I remember, years ago, when we had quite a few cats – I've always loved cats – I would put a newspaper at the bottom of the kitty litter tray; I tried to use newspapers with a photo of Margaret Thatcher on so I knew the cats would put it to good use and now – Meryl Streep is playing her and I still can't get over it. . . . But this post isn't about that – it's about Alan Smithee the film director/DP/actor/writer; he's supposed to be dead!!!
He is actually a fiction.
In the 1950s there was a movie star called Richard Widmark; he was in a film called Death of a Gunfighter and he fired the director – he fired the director!! How could he do that? – because the star is always the boss; well most of the time.
As they were left without a director they got Don Siegal to come and finish the film off which he did and if you know Don Siegal's work you will know he probably made a great job of it.
The DGA, the Directors' Guild of America, had fought for many years to get the director's name on every film but Don thought it wouldn't be fair as they had left a lot of the original director's work in it so he refused the credit.
This meant the DGA had to step in and they had to compromise. So they came up with a fictitious name and the name they settled upon was – Alan Smithee. They tried Al Smith first but figured there might have been a real Al Smith.
There are a few rules you have to obey if you want to get your name taken off a film and they include never talking about it or owning up that you are the real director and things like that.
There was an off the wall very talented director called Tony Kaye who directed some really great commercials; commercials that were better than the ones Ridley Scott directed before he became a film director; and they were good.
When I first went to Hollywood he went there too; I met a girl at a party who gave me her business card as she was his assistant – I thought maybe I'd look him up as he was capable of spectacular work but I never did.
He directed American Citizen X and ran into trouble editing it; if you look at the completed film you will see it has a great look. (He was also the cinematographer). It starred Edward Norton and when Tony Kaye took a lot of time editing the film the geniuses – the producers – the money men – gave Edward Norton the responsibility; can you believe that? I don't know if Norton complained about Tony Kaye or what the full story was but the point is he (Kaye) had the film taken away from him and it was given to a boring actor!
Tony Kaye went to the Directors' Guild and they agreed it would have the Alan Smithee credit; but Tony Kaye didn't want the anonymous Alan Smithee credit he wanted them to say it was directed by Humpty Dumpty.
His point was he wanted to talk about it he wanted people to know that the person who directed the movie wanted his name taken off it and if people saw Humpty Dumpty they would figure this out for themselves.
It is said that Edward Norton, when he took over the editing, lengthened his screen time and when Tony Kaye went to meet the head of the production company's senior president he arranged for a Rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Buddhist monk to be present at the meeting to support his argument and "make the meeting a more spiritual one".
Of course he would wouldn't he? There's his photo above!!
But it all went pair shaped for Alan Smithee when some bright spark made a movie called An Alan Smithee Film – Burn Hollywood Burn! It let the cat out of the bag and when the producers fell out it was taken to the Directors' Guild and it did, indeed become, an Alan Smithee film.
If you look at all of these films on the IMDb it has the real names of the directors – and their ages!!!!
As a post script: around 1972 I was offered a great Guinness commercial - here it is
- and I was offered a role in a movie called Savage Messiah directed by Ken Russell at the same time and I know I should have done the movie because I would have loved to work with the man who directed Women in Love but - I chose the commercial; lot of money in commercials - paid the mortgage. Ken Russell RIP.
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