Val Guest

To accompany a screening of his gritty and uncompromising Manchester-set police drama Hell is City (UK, 1959), we were delighted to welcome writer-director Val Guest to the NFT.

Interviewed Monday 5 December by Jonathan Rigby

Interview © BFI 2005

Jonathan Rigby: Well, Val, that was a unique screening of Hell Is a City [1960] , as you may have noticed.

Val Guest: It was so loud!

JR: It was jolly loud - that's because we were sitting at the front, but it was also out of order, because I'm told the last venue that showed it put the reels back the wrong way round - in the wrong boxes. So I hope it wasn't too confusing when Billie Whitelaw had John Crawford up in the attic... I think it all worked out in the end.

VG: Well I thought 'did I make a mistake?' [laughter]

JR: In your autobiography, Val, which you wrote not long ago, and which I'll point out, since Val's publishers are mine as well - I'm honour-bound to do so - that Val will be signing copies after this show, down in the foyer, near the box office. In your autobiography you refer to that film, Val, as one of your personal top four.

VG: Yes, it is one of my favourites, actually, of all the films I've made - and I've made far too many - but yes it is, it's in my top ones - my five actually.

JR: Are you going to let us know what those five are?

VG: Ah, yes. This is one of them. The Day the Earth Caught Fire [1961] is another one. Jigsaw [1962], which I made with my wife Yolande and Jack Warner and Expresso Bongo [1959], which I made with Yolande Donlan, my wife, and Laurence Harvey, and we found a little boy singing in a coffee bar in Soho called Cliff Richard. We launched him. Sir Cliff Sorry, sir...

JR: That's the lot.

VG: Of course, then I had... going back before most of you were born, we made a picture called Mr Drake's Duck [1950], which I wrote for Doug Fairbanks Jr and Yolanda.

JR: One of the incredible things about Hell Is a City, for filmgoers used to seeing location scenes in Elstree High Street or Chertsey or Windsor, Berkshire, is the fact that it's got such incredible location work in Manchester.

VG: Well, it was tough-going, but the police, they were absolutely wonderful. In fact what was very funny is that in later years, when I did other police films Jigsaw was also a picture about the Brighton police and I did one: 80,000 Suspects [1963], which we did in the city of Bath... And each time I went to these places to do location recces, and I went to meet the chief constable of those places because we needed their help, they all said 'you've got rather good references from Manchester.' [laughter] And so they gave us permission. And when I went to Brighton they said 'you got pretty good references from Bath as well. So you'll do it, yes we'll help.' I didn't realise the police passed on 'don't have them' or 'do.'

JR: But they liked you.

VG: We were lucky.

JR: Right. How did you hit upon the novel that it was based on, which I think was written by Maurice Proctor?

VG: Well, the novel was given to me by Michael Carreras, who produced it. And he said 'this reads rather well.' And I read it and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was gripped by it. But the extraordinary thing was that it was written by Maurice Proctor about a small town in Canada. And we decided that we'd bring it to England and I'd make it Manchester. Which is what happened. To start with Manchester wasn't very pleased with the title Hell Is a City [laughter] but they realised that it was a well-known book so they excused it.

JR: You retained a bit of a Canadian feel with the casting of the villain, John Crawford. Was that a notion of perhaps helping to sell it in America by having an American-accented villain?

VG: No, I don't really remember how that happened. I imagine... most of the Hammer pictures... the American distributors would suggest a certain actor to help sell it over there... to come over and do a thing like in The Quatermass Experiment [1955] they give us Brian Donlevy, which helped sell it in America. No, John... incidentally John Crawford is our neighbour in Palm Springs, he lives over there... he's still with us.

JR: Your - I hope you won't mind my revealing a few dates here - but your showbiz career effectively goes back to 1928 when you were working for the Asiatic Petroleum Company and they asked you to put on a charity show.

VG: That's right.

JR: And for that, at the age of seventeen, you managed to rustle up people like Ivor Novello and Leslie Henson.

VG: Yes, I did, I was very lucky.

JR: But after that, as of 1932, you were at British International at Elstree.

VG: That's right, in the early days there, when we had a whole gang of people around us there, Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat... writers there too. And some of the extras who managed to buy sausage and mash as well as egg and chips at the local restaurant, when they'd been working as extras, were Michael Rennie and Stewart Granger... they were all doing extra work and stand-in work. I remember we had an actor who was known... actually British International Pictures was known as the 'Porridge Factory' because they kept turning out little quota pictures in those days. And one of the people who kept getting work was a young actor called Spike.

