The producer Michael Medwin recently told some remarkable tales to Radio Front Row, mostly relating his time with Memorial Enterprises, a production company he shared with Albert Finney where people would arrive at six and ‘open the booze cabinet’. Thereupon, things would happen. One of the things was Lindsay Anderson’s If…, for which Medwin recalls bamboozling the authorities at Cheltenham Boys’ College, the location Anderson desired for his school satire – which depicts a student rebellion.
Going in with what he describes as a ‘thin script’ Medwin was ‘lying like a good ‘un’ and claims to have ingratiated his encroaching production by favouring the teachers’ common room with sherry and ‘brown-nosing the headmaster’ who, apparently, loved the script with which he was initially provided. (Although ‘terrible reverberations’ were said to be heard elsewhere.) Medwin claimed to go on to ‘betray them left, right and centre’, which is perhaps the true work of a producer, getting things done however possible and leaving the talent time to ponder how all the arty bits fit together. Anyone who has seen Artie (played by the wonderful Rip Torn) do his thing on the Larry Sanders Show will be familiar with the concept. It was worth it, of course: If… went down a storm at Cannes, winning the Palme d’Or.
The film’s Wikipedia entry points to at least three other schools that substituted for Cheltenham during the shoot, while neither the school’s website (nor the alumni association) mention of the film or it’s director, who once attended it. Is Anderson the late, great bete noir of Cheltenham?
Some cinematic revelations are interesting, some you rather wish had stayed in the tin. The actor Bob Hoskins claims a simple yet unusual litmus test for script selection, which readers are suitably advised may conjure unpleasant images.
‘I take ‘em to the loo,’ claims the Mona Lisa star in his endearingly raspy London tones. Bob continues: ‘If I’m sitting there thinking “I’ve got a cold bum,” it must be a good script.’
A grisly if possibly sound process, but one with relaxed overtones that perhaps wouldn’t have gelled with John Hurt’s experience of the ruthless security on the recent Indiana Jones movie.
News hour, with Jerry Caesar 