Lewis Greifer (3 results)
More imagesUp Jumped a Swagman (Three original single-photo assemblages of images from the 1965 British film)
Frank Ifield, Annette Andre, Ronald Radd, Richard Wattis (starring); Christopher MIles (director); Lewis Greifer (screenwriter)
Published by N.p., N.p., 1965
- Photo
Seller: Royal Books, Inc., ABAA, Baltimore, MD, U.S.A.Royal Books, Inc., ABAA
Contact seller5-star sellerThree vintage single-photo assemblages of publicity and reference images from the 1965 British film musical. A musical comedy about a love triangle between a pub owner's daughter, a popular model, and an aspiring Australian singer. The film debut of Suzy Kendall. Shot on location in London. 8 x 10 inches. Stapled at the top left… corner. Good only, with dampstaining on the bottom corners.
More imagesPublished by Park Lane Films, 1957
- Softcover
Seller: Neil Pearson Rare Books, London, United KingdomNeil Pearson Rare Books
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Very good
£ 4,500.00
£ 22.50 shippingShips from United Kingdom to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. Shooting script, 33 mimeographed pp., stapled in to oversized red card wrappers. Typed title label to front cover, typed ownership label ('Park Lane Films Ltd., Quadrex House, Park Lane, W.1.') to inside front cover. Contents very clean, covers a little creased at edges, and with one small (1cm)… closed tear to leading edge. MORDECAI RICHLER'S FIRST SCREENPLAY, FOR ONE OF PETER SELLERS' MOST RARELY-SEEN FILMS. By the mid-1950s Peter Sellers was a huge radio star, thanks mostly to The Goon Show, but the film career which would later define him was yet to begin. In 1955 he appeared in The Ladykillers, his first major feature, with his idol Alec Guinness. Sellers' performance was excellent but the film failed to launch him, and for the next two years he continued to work on The Goon Show, appearing on screen only in spin-offs from his radio work (most notably The Case Of The Mukkinese Battle-Horn (1956), the closest a camera ever came to reproducing The Goon Show formula successfully). But in 1957 Sellers broke through at last: roles in The Smallest Show On Earth and The Naked Truth brought him to the attention of the Boulting Brothers, who cast him in Carleton-Browne Of The F.O. and I'm All Right Jack, both released in 1959, after which Seller's cinematic future was assured. At the beginning of 1957, however, Sellers didn't know all this was about to happen. Increasingly desperate to get things moving, he agreed to star in three short features, all of them comic pastiches of government information films: Cold Comfort, Dearth [sic] Of A Salesman and Insomnia Is Good For You. Insomnia. was produced by a new and unknown company, Park Lane Films, directed by Leslie Arliss, and co-written (in his screenwriting debut by the Canadian novelist) Mordechai Richler. (Richler would later work uncredited on the film adaptation of Room At The Top (1959), and make his most important contribution to cinema with the criminally underappreciated The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974), adapted from his own novel and starring a pre-Spielberg Richard Dreyfuss). Richler and Lewis Greifer's screenplay is light on dialogue, heavy on voiceover (provided by Sellers himself), and makes frequent use of stock footage -- all of which suggests both a tight budget, and a star desperate for screen time. In Insomnia Is Good For You Sellers plays Hector Dimwittie, a pen-pushing office worker. One Monday morning he is told by his boss to report to his office the following Friday. Dimwittie spends the intervening week unable to sleep, convinced he is about to be fired. When Friday comes he discovers that his boss merely wants him to spend the weekend showing some important clients the town. Relieved but shattered, he falls unwakeably asleep in the first bar they visit. All three of these films are rare. Ropey prints of both Cold Comfort and Dearth Of A Salesman were shown at the Cardiff Screen Festival in 2004, but they seem not to have been seen since. Insomnia Is Good For You has, for now at least, disappeared completely. Its last sighting is reported in a 2004 issue of the newsletter of the Peter Sellers Appreciation Society. The author of the article, Mr. Robert Farrow, tells of finding a number of film cans discarded in a skip in Park Lane in the early 1990s. He writes that six contained the master prints of all three films; six others contained the negatives; a further six had the soundtracks; and the last two contained the titles, credits and cuts. According to the article Mr. Farrow rescued the cans from the skip and had the films transferred to VHS. Mark Cousins, a leading authority on the work of Peter Sellers, tells us of a rumour that a screening of all three films once took place at a PSAS meeting many years ago. But neither we nor Mr. Cousins can find anyone to confirm this, and we have been unable to trace Mr. Farrow to ask him where the films are now (his article is silent on the subject). No Sellers biographer we have contacted has seen Insomnia.