JR: Spike.

VG: Spike, yes, a fellow called Reginald Truscott Jones or something or other, a strange name... and I remember Stewart Granger saying to me 'how can he ever get that name out in lights? And he never did until he went to Hollywood and changed it to Ray Milland. And he... getting little bit parts... sings and everything... it was quite a gang we had up there. Old timers who became... oh and I'll tell you something else that we had... our camerman, our focus puller, clapper-board boy and tea trolley pusher was Ronald Neame. [laughter] Ronnie Neame was our gofer. And our stills man, who kept interrupting things to say 'let's have another still,' was Michael Powell. So we all started in those early days. So it was quite a hotbed of problems ahead.

JR: As well as writing for Lupino Lane at British International you were also writing for a large number of magazines.

VG: Well, yes, as I was a rather bad actor then and I wasn't making enough money, I thought, to make enough money to not make money as an actor, I'd better do some writing. So I used to write for Film Weekly, Picturegoer, all these magazines and things. And I was very lucky because being on the set of these films I could get up to the stars and say 'look, let's put up a good story...' So I was streets ahead of the poor press journalists who came on to have interviews. So I used to write that way too.

JR: You were the UK correspondent for Hollywood Reporter, in fact.

VG: That's right.

JR: And you saw a film called Chandu, the Magician [1932], with Edmund Lowe and Bela Lugosi and you weren't very impressed were you?

VG: No. No, in the rashness of youth, I wrote the review in the Hollywood Reporter saying that if I couldn't write a better film than this with one hand tied behind my back I'd give up the business. And the director of the film, Marcel Varnel, called Billy Wilkerson, who was only owner and publisher of Hollywood Reporter and said 'if your critic is so god-damned clever, let him write my next.' And Billy Wilkerson, he called me and said 'look, you'd better go and see him.' I said 'You're crazy, I'm in England and he's in America.' He said 'No, he's not, he's at Elstree making a film.' And he said 'don't make the paper look god-damned stupid. Go see him.' And I went to see Marcel and I said 'look, I'm silly, I'm stupid, I shouldn't have said that, I was just trying to be funny.' He said 'no,' he said 'I've read your column and would you like to work on the next screenplay.' I couldn't believe my ears, and that's how I started a contract with Marcel Varnel. I don't know how many pictures we made. All the Will Hay pictures and the Crazy Gang pictures, a whole slew of them... by chance, by giving him a bad review. [laughter]

JR: At this time you were living at Mount Royal in Marble Arch, with an amazing coterie of showbiz people, including Will Hay in fact, and Larry Adler and the young David Lean and Cornel Wilde.

VG: David Lean, yes. Cornel... we had all of... and Wallace Beery's brother Noah Beery... we had a great collection of people there. And, as you say, Will Hay too.

JR: So, tell me about writing for Will Hay. You've made seven films with him.

VG: Did I? [laughter] Seven, oh well, it was fun writing for Will Hay because he was a very clever fellow apart from being a great comedian. His timing was superb. He was also a great astronomer. It was his big thrill. He built a little astronomic thing with his telescopes in his back garden in Hendon. And I think he actually did discover a planet and the Astronomical Society named it after him. He was great to work with because he was a no nonsense man. He had two feet on the ground and... he only had one little kink... I want to tell you this little story. He always had something wrong with him. He'd arrive on the set and say 'oh, I couldn't sleep last night because I had... my arm was stiff...' and this became quite a gag on set... When we were making Old Bones of the River [1938] with him, the assistant director said 'look, why don't we have a raffle as to what's wrong with Bill Hay this morning.' [laughter] So what they did, they sat in the corner and they wrote out slips: arm, neck, thing - on pieces of paper and you paid five shillings to buy a ticket. And it all went in the pool, the kitty, and so we all did this and Bill Hay arrived on set that day. The assistant said 'good morning Bill, how are you today?' and everybody clutched their bit of paper. [laughter] And he said 'well, I don't know, I... there's something wrong with my ankle...' the guy at the back cheered. But the strange thing about Bill is at the end of the day's shooting whatever he had wrong with him had all gone. He'd walk across railway lines to his car and everything. It was one of those things.

JR: You co-wrote the Will Hay films with Marriot Edgar...

VG: Yes.

JR: ...who was famous for writing Stanley Holloway's monologues.

