Carol Reed(1906-1976)
- Director
- Producer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Carol Reed was the second son of stage actor, dramatics teacher and
impresario founder of the Royal School of Dramatic Art Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. Reed was one of Tree's six illegitimate children with
Beatrice Mae Pinney, who Tree established in a second household apart
from his married life. There were no social scars here; Reed grew up in
a well-mannered, middle-class atmosphere. His public school days were
at King's School, Canterbury, and he was only too glad to push on with
the idea of following his father and becoming an actor. His mother wanted no
such thing and shipped him off to Massachusetts in 1922, where his
older brother resided on--of all things--a chicken ranch.
It was a wasted six months before Reed was back in England and joined a
stage company of Dame Sybil Thorndike,
making his stage debut in 1924. He forthwith met British writer
Edgar Wallace, who cashed in on his
constant output of thrillers by establishing a road troupe to do stage
adaptations of them. Reed was in three of these, also working as an
assistant stage manager. Wallace became chairman of the newly formed
British Lion Film Corp. in 1927, and Reed followed to become his
personal assistant. As such he began learning the film trade by
assisting in supervising the filmed adaptations of Wallace's works.
This was essentially his day job. At night he continued stage acting
and managing. It was something of a relief when Wallace passed on in
1932; Reed decided to drop the stage for film and joined historic
Ealing Studios as dialog director for Associated Talking Pictures under
Basil Dean.
Reed rose from dialog director to second-unit director and assistant
director in record time, his first solo directorship being the
adventure Midshipman Easy (1935).
This and his subsequent effort,
Laburnum Grove (1936), attracted
high praise from a future collaborator, novelist/critic
Graham Greene, who said that once
Reed "gets the right script, [he] will prove far more than efficient."
However, Reed would endure the sort of staid, boilerplate filmmaking
that characterized British "B" movies until he left this behind with
The Stars Look Down (1940),
his second film with Michael Redgrave,
and his openly Hitchcockian
Night Train to Munich (1940),
a comedy-thriller with
Rex Harrison. It has often been
seen as a sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938) with
the same screenwriters and comedy relief--Basil Radford and
Naunton Wayne, who would just about make
careers as the cricket zealots Charters and Caldicott, from "Vanishes".
The British liked these films and, significantly, so did America, where
Hollywood still wondered whether their patronage of the British film
industry was worth the gamble of a payoff via the US public. Dean was
just one of several powerhouse producers rising in Britain in the
1930s. Other names are more familiar:
Alexander Korda and
J. Arthur Rank stand out. For Reed, who
would wisely decide to start producing his own films in order to have
more control over them, finding his niche was still a challenge into
the 1940s. He was only too well aware that the film director led a team
effort--his was partly a coordinator's task, harmonizing the talents of
the creative team. The modest Reed would admit to his success being
this partnership time and again. So he gravitated toward the same
scriptwriters, art directors and cinematographers as his movie list
spread out.
There were more thrillers and some historical bios:
The Remarkable Mr. Kipps (1941) with Redgrave and
The Young Mr. Pitt (1942) with
Robert Donat. He did service and war effort
fare through World War II, but these were more than flag wavers, for
Reed dealt with the psychology of transitioning to military life. His
Anglo-American documentary of combat (co-directed by
Garson Kanin),
The True Glory (1945), won the
1946 Oscar for Best Documentary. With that under his belt, Reed was now
recognized as Britain's ablest director and could pick and choose his
projects. He also had the clout--and the all-important funds--to do
what he thought was essential to ensure realism on a location shoot,
something missing in British film work prior to Reed.
Odd Man Out (1947) with
James Mason as an IRA hit man on the
run did just that and was Reed's first real independent effort, and he
had gone to Rank to do it. All too soon, however, that organization
began subjugating directors' wishes to studio needs, and Reed made
perhaps his most important associative decision and joined Korda's
London Films. Here was one very important harmony--he and Korda thought
along the same lines. Though
Anthony Kimmins had scripted four films
for Reed, it was time for Korda to introduce the director to
Graham Greene. Their association
would bring Reed his greatest successes.
