you know, I knew him well enough by that time to say, No, you really want the truth. I'm not going to say yet. And, you know, I told him a whole series of things that I had a lot of things against that particular script, which I won't go into it now, but there were a lot of things I felt didn't do justice to the book, and also I had a I thought a better solution to the truth, to the to the hindsight quality there was in the book. You remember how the book, the book has almost the equivalent of asides, almost from the author's point of view, where he can stand back and analyze things apart from also giving a double ending in the book. Anyway, I had another solution for this, which doesn't mean say that my thing was right, but I felt that his thing was wrong. And I know my wife will say when I was talking to zinomon, so you realize that you go dug yourself out of a job because it won't be bad. And sure enough, it wasn't, actually. And then the other thing, the other thing was that I know, if anyone couldn't find the right actor for that really, the ideal person would have been James Fox, who we'd had in the servant. He would have been ideal because he was. He wanted a sort of upper class, fairly pleasant looking young man who one could feel was, you know, in a certain position, actually, and anyway, nobody like that could be found. Well, eventually the film, as you know, was made, and very good picture. It was pins. Wrote the scripts at the end, and he found his own solution to the to the asides, as you know, by having a film the thing being a film being made at the same time. So, so you had a contemporary look back, you know, on what was happening before. Also, they found in Jeremy Irons, they found a possible, you know, person for the May, for the main part anyway, just to say that that that was the way I met zinneman, and on a picture that we didn't make, but zinniman did remember me in the pics that he did make, which he then made, which, which followed that. And that was Julian, right? You're going to turn over. Thank.

Unknown Speaker  0:01  
A token side six,

Speaker 1  0:04  
yes. So Fred zinnerman came to me after the abortive attempt to do French lieutenants. Woman came to me and asked me to do Julia. And I read the script, which I thought was wonderful. I read the and originally read the short story, of course, from which, which, which it came. And was certainly intrigued by that, by the whole subject. It also meant shoot, shooting, partly in France, which was also interesting because, because of my French, I enjoyed doing that, and once again, gave me some wonderful people it was. There was not Dendy Jackson, there was Vanessa Redgrave, and also Jane Fonda. So two very intriguing ladies and and an exciting story, actually, which I, which I, you know, I enjoyed doing. Also was interesting, actually, shooting, as I say, half the half the picture in the evening, adults, tree in the studios, there with it, with an English unit, and then the other half, really, in Paris, in the in the be encore Studios, where, of course, we had a completely French crew, from the assistant director through to the gaff people like that. I did though have the, have my own camera crew there, but that was intriguing. That also gave me, gave me, gave me my second American Oscar nomination, and also gave me another BAFTA Award, so as well as the BSC award too. So I was so I was happy to be recognized on that.

Speaker 2  2:04  
How did you get along with Vanessa Redgrave and with Jane ponter? Well,

Speaker 1  2:09  
I said two for agency. Ladies, very, very different. I was very surprised that they appeared to get on together. Maybe because, just some extent, they were opposites, although in the end, one begins to wonder, they haven't got more in common than the one thought, you know, I found that, but being a rather a non political person, I found that I have to, I'd have to sometimes when I was trying to relax, relax, such as at lunch time, I used to have to sort of while to avoid Vanessa. She was making a beeline for the table which I was sitting in. There was, there was a spare seat right next to me. Well,

Speaker 2  2:55  
the two ladies did have that about women's rights and all that. They

Speaker 1  3:00  
had all that in carbon. But having said that, actually they were both very charming ladies and wonderful actresses and wonderful human beings. This is the point. They both are both great, great human beings.

