with Julie Rigg

Wednesday 29/08/2001





The Mysterious Career of Allen Smithee



Summary:



Julie Rigg traces the career of one of Hollywood's most prolific and reclusive directors



Details or Transcript:



Alan Smithee is a pseudonym: the pseudonym which the Directors Guild of America permits members who can prove that the film they directed had been compromised or taken over by others, and no longer wished their names to appear in the credits.



Alan Smithee's career is legendary. He has directed a very wide range of films across many genres. He's stepped in and come to the aid of many an embattled director, his films have been widely and even, at times, positively reviewed in Variety and The New York Times. There are serious academic articles written about his work, conferences devoted to it, and he has a cult following with a number of active sites on the web.



Allen Smithee's first film, or at least the first film ever released, was in l969. It was called Death of a Gunfighter. The story goes that the star of the film, Richard Widmark, had a fight with the respected director Robert Totten and Totten was fired. Don Seigel was brought in to replace him. In the circumstances, neither director wanted a credit, but the Directors Guild insisted there must be one. So the pseudonym 'Allen Smithee' was created.



Why this name? There are two versions of the story. One says that Allen Smithee - and that's usually spelt Allen but sometimes Alan - is an anagram of The Alias Men.



However, the more accepted version is that Smithee's creators wanted a name which denoted anonymity, but which no-one else had. If it was going to be Smith, then it would be Smith with an e. Then a second e was added, just in case.



Since 1969, it's thought Allen Smithee has directed more than fifty films, including B movies, sequels, made-for-television quickies, and music videos.



His oevre includes such landmarks asBloodsucking Pharoahs in Pittsburgh, Appointment with Fear, The Birds 11: Lands End, Raging Angels, and Le Zombi de Cap Rouge.



He has stepped in for such directors as Stuart Rosenberg in the 1986 film called Let's Get Harry, and in l987 - a very busy year - he replaced Paul Aaron on a film called Morgan Stewart's Coming Home; worked on another film called Riviera, and then replaced Lee Madden on Ghost Fever.



He had a great year in l990, directing Shrimp on the Barbie - also known as The Boyfriend from Hell - a film called Solar Crisis, also known as Starfire, also known as Crisis 2050, finally known as Kuraishisu Niju Goju-Nen, and also found time to direct Duck in the Muck and Pitt Bullied - two segments of Tiny Toon Adventures.



Some of Allen Smithee's oevre attracts debate to this day. One film which has spawned much discussion is the l984 film Dune, which was originally directed by David Lynch.



Dune was one of those films which, to put it politely, got away. Based on Frank Herbert's complex, best-selling sci-fi series about a planet where water is like gold, and giant sand worms have adapted to the desert environment, it was never going to be easy to make. It was Lynch's first venture into big production, with a budget of forty million: huge in those days. Filmed in Mexico, it had seventy-five sets, a huge international cast and several dozen giant mechanical worms.



Lynch's first cut was very long. He was not happy with the film. Nor were the producers. There were several versions cut. The television edit, which took the sprawling film down still further, was one Lynch could not approve, so it's credited to Allen Smithee.



Smithee in fact became a very busy director during the nineties, as films were cut down both for television and for airline sceenings. (There is this code that one can't show anything too distressing as an in-flight movie).



So Smithee has actually been called in to direct the airline recuts of such classic films as Heat - originally directed by Michael Mann - and such classically awful films as Meet Joe Black. Some unkind souls have suggested that director Martin Brest might have been wise to call in Alan Smithee on the lumbering theatrical version, a remake of Death Takes a Holiday, which starred Brad Pitt as Death. Not one of his best roles.



Reclusive as he is, Allen Smithee's anonymity has been threatened in recent years from an unlikely source, the Academy. One of the conditions of an Allen Smithee credit is that the director who is awarded such a credit is not supposed to talk about the film, and this has always been very hard to enforce. But in the late nineties a group of film scholars at the University of Pennsylvania began a study group devoted to Smithee's career. They held a conference in l997 called Specters of Legitimacy: and in l999 a book appeared: Directed by Allen Smithee, edited by Jeremy Braddock and Stephen Hock. The book has a foreword by the critic Andrew Sarris, a delicious irony because it is Sarris who is credited with introducing the auteur theory to American film criticism. Smithee's career, of course, is a gift to those postmodern scholars who believe in the death of the author, or in this case, the auteur.



The essayists apply Derrida, DeLeuze and others to Smithee's diverse oevre to "reclaim new possibilities for auteurist filmmaking". The puzzled reviews are as much fun as the book itself.



But is Allen Smithee still alive?



There's been a fear, in recent years, that fame has blown his cover.



In l997 the screenwriter Joe Esterhas, who wrote Basic Instinct, and Showgirls, penned a film called Burn Hollywood Burn: An Allen Smithee Film Directed by Arthur Hiller. It's about a director, played by Eric Idle, who makes a film so awful that he wants to take a pseudonymous credit. But he can't because his real name is, wait for it, Allan Smithee.



The film didn't do very good business, but there has been concern since then that the Directors Guild regards the Allen Smithee credit as, well, discredited, and is now reluctant to call in Allen at times of crisis.



There have, however, been directors who wish to keep Allen alive.



Robert Altman, embroiled a couple of years ago in a dispute over the editing of the John Grisham adaptation The Gingerbread Man, was reportedly threatening at one stage to step down in favor of Smithee. He won the day, however, and the film appeared under his own name.



The latest film to fan the flames is one called Supernova, released last year and credited to one Thomas Lee, who appears to share many of the same reclusive characteristics of Alan Smithee.



Smithee fans around the world were devastated at what appeared to be an unceremonious end to a distinguished and helpful career.



However, the website Alan Smithee News has recently reported that Smithee is alive and well. His credit has been spotted on a Sci-Fi Channel film called The Guardian.



Those lovers of cinema who wish to follow his career then should keep an eye on this website for any further sightings.



But beware: there are some fake Alan Smithee websites out there as well. And we wouldn't want any phony credits would we.



Guests on this program:

Julie Rigg



Further information:

Allen Smithee or Alan Smithee

http://www.smithee.com/alan





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