The Fallen Idol (1948) was based
on a Greene short story, with
Ralph Richardson as a
do-everything head butler in a diplomatic household. Idolized by the
lonely, small son of his employer, he becomes caught up in a liaison
with a woman on the work staff, who was much younger than his shrewish
wife. It may seem slow to an American audience, but with the focus on
the boy's wide-eyed view of rather gloomy surroundings, as well as the
adult drama around him, it was innovative and a solid success.
What came next was a landmark--the best known of Reed's films.
The Third Man (1949) was yet
another Greene story, molded into a gem of a screenplay by him, though
Reed added some significant elements of his own. The film has been
endlessly summarized and analyzed and, whether defined as an
international noir or post-war noir or just noir, it was cutting-edge
noir and unforgettable. This was Reed in full control--well, almost--
and the money was coming from yet another wide-vision producer,
David O. Selznick, along with Korda.
Tension did develop in this effort keep a predominantly Anglo effort in
this Anglo-American collaboration.
There were complications, though. For one thing, Korda--old friend and
somewhat kindred spirit of wunderkind director
Orson Welles--had a gentlemen's agreement
with the latter for three pictures, but these were not forthcoming.
Korda could be as evasive as Welles was known to be, and Welles had
come to Europe to further his inevitable film projects after troubles
in Hollywood. Always desperate for seed money, Welles was forced to
take acting parts in Europe to build up his bank account in order to
finance his more personal projects. He thus accepted the role of the
larger-than-life American flim-flam man turned criminal, Harry Lime.
The extended time spent filming the Vienna sewer scenes on location and
at the elaborate set for them at Shepperton Studios in London, entailed
the longest of the ten minutes or so of Welles' screen time. Here was a
potential source of directorial intimidation if ever there was one.
Welles took it upon himself to direct Reed's veteran cinematographer
Robert Krasker with his own vision of
some sewer sequences in London (after leaving the location shoot in
Vienna), using many takes. Supposedly, Reed did not use any of Welles'
footage, and in fact whatever there was got conveniently lost. Yet
Citizen Kane (1941)'s shadow was so
looming that Welles was given credit for a lot of camera work,
atmospherics and the chase scenes. He had referred to the movie as "my
film" later on and had said he wrote all his dialog. Some of the ferris
wheel dialog with its famous famous "cuckoo clock" speech (which Reed
and Greene both attributed to him) was probably the essence of Welles'
contributions.
Krasker's quirky angles under Reed's direction perfectly framed the
ready-made-for-an-art designer bombed-out shadows and stark, isolated
street lights of postwar Vienna and its underworld. Unique to cinema
history, the whole score (except for some canned incidental café music) was
just the brilliant zither playing of
Anton Karas, adding his nuances to every
dramatic transition. Krasker won an Oscar, and Karas was nominated for one.
Reed's attention to detailed casting also paid off, particularly in
casting German-speaking actors and background players. Selznick
insisted on Joseph Cotten as Holly
Martins, the benighted protagonist, and his clipped and sharp voice and
subterranean drawl were perfect for the part. Reed had wanted
James Stewart--definitely a
different perception than Americans of its leading men. Selznick parted
ways with Reed on other issues, however; there was a laundry list of
reasons for his re-editing and changing some incidentals for the
shorter American version, partly based on negative comments from sneak
preview responses. Perhaps it was the constant interruptions from the
other side of the Atlantic that drove Reed to personally narrate the
introduction describing Martins in the British version of the film
(given the basic tenets of noir films, the star always played narrator
to introduce the story and voice over where appropriate). Selznick
showed himself--in this instance, anyway--to have a better directorial
sense by substituting Cotten introducing himself in the American cut.
It made far more sense and was much more effective. On the other hand,
Selznick's editing of the pivotal railway café scenes with Cotten and
Alida Valli had continuity problems.
Nonetheless, the film was an international smash, and all the principal
players reaped the rewards. Reed did not get an Oscar, but he did win
the Cannes Film Grand Prix. Greene was motivated enough to take the
story and expand it into a best-selling novel. Even Welles, with his
minimum screen time--he was spending most of his time in Europe
trying to obtain financing for his newest project,
Othello (1956)--milked the movie for all it
was worth. He did not deny directorial influences (though in a 1984
interview he did), and even developed a Harry Lime radio show back
home.