Speaker 2  3:16  
No special problems on that picture. Well,

Speaker 1  3:20  
not really. No, not, not really. I mean, the point is, every, every female star has their own likes and dislikes about their features. You know, Jane would worry about a tiny, little sort of dimple on the corner of her, of her her mouth, which I always point out her she was, I thought, enchanting, but she worried enormously. If she can see that things like that, Vanessa, on the other hand, x here, I don't know. I don't think she ever worried about how she looked, but, but I think anyway, I think in the end, we're both happy,

Unknown Speaker  4:04  
right? And then,

Speaker 1  4:10  
oh yes, no. Well, then after that, actually, so then I met an older friend of mine who I hadn't really seen since, since the since the days when I got under contract of Fox, and that was Elmo Williams. Elmo Williams, who was, who was in, in charge of the English side of Fox and Soho square for years, and he was instrumental in putting me under contract. He asked me to do caravans based on the James Michener novel. And I don't even read the novel. Unlike all the James Michener things, it's absolutely enormous. It's like about three terms of the telephone directory together, and full of not only full of words, but full of action, things happening all the time. And of course. Originally was written about Afghanistan, and for a lot of reasons, you know, they couldn't go there at that time. But anyway, they decided to do it Iran, which is geographically very similar in parts. And also, I think they had, they had a lot of, Well, Elmo, who's quite, quite astute. He went over there on some sort of Reiki. He met the Shah, of course, who was there at the time. And the Shah, actually, who was very ambitious for his country. And also, as one knows, whatever his faults were, was very much, very much for trying to bring that country up to sort of, you know, 20th century standards, and also very much was great, believe in modern technology and all those sort of things. And very much wanted Iran to have to have a viable film industry. And realized that they had hardly anything there in the way of equipment and so forth. And he saw, he said he would half back the picture in terms of giving all the facilities that they needed in Iran for the picture, plus he would also buy all the camera equipment and all the lighting equipment which we could use, and also teach their people how to use the stuff. And then, you know, and then leave behind. So this was the first time. So when finally we went out there. This was the first time. First of all, I should say, I I, for the first time in my life, was able to make a list of equipment, both camera and lighting wise, of stuff. Not that one was only, not only going to use, but you know, that would be to be used by other people afterwards. And so anyway, one made up this list. And when I finally saw the stuff, it almost brought tears to one's eyes, actually, because when we finally came along, I'd never seen, you know, beautiful roots with a funny sort of a wine color, your bright wine colored paint on the outside. You know, I'd forgotten that our thing is always a sort of dull gray aluminum in which any vestige of paint has been long scrubbed off or rubbed off. And usually they're so battered you could hardly see the shape anymore. Well, here were these wonderful leaning things, you know, different descriptions and case after case was opened. There was beautiful coiling and black cable looking like slithering snakes coming out, and wonderful, shiny plugs. You know, everything was so beautiful, barn doors that actually worked instead of sticking, you know, and all these, all these wonderful things. And then the camera equipment was all superb and lovely, brand new lenses and lovely, you know, shiny new. So cameras in every way. So all this beautiful equipment. And the only problem we did have there were generators, which, unfortunately, we relied on local journeys that they said we'd better get there, that were used by the army. Well, these things never worked. So we did have problems. So lights without journeys don't work quite as well and develop. The other problem also we had was the fact that we had a whole lot of brand new American jeeps, like Jeeps any bigger, like our big Land Rover, Range Rover, I should say, apart from two Range Rovers, we had, I think it was six or eight, and these big American ones, and those were bought in Italy, in Rome and and were then going to be shipped out somehow, and they were going to have to drive, drive somehow through Turkey, make their way around by land, obviously, and go round by Turkey and through Turkey and come into Iran that way. Well, needless to say, they never arrived, because what were the Italians on the one hand and going through Turkish on the Turkish bandits on the other, you know what? Deals were done where nobody ever knows, but not one of them ever arrived. But we did have our two land wings there was, thank God. But anyway, the film was interesting to shoot. It was, you know, we shot under Canva. We were, we were living under candles around the time, and these were the last days of the show. So we had, you know, interesting time. There we were in showers, in in Shiraz, a place like that. It was, it was a fascinating shoot. The film, unfortunately, I think, suffered from the fact that the book, which was enormous in size, as I say, was, was was cut down. I mean, was literally decimated because of the cast. I think, I think Elmo every day said that this was cost too much. That was cost too much so, so scene after scene was cut out, was not even attempted. And in the end, I think that the film suffered by being really a travesty of the book, because there was hardly anything left but but another it did. It brought back another, one other person I'd known beforehand, twice beforehand, and that was Tony Quinn, of course, known on high wind in Jamaica. And then the Marseille contract. So there was an old, old friend there. But the film, anyway, was, it was one season on the box. Every now and again. It was interesting, because it was the, certainly the last, probably the first major film to be done in in in Iran, and certainly the last, and when we left, in actual fact, the problems were just starting. There were shootings going on. These were difficult. And also a lot of planes and things had been stopped at the at the airport in Tehran, and we had difficulty in, in fact, in flying from Shiraz up to Tehran, because the plane was the army was trying to get hold of it and things like that. And when we were in terror, we just got out in Tehran. I mean, literally hours before the airport was it was closed down. And then, of course, it was the end of the Shah's regime, which was fought shortly afterwards. And I've often, incidentally, wondered what happened to all that equipment, because on the last day in Tehran, when we were putting all the equipment, you know, back in his cases and so for cleaning it, and then putting back in his cases and putting them on the shelves in the ministry of information there, we just had a feeling somehow in our bones that that equipment would never see daylight again. You know, that there'd be nobody left to to operate it. And I should say that the all the lenses we heard were CinemaScope, were your anamorphic lenses. And one sort of had the feeling that they would never, you know, you would never find a use for it anymore. So it's wonderful, you know, it's often wonder now is if anything's been done with it? Yes, it's probably just still in that building in the in the middle of Goon, you know? So anyway, so that's, so that's, that's caravan. That's caravans. Let me just say, oh yes. Now following that one then did Nijinsky, a lovely subject, you know, with, with,

