Despite the logistics and expense of filming in Beirut and Manhattan my production of Only When I Larf went smoothly. It was not easy for Basil Dearden; although he had directed dozens of studio films he had never worked on an all-location one. He also had to put up with my choice of a very young lighting cameraman and such innovations as overhead lighting that permitted 360-degree camera pans and my insistence upon mixing daylight and artificial light without corrective coloured ‘gel’ screens. On the whole it proved a lucky production. The only major hitch was the noise of our big mobile generator which, parked on a street in Beirut, spoiled some of the recording. This demanded the added time and expense of some post-synched dialogue but Basil was a professional and we squeezed the budget to pay for it. I followed the film through the editing and entire post-production and decided that films could be made or crippled by these last weeks of work.
By this time, I was talking to all manner of people who wanted to be a part of the Oh! What A Lovely War film. I had half a dozen directors asking for the job – Basil Dearden had mentioned it almost every day on the set – and I even had offers from some of the Hollywood greats, including Gene Kelly. In any other circumstances, I would have given anything to work with Gene Kelly but this film dealt with an important chapter in Britain’s history and it had to have a British director. My screenplay brought many drastic changes to the stage version. The one-act-after-another ‘music-hall’ format of the stage show would not make a movie. There was no ‘story’ in it. For a film the words and songs had to be incorporated into written narrative; a story of the war that year by year reflected the nation’s mounting gloom and sadness. Individuals were combined to become the Smith family, whose men volunteered gladly to serve in the war that killed them. And most important of all, I had envisaged a powerful ending; a vast expanding landscape of graves accompanied by the wonderful old Jerome Kern song ‘They Didn’t Believe Me’. My script met the major challenges, which is why Bud Ornstein at Paramount had supported the project.
Like most screenplay writers, I had visualized each and every shot and kept an eye on the probable costs of each location and its whereabouts. Dicky Attenborough understood that it was going to be restricting to have a producer who had written the screenplay looking over his shoulder throughout the filming but after sitting around with me on the Only When I Larf locations, and listening to me explain my screenplay shot by shot, he promised to keep to every word of it, and welcomed having a storyboard artist to sketch proposals for each day’s camera set-ups. The daily storyboards were the work of Pat Tilley, a gifted artist who had been a close friend of mine since our days as illustrators. Bud Ornstein still had doubts about trusting such a big musical film to Dicky Attenborough, a first time director, and no doubt eyed me in the same way, but Charlie, who was an instinctive gambler, said we should take a chance and pointed out that if the worst came to the worst we could switch to another director at any time. I had already decided that Dicky had the energy and ambition that would be so important, and said so. At an evening meeting with Charlie and Bud in the Belgravia home of my agent, John Mather, a handshake deal was done. As I had promised everyone, Dicky stuck to my script and the weather was kind to us. For Dicky it was the beginning of a long and illustrious directing career and I am flattered that Oh! What A Lovely War is clearly his proudest achievement and the film with which his name is principally associated.
My years in film production were not a time of unalloyed joy but it provided challenges and delights in abundance. The crews and actors with whom I worked were talented and hard-working and did everything to help me. There was a lesson to learn every minute. For anyone who wants to know exactly how a movie is made there is no better way than to sign each and every cheque, with someone standing by to answer questions about the money’s destination. For most of my lessons, I gladly give credit to Mack Davidson, a wartime Spitfire pilot who, as my Executive Producer, guided and advised me constantly and became a close friend. Mack’s contribution to the making of both films was enormous. Mack died on the final day of shooting Oh! What a Lovely War. There had been no sign of illness and I was devastated. We had planned to make another film together and he had become like a wise and experienced elder brother to me.
Technology made the movie of Oh! What a Lovely War more complex than the stage show, which had the dashing exuberance that Joan Littlewood gave to everything she touched. My film would have no blood and no fighting, and death came as a bright red Flanders poppy. Brighton Pier – a glittering attraction – became the War, and from a constantly expanding booth General Haig sold tickets for it. Some film executives proclaimed such symbolism too subtle and for some perhaps it was. It was the skill and experience of Mack Davidson that gave me the confidence and encouragement that I needed to bring my unconventional movie ideas to fruition. Many other supporters deserve credits. I had a talented and indefatigable casting-director in Miriam Brickman. Casting was of course a vital ingredient and I was probably the first producer to use video equipment to cast most of the roles. This gave the actors the freedom to come to the Piccadilly office at any time convenient to them, and it gave me the chance to run, and rerun, the tapes as and when I had time, and to discuss the choices with Dicky Attenborough.
A crucial decision in the making of any musical entertainment is how to handle the transition from speech to song. In Joan’s delightfully old-fashioned act-by-act music-hall style, the abrupt insertion of songs was expected and welcomed. But musical films demand a smooth transition into music and song. Operas had used recitative for centuries and in the nineteen-thirties Rodgers and Hart, working in Hollywood, invented a simple device of rhymed conversation with musical background that easily moved into their songs. I couldn’t use this rhyming method because the entire dialogue for Joan’s Oh What A Lovely War! had actually been spoken during that war. I had added dialogue for scenes that were not in the stage version but I had kept to that restriction and used only words from the past. Joan introduced me to AJP Taylor, the eminent historian who had advised her, and he became an adviser to me and eventually a close friend. Getting everything right was a headache but it was an absorbing task. Perhaps my transitions were not perfectly smooth but they worked adequately.
The body movements of the actors and actresses – not just the dancers – were important to me and I brought in Eleanor Fazan, experienced choreographer, to oversee the whole production and to ensure that such devices as the leap-frogging officers could be smoothly integrated into the outdoor location. Together with Eleanor I checked out every dancer to make sure they looked right for the wartime period. I wanted the costumes to be authentic and to conform to the changes that the progress of the war brought. I found Tony Mendleson, a distinguished and experienced costume designer, and he gallantly accepted as a historical adviser May Routh, an art school friend of mine who later became a successful costume designer in Hollywood. Her knowledge of military and civil uniforms and experience as a fashion artist made a vital contribution to the film. The sketchbook she compiled during her research and the filming is a most lovely record and deserves to be published in volume form. To have the slings, medical dressings and bandages right I employed a Red Cross nurse to check such things prior to each shooting sequence. I had many sets built on the pier