Pamela Mann Francis Side 1
Alan Lawson 0:00
The copyright of this recording is vested in the BECTU History Project. Pamela Mann, later to become Pamela Mann Francis, feature film continuity; interviewer Alan Lawson, recorded on the sixth of January 1994 side one, the original start of this interview is missing. Pam was born in London in 1927 and went to a secondary modern school in Wembley. Her father was in the motor business until the outbreak of war. Now we'll now pass over to Pamela describing the rest of the interview. I'm sorry about this.
Pamela Mann-Francis 0:56
My [father was a] director in a small motor company in Mayfair. And then when the war came along, he sort of freelanced and eventually became, eventually took out a small finance company, Century Motor Finance, and ran that for many, many years until he retired. So we were all, you know, he was always involved with cars and
Alan Lawson 1:28
what about schooling? Schooling
Pamela Mann-Francis 1:32
I was the girl of the family, so the education money was spent on my brother and I went to what was, in fact, a secondary modern school in those days in Wembley, funnily enough, very close to where Freddie was in the Army. I was being schooled just round the corner from where Freddie was in the Army Film [Unit], you know, what was it? AKS at Wembley Studios. So, strangely enough, though, we never met in those days. We I was very close to him.
Alan Lawson 2:05
What was your kind of ambition to be in those days?
Pamela Mann-Francis 2:10
I don't, I certainly didn't have any ambitions for the film [industry]. I was a great film fan. I mean, I was, as we were. I mean, we went to the cinema every week, and sometimes twice a week, sometimes three times. I mean, depending what films were about. And of course, most, or a lot of my schooling was during the war, and even then, I mean, we went out to the cinema, whether they were air raids or not. We used to get the bus up to Wembley High Street, the one cinema, one of our cinemas was taken over by the army, which was the Capital Cinema in Wembley, that was taken over by the AKS, but there were still three cinemas in Wembley. There was the Wembley Hall, which was an independent. There was the majestic which is now Tescos, I think. And there was the, and that was Odeon. And then, of course, there was the, what was it ABC? Was it the ABC, which was the Ritz, and we'd go, as I say, once, twice, three times a week, sometimes. So I was, I was brought up as a kid as a film fan, but didn't really consider that the film industry was anything much to do with me, and after my... I went from this secondary modern school to, I mean, what did girls do in those days, secretarial work. I went to Pitman's Training College, and from there, went into... my first job was with an advertising agency. Strange, had nothing to do with commercials in those days. So commercials were almost not thought of at all. I think there was a small division at Dorland Advertising thinking about them. Dorlands, yes, yes. And, and then went from there a slight sort of step closer, I went to a music publishing company. Again, it's strange, because music publishing is now tied up with videos, which our son is involved with, but it wasn't in those days. I mean, it was the shape, say, sheet music sales, which were important.
Alan Lawson 4:16
Who in the company? What company was that?
Pamela Mann-Francis 4:17
That was a small company which was a subsidiary of Chappells, which was called Bradbury Wood, and it was the days of song plugging and going around and visiting the yeah, absolutely for sheet music sales and records even didn't seem to be, I mean, the records were important, there were Decca and HMV. But that was the important thing, and through them, through that company, I met a girl who was a singer called Jean English, who was married to a guy who worked for Rank under Theo Cowan... their publicity department provided escorts for these young Rank starlets they had to go to premieres and people like... who were they? who would they be? Sandra Dorne and Diana Dors? And these people would go to premieres, and always had to be seen with a young, well dressed escort. And it was through this girl that I met, met her husband. There was, there was Theo Cowan, was the head [of publicity], he always, he always escorted Margaret Lockwood to premiere, Theo. And there were two, these two other boys, John, I think, one was called John McFadden, and one was called Paddy Fleming. And they were film starlet escorts. And I met this guy, and through general chatting, he suddenly phoned me one day and said there was a job going at Imperial House Regent Street, which was the Rank head office, or one of the Rank head offices - there was South Street, there was Imperial House, Regent Street. And I went there, and I was only there a few weeks when a job came up at Pinewood, in the Publicity Department, for a publicity director of Wessex Films, which was Ian Dalrymple's company, and she was a lady publicity director called Joy Raymond. And so I went down to Pinewood, in the publicity department, and worked on those films, which were films like... they had, they just made a disaster, which was called Esther Waters, which was, I think, I'm not sure it wasn't the first film. I think Dirk Bogarde was in it, but I'm not sure, Kathleen Ryan, and they then went on to make, I mean, it was very much Dirk's early days. I think he was under contract to Wessex, actually, yes, and made Once a Jolly Swagman... Just trying to think what other films were made under that Wessex banner, a film called All Over the Town, in which Bryan Forbes played a little news boy, Sarah Churchill and Norman Wooland. And then suddenly, Pinewood... Denham came over to Pinewood. Denham and Pinewood combined, and the publicity department was then put under one banner all the companies, there was Wessex, Mayflower, which was Aubrey Baring and Max Setton.
