Monty Berman

[JamesM]

Can anyone help. If he is, do you know if he lives in the UK?

[smudge]

(JamesM @ Nov 3 2005, 10:46 PM) Can anyone help. If he is, do you know if he lives in the UK?

You could try contacting Jaz Wiseman at POPCO (He does the commentaries for the Umbrella DVD releases.)

He's in regular contact with Monty's old partner, Bob Baker, so he might be able to shed some light on the matter.

Just put POPCO through Google and you'll soon find them.

SMUDGE

[samkydd]

I was only thinking about Monty Berman last night, when I was watching the opening credits for an episode of Department S I'd recorded. His name used to come up a lot in the production of 60s and 70s programmes.

[JamesM]

I contacted Jaz, and he is still alive.

[smudge]

(JamesM @ Nov 4 2005, 05:37 PM) I contacted Jaz, and he is still alive.

Glad I could help

SMUDGE

[Merton Park]

A lot of his films from the 1950's are being shown on Matinee Movies, Channel 336 on Sky. His output was quite prolific together with his partner Robert Baker, and John Gilling. I assume their Company or one of them was Tempean, as all of the films seem to be made by them.

He is over 90 now, must have been an amazing character in his heyday.

[Ian Dickerson]

Just in case it's not yet been posted here sadly Monty Berman passed away in early June.

Ian

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by Ian Dickerson Just in case it's not yet been posted here sadly Monty Berman passed away in early June. Ian

That was Monty Berman the theatrical outfitter that died in June.
I don't think that's the same person as Monty Berman the producer (also cinematographer, director & writer)

Steve

[Ian Dickerson]

No, that was definitely Monty Berman the producer.

I heard it from Malcolm Christopher (who worked on various Saint shows) and Bob Baker confirmed it to me.

Ian

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by Ian Dickerson No, that was definitely Monty Berman the producer. I heard it from Malcolm Christopher (who worked on various Saint shows) and Bob Baker confirmed it to me. Ian

It's possible that they both died in the same month - or the other people you mention might have seen the obit for Monty the outfitter and assumed it was the producer. I can only find one obit for Monty the outfitter, none at all for Monty the producer

Steve

[Ian Dickerson]

Monty Beman (the costume version) died in 2002 according to this piece from the NY Times (Monty M. Berman - Filmography - Movies - New York Times) and various other obits that a quick Google can reveal.

Ian

[julian_craster]

From The Independent
4 August 2006

Obituary: Monty Berman
Prolific 'B'-movie producer

Published: 04 August 2006



Nestor Montague Berman, cinematographer and film producer: born London 1912; married (one daughter); died London 14 June 2006.

Monty Berman was a former cinematographer who became a prolific film producer, co-founding with Robert S. Baker the company Tempean Films, which made over 30 "B" movies in the Fifties. Though modest of budget, they were mainly proficient thrillers, which, in the days when audiences expected a double-bill for their money, filled the slot accompanying more important product. Later, Berman moved into television, producing series that are still proving popular on video and on satellite stations, such as The Saint, The Champions and Department S.

Nestor Montague Berman was born in the Whitechapel district of London in 1912, and at the age of 17 entered films as a camera assistant at Twickenham Studios. He graduated to camera operator in 1934, first at Teddington and then at Ealing Studios.

One of the films on which he worked was Michael Powell's Some Day (1935), an early starring vehicle for Margaret Lockwood. When Powell was planning his first major film, The Edge of the World (1937), he remembered Berman, and later wrote in his memoirs, "Monty Berman, a young cameraman who had done outstanding work on two of my films, was to be lighting cameraman."

During the Second World War, Berman served with the Eighth Army Film Unit, after which he was camera operator on the hit comedy Hue and Cry (1946), the moody Daughter of Darkness (1947) and a Powell-Pressburger production, The End of the River (1947).

He had befriended Robert S. Baker when both were sergeants with the film unit, and in 1948 they decided to form their own company, Tempean. Financed by "friends and relatives", including Berman's father Morris, their first production was a cheaply produced musical, A Date with a Dream (1948), with a cast that included several names of future distinction - Norman Wisdom, Terry-Thomas and Jean (later Jeannie) Carson. The distribution company Eros Films was impressed by what the team had done on a limited budget and offered to finance their future productions.

Most of Tempean's films were photographed by Berman, and Baker occasionally directed. Unable to afford sets, they filmed mainly on location, a rarity in those days. According to Baker, their locations were usually within easy distance of London, "because we could never have afforded to take a unit away and pay hotel expenses." The team were among the first British film-makers to realise that by signing fading Hollywood stars, they could inexpensively provide some star appeal both for local audiences and for the American "B" market. American players in their films included John Carroll, Virginia Bruce, Arthur Kennedy and the blacklisted actor Larry Parks.