VG: That's right.

JR: What was it like? He was quite a lot older than your circle wasn't he?

VG: Yes, he was. He was. And a great help that, because he could remember the older gags. No, he was great to work with. We worked solidly for a long time together. George Marriott Edgar and myself. And we had a great gang. This was in Gainsborough Studios, the old Gainsborough Studios in Islington. And next door to me was Alfred Hitchcock and his office. I'd known Hitch in British International when he was making the first English talkie, Blackmail [1929]. And anyway, Hitch was there. And he was a terrible practical joker, Hitch, he did terrible things on people. They all had a little bit of an edge. One day his... Joan Harrison, who later became a producer in her own right in Hollywood was his assistant and she came and said 'look, it's near the weekend and Hitch is short of money, can you lend him ten pounds?' Well, that was half my salary, you know. And I said 'well, will he give it back on Monday.' And so I loaned ten pounds out of my pocket. I don't know how I did it...

Anyway Monday came, Tuesday, Wednesday, no money. So I went and banged on the door and I said to Joan 'look, I've got to have it, I've got to pay my rent, I've got to have it.' 'Don't worry, you'll get it today.' And that afternoon there was a knock on the door and the Gainsborough pageboy said 'with Mr Hitchcock's complements' and he pulled in three great bags of farthings. And he'd paid me back ten pounds in farthings. And as there were four farthings to a penny, 240 pennies to a pound, you can imagine what ten pounds of farthings looked like. It was terrifying.

I thought I've got to do something to stop him using me again as a... thing. So I went round all the studio and I said to everybody 'look, we all have little keys in our drawers that we don't use, they're old... give us all the old keys you can find. And I ended up with about 200 keys. And we spent, instead of the rest of the week writing for Gainsborough Pictures, I was writing out little tags saying 'Hitchcock, 110 Knightsbridge... finder will be rewarded.' And we dropped them, [laughter] we dropped them around Greyhound tracks, underground, buses, everywhere. And for ten days we waited. And then one day the door opened and this moon-face came round and said 'how many fucking keys did you drop?' [laughter] He never played another trick on me after that. [laughter]

JR: As well as the seven films with Will Hay, there were four with the Crazy Gang, nine with Arthur Askey, and of the nine with Arthur Askey, the last three were your first three as a director. Can you tell us how that came about? Because your first film was for the Ministry of Information, I believe.

VG: Yes, well what happened was that I was also... the Ministry of Information were putting out little shorts and things telling people not to do this, not to do that. And I was handed one day... the studio said the MoI want to know... you might want to write this. And it was about sneezes. Sneezing could... if you have a cold don't go anywhere because you could stop the ammunition factories making... it was during the war, of course. And so it was about sneezing. And I suddenly heard that they had already given this to about six other writers and turned them all down. And I did an Academy-Award performance and said 'look, I'm not... how dare you come to me at number six. I will only write this... if you'll accept that you'll let me direct it.' And they did accept it and that's how I got my first directing picture.

JR:The Nose Has It [1942], I think it was called.

VG:The Nose Has It, yes. Coughs and sneezes spread diseases. Brilliant. [laughter]

JR: You've worked with an amazing number of comedians or comic actors. The one extreme, we've got Ralph Lynn from the Aldwych Farces and a good 50 years later there was Cannon and Ball, but in between that Sid Field, Jimmy Edwards, Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon, Frankie Howerd, Sid James, Peter Sellers, Bob Monkhouse. Do you have a special affinity for comedy, do you think?

VG: No. At those times I got into... I suppose you call it a rut. I used to do comedy, comedy, comedy and I suddenly thought I ought to break away from this somehow. I had a terrible job letting me do anything that wasn't comedy. No, I like comedy, it's great.

JR: In 1947 you made a film called Just William's Luck and a character actor in that was one of those faces everybody knows but perhaps they don't the name... a chap called Michael Balfour...

VG: This is a historic film for me because it...

JR: Yes.

