TITAN BOOKS
Very Naughty Boys:
The Amazing True Story of HandMade Films
ISBN: 9781781167083
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
www.titanbooks.com
First edition: September 2013
First published in hardback in 2003 as Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.
Now revised and updated.
© Text copyright Robert Seller 2003, 2013
Stills reproduced in this book are courtesy of HandMade Films.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
DID YOU ENJOY THIS BOOK?
We love to hear from our readers. Please email us at: [email protected] or write to us at the above address.
To receive advance information, news, competitions, and exclusive offers online, please sign up for the Titan newsletter on our website.
www.titanbooks.com
To my family and friends... and George.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Acknowledgements
1 SAVING PYTHON’S BRIAN
2 THE BEATLE AND THE BANKER
3 MIDGETS AND VILLAINS
4 PYTHON’S LAST HARRAH
5 A VERY BRITISH INSTITUTION
6 STIFF UPPER LIPS ON PARADE
7 SWINE FEVER
8 ‘COLD AND LONELY, LOVELY WORK OF ART’
9 SHANGHAI COCK-UP
10 WHISTLER AND ME
11 THE AMERICAN GAMBLE
12 THE PARTY’S OVER
13 THE WHISTLE BLOWER
14 ‘I JUST HOPE THAT DENIS DOESN’T TURN OUT TO BE A MADMAN.’
15 POSTSCRIPT
Handmade Filmography
Appendix
Index
About the Author
Pictures
FOREWORD
HandMade Films was born in mischief. George Harrison wanted to call it British HandMade Films but wasn’t allowed to. So one of the most successful British independent production slates was, thanks to bureaucracy, never allowed to proclaim the country it sprang from.
Mischief was afoot in London, too, in the spring of 1978. Lord Delfont, the head of EMI, finally got round to reading one of the films his minions had commissioned. It was called Monty Python’s Life of Brian, and what he read appalled him so much that he became determined to extricate his company from anything to do with it.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as that. A thousand miles away, on the Mediterranean shores of Tunisia, designers, art directors and carpenters were already building Brian’s Jerusalem.
Monty Python desperately needed a saviour. Eric Idle approached his friend George Harrison, knowing him to be a Python fan and having a few bob. So began one of the fastest bail-outs in film history. By the end of the summer, Brian was being chased through the marketplaces of a new Jerusalem and the pay cheques were coming in from a company which was being hailed as the messiah — HandMade Films.
Stories don’t usually end like that. The good guys rarely win so easily. But George persuaded his manager Denis O’Brien, who had once looked after Peter Sellers, that he was happy for considerable amounts of his money to be made available to a comedy group with, at that time, only two modestly performing movies to their credit. His reason was, as he said simply later, ‘I wanted to see the film.’ Generally, and inaccurately, portrayed as the quiet, retiring Beatle, George was always busy. He had a restless mind and a very sharp one, too. He felt a duty to instruct and encourage new talent and he had an uncomplicated fondness for comedy, especially of the Pythonic variety. So, in a sense, everything that drove George fused into HandMade Films, and though it was born in mischief, it thrived as a pretty complete reflection of George’s personality — a generous, engaged, committed and occasionally quite silly man.
While Denis took care of business, George remained true to his belief in the integrity of the artist, backing Mai Zetterling’s powerfully controversial prison film Scrubbers, and saving John Mackenzie’s classic The Long Good Friday (which introduced Bob Hoskins to the silver screen) when no distributor dared take it on.
To start with, George and Denis kept their cool and their principles intact, investing in projects that were by no means guaranteed earners — Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits, Bruce Robinson’s Withnail and I, and Alan Bennett’s A Private Function — as well as keeping faith with Bob Hoskins in Mona Lisa and my own comedy, The Missionary.
There were bound to be mistakes. It just happened that one of them, Shanghai Surprise — despite bringing together the apparent dream-team of Sean Penn and Madonna — was not only a mistake, but also their most expensive film to date.
I have the feeling that George never quite recovered from that. He remained generous, but felt compromised and he began to draw back. Once that happened, the end was in sight. HandMade had many able people at the helm, but the spirit that drove the ship had to come from George.
Even allowing for a few flops, the HandMade record is formidably impressive. Twenty-three films made in ten years — films of extraordinary range and diversity — giving a huge number of actors, writers and technicians the chance to show what they could do, with the minimum of interference.
George believed in creativity. He was curious about where it came from and how it could best be encouraged, and this respect for the artist underpinned much of the success of HandMade Films.
I remain deeply grateful to HandMade for the faith they had in me, and I know there are many more like me who believe that, if there were a HandMade around today, the British film industry would be the better for it.
All the more puzzling then that, until now, HandMade’s achievements have been so overlooked. The gonged and medalled film establishment never saw fit to welcome George into their ranks, nor, to be honest, would George have wanted that. Speeches and self-congratulation were not his thing at all. This is why Robert Sellers’s book is so timely. It is, after all, the story of one of the most successful and original independent film producers since the war.
Read, celebrate... and learn.