However, the movie had its detractors. It was called too melodramatic
and too cynical. The short scenes of untranslated German dialog were
also criticized, yet that lent to the atmosphere of confusion and
helplessness of Martins caught in a wary, potentially dangerous
environment--something the audience inevitably was able to share. It
was all too ironic that Reed, now declared by some as the greatest
living director of the time, found his career in decline thereafter. Of
his total output, four were based on plays, three on stories and 15 on
novels. With less than half of them to go, he was to be disappointed
for the most part. His
The Man Between (1953) with James
Mason was too much of a "Third Man" reprise, and
A Kid for Two Farthings (1955)
was too sentimental.
By now Reed was being sought by enterprising Hollywood producers. He
had--as he usually did--the material for a first-rate movie with two
popular American actors, Burt Lancaster
and Tony Curtis for
Trapeze (1956). However, it suffered from
a slow script, as would the British-produced
The Key (1958), despite another
international cast. Things finally picked up with his venture into
another Greene-scripted film from his novel, with
Alec Guinness in the lead in the UK spy
spoof Our Man in Havana (1959)
with yet another winning international cast.
When Hollywood called again, the chance at such a British piece of
history as
Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
with a mostly British cast and
Marlon Brando seemed bound for success. It
was the second version of the movie produced by MGM (the first being the
Clark Gable starrer
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)).
However, Brando's history of being temperamental was much in evidence
on location in Tahiti. Reed shot a small part of the picture but
finally left, having more than his fill of the star's ego (and,
evidently, being allowed too much artistic control by the studio) and
the film was finished by
Lewis Milestone. Reed would ultimately
be branded as a failure in directing historical movies, but it was an
unfair appraisal based on the random aspect of film success and such
forces of nature as Brando, not artistic and technical expertise.
The opportunity to make another film came knocking again with Reed and
American money forming the production company International Classics to
produce Irving Stone's best-selling story
of Michelangelo and the painting of the Sistine Chapel,
The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965).
Here is perhaps the prime example of Reed being given short shrift for
a really valiant effort at an historical, artistically significant and
cultural epic because it was a "flop" at the box office. Shot on
location in Rome and its environs, the film had a first-rate cast
headed by Charlton Heston doing his
method best as the temperamental artist with
Rex Harrison, an effortless
standout as the equally volatile Pope Julius II.
Diane Cilento did fine work as the
Contessina de Medici, with the always stalwart
Harry Andrews as architect rival Donato
Bramante. Most of the other roles were filled by Italians dubbed in
English, but they all look good.
Reed's attention to historical detail provided perhaps the most
accurate depiction of early 16th-century Italy--from costumes and
manners to military action and weapons (especially firearms)--ever
brought to the screen. The script by
Philip Dunne was brisk and always
entertaining in the verbal battle between the artist and his pontiff.
Yet by the 1960s costume epics were going out of style and bigger
flops, such as Cleopatra (1963) (talk
about agony) despite the wealth of stars which included Harrison,
tended to spread like a disease to those few that came later. Despite a
high-powered distribution campaign by Twentieth Century-Fox, Reed's
exemplary effort would ultimately be appreciated by art scholars and
historians--not the stuff of Hollywood's money mentality.
For Reed the only remaining triumph was, of all things, a musical--his
first and only--yet again he was working with children. However, the
adaptation of the great Charles Dickens
novel "Oliver Twistt" top the screen (as Oliver! (1968)) was a
sensation with a lively script and music amid a realistic 19th-century
London that was up to Reed's usual standards. The film was nominated
for no less than 11 Oscars, wining five and two of the big ones--Best
Picture and Best Director. Reed had finally achieved that bit of
elusiveness. He could never be so simplistically stamped with an uneven
career; Reed had always kept to a precise craftsman's movie-making
formula.