Speaker 1  12:14  
can remember the name of the dancer they used in it. It was, it was, it was a young man, anyway, who I don't think had ever done anything before. They should really have, they should they should have. They should have chosen. He was directed, I should say, by Herb Ross. And Herb Ross had had had a serious series of successes, and he should really have had. We should have had some later, she sort of had somebody, you know, well known, and for some reason, the mother didn't. And I think the film suffered a bit from that, and also, I think suffered from the fact that he the script. Tried to turn on, on, on the certain sorts of homosexual angles, you know, which, which I think, I think was, was wrong. I mean, if they existed, that they didn't need to be underlined. They were the way they were. So, so, so I, so, I thought that that was, but it, but had some nice things in it. And it was, it was, was, was a nice thing to do. You know, thoroughly enjoyed it. We shot some of that, some of the stuff in Monte Carlo, and also some of the stuff in, a lot of stuff in, in the studio, in pine wood, we have some nice sets in in pine Wood.

Speaker 1  13:58  
A small thing after that, Lost and Found. Not much to be said, said about that, except that, once again, it's lender Jackson i

Speaker 1  14:27  
There is the obviously I get inside, I forgot the name of the director, wonderful man. Moment, just switch the thing off a moment you're saying I seen so then after Jackson again and George Segal, and that gave me a new another American director who I kept very fond of, Mel Frank, who just recently died. Mel was most wonderful man ish in. Enormous sense of humor, and he wrote the script actually was himself, because he was a script writer as well, which is quite, quite a quite a good script. I thought one thing I was remember about Mel is that there's just one occasion on that picture when somebody Mel suddenly saw, said, print, you know, at the end shot, a nice Will said, said to Mel suddenly, oh, Mel, do you mind? Actually, I would like another take, actually, because it wasn't quite right for me. Leander didn't quite get her mark a sort of thing, actually, and she was shadowed right across her face, or something. And and Mel saw said, actually, because, usually, because he was, he was, he was very easy going on. And Mel said, No, I'm afraid we really can't do that today. I'm terribly behind schedule. You know, I really can't give the time that's very much taken back by this. So rather, previously, I said, Okay, well, okay, well, you know, if you feel that way, and anyway, in this country, but we say schedule,

