The cinema of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph

376 Pages·2009·6.367 MB·English

by  Dearden, Basil, O'Sullivan, Tim, Dearden, Basil, Burton, Alan, Relph, Michael

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H THE CINEMA OF
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BASIL DEARDEN IN BASIL DEARDEN
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AND MICHAEL RELPH A AND MICHAEL RELPH

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ALAN BURTON AND TIM O’SULLIVAN A
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his book offers the first full systematic assessment and evaluation of the cinema of this important
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filmmaking partnership. Dearden and Relph came together at the famous Ealing Studios in the wartime D
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period and became the most prolific production team at the studio, contributing such popular and critically
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acclaimed films as The Captive Heart (1946), The Blue Lamp (1950) and Pool of London (1951). Later in A
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the 1950s, Dearden and Relph branched out into independent production and became particularly associated
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with a cycle of controversial social problem films that included Sapphire (1959) and Victim (1961).
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This new study takes an extensive view of the cinema of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph. It considers in H
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detail their contribution to the celebrated achievements of wartime cinema at Ealing, brings a new focus
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to their post-war films that addressed masculine adjustment in a period of rapid change, takes a fresh look L

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at the prominent group of social problem films within their work, and offers an original study of their later
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period of filmmaking for the international market in the 1960s. Attention is also given to the significant L
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place of comedy in their cinema and Michael Relph’s considerable achievements as an art director. The H
book will be of interest to all students of film history and a general readership that takes a keen interest
in British cinema. &
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Alan Burton is senior lecturer in film at the University of Hull. Tim O’Sullivan is Head of the Department A
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of Media, Film and Journalism at the Faculty of Humanities in De Montfort University, Leicester.
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ISBN 978 0 7486 3289 3
Cover image: Basil Dearden (right) with Michael Relph (in sunglasses)
with the Saraband Unit on location, Prague 1947. (Courtesy of Simon Relph)
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Cover design: Cathy Sprent d
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Edinburgh University Press
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22 George Square u
Edinburgh EH8 9LF r ALAN BURTON AND TIM O’SULLIVAN
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www.euppublishing.com h
THE CINEMA OF
BASIL DEARDEN AND
MICHAEL RELPH
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It is part of a director’s function to see that, at each stage, the technicians
who work as his associates are fi red with his own enthusiasm. Since the raw
material of the cinema is emotion, fi lm people are temperamental people. A
director must be able to deal with temperament in others – and must know
how to exploit it himself.
(Basil Dearden 1948: 65-6)
You cannot aff ord to make a picture unless you are madly enthusiastic about
it.
(Michael Relph, quoted in Films and Filming, January 1958: 5)
I believe . . . that the Cinema is genuinely a mass medium and that it has
social and educative responsibilities as well as artistic ones. It has a place to fi ll
in the national life which it cannot do unless it works within the commercial
structure which can give the artist the best tools to work with and allow his
work to reach the widest possible audience. I believe this the most coura-
geous course to take and one which can result from time to time in fi lms of
the highest artistic merit and integrity which, nevertheless, have wide popular
appeal and commercial success.
(Michael Relph 1961: 24)
The beginning, like almost everything else about me, went back to the war.
(Bill Randall, in The Ship That Died of Shame, 1955)
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THE CINEMA OF
BASIL DEARDEN AND
MICHAEL RELPH
Alan Burton and Tim O’Sullivan
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Alan Burton and Tim O’Sullivan, 2009
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in 11/13 pt Monotype Bembo
by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 3289 3 (hardback)
The right of Alan Burton and Tim O’Sullivan
to be identifi ed as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Foreword: James Dearden and Simon Relph ix
Biography and Career Notes xiii