Fellow British director
Michael Powell had said that Reed
"could put a film together like a watchmaker puts together a watch". It
was Graham Greene, however, who gave Reed perhaps the more important
personal accolade: "The only director I know with that particular
warmth of human sympathy, the extraordinary feeling for the right face
in the right part, the exactitude of cutting, and not least important
the power of sympathizing with an author's worries and an ability to
guide him."
impresario founder of the Royal School of Dramatic Art Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. Reed was one of Tree's six illegitimate children with
Beatrice Mae Pinney, who Tree established in a second household apart
from his married life. There were no social scars here; Reed grew up in
a well-mannered, middle-class atmosphere. His public school days were
at King's School, Canterbury, and he was only too glad to push on with
the idea of following his father and becoming an actor. His mother wanted no
such thing and shipped him off to Massachusetts in 1922, where his
older brother resided on--of all things--a chicken ranch.
It was a wasted six months before Reed was back in England and joined a
stage company of Dame Sybil Thorndike,
making his stage debut in 1924. He forthwith met British writer
Edgar Wallace, who cashed in on his
constant output of thrillers by establishing a road troupe to do stage
adaptations of them. Reed was in three of these, also working as an
assistant stage manager. Wallace became chairman of the newly formed
British Lion Film Corp. in 1927, and Reed followed to become his
personal assistant. As such he began learning the film trade by
assisting in supervising the filmed adaptations of Wallace's works.
This was essentially his day job. At night he continued stage acting
and managing. It was something of a relief when Wallace passed on in
1932; Reed decided to drop the stage for film and joined historic
Ealing Studios as dialog director for Associated Talking Pictures under
Basil Dean.
Reed rose from dialog director to second-unit director and assistant
director in record time, his first solo directorship being the
adventure Midshipman Easy (1935).
This and his subsequent effort,
Laburnum Grove (1936), attracted
high praise from a future collaborator, novelist/critic
Graham Greene, who said that once
Reed "gets the right script, [he] will prove far more than efficient."
However, Reed would endure the sort of staid, boilerplate filmmaking
that characterized British "B" movies until he left this behind with
The Stars Look Down (1940),
his second film with Michael Redgrave,
and his openly Hitchcockian
Night Train to Munich (1940),
a comedy-thriller with
Rex Harrison. It has often been
seen as a sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938) with
the same screenwriters and comedy relief--Basil Radford and
Naunton Wayne, who would just about make
careers as the cricket zealots Charters and Caldicott, from "Vanishes".
The British liked these films and, significantly, so did America, where
Hollywood still wondered whether their patronage of the British film
industry was worth the gamble of a payoff via the US public. Dean was
just one of several powerhouse producers rising in Britain in the
1930s. Other names are more familiar:
Alexander Korda and
J. Arthur Rank stand out. For Reed, who
would wisely decide to start producing his own films in order to have
more control over them, finding his niche was still a challenge into
the 1940s. He was only too well aware that the film director led a team
effort--his was partly a coordinator's task, harmonizing the talents of
the creative team. The modest Reed would admit to his success being
this partnership time and again. So he gravitated toward the same
scriptwriters, art directors and cinematographers as his movie list
spread out.
There were more thrillers and some historical bios:
The Remarkable Mr. Kipps (1941) with Redgrave and
The Young Mr. Pitt (1942) with
Robert Donat. He did service and war effort
fare through World War II, but these were more than flag wavers, for
Reed dealt with the psychology of transitioning to military life. His
Anglo-American documentary of combat (co-directed by
Garson Kanin),
The True Glory (1945), won the
1946 Oscar for Best Documentary. With that under his belt, Reed was now
recognized as Britain's ablest director and could pick and choose his
projects. He also had the clout--and the all-important funds--to do
what he thought was essential to ensure realism on a location shoot,
something missing in British film work prior to Reed.
Odd Man Out (1947) with
James Mason as an IRA hit man on the
run did just that and was Reed's first real independent effort, and he
had gone to Rank to do it. All too soon, however, that organization
began subjugating directors' wishes to studio needs, and Reed made
perhaps his most important associative decision and joined Korda's
London Films. Here was one very important harmony--he and Korda thought
along the same lines. Though
Anthony Kimmins had scripted four films
for Reed, it was time for Korda to introduce the director to
Graham Greene. Their association
would bring Reed his greatest successes.