Berman and Baker were both admirers of film noir, and they tried to give their movies a noirish atmosphere. They also had an unofficial repertory company of some of the country's finest character players including Thora Hird, Michael Balfour, Charles Victor and Dora Bryan. One of Bryan's better roles in a Tempean film came when Diana Dors, cast in The Quiet Woman (1952), had some sharp disagreements with the director John Gilling, and became "indisposed". Bryan was quickly cast in her role, as a barmaid whose friend (Jane Hylton) runs a coastal inn where she is terrorised by her escaped-convict husband.

John Gilling worked for Tempean more than any other director, also providing the scripts. He wrote and directed one of Tempean's most successful films, The Voice of Merrill (1952), which was elevated to "co-feature" status. Other Tempean films of note include The Lost Hours (1952), which starred Jean Kent opposite the American Mark Stevens, and The Embezzler (1954), which provided a rare starring role for Charles Victor. Blind Spot (1958) featured an early screen appearance by Michael Caine as a small-time crook.

As the decade ended, Baker and Berman realised that television was making "B" movies redundant, and they decided to change course. After making three movies with the Abbey Players at Ardmore Studios in Ireland, they produced their first "A" film, Guy Green's Sea of Sand (1958), a war tale with both action and well-defined characters, its cast headed by Michael Craig, John Gregson and Richard Attenborough.

Hammer Studios had meanwhile discovered an audience for horror films, and the team tapped into the trend by hiring the writer Jimmy Sangster to adapt a television series by Peter Keys into the film The Trollenberg Terror (1958). Titled The Crawling Eye in the United States, it told of a Swiss village's inhabitants under siege from aliens concealed by a radioactive cloud.

Sangster also wrote the team's next two movies, Blood of the Vampire (1958), which benefited from a Grand Guignol performance from Donald Wolfit, and Jack the Ripper (1958), which gained notoriety when it was bought for the US by Joseph E. Levine, who added to the black-and-white film a climactic colour sequence in which the Ripper's death results in bright red blood seeping through the floorboards. The film made nearly $2m in the States, making it the most profitable movie ever made by Berman and Baker.

In 1960 they produced their most critically acclaimed work, The Siege of Sidney Street, based on the police assault on the hideout of Edwardian anarchists. Their last film productions as a team were The Hellfire Club (1961), a roistering tale with Keith Michell wielding a sword to reclaim his inheritance, The Secret of Monte Cristo (1961), starring Rory Calhoun, and What a Carve Up (1962), a comedy version of the 1934 Karloff vehicle The Ghoul.

In 1962 Baker and Berman negotiated with the writer Leslie Charteris for the television rights to his character The Saint, a debonair sophisticate and latter-day Robin Hood whose calling card depicts a stick figure with a halo. Already a popular figure in fiction, on radio and in movies, he seemed an ideal subject for a television series, but Associated Rediffusion, to whom Baker and Berman first offered the show, turned it down as "too expensive". Lew Grade, however, offered to finance it through his company, ITC.

Grade's choice to star in the series was Patrick McGoohan, but Baker and Berman thought him "too brittle" and approached Roger Moore. It transpired that Moore had himself tried to purchase the rights to the Saint stories some time earlier. He accepted the offer, and proved perfect casting. The series was one of the most popular shows of its era - it ran in the UK from 1962 to 1969, with 185 hour-long episodes (the earliest in black-and-white, the rest in colour) and it proved a huge hit internationally.

After a modest success with another television series, Gideon's Way (1964-65), their paths separated. Berman alone produced The Baron (1966-67), with Steve Forrest as an antique dealer who is a part-time undercover agent. Then he joined with Denis Spooner to create The Champions (1969-71), which featured three agents blessed with exceptional powers of telepathy, ESP and heightened senses, working for a secret organisation called Nemesis.

Berman then produced the Spooner-created Department S (1969), which featured three counter-espionage agents, one of whom, a philandering writer, was so captivatingly portrayed by Peter Wyngarde that the character was given his own series, Jason King (1971-72). Berman and Spooner had another popular series with Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969-70), which mixed humour with the mystery and action. Mike Pratt played Randall, a private detective whose dead partner (Kenneth Cope) materialises as a ghostly white-suited figure who offers dubious assistance.

