J. Lee Thompson | |
|---|---|
 Thompson in the 1970s | |
| Born | John Lee Thompson (1914-08-01)1 August 1914 Bristol, England |
| Died | 30 August 2002(2002-08-30) (aged 88) Sooke,British Columbia, Canada |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1937–1989 |
John Lee Thompson (1 August 1914 – 30 August 2002) was anEnglish film director, screenwriter and producer. Initially an exponent ofsocial realism, he became known as a versatile and prolific director of thrillers, action, and adventure films.[1]
His works included mainstream critical and commercial successes likeWoman in a Dressing Gown (1957),Ice Cold in Alex (1958),Tiger Bay (1959),North West Frontier (also 1959),The Guns of Navarone (1961), the originalCape Fear (1962), andMackenna's Gold (1969). He also directed cult classics like thePlanet of the Apes sequels,The White Buffalo (1977),Happy Birthday to Me (1981),King Solomon's Mines (1985) and severalCharles Bronson vehicles[2] forCannon Films in the 1980s.[3][4][5][6]
Thompson received anAcademy Award nomination forBest Director forThe Guns of Navarone. He was also a four-timeBAFTA Award nominee (twice forBest Film and twice forOutstanding British Film). He also received accolades from theBerlin International Film Festival and theCannes Film Festival, and was both aGolden Globe andDirectors Guild of America Award nominee.
Thompson was born in the Bristol suburb ofWestbury on Trym on 1 August 1914.[7] His family had links to the theatre.[clarification needed] Thompson studied atDover College then went to work in the theatre, joining the Nottingham Repertory Company as an actor and stagehand. He later went to work for a repertory company in Croydon, Surrey.[citation needed]
He wrote plays in his spare time, continuing a hobby he had started at the age of nine. One of them,Murder Happens? was performed at Croydon in 1934. His second staged play,Double Error, had a brief West End run at the Fortune Theatre in 1935. An article from this time about the play said he had written 40 plays already, including four in between his first two staged plays.[8][9] A company worth £10,000 was formed to exploit Thompson's writings over the next seven years but this appears to have not had a long life.[10]
Thompson later said he had written a part for himself to perform, but when management asked him if he wanted to do so he said "of course not," and "the die was cast. Later I decided if I didn't have the guts to admit I wanted to play the role I should never act again and I never did."[11]
The film rights toDouble Error were purchased for £100.[12] Thompson was hired to work in the scriptwriting department atBritish International Pictures at Elstree Studios. While there he made his one appearance as an actor in films, playing a small role inMidshipman Easy (1935).
His first credit wasThe Price of Folly (1937), based on his play. He also worked on the scripts forGlamorous Night (1937), and he worked as dialogue coach onJamaica Inn (1939), directed byAlfred Hitchcock.
He wrote the scripts forThe Middle Watch (1940), made atAssociated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) andEast of Piccadilly (1941).
Thompson served in World War II as a tailgunner and wireless operator in theRAF. In 1942 a revised version ofDouble Error, titledMurder Without Crime, opened at theComedy Theatre in London. The play had a run on Broadway in 1943.[13]
After the war Thompson returned to his work as scriptwriter under contract at Associated British on such films asNo Place for Jennifer (1949) andFor Them That Trespass (1949), the latter starring Richard Todd in his debut.
Thompson was dialogue director onThe Hasty Heart (1949), which turned Todd into a star. He later said he gave up dialogue directing because he found the job "impossible. My job was to take stars through their lines but I felt that I was also expected to be a spy for the front office. If a word was altered they wanted to know why. It was a way of keeping control."[14]
The same year his playThe Human Touch, co-written withDudley Leslie, ran for more than a hundred performances at theSavoy Theatre in a production starringAlec Guinness.[15]
His first film as a director wasMurder Without Crime (1950), made at ABPC, who put Thompson under contract. Thompson was offered £500 for the screen rights to the play and £500 to direct. He said "it was not so much that I wanted to direct movies it was to get the money so I could continue writing plays. But while directing it I got the feeling that I wanted to be a movie director."[12]
Thompson said "the fact is I found directing to be much easier than writing and I enjoyed it much more than writing as well. So I became a film director."[16]
The film was about a man who thinks he has committed murder. Thompson also wrote the screenplay, based on his own playDouble Error. In the words of Thompson's Screenonline profile "this well structured film went largely unnoticed but contained many of the themes which were to characterise Lee Thompson's work: a good person's struggle with their conscience, an external force of evil, and an out-of-character moment of violence which has long-term consequences. Believing people can "commit crimes without being criminals", he sought to make his audiences condone or at least understand behaviour that they would normally condemn."[17]
Thompson's first film success was one he directed and co-wrote (with Anne Burnaby),The Yellow Balloon (1953), the story of a child who is blackmailed into helping a criminal after accidentally causing his friend's death.