Um.. what other companies were there?
...can't remember for the moment,
Alan Lawson 7:43
Two Cities?
Pamela Mann-Francis 7:43
Cineguild, of course, Cineguild was part of that. I think Cineguild actually came over from Denham, and then we were under this publicity director who died last year, called Stuart Chant. And that was the main publicity department for Rank based at the studios, and I was there for a few years.
Alan Lawson 8:12
What actually were you doing?
Pamela Mann-Francis 8:14
I was a secretary in the publicity department. Yes, general dogs body, that's right. And we had unit publicists. Then one of them was Norman Hudis, who became a writer. I think he actually wrote... or was involved in some of those comedies at Pinewood, I'm not sure. I think he did do. I was just trying to think he did do, because the other company that came over, Betty, Betty Box and Peter Rogers, they came over from, because the Bush came over to Pinewood, everything, everything sort of concentrated at Pinewood, as the studios closed down. Islington closed down, didn't it? Southall closed down. And eventually Denham and Worton Hall. I suppose, I don't know, Worton Hall, no, Worton Hall wasn't Rank, was it? No, that's right, Worton Hall combined with Shepperton. So I was a secretary, and then, just let me think of the order of things. I wanted, by that time, to get into production. It seemed to be great to get into production. Publicity was... and I was, I had a girlfriend, completely independently of the industry, who was a production secretary with with the Wilcox, with Herbert Wilcox, which is why I said Worton Hall, and she was at Worton Hall. And through her, we used to go to ice hockey matches together. And through her, she had worked a lot with George Maynard, aproduction manager called George Maynard, who was Production Manager with Wilcox. And as that sort of went rotten, she left. But George Maynard was looking for a production secretary for a picture at Elstree called Master of Ballantrae, which was one of the last films that Errol Flynn... Errol Flynn in the twilight
Alan Lawson 10:13
Where are we in time now?
Pamela Mann-Francis 10:14
50... I came in in 1948, Pinewood, 1948 and 1949 and I guess that I got to, into the production department, 50 or 51. I think Master of Ballantrae was about 51 and I went to Elstree, which was then ABPC for this film, which starred a very aging and very puffy Errol Flynn doing sword fights. Anthony Steel and Beatrice Campbell were the stars and
Alan Lawson 10:59
In quotes.
Pamela Mann-Francis 11:00
In quotes, yes, and I mean, I knew nothing about the production department at all, but I staggered through and some very error ridden production, what were they called, progress reports? And from that, from that picture, which was just, I mean, I worked on as a freelance production secretary, but I had no ACT membership, and it was very hard. I mean, it's funny now, when you think about it, it was almost impossible to get into ACT, they didn't like me, doing, being a production Secretary. I have a feeling that, in fact, I was an under production secretary, and the official production secretary was Hippie... Hippie was Winifred Hipwell, who was, I suppose she was really a senior production secretary and had the ACT membership. And because it was a biggish picture for those days, I was the sort of, again, the dogsbody, sort of doing the typing. And I should have done some research on this. I'm just trying to think of how I I went. I think I went back to the publicity department then, but went up to the Rank head office, which was South Street, working under Theo Cowan, who by that time, got a slightly wider brief than just being just the scort agency which he'd run. There was Theo Cowan and David Purcell, and that was at South Street. And I was not very happy at being back in the publicity department again, which I then regarded as being very minor player in the game, and suddenly I had a call from 146 Piccadilly, from a girl called Valerie somebody, who'd married Michael Pertwee. She married Michael Pertwee, the writer, and she was secretary to Norman Spencer and David Lean at 146 Piccadilly. And was I interested? And so I was very interested, and I jumped from, finally, from the publicity department, over to 146 Piccadilly, and started with Norman Spencer and David Lean. I was secretary to the two of them, and that was pre Sound Barrier. And we worked on the script of The Sound Barrier and the casting of Sound Barrier at 146 Piccadilly.