MICHAEL PALIN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It would have been quite impossible, and a plain waste of ink, for me to have even attempted to write this book without the enthusiastic willingness I received from so many people who wished to share their memories of HandMade Films. I should like to thank those who gave me interviews: Steve Abbott, Alan Bennett, Tony Bill, Michael Blakemore, Don Boyd, Ralph Brown, John Cleese, Dick Clement, Carol Cleveland, Robbie Coltrane, Sean Connery, Ray Cooper, Hilary Davis, Paul Freeman, Terry Gilliam, John Goldstone, Richard E. Grant, Richard Griffiths, Barry Hanson, Bernard Hill, Terry Hughes, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Neil Jordan, Barrie Keefe, John Kelleher, John Kohn, David Leland, Richard Loncraine, Jonathan Lynn, John Mackenzie, Paul McGann, Patrick Meehan, Alan Metter, Malcolm Mowbray, Peter Nichols, Michael Palin (extra thanks for a great foreword), Wendy Palmer, Denis Quilley, John Reiss, Simon Relph, Alan Shearman, Brian Shingles, Mark Shivas, Jonathan Wacks, David Wimbury and Steven Woolley. Special thanks must also go to Doug Cooper whose idea it first was. One final thank you to Adam Newell, whose enthusiasm for this book has now seen it updated and republished.
‘I have a sort of kamikaze side to me that is optimistic. I have to trus
t Denis O’Brien’s business sense and hope he’s not going to bankrupt me!’
GEORGE HARRISON, 1988
1
SAVING PYTHON’S BRIAN
Out in Tunisia, a couple of sand dunes along from where George Lucas shot Star Wars, the Monty Python team were preparing their own little contribution to late twentieth-century culture — Life of Brian. EMI, Britain’s leading film production company, had kindly stumped up the cash, a little over £2 million. On the cusp of flying out to the North African location, the rug was unexpectedly yanked from under them on the direct order of EMI’s 69-year-old Chief Executive Lord Delfont. The moment is still remembered with incredulity. ‘They pulled out on the Thursday,’ Terry Gilliam recalls. ‘The crew was supposed to be leaving on the Saturday. Disastrous! It was because they read the script... finally. Bernie Delfont hadn’t read the script. I just thought it was very good; at least the Jews were protecting the Christians, in Bernie’s case.’
Royally shafted by EMI, the Pythons found themselves marooned in pre-production limbo. Already in way too deep to back out now, there began a desperate scramble to raise new funds. Convinced there was no other way of financing it from within the UK, producer John Goldstone left for California with one of the Pythons, Eric Idle, who says of the trip, ‘We went to see several people, all millionaires and billionaires, companies and corporations, and we’d sit there and do our pitch. We got in to see these people because Python was kind of popular, but nobody was very keen to finance it’.
By coincidence, a recent arrival in town was George Harrison, a Python fanatic with a private library of records and film of just about everything the comedians had ever done. He also happened to be an extremely close friend of Idle’s. They’d first met in 1975 at a screening in Los Angeles of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Terry Gilliam remembers that he and Eric ‘went to some do afterwards and there was George Harrison and we were sort of plonked on either side of him and became friends.’ It was Idle, though, who maintained a much closer friendship than Gilliam. Eric says of his new-found friend, ‘We used to hang out quite a lot together... we had a lot of fun, a lot of drinks and a lot of laughs. He also helped me through a tough stage in my life [in 1975, Idle was in the process of divorcing his wife, Australian actress Lyn Ashley]... he was very, very good to me. We’d natter to each other, he’d go on about his recording and I’d go on about my writing. He did a guest spot on my Rutland Weekend Television show and we both got shit-faced afterwards.’
Upon hearing that George was in Hollywood, Idle instinctively got in touch. ‘I kept calling George, telling him that we were looking for money. I was just filling him in on what was happening and where we were at, and every time he’d say, “Don’t worry, I’ll get it.” And I sort of put that out of my head. I just didn’t believe anybody could actually pay for it. Then eventually he said, “Look, I’ll pay for this. I’m going to set this up.”’
Goldstone was dumbstruck at the possibility that one individual, be he a Beatle or not, could single-handedly finance a project on this scale, but time was pressing and he was willing to listen to any offers, however crazy they sounded. ‘We went up to see George at his house in the Hollywood hills,’ Goldstone says. ‘I can’t remember whether he’d read the script already or not... it didn’t really seem to matter... he said, “I’ll do it, I’ll do the whole thing.” I just couldn’t believe it, I felt... rock ’n’ rollers, no sense of reality at all. He said to get in touch with his business manager Denis O’Brien, who was in Switzerland at that point, in his chalet, but he was going to be back in London, and he’d work things out.’
Everyone was taken aback by Harrison’s generosity, not least Eric Idle. ‘This was totally unheard of. It was a spectacular move for somebody to say, “I will pay $4 million for this movie,” it was really unheard of, that’s like $40 million now, a huge sum of money, and without which Life of Brian would never have been made.’
The sound of jaws dropping on to the floor resounded throughout the entire film industry. Harrison later described his benevolence and desire to see the movie made as ‘the most expensive cinema ticket ever issued’.