Introduction: ‘Two on a Tandem’? Dearden and Relph: Authorship
and British Cinema 1
1 Apprenticeship and Beyond: Comedy Traditions and Film Design 14
2 The Formative Period: The War Years and the Ethos of Ealing 49
3 Dramas of Masculine Adjustment I: Tragic Melodramas 89
4 Dramas of Masculine Adjustment II: Men in Action 167
5 Dramas of Social Tension and Adjustment 203
6 Ethical Dilemmas 249
7 The International Years 287
Appendix: ‘Inside Ealing’: Michael Relph 322
Filmography 328
Bibliography 335
Index 347
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Acknowledgements
Although this study will appear in public as the product of two writers, in fact,
as with all scholarly endeavours, it sees the light of day at all only as a result
of the support, guidance and encouragement of numerous colleagues, friends
and the families of the authors, as well as those close to Basil Dearden and
Michael Relph.
Among our work colleagues we would like to thank especially the fol-
lowing: Steve Chibnall, for making available rare documents and illustrations
from his extensive collection; Robert Murphy for his typically shrewd, no-
nonsense advice; Andrew Tolson, for acting as Head of Department during
the latter part of 2008; Stephen Barnard, Natalie Martin and Tony Lahive for
teaching cover in the same period; and for vital and impeccable assistance we
are indebted to Steve Gamble and Jo Hobbs in the Faculty of Humanities, De
Montfort University.
We have benefi ted greatly from interviews with cinematographer Douglas
Slocombe and Lord Richard Attenborough, both in their time distinguished
contributors to the cinema of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph. Screenwriter
and executive Bryan Forbes also treated our enquiries generously. We would
like to express our appreciation to them for sharing their experiences of the
fi lms of Dearden and Relph and their admiration for the fi lmmaking team.
Our greatest debt of gratitude is due to James Dearden and Simon Relph;
for their unstinting enthusiasm for the project from the outset, generously
making available invaluable recollections, family documents and photographs,
and not least the remarkable collection of Final Shooting Scripts belonging
to their fathers, which have aff orded a unique insight into their approach to
fi lmmaking.
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viii Acknowledgements
The distinguished scholar of Ealing Studios, Charles Barr, off ered impor-
tant encouragement and guidance, and most helpfully saw us through some
tricky bibliographic issues. Jeff rey Richards, Julian Petley and Mark Jancovich
supported the project in its early stages, as did Max Jones, Laurie Ede, Dave
Rolinson, Karen Shearsmith, Colin Sell, Andrew Spicer, Charlotte Brunsdon,
Sue Harper and Vincent Porter in later moments of its development.
Half of what follows, and the research and writing time it entailed, would
not have been possible without the vital support provided by the Arts and
Humanities Research Council and the award of research leave to Tim
O’Sullivan, which was both a relief and a challenge.
The preparation of this book has also been greatly assisted by the profession-
alism and patience of Sarah Edwards and Esmé Watson and their c olleagues at
Edinburgh University Press.
Alan Burton and Tim O’Sullivan
Pörtschach and Leicester, February 2009
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Foreword
It is very satisfying that a reappraisal of the fi lms of Basil Dearden and Michael
Relph is now taking place, in my opinion (not surprisingly) one that is long
overdue.
Alan Burton and Tim O’Sullivan have researched their subject with a
great deal of care and a gratifying appreciation of their subject. What they
are absolutely correct in establishing is the fact that the relationship was very
much a partnership, every bit as much as, say, the partnership of Powell and
Pressburger. Indeed, when my father was off ered the job of directing the fi lm
of Khartoum relatively late in his career (1965), and despite the fact that there
was already an American producer attached (Julian Blaustein), Michael Relph
came on board as Production Supervisor, and one imagines that Michael’s
contribution was very much on a par with those cases when he was also the
titular producer. Apart from relying on each other creatively, I think that they
also off ered each other a great deal of emotional support, something not to
be underestimated during such a long and productive association. It is telling,
I think, that I have a distinct memory of my father being extremely unhappy
during the shooting of Khartoum, admittedly a very diffi cult production from
the logistical point of view, but I am sure due also in no small part to being
outside his ‘comfort zone’ in the sense that Michael was not at his side with
the same authority as would have been the case when they were the p roducing
partnership with no one else between them and the studio.
I think it is also interesting that the authors have highlighted the fact that
my father’s fi lms with Michael at Ealing were not accorded the same respect
both internally (from the other fi lmmakers at the studio) and externally (by the
critics). It is ironic that they were on the whole more commercially s uccessful
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