And then pre-production we jumped down to Shepperton. And so that was my second studio, really. And at Shepperton we were, in fact, in an office over the West Rex Theatre, which was the West Rex Theatre at Shepperton. And I stayed, you know, as I say, I was David and Norman's secretary there for Sound Barrier. We then moved back to 146 Piccadilly and the next picture that was prepared and scripted there was Hobson's Choice, which we, you know, we were at the London base. We then, which, of course, was close to David's home, because David lived in Kensington at Ilchester Place. And we then hopped down again to Shepperton for the production of Hobson's Choice. They went off on location to Yorkshire, but I stayed at the studio. I used to hate that [laughs]. But of course, a lot of it was shot in the studio, though there was a location up in Yorkshire. The, all the, the set, the Moonraker [pub] and the shop were all built on the lot at Shepperton. All the moon reflecting sequence was all done at Shepperton. Jack Hildyard was the cameraman, and very much, of course, that camera department at Shepperton was, was sort of fed, fed the production. I remember that very clearly. Hobson, Hobson's Choice, so that, those two pictures for Korda, I think, am I right...
David didn't do another picture again there, because we then went up to, we then, he was involved, got involved with Ilya Lopert, the American producer, in association with Korda. Korda was somehow involved. I suppose he let David out, and I went to work with a writer, American writer, quite famous American writer earlier on, called Donald Ogden Stewart, who'd written the original script for Philadelphia Story, who lived in Hampstead because he was one of the Un-American lot, because his wife was, in fact, a communist. I mean, she was Ella Winter. She'd been a war correspondent in Moscow, and she was, she was a real American red, I mean, there's no question about it. And I worked at their Hampstead house, and I met Katherine Hepburn there, who was a great friend of theirs. How Katie Hepburn ever was not indicted in the the American, un-American activities I've never known because she was very firm friends with him, very loyal friend to them, and somehow escaped that, that taint which which is raised or has always been very strange for me, because I met her, as I say, at their house, and he wrote a script which did not please David at all, of this Arthur Lawrence play, which was called The Time of the Cuckoo. And he, David was not pleased at all. And eventually we went out to Venice. That was my first... David suddenly said to me, we're going to Venice and we're going to work on the script out there. And he got H.E. Bates, lovely English writer, and we went out to Venice and worked on the script in Venice. David did a lot of scripting himself, and H.E. Bates came in with him, and that really started David's perambulations around the world, because he, he never really went back to a studio base again, and Summer Madness was shot. It had a tiny studio in Venice, there was a tiny studio on the Giudecca island, which we shot a few little bits and pieces.
Alan Lawson 16:03
But you were still production secretary?
Pamela Mann-Francis 18:18
I was, I was both on that. I became unofficially, still with no union membership, I was desperately trying to get a union membership. I didn't get my union membership until after Bridge on the River Kwai, I think, no, pretty sure I didn't. You could probably check it up, actually, 17684, is my number, which is way down from his number. Yours is what can't remember... he's an honorary member now. But 17684, ah. No, it was actually Bridge on the River Kwai I got it on, because after Summer Madness, I came back. David... Korda didn't die till Wind Cannot Read, did he? Ah... I'm just trying to sort out the chronology now, after Summer Madness...
