Sir Alan William Parker CBE (14 February 1944 – 31 July 2020)
Four years ago today Alan Parker passed away at the age of 76. He was an English film director, screenwriter and producer.
He began his career in his late teens working as a copywriter for the advertising company Collett Dickenson Pearce (CDP).
(For example Parker was the author of the ad copy on this Pretty Polly hold-ups print ad)
Parker encouraged CDP to move into the new emerging world of television advertising by asking his boss Colin Millward if he could have some money to experiment making a 16mm film in the agencies basement. This basement was a vast empty cavernous space as big as a car park. In fact it basically was a car park except a ramp had never been built for vehicle access so Parker nabbed it to create a film studio space.
As keen as Parker was to get going with TV ads he noticed that everyone around him seemed to know how to operate something except him.
"I had little or no knowledge of the mysteries of the Spectra light meter, the Arriflex camera, the Nagra tape recorder or the Moviola editing machine. Because of my ineptness, it was suggested that, as I had written the scripts, I should be the one who got to say 'Action' and 'Cut' – after all, any fool could do that."
Alan Parker the director was born.
They couldn’t afford professional actors so they used the staff at CDP for the pilot commercials. Volunteers from the accounting and media departments proved to be the most enthusiastic, being keen to break away from their actual jobs and being actors for a couple of hours.
Parker and his colleagues confidence grew making films in the basement and what they were attempting became more and more ambitious.
At one point they made an ad for Benson & Hedges Pipe Tobacco depicting a pre-1917 Russian ball, The ladies from The CDP accounts department were dressed in lace and tiaras while men from media-planning sporting in long tails and military uniforms and waltzed among the candelabra.
Apparently It was at that moment that John Pearce, CDP’s big boss, was conducting a tour of the agency’s main floor with a prospective client. The place was deserted with absolutely no one at their desks. “Where the hell is everyone?” he snapped.
“They’re in the basement with Alan Parker, making a commercial, Mr Pearce,”
answered a timid secretary.
John Pearce
The very next day Parker was summoned to the boardroom for a meeting with the bosses John Pearce was an eccentric, brilliant and imposing figure who chain-smoked and was rarely without a glass of whisky, at any time of day.
Pearce looked across the table at young Alan Parker and said, “Alan, you’re leaving.”
Parker was devastated! But Pearce continued,
“We’ve decided that you should leave and start a commercials production company.” “And we will underwrite a bank loan until you get on your feet”.
Another board member added. “And most probably, we’ll give you quite a bit of work to direct.”
So Parker left CDP.
Alan started a commercials company imaginatively called "The Alan Parker Film Company" along with the producer, Alan Marshall, who he had worked with at CDP.
Some really good stuff in that show reel and some brilliant recognisable acting talent. Well worth a watch.
Parker was responsible for a very popular and successful series of ads for the Italian Vermouth Cinzano that paired up the unlikely duo of Leonard Rossiter and Joan Collins.
Running a busy, successful and award winning TV Ad production studio was an amazing film school shooting a new commercial every week, sometimes two a week. He learned his craft, shot by shot, lens by lens, week in and week out.
As you may imagine being limited to making ads with the runtime of 30 seconds to sell booze, tobacco or frozen food et cetera did feel very limiting for a young aspiring filmmaker.
When Parker was still a lowly copywriter at CDP he had written an original screenplay, which became famed British film producer David Puttnam’s first film "Melody" (1971) which was directed by Waris Hussein and was a minor hit. The film teamed up Jack Wild & Mark Lester four years after they starred in Carol Reed's 1968 smash hit "Oliver!" and featured music by the Bee Gees.
Alan got his first taste of feature film directing in 1972, He received a phone call from his now friend David Puttnam, who was in the middle of producing the film "That’ll be the Day" (1973) starring David Essex and Ringo Starr.
Puttnam called Alan to ask if he could come to set and shoot a few scenes because the film director, Claude Whatham was sick. Parker was more than happy to help his friend out.
In 1974 Alan Parker landed the job of directing a Television film for the BBC "The Evacuees" written by Jack Rosenthal,
The film is set in the north west of England and involved the evacuation of school children from central Manchester to the comparative safety of quiet seaside towns during WW2.
Due to antisemitism the Jewish school in the story had been omitted from the Manchester schools’ list of wartime preparations so they were the last to be shipped off and their eventual evacuation was mired in confusion this story centred around two brothers Danny & Neville Miller.
This film went on to win the International Emmy Award and a BAFTA Award for direction.
Which definitely led to Parker being able to write and direct his first feature film.
"Bugsy Malone" (1976)
Directed by Alan Parker, Written by Alan Parker, Produced by Alan Marshall, Music by Paul Williams, Cinematography by Peter Biziou & Michael Seresin, Starring Jodie Foster, Scott Baio & John Cassisi.
In 1929 New York, a war between two rival gangsters, Fat Sam and Dandy Dan, rages. Meanwhile, an all-round nice guy, Bugsy Malone, falls for a singer at Fat Sam's speakeasy.