He followed it with a comedy,For Better, For Worse (1954) starringDirk Bogarde, which was even more popular though it is little remembered today.
Thompson's fourth film as directorThe Weak and the Wicked (1954), portrays the lives of women in prison and is based on memoirs byJoan Henry, who became Thompson's second wife. Thompson wrote the script, again in collaboration with Anne Burnaby. It starredGlynis Johns andDiana Dors and was a hit at the box office.[18] The success of the film greatly added to Thompson's prestige and he began to be regarded as one of the leading directors in the country.[19]
Thompson was loaned to Rank Films to direct aJack Buchanan comedy,As Long as They're Happy (1955), co-starring Dors andAn Alligator Named Daisy (1955), also starring Dors, along withDonald Sinden. Thompson said "he didn't like the subjects" of their film "but here was the opportunity to work with another worldbeater -Jeannie Carson."[20] He returned to ABPC and the theme of female prisoners inYield to the Night (1956), an anti-capital punishment tale withDiana Dors as the condemned prisoner.
Thompson later said the "pattern" of his ABPC films was "two pieces of tepid rubbish for one decent project – if I could persuadeRobert Clark, who was head of production. He used to wring his hands when I insisted. 'Okay,' he'd finally say. 'Do it if you must. But it won't make money.' I admired him for that really. He did give you a bit of a chance."[14]
The Good Companions (1957) was lighter fare, based on a book byJ. B. Priestley. According to one obituary Thompson "made excellent use of the CinemaScope screen, assembled a fine supporting cast and, with zestful choreography... came up with one of the few successes in a genre for which the British cinema was not noted."[16]
Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957), withYvonne Mitchell,Anthony Quayle andSylvia Syms and written byTed Willis, deals with the collapse of a 20-year marriage.[12] It was a major critical and commercial success, one of the most popular at the British box office in 1957.[21] Several modern critics have cited it as a prototypical version ofKitchen sink realism and precursor to theBritish New Wave. It won the 1958Golden Globe Award for Best English-Language Foreign Film.
Thompson had a big success withIce Cold in Alex (1958), the story of a British Army unit trekking across North Africa in the Second World War. It featuredJohn Mills, Sylvia Syms, Anthony Quayle andHarry Andrews. It won threeBAFTA Awards, including Best British Film. He followed it withNorth West Frontier (1959), an adventure film set in British India starringKenneth More andLauren Bacall. It was one of the most popular films in Britain in 1959.[22]
No Trees in the Street (1959) was a thriller written by Willis. Also in that genre wasTiger Bay (1959), starring John Mills. It introduced cinema audiences to Mills' daughter Hayley and German actorHorst Buchholz.Hayley Mills also earned a BAFTA for Most Promising Newcomer portraying a 12-year-old girl who refuses to betray a sailor accused of murder.
Thompson followed this withI Aim at the Stars (1960).
Thompson vaulted to international fame withThe Guns of Navarone (1961) as a last-minute replacement for directorAlexander Mackendrick. His take-charge attitude during its production earned him the nickname 'Mighty Mouse' from lead actorGregory Peck. Co-star Anthony Quinn said Thompson:
Never read a scene until he had to shoot it and approached each shot on a whim. And yet the cumulative effect was astonishing. Lee Thompson made a marvelous picture but how? Perhaps his inventiveness lay in defying convention, in rejecting the accepted methods of motion picture making and establishing his own. Perhaps it was in his very formlessness that he found the one form he could sustain, and nurture, the one form that could, in turn, sustain and nurture him. Perhaps he was just a lucky Englishman who pulled a good picture out of his ass.[23]
The Guns of Navarone, aWorld War II epic filmed on location inRhodes, Greece, was nominated for sevenAcademy Awards including Thompson for Best Director. In 1961 he said "primarily I am in the business to entertain. This does not mean that I never want to try artistic movies again. But I do not think you can sell art on the big movie circuits. Art belongs in the art houses."[12] Later he said "I liked the character bits best" aboutNavarone. "Anyone can make an explosion."[14]
The success ofNavarone won him entry into Hollywood, where he directedCape Fear (1962), a psychological thriller with Gregory Peck,Robert Mitchum,Polly Bergen andLori Martin; Peck and Mitchum co-producing the film. Based on a novel calledThe Executioners byJohn D. MacDonald,Cape Fear shows how a sex offender can manipulate the justice system and terrorise an entire family. Highly controversial for its time,[citation needed] the film was cut heavily in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
He worked on a project withWarren Beatty andClifford Odets based on an idea of Beatty's. It was never made.[11] Neither wasThe Short Cut which he discussed doing withDarryl F. Zanuck,[24] orThe Living Room from a novel byGraham Greene orChips with Everything byArnold Wesker.[25]
Thompson directedYul Brynner in the Cossack epicTaras Bulba (1962) for producerHarold Hecht. Thompson was going to follow it withBig Charlie starring Brynner but the movie was not made.[26] In 1962 the Mirisch Brothers signed the director to a four-picture contract.[27] The first film made under this contract was the Mayan Indian epicKings of the Sun (1963), starring Brynner.