But by the start of the 1970s, the spy genre was fading, and Berman's last series, The Adventurer (1972-73), failed to generate much excitement.

Tom Vallance

[harryfielder]

Thanks for a great read Tom. I got to work with Monty for a few years at ABPC.

''Well done Monty, you did well'' RIP.

Aitch,

[John Llewellyn Moxey]

Originally Posted by harryfielder Thanks for a great read Tom. I got to work with Monty for a few years at ABPC. ''Well done Monty, you did well'' RIP. Aitch,

I was lucky enough to direct THE SAINT--THE BARON--GIDEON'S WAY. Monty was a a great pleasure to work with. He will be missed. John Llewellyn

[julian_craster]

Obituary - Monty Berman
Producing popular film fare for cinema and television

by Gavin Gaughan
Monday August 14, 2006
The Guardian

The film producer Monty Berman, who has died aged 93, will be best recalled for the colourful, escapist television series he made for ITC, the film-making division of Lord Llew Grade's ATV, but his earlier cinema work as a director of photography and co-producer retains something of a cult following.
Berman was an East End Jew, from Whitechapel, east London. After University College school, Hampstead, he went to work at Twickenham studios, eventually becoming a cameraman, an early notable credit being Michael Powell's semi-documentary The Edge of the World (1937). Later, he worked with the second unit on Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949). He made his debut, as cinematographer and director respectively, when he and Robert S Baker co-produced A Date With a Dream (1948) and Melody Club (1949), two low-budget comedies that gave an early chance to Terry-Thomas.

Berman and Baker were soon established as suppliers of modest, second-feature thrillers, sometimes featuring fading Hollywood stars and boasting titles like Three Steps to the Gallows (1953) and Bond of Fear (1956). They diversified slightly with Love in Pawn (1953), starring Bernard Braden and Barbara Kelly, and produced several films in Ireland for Emmett Dalton.
They also once looked like rivals to Hammer in the horror field. Blood of the Vampire (1958), with Donald Wolfit in a typically unrestrained performance and Berman making the most of a garish colour process, was followed by Jack the Ripper (1958) and The Flesh and the Fiends (1960), with Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence in a reworking of Burke and Hare. They got unexpectedly good reviews for The Siege of Sidney Sreet (1960), which they co-directed and shot in Dublin - on the grounds that it looked more like the East End than the East End.
Probably Berman's most notable production, also as cinematographer, was What a Carve Up! (1961), an adaptation of The Ghoul, co-written by Ray Cooney, and in style and casting somewhere between the Carry On films and early Hammer. After that, he and Baker turned, profitably, to television.
Their first commission for Grade was the black and white run of The Saint (1962-65), a big success for Roger Moore, despite his claim that he thought his contract was for a half-hour series, not an hour-long one. Gideon's Way (1965), derived from John Ford's Gideon's Day, was shot in unfamiliar areas of London, and was somewhat more realistic than most of ITC's output. The same can hardly be said of The Baron (1966), starring Steve Forrest as a Texan sleuth (an Englishman in John Creasey's original books). From then on, nearly ITC series featured American leads, even if they were not well known in America itself.
By now paired with writer Dennis Spooner, Berman made The Champions (1968), about three agents granted superhuman powers, and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969-70), coolly received at the time but subsequently fondly remembered. Department S (1969-70) made a star of Peter Wyngarde, who had been one of the anarchists in The Siege of Sidney Street, though the character of the decadent detective Jason King arguably damaged his career. A spin-off series, Jason King (1971-72), had noticeably lower production values and met with an uneasy response, largely because some of Spooner's scripts - and certainly Wyngarde's performance - seemed to send the whole thing up.
Berman's television productions depicted a world in which all villains could be eliminated with a swift upper-cut to the jaw; all currency was referred to as dollars; everyone smoked filterless cigarettes; no Russian was to be trusted; and all foreign countries were represented by stock footage and redressed sets at Elstree. One stock shot, of a white Jaguar plunging off a cliff, seemed to turn up in all his series. Nancy Banks-Smith's description of The Champions as "endearingly daft" is probably the nearest they ever came to critical acclaim, though they have achieved a standing in Europe (especially France) and America.
After The Adventurer (1972), an unsatisfactory half-hour series, with an overage lead in Gene Barry, Berman retired from production. He lived to see his work revived on video, satellite television (several are presently screening on ITV4) and in the mid-90s by the old enemy, the BBC, but illness led him to decline the invitation to contribute to recent DVD releases.
His wife survives him.


Nestor Montague 'Monty' Berman, producer and cinematographer, born 1912; died June 20 2006