VG: Michael Balfour was a small-part actor in an absolutely smash, smash hit at The Garrick Theatre: Garson Kanin's Born Yesterday. And this play was on Broadway with an actress called Judy Holliday, it was making Broadway history, it was a great comedy. And Laurence Olivier went to America and brought Yolande Donlan, who was later to be my wife, to do it with him at The Garrick Theatre. And she became part of London's theatre history. Now, a small part actor in the play, Michael Balfour was also in... I was making a film called Just William's Luck. And he was on the set with me all day and he kept saying 'you've got to come and see our play' and I said 'look, when I'm making a film, I don't have time to see plays. I've read about it, I know the girl's terrific, I know the whole play's terrific but when I've finished the film I'll buy two tickets and come along.' He said 'you won't be able to buy two tickets' because it was an absolute smash hit. He said 'I'll tell you what: I'm going to buy you one ticket for Saturday night and I'm going to try and talk her into taking me and her out to dinner afterwards.' And that's how I went to see Born Yesterday.

I went to see it. I thought it was a smash, I thought she was a smash. I went to the stage door, Michael Balfour was there, he took me down, tapped on her door and her voice said 'yes'. He said 'it's Michael, I've brought Val.' She said 'come in.' He opened the door and I nearly ran for my life. Because in this tiny dressing room... there was Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Noël Coward, Beatrice Lillie and the Duke of Woburn. [laughter] And I thought 'my god, I'm out of my depth' and I nearly ran for my life. And that's how I first met my lovely Yolande. And I was able... oh, I don't know, I think I proposed to her for about five years in a row. And on the fifth year I said 'this is the last day of this astounding offer.' [laughter] And then she finally said yes. And we have been married, I want you to know, for 51 years. [applause] I always say to everybody 51 years ago she had a slip of the tongue and said yes.

JR:Born Yesterday came back into your life when you were on the Yorkshire Moors in 1951 when you'd written a film called Another Man's Poison.

VG: Oh yes, Bette Davis, yes.

JR: And she was Oscar-nominated with Judy Holliday.

VG: Oh, yes.

JR: I believe you were there while she was listening to the radio broadcast.

VG: Oh, yes, we were on location with Another Man's Poison, which I wrote for Bette Davis. We were on location, that night in the hotel listening to the Academy Awards. And she had been nominated for...

JR:All about Eve [1950].

VG:All about Eve, that's right. And Bette was lying on the couch looking at this terribly crackled... crackle crackle radio and television thing and watching the awards. And finally it came up 'and now for the best actress...' and it went crackle crackle crackle... 'the Academy Award goes to...' crackle crackle crackle. They said 'Judy Holliday' and there was a moment's pause and Bette got up from the couch and said 'shit.' And went up to bed. [laughter] A wonderful lady. This is not in the dictionary of quotations but it should have been.

JR: A film was released recently called Mrs Henderson Presents [2005] so I think we should remind everybody of Murder at the Windmill [1949] and Vivian Van Damm and your associations with him.

VG: Oh, yes, well... I don't know where to start on this but... the Windmill... I used to write bits and pieces of comedy material for various comics that were at the Windmill... as well as my film job, I was under contract, I was allowed to do that and everything. And so that I knew quite a lot about the Windmill and Vivian Van Damm who ran it and everything. And his daughter was one of the nude tableaux in it, Betty Van Damm. Then Betty married a Major Daniel Angel. And he became Danny Angel, the film producer. And the first film he ever did - he made quite a few documentaries, The Queen's Horses and the Queen's Men - and the first feature he did, he came to me and said 'what about, let's make a film of the Windmill.' And several people had tried to get the rights of it and they'd all... Van Damm had said 'no, no, no.' And Danny Angel said 'look, he's my father-in-law and I can get the rights.' So I sat down and I think I did it overnight, I think. I wrote Murder at the Windmill. And it was accepted and we made it and it was the first film I made with Danny Angel, well the only film I actually made... I made a lot of it at the Windmill itself. This was before Rita Hayworth did another film about it. But it's quite a thing. I haven't seen the one they've done now about Mrs Henderson... the film.

JR: Nor have I so I shan't comment. Tell us about Frankie Howerd who I think was a big friend of yours.

VG: Oh, well Frankie's one of our favourites. He was a great chum. He was wonderful and we had seen him on his television show and everything and Yolande said 'look, he ought to be in films.' And so I went to see him. He was in a show at the Palladium. I went to see him and I said 'look, Frankie, I'd like to write a film for you.' And I had written a thriller called The Runaway Bus [1953] - the story, not the script - and I said 'look, we'd like you to do this. If I can get the money to do it, would you do it?' He said 'I'll only do it if I don't star in it.' He said 'I don't want to take all the blame.' [laughter] And so I said 'alright, fine, that's fine.' And he said 'also, I'd love to have Margaret Rutherford,' who was a great character actress and he had worked with her on stage.

