Richard Lester’s directing career has had a rather tortured epilogue. His last completed film was the dreadful, unloved Return of The Musketeers (1989), during the making of which his long-time friend and troupe-member Roy Kinnear died after a freak accident. To add insult to injury, the Comic-Con crowd has been burning Lester in effigy ever since Richard Donner’s cut of Superman II was released in 2006. Donner had been fired as director of the 1980 sequel half way through filming and Lester was hired to finish the job. Since the release of the Donner cut, expressing a preference for the original, jokier version is rather like suggesting that Cesar Romero was a better Joker than Heath Ledger.
I do wonder sometimes whether the fanboys realise what an important, highly influential and iconoclastic director they’re dismissing when they’re kicking sand into Lester’s face. Martin Scorsese would certainly correct them (sternly,...
I do wonder sometimes whether the fanboys realise what an important, highly influential and iconoclastic director they’re dismissing when they’re kicking sand into Lester’s face. Martin Scorsese would certainly correct them (sternly,...
- 7/8/2014
- by Cai Ross
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
I met Bob Godfrey in 1952 when I joined the William Larkin studio in Mayfair. To relieve the boredom of the industrial instructional films we were making, Bob and I started working on cartoon films in his basement in Tufnell Park, north London. In 1955 we left Larkin's and started Biographic Films, specifically to make commercials for ITV. We had the first cartoon commercial on the first night of ITV in September 1955.
For Courage Ales we made a series of live-action ads parodying silent cinema. The commercials, complete with title cards, followed the adventures of a villain, a lady and a dashing hero – the last played by Bob himself. They typically ended with the rescued damsel telling the hero to claim his reward: he always chose the ale. We filmed one behind King's Cross station and another in Bognor Regis; I was left with the equipment when the tide came in.
We...
For Courage Ales we made a series of live-action ads parodying silent cinema. The commercials, complete with title cards, followed the adventures of a villain, a lady and a dashing hero – the last played by Bob himself. They typically ended with the rescued damsel telling the hero to claim his reward: he always chose the ale. We filmed one behind King's Cross station and another in Bognor Regis; I was left with the equipment when the tide came in.
We...
- 2/22/2013
- by Keith Learner
- The Guardian - Film News
Director Richard Lester (Superman II, A Hard Day’S Night) has been presented with the BFI.s highest accolade, the BFI Fellowship, following a screening of one of his best-loved films, Robin and Marian at BFI Southbank. The award was presented by BFI Chair, Greg Dyke.
Richard Lester said .When my career was just beginning, the elegant TV critic Bernard Levin came to see me in rehearsal with Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. He wrote: ‘he seems an amiable young man who climbed into a lion’s cage and realised he’s forgotten his chair and his whip.’
Some 50 years later, I still haven’t found a whip, but with this extraordinary honour, the BFI has kindly given me a chair..
Greg Dyke said, .Richard Lester has created a unique body of work which has enriched the lives of millions with his brilliantly surreal humour and innovative style. Although born...
Richard Lester said .When my career was just beginning, the elegant TV critic Bernard Levin came to see me in rehearsal with Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. He wrote: ‘he seems an amiable young man who climbed into a lion’s cage and realised he’s forgotten his chair and his whip.’
Some 50 years later, I still haven’t found a whip, but with this extraordinary honour, the BFI has kindly given me a chair..
Greg Dyke said, .Richard Lester has created a unique body of work which has enriched the lives of millions with his brilliantly surreal humour and innovative style. Although born...
- 3/26/2012
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Sixty boxes of notes and photographs cover 40-year career of director who worked with Beatles and on Superman films
Richard Lester – the movie director who helped give the Beatles big screen success in the 1960s before finding more fame with The Three Musketeers and Superman franchises – has donated his archive to the nation.
The BFI National Archive yesterday announced that it had acquired more than 60 boxes of letters, scripts, notes, receipts and photographs covering Lester's 40 year career in the TV and movie business.
Highlights include early drafts for the film A Hard Day's Night – then simply called The Beatles – and letters from stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Charlton Heston, Raquel Welch and Spike Milligan.
Lester, now aged 78, has had a long association with the BFI, standing in for Jean-Luc Godard when he failed to turn up for the first John Player lecture in 1968. "The organisation has always been very helpful to me in different ways,...
Richard Lester – the movie director who helped give the Beatles big screen success in the 1960s before finding more fame with The Three Musketeers and Superman franchises – has donated his archive to the nation.
The BFI National Archive yesterday announced that it had acquired more than 60 boxes of letters, scripts, notes, receipts and photographs covering Lester's 40 year career in the TV and movie business.
Highlights include early drafts for the film A Hard Day's Night – then simply called The Beatles – and letters from stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Charlton Heston, Raquel Welch and Spike Milligan.
Lester, now aged 78, has had a long association with the BFI, standing in for Jean-Luc Godard when he failed to turn up for the first John Player lecture in 1968. "The organisation has always been very helpful to me in different ways,...
- 8/22/2010
- by Mark Brown
- The Guardian - Film News
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