Unknown Speaker  16:09  
oh, skit, you said, I forgot. It was all right after all. But the funny thing was that,

Speaker 1  16:23  
the funny thing was that on that picture, he just had, he just had open heart surgery. Just before that, he showed me on his leg how they'd taken down a whole vein or something, which he tied his heart out, maybe. But despite that, he was enormous man. He was about six foot something. Despite that, every morning before we came on the set, he had a swimming pool by the by the hotel where he was staying. And every single morning he did 40 lengths, whole swimming pool. Yes, before, before, amazing. It must have taken me half an hour at least, if not an hour, you know. But he would go, you know, charging up and down. But he died just recently, and because there was nothing another book, it's another book he was going to do. He was going to do, what's the thing called, remember to not a penny more. Do you remember that the book by Jeffrey Archer. In fact, Jeffrey Archer's first book, he was going to do another penny board. He wrote quite a good script on it. But one problem with that book, I don't think read the book. It's very good book, but the book really is really It's in two parts. I mean, there are two completely story, two different stories, one where he loses all his money, and the other half is where he makes all his money. And there are two. There are two enormous, really complicated stories, and very, very different from each other. And really, ideally, the sort of thing we can do ideally now on television, because you can do it in two parts. It didn't really work. Even in Mel. Script was quite a good script. It didn't really work. And in the end, although he got a certain distance with it, obviously, on the bottom line, or not a penny more that people wouldn't give him a penny more. But I was very sorry, and I don't know what he I think he did do a picture since then, it was the last I the last I saw of him, and I was very sorry that picture wasn't made because I thought he'd be very good night. Just go back on one or two things. Now, Oh, yes. Now, then, of course, then it, then, then I start off with Steven Spielberg. That's where, you know, yes, wait now, now on Raiders, just, I should say just before. But the reason I think Raiders started for me was that Stephen had rung me up. I just finished, well, one of those pictures, whether it was Julia or whether it was caravans, I'm not sure which. Anyway, Stephen rang me up from the states and said he was he had just finished the main shooting on Close Encounters those even John three was closing house of Third Kind, as he called it, then. And and one, one had, you know, read in various papers that this picture was being made and seemed very peculiar. And anyway, all the world knew about it was, it was a very peculiar title. Anyway, he thought, said that they had had shot most of the picture. And meanwhile, there was one outstanding sequence that they hadn't yet embarked on, because it meant going to India. And for some reason, whether the cameraman had been doing they'd had two or three cameramen on it in both parts, but there was one main cameraman, anyway, he wasn't available, or didn't want to do it, or maybe Stephen didn't want him to do it. I don't know Anyway, whatever it was, would I be willing to go to India and do this thing? And I still said I was now free. I'd love to do it. So the observe it all was that I went to India with with chicken Robbie, and I took the two of them with me. So just the three of us went there. And then on the plane, we met, we met Stephen. Me and his partners. There was Frank Marshall, and there was a lady there called, after all, her name, anyway. So anyway, we arrived in India and in Bombay, and we then shot the Indian sequence of toast encounters. That's whether all these people have these, these yellow robes, and where they first hear this peculiar tune, you know, the Dada down, whoever the tune goes and and anyway, so, so