When news reached the other Pythons that Brian was back in business, the mood was one of undiluted celebration. John Cleese particularly had begun to believe that the comedy might never be made and was actually on the verge of leaving for Vienna to make a picture with Peter Sellers. To some, the identity of their benefactor came as no real surprise. Terry Jones remarks, ‘When Eric rang George and asked, “What can we do?” George said, “Well, you know, when The Beatles were breaking up, Python kept me sane, really, so I owe you one.” All The Beatles had been Python fans. It was just happening at the time they were breaking up and George said they used to watch the shows, and they kept him sane, kept him going.’
Life of Brian went on to become one of the most successful and critically acclaimed comedies ever made. And perhaps the most controversial, too, guaranteed to offend anyone and everyone with delicate sensibilities from every minority. ‘Some of whom one would have wished to have offended...’ adds John Cleese. More crucially, it heralded the birth of HandMade Films, the creative amalgamation between the quiet Beatle and Monty Python, six of the finest British comics since the Goons. HandMade succeeded in establishing itself as the most popular and significant independent British movie company since Ealing. Eric Idle once said of their 1980s track record, ‘If you looked at the British film industry and took HandMade’s films out, there would be almost nothing left.’
Much of the company’s output still stands today as some of the best home-grown films of the last 30 years. And yet the company allowed itself to spiral out of control and broke itself apart amidst accusations of betrayal and financial wrongdoing.
* * *
Life of Brian’s origins go back to 1975 and a press conference in New York. ‘It all started as an ad lib,’ Eric Idle remarks. ‘The press asked us what our next movie was and I said, “Jesus Christ — Lust for Glory!” God knows where that came from. It was just a joke for ages and then we went off to Amsterdam for a publicity tour where Gilliam and I went out and got a little bit drunk in a bar and we did a lot of carpenter jokes. We loved the idea that Jesus was a carpenter and this cross had been very badly fixed and kept falling over and he was giving them advice on how to keep it erect. We did a lot of blasphemous jokes. Then when we came back, people said, well, actually this is quite an interesting area to do comedy because nobody ever dares tackle religion, because you get killed!’
Seized by the comic possibilities of a biblical parody, the Pythons approached the subject with methodical earnestness. Michael Palin remembers ‘quite a lot of group discussions, just what our feelings were about the shape and tone of the film, mainly tone. We all thought it was a great idea, but then we had to think, well, what do we really want to say? We all suggested various books that each other might read... it was a very academic approach. We read books about the Bible story and that period, the Dead Sea Scrolls and various new interpretations of the Gospels, that sort of thing, just because we all felt, well, we can’t just do silly jokes about people being knocked off donkeys, there’s got to be a kind of philosophical approach as well.’
Days were also spent sitting in a private screening room watching one or two reels each from as many biblical epics as they could endure — stuff like Samson and Delilah and The Greatest Story Ever Told — sanctimonious twaddle peddled by the Cecil B DeMille school of Hollywood religious movies that was ripe for send-up.
The first concerted writing session was held in December 1976 and the whole Life of Brian movie evolved just like any other Python project. John Cleese remembers writing ‘on our own or in pairs as we usually did. Me and Graham Chapman; Terry Jones and Michael Palin; and Eric Idle on his own. Then we would get together for read-throughs where Terry Gilliam would join us. Overall, it was a very easy project, it came together remarkably well because we all seemed to know almost instinctively what
we were writing about and we got a story together that was a lot better than the stories we usually came up with.’
Very early in the writing process it was unanimously agreed not to single out Jesus Christ for personal ridicule. ‘We didn’t have any quarrel with Christ himself,’ Terry Jones said at the time. ‘My feelings towards Christ are that he was a bloody good bloke, even though he wasn’t as funny as Margaret Thatcher.’ So what started life as a Christ parody quickly turned into a far more warranted satirical rant against religion and religious authority. Eric Idle says, ‘By reading up on the Bible, we gained respect for certain things that are good in religion and realised where the target lay, which is in the churches and their ability to kill people in the name of peace. So it isn’t just “Let’s do a college revue sending up religion”, it is actually much more specifically focused on the problems of religion. Laughter is a way of finding the truth about things... you can make blasphemous jokes over dinner but that doesn’t hold up in a movie or any serious look at what the subject is, and religion is a very serious subject. It’s a good question and needed addressing and I think we did it in a pretty good way.’ Graham Chapman also saw the film as very much pro-Christ, but anti-church.
And so the character of Brian was born, a mythical counterpart of Christ born in a less lavish manger down the road. In early drafts he was the luckless thirteenth disciple who never quite got a mention in the New Testament because he was always late for miracles and managed to miss the last supper altogether because his wife had friends round that evening. Another rejected idea was someone pretending to be the Holy Ghost and getting the Virgin Mary up the duff, palming the unfortunate Mother of God off with lines like, ‘Don’t worry, darling. I’m a messenger from God.’ Early working titles included The Gospel According to St Brian and Brian of Nazareth. The story proper has the adult Brian, working at the local amphitheatre selling snacks like otter noses, badger spleens and wrens’ livers — ‘Get them while they’re hot!’ — suddenly hailed as the Messiah by an ignorant populace in the grip of religious fanaticism.
Very Naughty Boys [EBK] Page 1