The Fallen Idol (1948) was based
on a Greene short story, with
Ralph Richardson as a
do-everything head butler in a diplomatic household. Idolized by the
lonely, small son of his employer, he becomes caught up in a liaison
with a woman on the work staff, who was much younger than his shrewish
wife. It may seem slow to an American audience, but with the focus on
the boy's wide-eyed view of rather gloomy surroundings, as well as the
adult drama around him, it was innovative and a solid success.
What came next was a landmark--the best known of Reed's films.
The Third Man (1949) was yet
another Greene story, molded into a gem of a screenplay by him, though
Reed added some significant elements of his own. The film has been
endlessly summarized and analyzed and, whether defined as an
international noir or post-war noir or just noir, it was cutting-edge
noir and unforgettable. This was Reed in full control--well, almost--
and the money was coming from yet another wide-vision producer,
David O. Selznick, along with Korda.
Tension did develop in this effort keep a predominantly Anglo effort in
this Anglo-American collaboration.
There were complications, though. For one thing, Korda--old friend and
somewhat kindred spirit of wunderkind director
Orson Welles--had a gentlemen's agreement
with the latter for three pictures, but these were not forthcoming.
Korda could be as evasive as Welles was known to be, and Welles had
come to Europe to further his inevitable film projects after troubles
in Hollywood. Always desperate for seed money, Welles was forced to
take acting parts in Europe to build up his bank account in order to
finance his more personal projects. He thus accepted the role of the
larger-than-life American flim-flam man turned criminal, Harry Lime.
The extended time spent filming the Vienna sewer scenes on location and
at the elaborate set for them at Shepperton Studios in London, entailed
the longest of the ten minutes or so of Welles' screen time. Here was a
potential source of directorial intimidation if ever there was one.
Welles took it upon himself to direct Reed's veteran cinematographer
Robert Krasker with his own vision of
some sewer sequences in London (after leaving the location shoot in
Vienna), using many takes. Supposedly, Reed did not use any of Welles'
footage, and in fact whatever there was got conveniently lost. Yet
Citizen Kane (1941)'s shadow was so
looming that Welles was given credit for a lot of camera work,
atmospherics and the chase scenes. He had referred to the movie as "my
film" later on and had said he wrote all his dialog. Some of the ferris
wheel dialog with its famous famous "cuckoo clock" speech (which Reed
and Greene both attributed to him) was probably the essence of Welles'
contributions.
Krasker's quirky angles under Reed's direction perfectly framed the
ready-made-for-an-art designer bombed-out shadows and stark, isolated
street lights of postwar Vienna and its underworld. Unique to cinema
history, the whole score (except for some canned incidental café music) was
just the brilliant zither playing of
Anton Karas, adding his nuances to every
dramatic transition. Krasker won an Oscar, and Karas was nominated for one.
Reed's attention to detailed casting also paid off, particularly in
casting German-speaking actors and background players. Selznick
insisted on Joseph Cotten as Holly
Martins, the benighted protagonist, and his clipped and sharp voice and
subterranean drawl were perfect for the part. Reed had wanted
James Stewart--definitely a
different perception than Americans of its leading men. Selznick parted
ways with Reed on other issues, however; there was a laundry list of
reasons for his re-editing and changing some incidentals for the
shorter American version, partly based on negative comments from sneak
preview responses. Perhaps it was the constant interruptions from the
other side of the Atlantic that drove Reed to personally narrate the
introduction describing Martins in the British version of the film
(given the basic tenets of noir films, the star always played narrator
to introduce the story and voice over where appropriate). Selznick
showed himself--in this instance, anyway--to have a better directorial
sense by substituting Cotten introducing himself in the American cut.
It made far more sense and was much more effective. On the other hand,
Selznick's editing of the pivotal railway café scenes with Cotten and
Alida Valli had continuity problems.
Nonetheless, the film was an international smash, and all the principal
players reaped the rewards. Reed did not get an Oscar, but he did win
the Cannes Film Grand Prix. Greene was motivated enough to take the
story and expand it into a best-selling novel. Even Welles, with his
minimum screen time--he was spending most of his time in Europe
trying to obtain financing for his newest project,
Othello (1956)--milked the movie for all it
was worth. He did not deny directorial influences (though in a 1984
interview he did), and even developed a Harry Lime radio show back
home.