Just to get this into perspective Alan Parker's debut feature that he wrote and directed was a British/American co-production of a gangster musical comedy set in the 1920's but all the parts are played by child actors playing 1920's adults but the drinks are soft the cars are pedal powered and bullets are replaced with custard pies!
On paper that was truly bonkers!
The project came from interactions with his children,
"I had four young children and we used to go to a cottage in Derbyshire at weekends. On the long, boring car journey up there, I started telling them the story of a gangster called Bugsy Malone. They’d ask me questions and I’d make up answers, based on my memories of watching old movie reruns as a kid."
His eldest son suggested children should be cast as the "heroes".
This film was and still is unique. There are hundreds of stories and anecdotes surrounding the production of this film and it's easy to end up going down a rabbit hole which I don't have time for here.
In brief, The end product is a well executed vision of a bonkers premise that is brimming with charm. It was made for £575'000 (£3.8m in 2024) and received a positive reaction from the critics at home and in America and was pretty successful at the UK box office. The film was distributed in the UK by Fox-Rank Distributors but in the US the film was handled by Paramount Pictures who seemed to not know what to do with it.
Paramount gave it a "limited release" in second-tier theatres and showed it in a double-bill with "The Bad News Bears" which had been out for six months and was no longer pulling a crowd.
The film was first released on home video in 1980 and by 1985 between video sales and TV rights the film had made all its money back and had generated a profit of £1.8m (£5.4m in 2024)
I can't cover Bugsy Malone without mentioning the role of "Baby Face" in the film was played by the 9 year old Dexter Fletcher who went on to appear in films made by Derek Jarman, Ken Russell, David Lynch, Guy Ritchie & Mattew Vaughn and has become an accomplished director in his own right directing 5 films including the Elton John biopic "Rocketman" (2019)
Dexter was also the man who stepped in and completed the Queen biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody" after the disgraced Hollywood director Bryan Singer... was disgraced.
"Midnight Express" (1978) Directed by Alan Parker, Screenplay by Oliver Stone, Based on the memoir "Midnight Express" by Billy Hayes & William Hoffer, Produced by Alan Marshall & David Puttnam, Music by Giorgio Moroder, Cinematography by Michael Seresin, Edited by Gerry Hambling, Starring Brad Davis, Irene Miracle, Bo Hopkins, Randy Quaid, John Hurt &
Paul L. Smith.
Billy Hayes is a young American caught by Turkish police while attempting to smuggle hash out of Istanbul. He's tried and sent to prison for four years, where he endures all manner of privation and abuse. As he finishes up his time, he's shocked to learn that the Turkish High Court has added a further 30 years to his sentence. He is now thoroughly demoralised, and his life in prison grows increasingly unbearable until he concludes that escape is his only option.
As you can see this was a huge departure from a kids musical but switching genres and keeping things fresh was really what Parker was about even though he does revisit music periodically there definitely isn't an "Alan Parker type film".
Midnight Express is a harrowing film and it's upsetting that it is based on a true story.
The screenplay was written by Oliver Stone adapted from the memoir of the real life Billy Hayes a young American who received a life sentence in Turkey for attempting to smuggle 1.81 kg of hashish out of the country and back to America.
On release the film received generally positive reviews from critics. there was high praise of the cast in general but many highlighted Brad Davis performance as the lead Billy Hayes and the remarkable John Hurt as Max. The writing, the direction, and the musical score by Giorgio Moroder are all wonderful in this film.
Billy Hayes criticised the film for portraying the Turkish prisoners and guards as violent and villainous and for deviating too much from the source material.
The film was nominated for six Oscars, six BAFTA Awards, It was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, eight golden globes and a Grammy.
Winning, The best adapted screenplay Oscar for Oliver Stone and Best Original Score Oscar for Giorgio Moroder. Alan Parker won the BAFTA for best director and John Hurt won the BAFTA for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Gerry Hambling won the Best Editing BAFTA.
On the night Midnight Express took home six Golden Globes including Best Drama Film & Best Screenplay, the actors Brad Davis & Irene Miracle both got Golden Globes for their debut performances and John Hurt rightfully won Best Supporting Actor.
The film was made for $2.3 million and grossed over $35 million worldwide so not a blockbuster but this isn't Jaws.
On the whole the film is very well made and acted and I recommend it but it is not a fun romp.
It also now has a legacy of being pretty racist considering the most shocking and harrowing parts of the film are untrue and are designed to make the Turkish out to be savage, stupid and cruel.
David Denby of New York Magazine wrote,
Midnight Express as "merely anti-Turkish, and hardly a defence of prisoners' rights or a protest against prison conditions."
Denby also said that all Turks in the film – guardian or prisoner – were portrayed as "losers" and "swine", and that "without exception [all the Turks] are presented as degenerate, stupid slobs".
1978 was a different time and Oliver Stone is not a nice person that never lets facts get in the way of what he wants to write but I think it's wrong to dismiss the whole film just go in being aware of the issues.
End of Part One.