So we went to Maggie Rutherford and Maggie Rutherford liked the script and the way it was written and everything and so we started to make the film. And the sole thing was that Maggie Rutherford was 'Margaret Rutherford and Frankie Howerd in...' So we started the film and on the second day of filming, coming out of the daily rushes in the projection room, Margaret Rutherford said to me 'I'm not taking top billing over him.' [laughter] And I said 'what do you mean?' And she said 'he's wonderful, I can't... I'm not going to star over him. It would be ridiculous.' Now here was a thing, where the person who had a contract to be the star didn't want to be the star and the one who they wanted to be the star didn't want to be the star - he didn't want to be blamed for anything. So anyway there was this big fight. Eventually of course, Frankie did become the star of it, given the star billing, and went on to become Frankie Howerd.

JR: Let's move on to your association with Hammer Films. I think you made fourteen films with them in all.

VG: Did I?

JR: I think it was something like that over a fifteen-year period or something.

VG: Well, I tell you a couple of them... the Quatermass... the two Quatermass films, they have now - in America at least - become what is laughingly known as 'cult films'. And I always say now, had I known they were going to become cult films, I'd have asked for more money.' [laughter] But several of the producers said 'well, you wouldn't have got it.' Well, Hammer was quite a... it was like a family. Working for Hammer was almost like working for a family in the studios at Bray, which we were. And as far as Quatermass was concerned, I was never a science fiction guy or anything and I must have been one of the few people in England who had never watched The Quatermass Experiment [1955] on television. Because this was riveting showing that people would stay in every Friday, or whenever it was shown, and never go anywhere. And I hadn't because it wasn't my cup of tea.

And one day we were going to Tangiers, which was our little home from home, and Yolande and I were getting on a plane... I remember then we used to go from Northolt. Anyway Anthony Hinds, the producer - Hammer producer, arrived at the airport with big carrier bags of sixteen scripts, television scripts of Quatermass and said 'read these, see if you want to do it.' Well, that's all you need on a plane, isn't it? So we went to Tangiers and it was at the side of the bed for about a week and Yolande said to me 'aren't you going to read that?' And I said 'well, it's science fiction, it's not really my cup of tea.' And she looked at me and said 'since when have you been ethereal?' And I thought 'oh, alright, well, I'd better read it.' So I took it onto the beach while I was sunbathing, I read it and was riveted by it. So it was thanks to Yo that I made Quatermass.

JR: You made a decision when making that film - in fact I think you put it to Tony Hinds, the producer before starting - that you were going to make it in a documentary style.

VG: Oh, yes, I said 'I don't want it to be a science fiction, I'd like it to be a science fact. And so I'd like to shoot it as though I was shooting for Panorama or something. Almost like a newsreel, with handheld cameras every now and then.' And he finally agreed to let me do it and this is what I did on that picture which I followed by doing on several other pictures, including The Day the Earth Caught Fire

JR: You also managed to make a Carry On film before the Carry On films began, purely by virtue of the type.

VG (laughing): Yes. A long time ago a producer called George Minter ... there was a very funny play called The Middle Watch, which was on at the Shaftesbury Theatre, and he had bought the screen rights of it. And he said 'we can't call it The Middle Watch - they won't know what you're talking about. It's a naval comedy.' So I said 'why don't we call it Carry On Admiral [1957]? And we did, we called it Carry On Admiral and it was a big success as a comedy. But George Minter didn't think that much of it and he never registered the title. And, lo and behold, the two title snatchers came along and started the Carry On series.

JR: In the early 60s you were making films for your own production company and you were making very interesting, very varied films. You were a man... I think once you said that you didn't like to pop up out of the same trap twice. So you've got Hell Is a City and a war film like Yesterday's Enemy [1959], The Day the Earth Caught Fire. Can you tell us something about The Day the Earth Caught Fire in particular?

VG: Well, The Day the Earth Caught Fire was a story... I don't if anybody knows what it is but it was about... in the early days of testing nuclear bombs, that Russia and America happened to test a nuclear bomb at the same moment at different ends of the earth. And the resulting thing put the earth one millionth of a degree out of orbit so it was slowly orbiting towards the sun. That was what was happening... so everything happened. The pole caps started to melt and water became a commodity... and it was one of things. It was about global warming. But everybody... it was very funny, because in those days... I don't know when it was... in '61?

JR: '61.