However, the movie had its detractors. It was called too melodramatic
and too cynical. The short scenes of untranslated German dialog were
also criticized, yet that lent to the atmosphere of confusion and
helplessness of Martins caught in a wary, potentially dangerous
environment--something the audience inevitably was able to share. It
was all too ironic that Reed, now declared by some as the greatest
living director of the time, found his career in decline thereafter. Of
his total output, four were based on plays, three on stories and 15 on
novels. With less than half of them to go, he was to be disappointed
for the most part. His
The Man Between (1953) with James
Mason was too much of a "Third Man" reprise, and
A Kid for Two Farthings (1955)
was too sentimental.
By now Reed was being sought by enterprising Hollywood producers. He
had--as he usually did--the material for a first-rate movie with two
popular American actors, Burt Lancaster
and Tony Curtis for
Trapeze (1956). However, it suffered from
a slow script, as would the British-produced
The Key (1958), despite another
international cast. Things finally picked up with his venture into
another Greene-scripted film from his novel, with
Alec Guinness in the lead in the UK spy
spoof Our Man in Havana (1959)
with yet another winning international cast.
When Hollywood called again, the chance at such a British piece of
history as
Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
with a mostly British cast and
Marlon Brando seemed bound for success. It
was the second version of the movie produced by MGM (the first being the
Clark Gable starrer
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)).
However, Brando's history of being temperamental was much in evidence
on location in Tahiti. Reed shot a small part of the picture but
finally left, having more than his fill of the star's ego (and,
evidently, being allowed too much artistic control by the studio) and
the film was finished by
Lewis Milestone. Reed would ultimately
be branded as a failure in directing historical movies, but it was an
unfair appraisal based on the random aspect of film success and such
forces of nature as Brando, not artistic and technical expertise.
The opportunity to make another film came knocking again with Reed and
American money forming the production company International Classics to
produce Irving Stone's best-selling story
of Michelangelo and the painting of the Sistine Chapel,
The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965).
Here is perhaps the prime example of Reed being given short shrift for
a really valiant effort at an historical, artistically significant and
cultural epic because it was a "flop" at the box office. Shot on
location in Rome and its environs, the film had a first-rate cast
headed by Charlton Heston doing his
method best as the temperamental artist with
Rex Harrison, an effortless
standout as the equally volatile Pope Julius II.
Diane Cilento did fine work as the
Contessina de Medici, with the always stalwart
Harry Andrews as architect rival Donato
Bramante. Most of the other roles were filled by Italians dubbed in
English, but they all look good.
Reed's attention to historical detail provided perhaps the most
accurate depiction of early 16th-century Italy--from costumes and
manners to military action and weapons (especially firearms)--ever
brought to the screen. The script by
Philip Dunne was brisk and always
entertaining in the verbal battle between the artist and his pontiff.
Yet by the 1960s costume epics were going out of style and bigger
flops, such as Cleopatra (1963) (talk
about agony) despite the wealth of stars which included Harrison,
tended to spread like a disease to those few that came later. Despite a
high-powered distribution campaign by Twentieth Century-Fox, Reed's
exemplary effort would ultimately be appreciated by art scholars and
historians--not the stuff of Hollywood's money mentality.
For Reed the only remaining triumph was, of all things, a musical--his
first and only--yet again he was working with children. However, the
adaptation of the great Charles Dickens
novel "Oliver Twistt" top the screen (as Oliver! (1968)) was a
sensation with a lively script and music amid a realistic 19th-century
London that was up to Reed's usual standards. The film was nominated
for no less than 11 Oscars, wining five and two of the big ones--Best
Picture and Best Director. Reed had finally achieved that bit of
elusiveness. He could never be so simplistically stamped with an uneven
career; Reed had always kept to a precise craftsman's movie-making
formula.
Fellow British director
Michael Powell had said that Reed
"could put a film together like a watchmaker puts together a watch". It
was Graham Greene, however, who gave Reed perhaps the more important
personal accolade: "The only director I know with that particular
warmth of human sympathy, the extraordinary feeling for the right face
in the right part, the exactitude of cutting, and not least important
the power of sympathizing with an author's worries and an ability to
guide him."