In September 1962 Thompson said he would makeI Love Louisa withElizabeth Taylor produced by Arthur Jacobs.[28] (This film becameWhat a Way to Go!(1964) withShirley MacLaine.) He would put actors under personal contract like Talitha Pol.[29]
In September 1963 Thompson announced he had formed a company, Bowhall Productions, to make around four films a year in the $120,000-$160,000 budget range. Thompson said it was "unlikely" the films would "make a profit" but they were movies he "deeply wanted to make". They includedChips with Everything,Rose without a Thorn by Clifford Bax, and a film in Spain. FollowingReturn from the Ashes he would also make a $7 million movie in AfricaThunder of Giants.[30]
Instead he did another with MacLaine,John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1965).[31] Back in England Thompson madeReturn from the Ashes (1965) for the Mirisch Brothers.[32] In April 1965 Thompson announced he would makeHigh Citadel based on a novel byDesmond Bagley for the Mirisch Brothers.[33] These plans were postponed when Thompson received an offer to replace Michael Anderson, who had fallen ill before he was to start directing a thriller about cults withDavid Niven,Eye of the Devil (1967) (originally titled13).High Citadel was never filmed.[34] Another film announced but never filmed wasThe Case Against Colonel Sutton which he was going to do with producerMartin Poll.[35] Neither was a proposed musical remake ofThe Private Lives of Henry VIII.[36]
After a war film,Before Winter Comes (1968) Thompson was reunited with the star, producer and writer ofNavarone in theWesternMackenna's Gold (1969) but it did poorly at the box office.[37] So too did the espionage taleThe Chairman (1969) with Gregory Peck. He was meant to follow that withYou?, about assassination from a script by Andrew Sinclair.[38] It was never filmed. "I freely admit I've done some pretty bad stuff," he said in 1968. "It's entirely my own fault. The trouble was I accepted some dismal scripts. I wasn't tough enough... Writing is the fundamental thing."[14] Some have argued that Thompson's creative decline coincided with the end of his relationship with Henry.[39]
Back in the UK he directedCountry Dance, also known asBrotherly Love (1970). Thompson's handling of a smaller scale film impressed producer Arthur Jacobs, with whom Thompson had madeWhat a Way to Go; Thompson was the first director attached to the Jacobs productionThe Planet of the Apes and Thompson says he turned down the first two sequels. He was available to make the fourth and fifth movies in the series,Conquest of the Planet of the Apes andBattle for the Planet of the Apes. WriterPaul Dehn said Thompson had a reputation as someone with a drinking problem but that he had overcome it by the time of theApes films.[40]
"They were cutting back on the budgets the whole time after the first one", said Thompson later. "It was a bad policy."[41]
Thompson began working more in US television, directing the television filmsA Great American Tragedy (1972),Huckleberry Finn (1974) starringJeff East andPaul Winfield,The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1974) andWidow (1976) as well as the pilot episode ofThe Blue Knight (1975).
He returned to playwriting withGetting Away with Murder (1976).[42]
In 1976, Thompson began a long collaboration with actorCharles Bronson on theWarner Bros. crime storySt. Ives .[43] John Crowther, who worked with both men, later said "Thompson was the total antithesis of Charlie and they got along famously. They really worked well together".[44]
In 1977, Bronson and Thompson teamed again on an unconventional western film calledThe White Buffalo.[45]
Thompson directed two films starringAnthony Quinn,The Greek Tycoon andThe Passage.[46] Reviewing the latter,The Guardian called Thompson a director who "should know better but often doesn't".[47]The Globe and Mail argued Thompson was "possibly the worst experienced director working in the world today."[48]
Thompson directed the horror film,Happy Birthday to Me in 1980.
In 1981 Thompson and Bronson made the filmCaboblanco, which opened in Los Angeles on 24 April.[49] Also that year he directed an episode of the TV showCode Red, which he followed with another Bronson movie,10 to Midnight.[50]
Thompson worked with Bronson again on,The Evil That Men Do (1984), which was shot in Mexico. Thompson was hired to replace original director Fielder Cook, who was fired shortly before filming began. Producer Pancho Kohner said Thompson "knew exactly what shots he needed to put together the film... [Bronson] had a lot of respect for Lee. The whole crew appreciated when the director did not make them work over and over to get the same shot from different angles... He was just a terrific filmmaker".[44]
Also released that year wasThe Ambassador, starringRobert Mitchum.
On 22 November 1985,King Solomon's Mines premiered.[51] Thompson made this film as an Indiana Jones-style pastiche. It was shot in Zimbabwe and starredRichard Chamberlain. The film was reasonably successful at the box office.