More imagesPublished by Np [Ivy Films], N.p. [London], 1965
Seller: Neil Pearson Rare Books, London, United KingdomNeil Pearson Rare Books
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used
£ 1,250.00
£ 22.50 shippingShips from United Kingdom to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
92 mimeographed pp., with 10 pp. of another version bound in at rear with remnants of others, the whole bound in tan stiff paper wrappers secured with three split pins to left edge. Paper title label to top right of front wrapper Wrappers a little marked and worn, but a very well preserved copy. A COMPREHENSIVE ARCHIVE RELATING…TO THE MAKING OF UP JUMPED A SWAGMAN (1965), INCLUDING DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER MILES'S WORKING SCRIPT, HEAVILY ANNOTATED AND WITH HAND-DRAWN SHOT LISTS AND DIAGRAMS THROUGHOUT. Up Jumped A Swagman was a vehicle for the 60s Australian singing sensation Frank Ifield, who by 1965 had had four number-one singles in the UK. The film co-starred Suzy Kendall, Annette Andre and Richard Wattis, and looked to emulate the success of other hip and zany teen pics of the time like Expresso Bongo (1959) and Summer Holiday (1963). While bright and breezy enough the film is hamstrung by Ifield's limited acting ability, as well as a budget which clearly didn't stretch to filming much of Swinging London.On the upside there's an extended riff on the heist sequence of Rififi (1955) and a neat shot composed in homage to Last Year at Marienbad (1961), although these references were almost certainly lost on Swagman's target audience. The film was directed by Christopher Miles, only twenty-five years old at the time and with just three short films to his credit. (Miles and Ifield were represented by the same agent, Leslie Grade.) Miles' career began in 1963 with the Oscar-nominated short film The Six-Sided Triangle, starring Sarah Miles, Christopher's sister. He went on to direct D.H. Lawrence's The Virgin and the Gypsy (1970), Jean Genet's The Maids (1974) and the D.H. Lawrence biopic Priest of Love (1981), an early screen success for Ian McKellen. Miles' working copy of the shooting script has his ownership signature to the front wrapper, and 'REVISED SCRIPT' with the date 12 February 1965 to both the title page and the title label to the front wrapper (many pages, bound in later, carry a revision date of '7/4/65'). The script is extensively annotated and revised, and many of the blank versos are covered with Miles's shot lists for the more elaborate scenes, and often accompanied by diagrams. Bound in at the rear are pages from an earlier draft, also used by Miles for notes and diagrams. The accompanying paper archive comprises: i) 28pp. mimeographed breakdown. Director's copy, with Miles' ownership signature to front wrapper, 'Copy No. 2' to title label, cast and unit lists with a few hand-written corrections bound in at rear; ii) 7pp. casting folder, printed audition lists heavily annotated by Miles. ('ANNETTE ANDRE: Charming and a little demure.' 'DUDLEY SUTTON: Didn't come.'); iii) Small quantity of correspondence and associated material in a yellow folder, including song and lyric lists for pre-record; set plan and cross plot; supporting cast lists and breakdowns, and screen test itineraries. Also present is a copy of a letter from Leslie Grade, Ifield's agent, to producer Andrew Mitchell asking for the deletion of scenes set in a strip club, and reminding him of the importance of a 'U' certificate for the film (Grade got his way); iv) Small collection of 10 x 8 b&w set photographs -- including one of the scene referencing Last Year at Marienbad (1961), inscribed by Miles to reverse: '"Up Jumped a Swagman" or "This Year at Marylebone!" Frank Ifield and Annette André forground [sic].' v) Original quad poster, in fine condition.
