Carol Reed | |
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| Born | (1906-12-30)30 December 1906 Putney, London, England |
| Died | 25 April 1976(1976-04-25) (aged 69) Chelsea, London, England |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1935–1972 |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 1 |
| Parent | Herbert Beerbohm Tree (father) |
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Sir Carol Reed (30 December 1906 – 25 April 1976) was an English film director and producer, best known forOdd Man Out (1947),The Fallen Idol (1948),The Third Man (1949), andOliver! (1968),[1] for which he was awarded theAcademy Award for Best Director.
Odd Man Out was the first recipient of theBAFTA Award for Best British Film.The Fallen Idol won the second BAFTA Award for Best British Film. TheBritish Film Institute votedThe Third Man thegreatest British film of the 20th century.
Carol Reed was born inPutney, southwest London.[2] He was the son of actor-producerSir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and hismistress, Beatrice May Pinney, who later adopted the surname of Reed.[3][4] He was educated atThe King's School, Canterbury.
He embarked on an acting career while still in his late teens. A period in the theatrical company of the thriller writerEdgar Wallace followed, and Reed became his personal assistant in 1927.[5] Apart from acting in a few Wallace-derived films himself, Reed became involved in adapting his work for the screen during the day while he was a stage manager in the evenings. This connection ended when Wallace died in February 1932. Taken on byBasil Dean, Reed worked for hisAssociated Talking Pictures, successively for ATP as a dialogue director, second-unit director and then assistant director.[6] His films in the later role working under Dean wereAutumn Crocus,Lorna Doone andLoyalties and (withThorold Dickinson)Java Head.
His earliest films as director were "quota quickies".[citation needed] Of his experience makingMidshipman Easy (1935) his first solo directorial project he was harsh on himself. "I was indefinite and indecisive", he said later. "I thought I had picked up a lot about cutting and camera angles, but now, when I had to make all the decisions myself and was not just mentally approving or criticising what somebody else decided, I was pretty much lost. Fortunately, I realised that this was the only way to learn – by making mistakes."[5]Graham Greene, then reviewing films forThe Spectator, was much more forgiving, commenting that Reed "has more sense of the cinema than most veteran British directors".[7] Of Reed's comedyLaburnum Grove (1936), he wrote: "Here at last is an English film one can unreservedly praise". He was perceptive about Reed's potential, describing the film as "thoroughly workmanlike and unpretentious, with just the hint of a personal manner which makes one believe that Mr. Reed, when he gets the right script, will prove far more than efficient."[8]
Reed's career began to develop withThe Stars Look Down (1940), from theA. J. Cronin novel, which featuresMichael Redgrave in the lead role. Greene wrote that Reed "has at last had his chance and magnificently taken it." He observed that "one forgets the casting altogether: he [Reed] handles his players like a master, so that one remembers them only as people."[9]
The scripts of several of Reed's films in this period were written byFrank Launder andSidney Gilliat, with the screenwriters and director working for producerEdward Black, who released through the British subsidiary of20th Century Fox.[10] The best known of these films are probablyNight Train to Munich (1940), withRex Harrison;Kipps (1941), again with Michael Redgrave; andThe Young Mr. Pitt (1942), withRobert Donat in the title role, set during theFrench Revolutionary andNapoleonic Wars.
From 1942, Reed served in theRoyal Army Ordnance Corps: he was granted the rank of Captain and placed with the film unit, and then with the Directorate of Army Psychiatry.[11] For the latter body a training film,The New Lot (1943), was made, recounting the experiences of five new recruits. It had a script byEric Ambler andPeter Ustinov, with contributions from Reed, and was produced byThorold Dickinson. It was remade asThe Way Ahead (1944).
Reed made his three most highly regarded films just after the war, beginning withOdd Man Out (1947), withJames Mason in the lead. It is the tale of an injured IRA leader's last hours in an unidentified Northern Irish city. In fact,Belfast was used for the location work, but it remains unnamed in the film. FilmmakerRoman Polanski has repeatedly cited it as his favourite film.[12]
It was the producerAlexander Korda, to whom Reed was now signed, who introduced the director to the novelistGraham Greene.[13] The next two films were made from screenplays by Greene:The Fallen Idol (1948) andThe Third Man (1949).