I came back. I've got to have a think, actually, about ... I was employed, though I was David's secretary, I was employed by British Lion. British Lion before it became that sort of strange conglomeration of people, the Boultings, yes, exactly. I mean, I think British Lion was Alex Korda company, wasn't it? I mean, way before that, yes. So I was employed by British Lion. Harold Boxall was the sort of manager, General Manager of London Films. I suppose films like Sound Barrier went out under London Films, yes, they did, yes. And Hobson's Choice; Summer Madness didn't, of course, I don't think, I'm just trying to think what happened after Summer Madness. I must have come back and David didn't seem to be doing a lot for Korda at that time. I think he was reading, and I have a feeling that I was kept on, but nothing much happened. I think eventually we parted with... no, I know what happened after Summer Madness. David decided he wanted to do this picture The Wind Cannot Read, which was a Richard Mason story. And in fact, because of his experience on the scripting of Summer Madness and that it didn't work writing it, he decided that he had to go and write the script in the country where the movie was going to be done, because that you picked up the ambience of the place. And so he arranged, through London, er, British Lion that we would go out to India with the writer, Richard Mason, to write the script of The Wind Cannot Read. And, which was great for me, because, you know, here was I now... oh, the extraordinary, no, what I haven't said about, sorry, I got very confused and worried about what was coming in ahead. The thing that happened, the big thing that happened, from my point of view on Summer Madness, was that Maggie, as she was then Shipway, who is now Maggie Unsworth, who I'm sure you'll be talking to, Maggie, had a recurrence of a previous TB, and she got about several weeks into the picture as continuity, because she'd been David's continuity since In Which We Serve, she'd always done his pictures. And then suddenly she became very ill with the recurrence of the TB, and David sent her off to Davos, which was in those days, if you got TB, you went to Davos, and I said to him, I was on that picture. I was Lopert's secretary. Talk about Lopert's secretary, David's secretary, Norman's secretary, because Norman Spencer was there as well, and production secretary for Raymond Anzaret, who was the production manager. So I was doing all these jobs. And I said to David one night, you know, "what are you going to do, who are you going to send for to do continuity"? And he said, "you're going to do it". And I said, "but I know nothing about it". I'd always read Maggie's continuity sheets when they came and he said, "don't worry, I'll look after you". So suddenly, there I was with my notebook and a script down on the set, down on the location set with Katherine Hepburn and Rosanno Brazzi doing a major moving picture as continuity. And I don't know, I muddled through.
Alan Lawson 23:38
That's an interesting thing, because, you know, I can remember, you know, I worked, the first continuity girl I worked with was Nelly Peacock. Do you remember Nelly Peacock, at the Bush
Pamela Mann-Francis 23:47
No
Alan Lawson 23:48
Then, I suppose the next one was at Stoll's. They hadn't got a proper continuity girl. There was a girl who came, I think, from the accounts department, and did it. Hated it, hated it,
Pamela Mann-Francis 24:01
Really, yes
Alan Lawson 24:02
And one day, Winnie Dyer appeared, looking for a job. Yes, looking for a job. And I think she was on the floor with this girl for one day, and that was it. And she was on her own. And everybody used to kind of go up and say to her "did you notice?"
Pamela Mann-Francis 24:02
Yes.
Alan Lawson 24:19
Did you find that you got enormous kind of sympathetic consideration ?
Pamela Mann-Francis 24:30
Probably, to be fair, I think David, you know, there are one or two filmmakers, you know, I always say about Spielberg, I mean, Spielberg is the sort of filmmaker who really feels, and could almost make the film single handed. I mean, they have so much grasp of what's going on. And I think David did, sort of, was aware. And also one had a good, I mean, one had, we had Jack Hildyard, Peter Newbrook was the operator. And I suppose they did all help. American artists were always better at continuity than than English artists anyway. I remember having one terrible argument with Katie Hepburn about some earrings, where I swore she was wearing earrings and she swore she wasn't. And it was a nightmare situation where the rushes didn't come back for a long, long time. I can't remember how long now, I mean, yes, at least a week. And I remember having sleepless nights about these blasted earrings, and I'd sworn she had them, and she said "I didn't". And I said, "I know you did". She said, "How do you know?" And I said, "Because I wrote it down". And she said, "Oh, okay, if you wrote it down, then that's okay then." And I never, ever told her, but I hadn't written it down, but I was convinced. And I remember Peter Taylor was the editor, and I said to him, God, I'm so worried. You know, she's done the black earrings. And he said, I'll show it to you first on the Moviola. And we rushed up the steps, stairs, in the Giudecca to the cutting rooms, and he ran it on the Moviola, and she came right into the side, and I said, "she's not wearing them, she's not wearing them" and he said, "You fool, she is." I'd convinced myself, by that time that I'd got it wrong, and in fact, she was wearing and I had been right. And that was, I suppose, the sort of instinct that, because you do need a sort of instinct to pick up on things as continuity. I mean, it is important what you write down, that is the most [important] you have to make notes. But you do have an inbuilt instinct when something is wrong, which becomes part of your, I mean, people say it's memory, it's not memory. You can't rely on memory, but there is an inbuilt, there's something wrong that that hair parting is on the wrong side, or all these silly things that that come up.