we, so we shot there to be one scheduled and so forth. And anyway, they were delighted with the rushes, as it turned out. And Stephen said that that he would love to work with me again. He'll, he'll give me a picture sometime. Well, true to his word, he did. He when this Raiders came up, Rangers were Lost Ark. I was asked to do it. And so then, anyway, so then, you know, we've started on this epic that certainly become a great success all over the world. I think you know, can't notice how many hundreds of millions of people have seen that all over the world. And so that was the beginning, you know, beginning of those things, and the beginning of my relationship, really, with Stephen, because you're following that. Of course, we did the second one, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And now we've just done the third, the third and last one, which will be out about next May, I suppose, called Indiana Jones and the The Last Crusade, a rather good title. This the End of the trilogy. Anyway, all three of those pictures, incidentally, tremendously demanding, always enormous in scale. And the last one, not least of all, in actual fact, when we were talking about the scale of things, of course, they were always over the 30 million mark, near 40 million. And when we were in Spain, for instance, actually, I just recently, I was noticing actually, that on our unit, we were just under 300 strong. On the unit, there were over 300 vehicles, and on the on the second unit, there were 150 on the second unit, you know. So it's enormous, enormous. And all the, you know, all the vehicles and the tractors and the, you can't imagine the equipment there was actually, and the and the, I mean, the number of trucks and cars and vehicles of every, every type tract and otherwise, you know, and electro from the production point of view, also the, you know, placing all the people in the hotels and the feeding them, and, you know, getting all the, all the hundreds and hundreds of extras. We also had crowds, so literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. So it was enormous, enormous scale, but fascinating pictures to work on. And of course, he's a fascinating man. You know, there's, if ever there was, an absolute born filmmaker, you know, I mean, one sees where that man, you know, has become almost the whole film industry in himself. You know, he is quite, quite extraordinary, and yet seems to be it all seems to be so easy with him, you know, it just seems to, you know, although he does a lot of homework, no doubt about it, so relaxed on the floor and so willing to compromise, or, I mean, not compromise in terms of just doing something, not as well, but a compromise in the terms of taking one difficulty to suddenly find a better a better way of doing things that will give a better image, you know, and or tell the story in a better way, you know. So it's a most constructive line of thought, you know. He's an amazing man in between those things, one did, never say, never again with another, again, another American director, Kirschner, Erwin Kirchner, and that that brought Sean Connery, of course, which incident we also we had him, because he comes thinking which in this, in the last Spielberg picture, too. He was in there as well. But never say no, again. Was interesting, because that was known as the runaway, the runaway bond, as you know it, yeah, it was made up separately from the other, the other bonds. But was an interesting picture, once again, with enormous sets. It was done at Elsie, of course, one of the majors that made us at Elstree and also in the south of France. But enormous, enormous sets. It was quite, quite intriguing, actually, going back to, going back to the. Last way does the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, having shot rest of the staff in El Street and then locations, as say in Spain and also in Jordan and Venice, amongst other places, we finished up in the States, in in Colorado and Utah, and then then in in