VG: '61. I sent the story, when I had written it, to Chapman Pincher, who was the Science Editor of The Daily Express. And I sent it to Chapman and said 'look, any pointers? Can you give me any pointers on this?' It was all about global warming. And I got a note back which I still have from Chapman Pincher which said 'should make a good film but it's a lot of balls.' In 1961 I told them about global warming and no one would listen to me. [laughter]

JR: Before I throw this open to the audience, tell us something about Charles K. Feldman.

VG: Oh, well, that's a book in itself. A very... I mean he's an icon of a producer, I mean some of his things that he made are unbelievable. Wonderful films. Well, when they were going to make Casino Royale [1967], my agent called me one-day and said 'look, Charles Feldman's in town. He wants to make Casino Royale and he starts off... he'd like... would you like to do it back to back with John Huston? I said 'do what?' So he said 'the two of you... do it back to back...' That's how it started. Then we met Charlie Feldman who was a man who one day you liked to cuddle, he was so warm and cosy, the next day you wanted to strangle because he could never make up his mind for more than half a day at the most. And he suddenly said 'I've got to have four directors and each do your own sequences and it's going to be a psychedelic movie.' I said 'what's that?' So he said 'well, it's...' Anyway, the thing was he said 'to start with, Casino Royale, we can only use the title and the casino, because' he said 'the other Bond films have stolen everything else out of the book, they've made it. So we started with the title Casino Royale. And that's how that started.

And towards... I was under contract for eight weeks and I ended up doing, I think it was nine months... Crazy. There's a film to be made about the making of Casino Royale. It was crazy, crazy. I wrote about it in my book, there's a whole thing about that because... I mean he... Charlie Feldman would call you at four o'clock in the morning and say 'look, we can get Brigitte Bardot on Thursday, write her in.' [laughter] And that's what used to happen. 'We've got William Holden on Wednesday next. What set are we on?' 'Well, we're on...' 'Well, write him in.' And this is how this picture was made. I don't know how we had about eighteen international stars in it, all playing James Bond. Now, I'll tell you something that might interest you. Casino Royale was the first Bond book that Ian Fleming ever wrote. And he couldn't get anybody to touch it, to publish it - he couldn't do anything about it at all. Nobody wanted to know. And he said that he wrote the Bond character based on the character of David Niven. That's how he saw Bond.

So when he couldn't get anybody to publish it, he sent the manuscript of Casino Royale to David, who was in the south of France in one of his homes there, and David read it and thought 'yes, that's an idea, yes, you could make a thing.' And he and an actor called Dick Powell were doing an hourly show on television in New York, and David sent it to Dick Powell and said 'how about this for one of our hours?' And Dick Powell sent him a cable back saying 'are you out of your tiny mind?' And that was the end of that. Eventually Fleming's brother, who had a book published with another publisher, talked that publisher into publishing this. And that's how the first Bond book... and the strange thing is that Casino Royale is the first time... and all these hundreds of years later when David Niven actually played James Bond in it. He had just a small thing.

JR: Right, well I think we've got a few minutes for questions from the audience, if anybody has any questions, there's one right there.

Audience Member: Can you tell us anything about your very earliest films like TheInnocence of Chicago [1932] or All In [1936] or No Monkey Business [1935]?

VG: Good heavens. [laughter] How old are you?

Audience Member: Not old enough to have seen them. But they're in the archives.

VG: Ah, Innocents of Chicago was Will Hay wasn't it? Oh, no, no it wasn't, it was Henry Kendall. My god. Yes, that's BIP, early BIP days. Yes, I worked on the script for Lupino Lane on that... he directed that. And yes, I had a small part in it too. Tiny little part. In fact I was Pat Patterson's boyfriend in it. And then she went to Hollywood and married Charles Voyer, much better choice. But anyway... that's... my god. And what was the other one?

Audience Member:All In or No Monkey Business.

VG:No Monkey Business, my god. Gene Gerrard and June Clyde. You'll probably know that, I think I'm right.

Audience Member: Richard Hearne.

VG: Oh, yes, it launched Richard Hearne. In fact he never showed himself in it. He played...

JR: The monkey.

VG: Was it a monkey or a baboon or a rabbit? He was in a skin the whole time.

JR: He was in a monkey skin wasn't he?

VG: Yes, monkey skin, that's right. Yes, that started Richard Hearne. His first film...

JR: Well, we've all got to start somewhere. Who else would like to ask a question? There's one, right there.