Alan Lawson 26:51
It's an instinct really?
Pamela Mann-Francis 26:52
Yeah, it is an instinct. And I guess that was my first experience of of that instinct.
And I mean, Katie Hepburn was real big guns. I mean, she's a very powerful lady. And I was, you know, and I remember there was one scene on the set in the studio, and it was some scene which, in fact, is a disastrous cut. There's some disastrous cuts in the picture where she signs into, Isa Miranda, she signs into the pensione. And that the pen, I tell you, travels from one hand to the other like magic, which was because I didn't know that I was looking for the pen in the hand. And there was some point where a question was asked, and Katie Hepburn said, "Oh, don't ask her. She knows nothing." And I thought, "That's it. I'm not doing this anymore. "And I went behind the flap, and I was sort of, you know, very tearful. And David came around and said, "Oh, don't be such a goose." He said, "You know, it's perfectly all right". Take the notice of her, which was, I mean, he and David and Kate Hepburn were great mates. And I he did support me, so I guess he did nurse me through it quite well. And he obviously didn't want anybody else coming out who was a stranger.
Because, I mean, I don't know, have you interviewed Maggie? You will be interviewing. I mean, Maggie always said to me one of the you know things about David, and I'm now mixing her metaphors for it, he said, She's, he's, she said, "All David's geese are swans." You know, if he knew you and liked you, you could do no wrong until, and this is where I'm mixing, until the iron curtain comes down, and he had that strange and I'll tell you a story about it later, which moves on into the 80s, which is quite funny about David, but he did nurse me through that, but I came back with no union membership. I'd done producer's secretary, production secretary continuity, on a major motion picture, and they would not let me join the union. And I got back to the studio Shepperton, and we were then in that little, um, that little block, was block, was it called? Was it called the West Rex block? It was the other side of this silent stage, and it was actually had been part of the sound department, or, anyway, a little block there. And we did some extra shooting, and I did a progress report, and Norman Bollen came in and really ticked me off because I had no business, I had no ACT membership, and therefore I was not entitled to do a progress report, and I was I got in terrible trouble, and I was terrified, and yet I'd done by that time, I really was entitled to be an ACT member, and I had this terrible fight. And after Summer Madness, David, sort of, as I say, I went back to being David's secretary, and we went out to India to do The Wind Cannot Read script. And traveled all round India. From Bombay, we drove up to Delhi, getting the ambience for the movie. We went to we, I mean, it was a wonderful trip. Went up to Simla, and then went back to Delhi. And we were in Delhi, and the news came through that Alex Korda had died. And David, I remember David saying, "The top of the mountain's gone", and he flew back, he and Norman flew back to London and left me in Delhi on my own with his Aston Martin, because he'd taken his this grand cream Aston Martin out there, and which was sort of seizing up on Indian petrol. And he said, "Oh, you know, I'm going to try and sort out what we're going to do". Because he had a script, and he very much wanted to do the movie. Loved the subject, and went back and in fact, in fact, never returned, because the British Lion properties were eventually all sold off. And the script, his script of The Wind Cannot Read, was sold and picked up by Betty Box and Ralph Thomas, who eventually shot it.