Speaker 1  25:28  
in Los Angeles, where we also finished up in the studio, shooting, shooting on stage 27 at Universal. And the interesting thing there was that, after all the troubles that I'd had in the States before, and also is in a bit, and because of that I had on the whole through the years, I've turned down picture after picture that I've been up in the States. I just didn't feel like, you know, going through all that hassle again. And God knows how many has asked to do over there, here. Anyway, I think that, I think that the word must have got around that, you know, in some ways, I'd consider that I'd been badly done by and anyway, after into Universal Studios, and whereas they they normally in Los Angeles, they won't allow a New York camera man without him being doubled up and so forth in My or even without doubling up that they just don't allow them in there. In this case, my case, the first time ever they allowed a non Californian cameraman in there without, without anybody doubling up for me. So it's my investigation. But I wasn't able this time. I wasn't able to take my operator, so I had to go on my own and and I had a completely American Crew who were very good incentive. But the only thing is, of course, they are always very different from now. So, you know, they work in a completely different way, but good.

Speaker 2  26:59  
This isn't this is the interesting point working a different way. The operator works entirely differently. Yes,

Speaker 1  27:09  
well, as I say, yes, in the States, on the whole, the operator was in time to stand by wait for the director and or cameraman, meaning the lighting cameraman or director of photography, to to line up the shot, and then, at the last minute, the operator, then, you know, then steps in, and then just takes over, takes over the wheels. It doesn't always happen that way, but, but on the whole, on the whole, he does. Now, a lot of directors, of course, in the states, like to do all the setting up themselves on the whole. Stephen is like that. Stephen Mike does like to set up his own shot. He won't necessarily line it up in terms of, he won't let you know lay tracks or anything like that. But he likes, he likes to hold a finder. He likes to choose a lens, if we can, and discuss something from a certain point, and then, you know, then I will say, well, don't you be Don't you think it'd be better if we, you know, if we did it from here or or we went wider, or, you know, or closer, you know, whatever ideas I have, and I'd make my point. And as often as not, he would say, Yes, good idea. And he would change that, but he would start off always with an idea of his own. And so therefore the operator there, you know, with him, for instance, wouldn't have much to do except the actual operating, the physical operating, and that's one thing that, for instance, check my, you know, my with my operator. A check could never quite come to terms with a check. Who is a superb operators, as one knows, is he? I think he knows that he's too good for that sort of thing, just to do that sort of job. And same time also has been much appreciated, I think, about a lot of directors who can make use of his own expertise and the input that he can give. So I think that he felt that here, that he always felt that he wasn't able to give any input, or if he did, he always felt that he was ignored, which may or may not have been true, I don't know, but, but so it's anyway, I think he on the whole he, he didn't regret not doing this last picture, but. But as I say, some directors in America are happy for the cameraman to do all the setups and others, not on the whole talking about combining the two. Personally, I would hate a. To do my own operating. I would say this way, I miss not operating in the sense that in the in early days when I started off, going right back to my days in dancing and in Poland, you know, when I was a one man, also the war at the war years when I was a one man band, you know, and I just held the camera in my own hands, and then I sort of felt part of it. You know, it was rather like the further, the further a picture of a woman embracing a house. You know, one felt that one was part of, part of the camera. And that's a feeling that I think every, every camera man really likes, but on the but as soon as one's on the floor. And now you're not only the camera, you'll all the lights on the set as well. And you're, you're having to get the effects that you that only you know about, that you you've put these lights in there. The director doesn't know what these lights are, even the operator doesn't know what these lights are half the time. So, so therefore, now you're, now you're you're, you're you're, you're trying to put on the screen something that you created, the light and shade. Now to have to watch the actors moving around in these lights to see, see them, postage stamp size, with a flickering chatter in between. You know, one can no longer see or appreciate the image that one's doing. You can't see what. You can't appraise it. I should say you can't appraise whether, whether the light really is reaching them, whether a little spotlight is really getting into one eye and the other one's in half shadow. You can't see that through this. If you're standing by the side of the camera, you know one's anxious is standing there and just checking all these lights with one's eyes, false eyes. So that's the reason why I would hate myself to combine the two jobs. And I think that although some cameramen recently have been trying to do the two together, for one reason or another, maybe because they that they put first the that further you know house business of being in contact, maybe to them that's more important. You know that that flow of control is more important than the finer points about a light, like meeting a person's eyes. Perhaps they put that first. I'm inclined to put the put the light first, and my trust in a good operator who I talk to anyway, and, you know, I then question, and I will also, you know, make sure that we're on the same way, same wavelength, so we get the same compositions all the way through the compositions that I'm seeing in my eye anyway, as we, as we, as a set, as it comes in

Speaker 2  32:40  
turning. I think that's right, Dougie, because, after all, with the director or the creator, and that's why, essentially, operator is the observer. Well,

Speaker 1  32:50  
he is framing. He is framing the picture. And yes, after all, he has his He has His time cut out in terms of making sure those frames are right all the way along, along the line, especially when actors are moving, nothing is still. The cameras moving in one direction. The actors are moving on another two or three actors are going in different direct I mean, other different directions or in their powers don't always converge in the same in the same way. So therefore one has a moving composition in which a lot of elements are sometimes at odds with each other, you know. So he has a difficult enough job anyway, without, you know, without having to worry about acting as well. That's why, in a way, as I say, subject to some, but some cow men actually do the films themselves. Now, a lot of them who have tried it once or twice have admitted to me afterwards that they somehow wouldn't want to do it again. But then, on the other hand, they do it again.

