Gibbie

Folio Society has the collection:
http://www.foliosoc.co.uk/offers/det...OfferCode=5Z35

Wetherby Pond

Since Robert Towne is writing it as well, I think it's a reasonably safe bet that it will have a script - what with him having a pretty decent track record in that department.

True, his filmography isn't exactly wall-to-wall masterpieces, but Chinatown wasn't exactly the work of a semi-literate baboon.

Steve Crook

Chinatown was very good - but how much of the work of a good scriptwriter is allowed to finish up on screen nowadays? Even once the scriptwriter has been hired, once the script is written it's often handed over at the start of production and that's the end of the writers involvement. Everyone and their dog seem to be allowed to change it as much as they want. Not just the director but even the actors and producer are allowed to say how they think things should be portrayed.

Steve

Wetherby Pond

Well, Towne's also directing, which suggests he'll have at least some say in what ends up on the screen. He also had a fairly hefty input into Chinatown over and above writing it, not least because he was a bigger "star" than Roman Polanski at the time. Admittedly, Polanski changed the ending, but Towne agreed that it was for the better (which it was).

Incidentally, just to get back to your earlier comment:

Whereas Alfred Hitchcock would never have dreamt of resorting to studio or SFX trickery of any kind. Or Michael Powell. Good lord, no - it's hard to think of more fanatical sticklers for location-shot realism.

(In all seriousness, wouldn't both of them have utterly adored CGI? And been amongst the first to make really creative use of it?)

Steve Crook

Being a director does give you quite a lot more, but not total, creative control in modern Hollywoodland.

Steve

Steve Crook

Of course they would have loved it and made good use of it. Powell's films are full of special effects, often the most advanced available. But the key is in the phrases "make really creative use of it" and "made good use of it". Not just chucked it in because it was possible to do or cheaper than doing something for real.

Steve

Wetherby Pond

But Hitchcock himself didn't get total control until 1948, when he became his own producer - and even then he had to fight numerous battles (even to the extent of personally funding Psycho after he couldn't get a studio to back it - in retrospect the most lucrative decision he ever made).

Steve Crook

That's why P&P had that joint credit of Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, so that they could retain complete control over their films. They had a very privileged position under Rank where they were allowed to do just about whatever they liked, as long as their films continued to be successful, similar but slightly less so with Korda.

Martin Scorsese once described The Archers as "Experimental film-makers working inside a totally commercial system."

Just look at that heyday of the 6 feature films made from 1943-48 or even the 12 feature films made from 1941-51, it's hard to find any other film-makers that have ever been given that amount of freedom.

Steve

Jim

I'm reading a JB novel at the moment called 'Courts of the Morning' set in South America. My wife bought it but felt she couldn't continue because it was written in a style that is of it's time, (no PC) - me, on the other hand, love it!!! More power to JB (RIP).

Good morning boys.

samkydd

And at the same time they'll make a sequel called the 42 Steps: Don't Take The Elevator and McDonalds will give away little plastic Zeke Harleys with every Happy Meal! Is there anybody in the film industry with any wit and imagination any more?

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

Wetherby Pond

There are more than one might think - Stanley Kubrick and Clint Eastwood had similarly luxurious deals with Warner Bros, Woody Allen had more or less total creative freedom throughout the 1970s and 1980s for United Artists/Orion, even to the point of shooting several films in black and white (and distributing Manhattan on letterboxed video in the 1980s, when 99.9% of releases were pan-and-scan). More recently, the Coen Brothers have wangled a similar situation with the Universal-backed Working Title, Merchant Ivory had a deal with Miramax and Jim Jarmusch has an arrangement with JVC - in all cases they were either their own producers or they worked with very long-term partners who could be relied on not to interfere.

As with Powell & Pressburger, though, such deals were generally contingent on box-office income - not blockbuster level, but certainly enough to pay the bills, which is why Eastwood made Dirty Harry V between the much more commercially challenging Bird and Unforgiven.

Merton Park

I loved the Kenneth More version when I first saw it, a real schoolboy's adventure yarn and have seen it many times since. Still love it. It's got a kind of Pinewood glow to it.

Not being a great lover of English 1930's films, usually slow and too dated for me, I watched the original Hitchcock version with amazement that it was completely different from most other films of the era. It had pace, a great cast and was way ahead of its time. Robert Donat was brilliant as Hannay and all round a tremendous film.

The shots of mid 30's London were good, and I was suprised to find that the murder took place in a block of flats I used to live in, just up the road from Broadcasting House.

Never much liked the 1970's version.

Hugo

For anyone who may be interested, the 1988 Thames TV seies HANNAY starring Robert Powell as John Buchan's Richard Hannay is being repeated on ITV3 on Thursdays at 8.00pm starting tomorrow (30 June)

Jim

Yep! Now that the 'Biederbeck' series has finished I shall watch 'Hanney' - if only I could get the damned video to record 'Freeview'!!!

I have the 1st 39 Steps and will try to get the other 2. I am fond of them all, and for differing reasons. Kenneth Moore's version was not available when last I tried Amazon; Sendit, etc. But I'll keep looking.

Good morning boys.

Jim

Yep! Now that the 'Biederbeck' series has finished I shall watch 'Hanney' - if only I could get the damned video to record 'Freeview'!!!

I have the 1st 39 Steps and will try to get the other 2. I am fond of them all, and for differing reasons. Kenneth Moore's version was not available when last I tried Amazon; Sendit, etc. But I'll keep looking.

Good morning boys.