And I don't know what happened to David's contract, but certainly it all fell apart when Alex Korda died, the whole of British Lion and London Films fell apart. And I think I went back and I had, I think, no job. David said, "Well, you know, I'll go and try and sort of sort something out to get...I might go back to Ilya Lopert" but, I mean, he, I remember it all falling apart. And I, in fact, for the first and only time in my life did actually go and sign on, because I didn't want to go and go back to the publicity department. I still had no ACT membership. And David said, "I'll sort something out." And eventually he, he said he joined up with Sam Spiegel to do The Wind Cannot Read, to do Bridge on the River Kwai. And he said, he met me in London, and he said, "You better go and see Sam, you know, because I want you on the picture." And I went down to the Dover Street office, and I said to him, I want to get an ACT membership. I must have an ACT membership. And I must say, Sam's office helped me, because there was a situation where you used to have to ring up ACT and used to say, "we need a production secretary". And if there was a production secretary on the books, you had to take them. You couldn't take, you know, anybody off the streets, which, as far as ACT was concerned, I was, though I, by this time, had a, you know, fair amount of experience. And I always remember Bessie Bond being very helpful, which surprised me, because I'd been terrified of, you know, people like that. The hierarchies in the union were terrifying to me, you know, they were always trying to shoot me down. They were always trying to stop me having jobs. And the accountant at Horizon film, Horizon Pictures, which was Sam's company, used to ring ACT every morning. And then one morning they rang and they said, "We need a production secretary". They said, "I'm terribly sorry. We've got nobody on the books." He said, "Right." He said, "We want to use Pamela Mann". And through that, I got my form, and I got... and Angela Alan came up at a meeting, and would they allow me in? And Angela Alan, who's never actually, in many ways, been very kind to new people coming in, did say, I think it was Angela Alan to raise a poll. And said, "Well, you know, she has been working in the business. She does know what it's about. I think we should let her in." And I got my ACT membership, went out, worked with David on the script of River Kwai in London. Flew out to Ceylon, worked with Carl Foreman,
who was an un-American American at the time, but was about to fly back to America to testify. He decided to cut his loss, and he went back and testified. David hated his work. Carl flew back. They flew out another writer, who was a disaster. He flew back from Ceylon. They flew out another writer, who was called Michael Wilson, who was also an un-American. Sam employed all the un-American writers, I think because they were cheap, actually. I think, you know, they were desperate to work, and they worked anonymously.
So this other writer came out, Michael Wilson, who was also an un-American, who, in fact, with David. I was still doing this, I was still, I was Sam Spiegel's secretary, I was David's secretary, I was production secretary on the movie. And that was a big movie, Bridge On The River Kwai. I mean, you know, I was thinking when Freddie was talking about the the heaviness of the production executives, the old, but it goes all the way through because a production office now on a big movie, as you know, I mean, it's all increased so much the production office .Well, I mean, the faxes that come in and the, you know, the production secretary has a computer, and she has an assistant who has a computer, and they have runners, and they have, these, all these departments have exploded like mad. I mean, if you think back to the River Kwai, which in those days was a major motion picture. I had a little local Sinhalese burgher, there were the burghers in Ceylon; a girl who was a sort of assistant typist in the office; there was me, there was Mike Holden(?) the production accountant. So I was doing that work as well for the production accountant. I was doing Sam's letters. I was,we were shipping in stuff from Bombay and England and all around. All the equipment came into Ceylon. I was rushing down to Mount Lavinia to do script alterations with David. There was a little production office at the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo. So I was between those two hotels, and yet, somehow it all got done. Cecil Ford was the production manager. They did eventually ship out a location manager called Dennis Patera, who rushed round to various plantations, tea plantations, the Art Department was reasonably... when Don Ashton was art director, which would now be production designer. And they did have a company of civil engineers in to actually build the bridge, because the bridge was, in fact, I mean, fairly rickety, but it was a real bridge. I mean, it carried a real train. And I do think, when I think back that it was done, you know, in what these days would be regarded as on a shoestring, really, and we had major artists coming in from all over or they were all booked in. I don't know how it was done, but it was done, and I can't, you know, we didn't have dozens of production assistants. And, I mean, that's an American proliferation, the production assistant bit, isn't it, which hasn't happened here yet, to the extent that it's happened in the States. I don't know, we did do it all on a much smaller crew, and I can't remember the duration of the location, but it was a long one, yes, I was actually there in Ceylon for almost a year. But it was, I think it ran from 55 to 56 yeah, I think it was 55 to 56. Yes, it was.