Unknown Speaker  33:56  
So what comes now? So

Speaker 1  33:58  
anyway, so well after this, what they was, it's a wonder so well now waits for a producer, you know, to wake up in the middle of the night and suddenly, so I've got to do some such and such a picture, you know. And then he starts the whole ball rolling. And God knows, you know how difficult it is for the produce to go out and get the money. He was talks to 1000 people, kids, the mornings, putting in the money. Then he sends me the script that on the phone I've said, Oh yes, I love to do it. No one reads the script. And once, once, now, what does he want to do that? The thought of having to start this whole war, because, after a film, as we know, is a war, to have to start this whole war, you know, for something that's so futile. Thank

Speaker 2  34:44  
you. Can you ask you a general question? Well, it's a silly question. I mean, because the answer is obvious, that you've nothing else you would rather have done with your life, obviously, than acting down. No,

Speaker 1  34:55  
I think, I think it's a good point. No, I. I just, I just still love films. I love doing what I'm doing in France. And, you know, I just gotta work anymore. And the other thing is, also we were saying earlier on, you know, one is still learning every day. We got a new techniques. Your faster lens is faster film, new ways of lighting, you know, coming up every day, new situations every day, and as the day, the day one stops learning. You know, here's the data, really, really retired, give up, and I hope, I hope that doesn't happen for a long time. Well, that leads

Speaker 2  35:29  
me on to the other thing I was going to ask you, which was, what would you say if you, if you feel there is such the most important sort of thing in your particular craft that you've observed during your many years of exercising it. I mean the most striking an alteration

Speaker 1  35:49  
in one thing. I would say any or any anythings do happen have merely all, I mean in terms of the mechanical side, if you like, of films. You know, whether it's film or video or any of those things. All those things have just merely have been different ways of doing the same thing, of putting still, putting a picture on the screen, whether it's on a square screen, on the box or a big screen in the cinema. They're all just different forms of transport, machinery, of different different bits of different types of paper, if you like, in which to do a drawing, that the thing that the thing that has never changed and is exactly the same as it was in the word dog, is the fact that a, you're telling a story, and B, you're telling that story in images. And from a coward man's point of the cow, man doesn't have to worry so much about the story, except that he still has to give his interpretation. So he needs the movie. So he still needs his interpretation. The one thing that will never change, and the cameraman has to do, he has to have a pair of eyes, and he's got to learn how to see with them. And the number of times that one's worked with, for instance, from some directors, one's often so social that subjects have had wonderful ideas. Sometimes they've got a heart or soul, not often, but sometimes. But what they once often sort of shrug, shaking one's head and said, but they haven't got eyes, and presumably that's why they have a camera. In that case, some directors, on the other hand, do have better eyes than their cameraman. But on the whole is the one thing you've got to have. You've got to have your eyes and being able to see with them and just you know. And that is the one thing that will never change, and you know. And one hopes that in the future that you know, sometimes the side of the size of a small torch will do what a brute does today, but if that counts to be great, but you still have to use the torch, and you still have to, like with it in exactly the same way as the boot did. I mean, instead of having this huge thing on the tower, you can just have, you can just really put little torch out of a window, a top story window, but it will be, still be directed in exactly the right place by a cameraman. It will be chopped at the top, chop at the side. Have wires put in it, half spins, you know, a colored gel. They will still have all the little bits of painting done with it the cameraman has, has done throughout, you know, throughout the history of filmmaking,

Speaker 2  38:23  
would you say what, it seems to me, Doug, would you agree that on the whole, perhaps one of the most important things that's happened in the last, what 50 years or so in terms of cinema and now TV, is that the viewer, the audience, have gotten more sophisticated in their appreciation. This is absolutely