Audience Member: Were you present when they were filming the monster at the end of The Quatermass Experiment and can you remember how it was done? Because I thought it was quite effective.

VG: Yes, it was... I hate to disillusion anybody but it was one of those bladders that you have for blowing up tyres and on top of that bladder was a piece of tripe. [laughter] And that's it. We had a brilliant special effects department.

JR: That was Les Bowie wasn't it.

VG: Yes.

JR: Right, anymore? Yes, there's one there.

Audience Member: Yes, moving a bit closer to more recent film work that you did. You were involved in I think the first of the Confessions films with Robin Askwith. How did that come about and I understand because various countries had different morals, didn't you have to re-shoot the sex scenes for each different country? So how many sex scenes did you actually shoot?

VG: How many what did we actually shoot?

Audience Member: How many sex scenes?

VG: Oh, sex scenes. I can't remember them. No, we didn't shoot... in the ones that I did there were hardly any sex... there were suggestions of sex scenes but we never actually shot a sex scene as such.

JR: Too many soap bubbles, I seem to remember.

VG: Yes, that's right. Anyway, no, that's fine. But there are certain things, I mean, where you have nudes in a film... I'm not against nudes in a film providing it's not just put in for the kick of it. Because I had nudes in... we had in The Day the Earth Caught Fire, and there again each time you have a nude scene you shoot another cover for America because they don't... they didn't... in those days they would have everything in the world with violence, but no sex. So you used to have to do two... about sex scenes, you would always have to do them a cover. In the Confessions series I don't remember any sex scenes as such. Yes, there were certain uncovers that went on, but no sex as such.

JR: Any more, yes, there's one right there.

Audience Member: I wondered whether Back-room Boy [1942] was intended, originally, as a Will Hay film and not an Arthur Askey film?

VG: What was that?

JR: Was Back-room Boy, the lighthouse film with Arthur Askey, was that possibly intended as a Will Hay film, originally?

VG: No. No it wasn't.

Audience Member: The situations are very, very similar in the light of...

VG: It could be. But in those days when I suddenly found myself with Arthur Askey - who I wasn't a great fan of actually - suddenly finding I had to keep writing for Arthur Askey - we all have our penance you know. No, I don't... as far as I know, no. I'm trying to remember Back-room Boy. I can't even remember whether I wrote the story or not. I think so. Did I?

JR: Oh yes, yes, it's one of yours. [laughter]

VG: Thank you.

JR: Another question here.

Audience Member: Did you enjoy the shows you made for Lew Grade's ITC, The Persuaders?

VG: Oh, The Persuaders. Yes, The Persuaders, that was great fun because one of my favourite actors is Roger Moore. To work with, I mean, I have certain favourites and certain... er-hum. Yes, it was great fun doing The Persuaders in spite of Tony Curtis. [laughter] I'll tell you a funny story about that. Tony was on pot at the time and I used to have to say 'oh, go and have a smoke.' Because he always had some gripe of some kind. And one day we were shooting on the Croisette in Cannes. And we'd been roped off our little thing, and there were crowds all around watching us film and everything and Tony Curtis came down to do his scene and he was just carrying on at the wardrobe saying 'you didn't do this and you should have done that... and in Hollywood you would have been fired...' And dear Roger Moore walked over, took him by the lapels, looked him straight in the eyes and said 'and to think those lips once kissed Piper Laurie.' [laughter] Well, the whole of the Croisette collapsed, the unit collapsed and I must say even Tony had to laugh. But we were asked to do another... we got the award that year for the best TV series, I think it was, and they wanted to do a repeat and I remember Roger saying 'with Tony Curtis, not on your life.' And he went on to become James Bond, so he did all right.

JR: Okay, there's one in the middle here.

Audience Member: Can you tell us how you almost directed the first Bond film and how you suggested Sean Connery for the role?

VG: How I did what, sorry?

JR: You almost directed the first Bond film.

VG: Oh, yes.

JR: And suggested Sean Connery?