Alan Lawson 39:03
Because it would be long, because, I mean, David is very, very precise.
Pamela Mann-Francis 39:07
Oh, absolutely yes, yes, very demanding. And I was there from the original scripting and the shipping in of stuff and right through to the clearing it all up, and, in fact, traveling home on the boat with equipment,
Alan Lawson 39:26
Having a rest.
Pamela Mann-Francis 39:28
Well, yes, having a rest. And there was a terrible thing, because Sam would never pay overtime. And I was, I think I was being paid nine pounds a week for doing all these jobs. Ridiculous. Yeah, nine pounds a week, I think I was on, and eventually, ACT insisted that we got paid overtime. And, I mean, I had worked all the hours that, I mean, it was ridiculous, you know that we worked, and I remember putting in a bill and being terribly embarrassed at putting in this bill, and I got something like, I mean, it may have been 110 but something around 100 pounds in overtime for that picture on which I was on for a whole year [laughs]. [Sorry] Doing all these jobs. So that was and the end of that picture, I then became a freelance because David went off to all points then. He decided that he wasn't under contract to anybody anymore. The tax was very high in England, and he'd by that time, been divorced and lost his permanent home, or given his permanent home to his ex- wife Anne Todd, and he went off. And so that really finished... that sort of, he went off for years after, he didn't do anything else until Ryan's Daughter was Ryan's Daughter,
Alan Lawson 41:01
(or someone else in the room) Did he do Lawrence first?
Pamela Mann-Francis 41:02
Oh, well, by that, by Lawrence, of course, I, was I doing continuity? Yes, we were on The Innocents, that's right, because they called from Aqaba or somewhere, they called to say, "Would I go and take over the production office?" And I was very grand and so "No, I'm continuity now," because by that time, I'd struggled my way through to doing continuity.
Alan Lawson 41:26
(or someone else in the room?) Before we move on, let's talk a little bit about working with David. How was it, you know, with, as far as you were concerned,
Speaker 1 41:37
I mean, in the early days, I mean, I, you know, I mean, I was absolutely I had danger of becoming and there are several girls in the industry, and we do talk about it, who become so devoted to the, usually, director or producer they're working for, that they really give up their whole lives to it. And I think there was a period with David when I was in danger of doing that, and I think I was probably saved from that fate, if you like, by the fact that David decided to take off to all points, and so I was sort of released, right. But I did love it. I mean, it was great because he was a great filmmaker. And I always feel this is diverging a bit, but I always feel the saddest thing, really, is that the latest, the last wife who in fact, became Lady Lady Lean and organized the great memorial service at St Paul's and all this sort of thing, was the wife who never, ever saw David when he was making a movie. And that was David Lean. David Lean was making movies. I mean, he was a super filmmaker. And, you know, the best part of the movie to him was always the spring in his step, I used to say, came when he got into the cutting rooms, because he really, you know, I can't say he made his films in the cutting rooms. He used to say he did. He used to say, I get put right all my mistakes. I love going in the cutting room because I can put more my mistakes right in the cutting rooms. {Another voice 'Hi, Elsa. Thank you very much}. So you know, I was totally sort of devoted. In fact, I do feel that Norman Spencer, who I originally went to work for Norman and David, but Norman must have been very used to it, sort of had to take a sort of back seat, rather because, yes, I mean, it was, I mean, it was a great experience for me. And he did, after all, take me on these locations. Once he decided that scripting should be done where you're making the movie, which, you know, has a good point. Whether he did that latterly, I don't know whether he did that on things like Ryan's ... No, probably not, I don't know, but by that time, it had all changed.
Pamela Mann-Francis 41:37
I'm going to stop you there and turn over.
Yes