Speaker 1  38:39  
true, and never so much as because of the because of the of the of the miracle, if you like, really a video and no television before the video, you know of all this, all this filmic knowledge, if you like, coming into people's homes. People hardly ever go to the cinema anymore, but, but they are, as you say, highly film cultured now, because almost everybody has seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of films, and they've been able to analyze them in a way that we never could. For instance, anybody who's in any student from cinema, can now run things forward, backwards, stop any young student who wants to learn how to light now can suddenly stop on any given frame and look around and notice that there's some light here on one side of a person's face only. There's the whole background is not lit. There's only, you know, the camera man has contented himself with one little spot of light just lighting three books on a book case only, and the little pool of light on the floor, which just shows the leg of a chair and suggests that a chair is there, you know, things like that. Instead of, you know, trying to remember at the end of the film, you know, how it was lit, just a general feeling of it was quite nicely lit. Or, you know, whatever it is. Also one wonder. Some in terms of cutting too, all these things. Now you can really tell that. You can really tell where the cuts are. Now exactly on what frame was a cut. Now you could never do that before. I was remembering she was sitting it was it in great expectations, the famous shot of the yes, the apparition of the man in the churchyard, yeah, you know. And I remember, I remember healing, because that came out when we were all at healing, although it was one of our pictures. And I remember, and I remember the discussions we had as to was that, in one was there a cut Yeah. And even sometimes none of us knew Yes, whereas now anybody can now just see exactly where the cut is on the pan, and also

Speaker 2  40:49  
we don't use it. We've lost all those old conventions about transition from place to place, or transition if you do it immediately now by a straight cut, that's right, yes, people didn't understand if you tried Yes. So another in another

Speaker 1  41:03  
was the the grammar, or this, or the syntax of film has changed now story in a very different way. I mean, we're no longer has all those, all those dissolves and phases. Now it's so much fun. The people have needed them. It's so much easier to do because electronically, you can do anything, quite apart from A and B printing and all those

Unknown Speaker  41:30  
things. But when

Speaker 1  41:34  
it was expensive, we used to have to do everything expensive way

Speaker 2  41:39  
Jackie, you mentioned early on. And perhaps this should be appropriate to finish on that figure 13 was very important in your life. Well, I know about the fact you were born in 1913 but it seems to have followed you around, as far as I

Speaker 1  41:54  
can say. The funny thing is, was it is on 30th when I was in Poland to say, Joe, when I got to Poland on the just the beginning of the war. As I said, I was in Poland on the on the first of, first of september 1939 when the first bombs fell. And I got out of Poland on the 13th, just before the Russians came in. So that was the 13th. I was in Holland, in Amsterdam in the invasion of Holland. And I got out that the Germans came through on the 10th of may. I got out on the 13th of May. So that was the 13th. Again, I joined evening studios on the 13th. I've got what month it was or for what year, but it was, I think was about 1941 I think it was 1940 or funny when I forgotten which, anyway, that was on the 13th I was, I was, yes, I was married on the 13th. I was, my daughter was born on the 13th, the 13th of May. Funny enough. But although not that, yeah, she's only 25 the so anyway, I just the next thing. It will probably be, I will die on the 13th. It'll be the 30th, the 30th day of the 13th, month

Speaker 2  43:17  
to 13th of December, which is next month, which will bring you the most marvelous offer you ever had. The

Unknown Speaker  43:24  
next 13. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for.

 

Biographical

b.London1913    d. London   2016

 

CINEMATOGRAPHER.   (after  being a JOURNALIST  and PHOTOGRAPHER)

Shot newsreels and propaganda films during WW2 then to Ealing Studios. Constantly employed on major films until mid 1980s.

London-born Douglas Slocombe has long been regarded as one of the film industry's premiere cinematographers, but he began his career as a photojournalist for Life magazine and the Paris-Match newspaper before World War II. During the war he became a newsreel cameraman, and at war's end he went to work for Ealing Studios as a camera operator, making his debut as a full-fledged cinematographer on Ealing's Dead of Night (1945). Slocombe is credited with giving Ealing's films the unique, realistic look it was famous for. He left Ealing and went freelance, not wanting to be tied down to a single studio, and divided his time between England and America. He won the BAFTA--the British equivalent of the Oscar--three times, for The Servant (1963), The Great Gatsby (1974) and Julia (1977). A favorite of director Steven Spielberg, he was noted for never having used a light meter while shooting Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), an almost indispensable tool for most cinematographers.

- IMDb Mini Biography