The Third Man was co-produced byDavid O. Selznick and Korda, with the American actorsOrson Welles andJoseph Cotten in two of the leading roles. Reed insisted on casting Welles as Harry Lime, although Selznick had wantedNoël Coward for the role. The film required six weeks of location work inVienna, during which Reed by chance discoveredAnton Karas, the zither player who became responsible for the film's music, in a courtyard outside a small Viennese restaurant.[13]
Reed once said: "A picture should end as it has to. I don't think anything in life ends 'right'". While Greene wanted Holly Martins (Cotten) and Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli) to reconcile at the end of the film, after Lime, her lover, is killed by Martins, Reed insisted that Anna should ignore him and walk on. "The whole point of the Valli character in that film is that she'd experienced a fatal love – and then comes along this silly American!"[13]
According to the film criticDerek Malcolm,The Third Man is the "best film noir ever made out of Britain".[1] The film won the Grand Prix at theCannes Film Festival,[6] the predecessor of thePalme d'Or.
Outcast of the Islands (1952), based on a novel byJoseph Conrad, is considered by some to mark the start of his creative decline.[14]The Man Between (1953) is dismissed as a rehash ofThe Third Man.[2] It "makes no startling impact, such as we have learned to expect from its director, on either the mind or the heart", complained Virginia Graham inThe Spectator.[15] While the fableA Kid for Two Farthings (1955), Reed's first colour film, set in theEast End of London, has been claimed as one of very few authentic cinematic depictions of an Anglo-Jewish community,[16] it suffers from the stereotyping of Jews[17] and is no more than a "whimsical curiosity" according to Michael Brooke.[16] It was the last film Reed made for Korda'sLondon Films; the producer died at the beginning of 1956.
Trapeze (1956) was Reed's first venture into the then relatively newCinemaScope wide screen process, and, although largely shot in Paris, was made for the USHecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions company and was a success at the box-office. Reed was going to makeSummer of the Seventeenth Doll for that company but withdrew after the budget was cut.[18]
Our Man in Havana (1959) reunited him with Graham Greene who adapted his own novel.
He was contracted to direct a remake ofMutiny on the Bounty (1962) byMGM, but thenMarlon Brando was cast asFletcher Christian, and problems with the mockBounty and the weather at the locations caused delays.[19] Brando had insisted on creative control,[20] and the two men argued incessantly. Reed left at a relatively early stage of production and was replaced byLewis Milestone.[21]The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), made in the United States, was a box-office failure, and was the last film over which Reed also served as producer.Oliver! (1968), made atShepperton inSurrey, was financially backed byColumbia, and won theAcademy Award for Best Director. "The movie may have been over-produced but it seemed everyone liked it that way", writes Thomas Hischak.[22]
From 1943 until 1947, he was married to the British actressDiana Wynyard. After their divorce, he married in 1948 the actressPenelope Dudley-Ward, also known as Pempie, the elder daughter ofFreda Dudley Ward, who had been a mistress of Edward,Prince of Wales (laterKing Edward VIII, then Duke of Windsor). They had one son. His stepdaughterTracy Reed, Ward's daughter, also had an acting career.[23] ActorOliver Reed was his nephew.
In 1952, he became only the secondBritish film director to be knighted for his craft. The first was SirAlexander Korda in 1942, the producer of some of Reed's most admired films.
Reed died from aheart attack on 25 April 1976, aged 69, at his home at213 King's Road,Chelsea, where he had lived since 1948. He is buried inKensington Cemetery,Gunnersbury, West London. Ablue plaque has been placed on his former home in his honour.
Carol Reed directed films for 40 years, but his golden period was brief. It covered three years in the late '40s when he madeOdd Man Out,The Fallen Idol andThe Third Man. These three films alone put him in the forefront of British directors of the period, and the last-named, his second collaboration with Graham Greene, is probably the best film noir ever made out of Britain.