VG: Oh, yes. Harry Saltzman had and Cubby were doing... were going to start the James Bond. Dr. No [1962] was the very first one they were going to do. And Yolande and I were going to Venice for a holiday and they gave me three books. They gave me Thunderball, Dr. No and a third, I can't remember what the third was... and saying 'read them and see what you'd like to do, which of these do you think?' And I thought Thunderball was great but when I came back and said that they said 'oh no, we've got legal troubles here because Kevin McClory or somebody says they have the rights' and so forth... and so they couldn't and they were going to do Dr. No. And I said 'it's a B-picture Dr. No.' Anyway they said that's the one they were going to do.' But then they were trying everybody, George Sanders' brother [Tom Conway] to be Bond in it and all sorts of people, they were thinking. And there were three small-part actors at Shepperton Studios playing aircraftsmen and one of them was Sean Connery. And all the girls in the publicity department, the wardrobe, everywhere, they were all knocked out by Sean. And I told Harry Saltzman about it. I said 'look, there's a guy down there all the girl's are going for, why don't you have a look at him?' And that was Sean and that's how he got James Bond.

JR: Try one or two more. Yes, that one there.

Audience Member: Could you tell us anything about a rare pop movie I've never seen called Toomorrow [1970]?

VG: Oh, Toomorrow. When we launched a little girl called Olivia Newton-John. Well, I have to this day have not been paid for Toomorrow. That again was Harry Saltzman. And he wanted to do this... a musical, this crazy musical and everything. And he had put up the money for it with his company called Sweet Music. And Sweet Music was the company, the bank was the Bank of Switzerland. And he had put up as collateral his interest in the Bond films. And then halfway through the film we realised this was chaos because Cubby Broccoli had broken with him and was suing him because part of their contract was that they couldn't put up the Bond films as collateral for anything. So, Harry's Bank went, the film went, we finally finished it somehow and then I put a clamp on it being shown and then we lifted the clamp so it could be shown at the London Pavilion, which I think had just had an opening there. And that really was almost the end of Toomorrow. Except they showed it in America, here, there and everywhere... in fact at the Hollywood Egyptian they screened it not so very long ago and asked Yolande and I to come along to it. And we were amazed that they showed it. And it went down very well.

Audience Member: I'd love to see it. I never have.

VG: Well, I don't know if it's around... I shouldn't think it's around anywhere, I don't know. There must be a print of it, otherwise they couldn't have shown it in Hollywood.

JR: Okay, well, let's try one more, if there is one more. Ah, yes, there's one there.

Audience Member: When you made 80,000 Suspects you had a cameo for Graham Moffatt in it...

VG: Oh, yes.

Aud ience Member: Was that just by chance...

VG: Yes, it was just by chance. I tell you, I did 80,000 Suspects with Claire Bloom and Yolande. And we were shooting in Bath. And somebody told me 'do you remember Graham Moffatt?' I said 'my god, of course I remember Graham Moffatt.' 'Well, he's got a pub here above Bath, a wonderful place up there.' So I thought 'oh, I can't wait to go and see the pub.' And we went up to see him and Graham was behind the bar putting the bottles up. And I went up and sat on the stool and I said 'I'd like a Tizer please.' And he turned round and said 'oh, my god, my god, where have...' And then I said 'look, I'm making a film, come and do a little tiny bit in it.' And I took him there as the... he came down and did the guy... when they were all being vaccinated against smallpox, he was the one guy who couldn't take his vaccination and started to faint and everything. And that was the little bit he did for us, just for old time's sake.

JR: Now, Val, I think that's about the end of it but I believe you've celebrated your - can I say how old you are, is that alright?

VG: Yes.

JR: You've celebrated your 94th birthday recently? [applause]

VG: No. Well, wait a minute, 94th birthday next month.

JR: Oh, next... I do beg your pardon.

VG: Don't push.

JR: This month...

VG: I must tell you I got a very funny card from the family in London with a lovely... last time... a lovely picture of Buckingham Palace on the front. And there was a gold wreath with the Queen and her crown and it said 'Happy Birthday' and I opened it up and it said 'no, this is not from her majesty but just to let you know she's counting.' [laughter] It was a great card.

JR: Well, I think it might be next week, mightn't it? Round about there?

VG: Well, I... they say to me... how do you do it...

JR: Anyway, it's around about now and we've got a presentation for you. On account of being 94 here it is.

VG: Oh, well, my goodness me.

NFT staff member: A bottle of Champagne for you.

VG: Well, isn't that fantastic, that's truly... well people often say... [applause] I can't drink it out of the bottle. People always say 'do you have any tips?' and I say 'yes, marry someone like Yolande because I wouldn't dare die, she'd give me hell.' [laughter]

JR: Okay, Val Guest, thank you very much.

VG: Thank you. Terrific. [applause]