On 18 April 1986,Murphy's Law, the Thompson and Bronson collaboration of that year, started its theatrical run. It is aneo-noirthriller film.[52] Acting in the film areKathleen Wilhoite,Carrie Snodgress,Robert F. Lyons, andRichard Romanus.[53] Thompson tried another Indiana Jones-type tale withFirewalker, which premiered on 21 November.[54] The film paired the actorsChuck Norris withLouis Gossett Jr. as its leads. The actionadventure co-starsWill Sampson andMelody Anderson.[55] Norris and Gossett play Max Donigan and Leo Porter, two soldiers of fortune, whose adventures rarely result in any notable gain. They are befriended by an inscrutable woman of mystery Patricia (Anderson). Patricia's map leads them on a quest for treasure in Central America. The name of the movie comes from the powerful guardian of the treasure.
Now working exclusively for Cannon, Thompson made two more Charles Bronson thrillers. On 6 November 1987Death Wish 4: The Crackdown was released and 16 September 1988 saw the opening ofMessenger of Death.[56][57] He later reflected, "I realized these films were not going to enhance my reputation. I had to live with that. You're not going to be offered the great films at a certain age."[58]
In February 1989, Thompson's final directorial effort was releasedKinjite: Forbidden Subjects starring Charles Bronson.[59]
In 1990, Thompson moved toSooke, British Columbia, Canada.[58]
In 1992, Thompson said he was trying to finance a remake ofTiger Bay withAnna Chlumsky andAlec Baldwin. The director said "I have certain regrets now. I would rather have stuck to making films likeYield to the Night which had some integrity and importance. But the British film industry caved in. I shouldn't denigrate myself too much because I have enjoyed making my films but I suppose I sort of sold out."[60]
Thompson was married three times. His first wife was Florence Bailey, whom he married in 1935 when he was 20. They had a son, Peter (1938–1997), who became a film editor on several of his father's films and predeceased him, and a daughter, Lesley, who survived him.[61] They divorced in 1957.
His second wife was prisoner and authorJoan Henry, whom he married in 1958. They collaborated onWeak and the Wicked andYield to the Night. He left her for actressSusan Hampshire. In March 1962 Hedda Hopper reported that Thompson was "sweating it out" in Los Angeles while Henry and Hampshire were "awaiting his decision in London."[62] Thompson confirmed this in an interview, and Hampshire and Henry were less forthcoming to the press.[63]
In September, Hopper reported that it was over between Thompson and Hampshire.[28] Henry and Thompson were divorced in the late 1960s.[64]
In November 1962, Thompson said he had proposed toShirley Ann Field who he said accepted then changed her mind.[65]
His third wife was Penny, who was his widow.
Thompson died of congestive heart failure on 30 August 2002, at his holiday home in Sooke, British Columbia, aged 88.
TheGuardian obituary called him "a compelling craftsman".[66]The Washington Post said "he directed adventure films noted for their punchy pacing, rich atmosphere and nuanced characterization."[67]Variety said he was "Known as a craftsman who had a clear sense of how each film should play, scene by scene".[68]
TheIndependent said "he lent his acute sense of atmosphere and vivid visual style to a wide range of material. His intimate kitchen-sink melodramas... were unflinching portraits of social realism unusually stark for their time. His thrillers were tautly edited exercises in suspense, and he also made some engaging comedies and a bracing musical...Though his later films can most kindly be labelled potboilers, his body of work in the Fifties and early Sixties was an impressive one."[16]
In a 2000 interview with theTimes Colonist, he stated that he made so many American films "because of my insecurity and effort to stay here. If I was given a script and it had something good in it I'd say, 'Good, I've got my next picture!' That is not the way to make good films, so some of them were good and some not so good.... What an idiot! 'You should have stayed at what you really wanted to make.' If I have anything to say to young directors today it's don't make a film for the sake of making it. Make it only if you really believe in it. Then success will eventually come to you."[58]
| Year | Award | Category | Title | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1956 | Cannes Film Festival | Palme d'Or | Yield to the Night | Nominated |
| 1957 | Berlin International Film Festival | Golden Bear | Woman in a Dressing Gown | Nominated |
| FIPRESCI Prize | Won | |||
| Special Mention | Won | |||
| 1958 | Golden Bear | Ice Cold in Alex | Nominated | |
| FIPRESCI Prize | Won | |||
| 1959 | Golden Bear | Tiger Bay | Nominated | |
| BAFTA Awards | Best Film | Nominated | ||
| North West Frontier | Nominated | |||
| 1961 | Golden Globe Awards | Best Motion Picture – Drama | The Guns of Navarone | Won |
| Best Director | Nominated | |||
| Directors Guild of America | Outstanding Directing | Nominated | ||
| Academy Awards | Best Director | Nominated |
