Discover The Secret Identity of Alan Smithee – Episode 8

PODCAST EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Michael Hall: From ShowHawk Media, this is Filmmaking Footnote, with your Host, Michael Hall. You’re listening to episode eight. This is the show where we give you the best filmmaking and production information so you can make the best project possible without having to spend a bunch of time or money at film school. Let’s do it.

What’s up guys? How’s everyone doing today. This is Michael Hall, your host of Filmmaking Footnote. Thank you so much for being here. Today we are talking Alan Smithee. Alan Smithee is a name that has been credited to over two dozen films as a director. Alan Smithee’s first project was, Death of a Gunfighter released in 1969. His last credit appeared in the year 2000.

The crazy part is that Alan Smithee is not a person. Alan Smithee does not exist. It is actually the official psydoname that was used by film directors who did not want to be associated with their films after they wrapped filming. This is the official name that the Directors Guild of America would give to a project when a film director wanted to disown that project. As I said, it was first used on the film Death of a Gunfighter, released in 1969, when the lead actor, Richard Widmark wasn’t happy with the Director, Robert Totten, and arranged to have him replaced by Don Siegel.

Don Siegel, later estimated that Totten had spent about 25 days filming, when Siegel had spent nine or 10 days filming. When the project was released, it was estimated that both had just as much footage in the final film as each other. Both directors looked at the project and were not happy with the final result and did not think that their creative expression came through in the film. Both of them, actually wanted to disavow it. They went to the DGA, the Directors Guild of America. Both petitioned to have their name taken off of the film.

Initially, the Directors Guild of America was going to put the name Alan Smith on to the film, say that it was directed by Alan Smith, but they thought that the name Alan Smith was too generic, so they changed it to Al Smithee, which then later, turned into Alan Smithee.

After this happened, after this case was presented to the Directors Guild of America on Death of a Gunfighter, all of these filmmakers started coming forward and petitioning the Directors Guild to have their names taken off of the projects they had completed because they felt that either the studio, the production company, the edit, or the producer had in some way, tampered with their creative vision on the film.

The Directors Guild of America made it standard practice that whenever a director came forward and was not happy or had evidence that something had happened within the filmmaking process, that their creative vision had been tampered with during the project, they made it standard practice, The DGA made it standard practice to then, assign the synonym Alan Smithee to a project that they had deemed had been tampered with in the process.

You should go on IMDB and look up how many projects have actually been accredited to Alan Smithee. It’s about, I’d say about two dozen in total. There’s a couple that stand out. The Twilight Zone, The Movie that came out in 1983, which is actually a pretty famous film because there was a really bad accident that actually killed a couple kids, a couple stunt kids ,when a helicopter accident happened during the production.

And then, there’s a couple of other films, The Birds 2, you know, the famous to sequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s, The Birds. And then the last one that’s somewhat famous … Oh, Dune is on there, 1984 version of Dune. There’s a few, like Rudy, Heat, and Meet Joe Black. Those films, when they were edited for the television version, those actors, or those directors actually asked the Directors Guild of America to change the television cut, to change their credit to Alan Smithee because they were not happy with the version that was put out on television.

The name Alan Smithee, when it was in use from the late 60s until the early 2000s, it really signaled to those within Hollywood and production, it really signaled that something had gone wrong on the project. That the project, in some way, whether it was an edit or whether it was the studio, in some way, it had been tampered with and the director was not happy with the final product.

Now a really famous example of when the Alan Smithee synonym was not granted was with the cut of American History X. Apparently, Edward Norton, he knew that the film, American History X was going to be a big deal, which it was. He went back, he went behind the director’s back and actually made a edit of the film, American History X, where he got more screen time. The director of American History X was really unhappy with this and he went to the Directors Guild and petitioned to have his name taken off of the project and actually denied him that.

There were times where directors would petition to have their names taken off of projects, but didn’t necessarily have enough evidence to have their name taken off of the project. The name Alan Smithee was retired by the Directors Guild of America in 2000 because, and this is a weird happenstance, a film came out in 1998 where it was called An Alan Smithee film, Burn, Hollywood, Burn. It was supposed to be a esoterical look at the whole Alan Smithee phenomenon.

During the project, the Director, Arthur Hill, the director, he actually invoked Alan Smithee. He went to the DGA and reported that the producer had interfered with his creative control on the project. They removed his name and credited the film to Alan Smithee, which is just a weird, like, meta situation, right? Like there’s a film being made about Alan Smithee, about the whole Alan Smithee thing. And then the director’s unhappy with the film, so he has his name taken off and has then has the film credited to Alan Smithee. It’s really bizarre.

Following that film, the Directors Guild of America, they got a bunch of backlash because the film kinda exposed this whole weird synonym thing going on. After that film came out, they stopped granting the name Alan Smithee. That’s a little film history for you. If you’re ever watching a film, like, say something really, really crappy comes up, like, Raging Angels from 1995, or Shrimp on the Barbie from 1990, if any of those come up, now you know who he is.

Unfortunately, if you’re working on a project and it’s tampered with, you can longer invoke the name Alan Smithee, but you can petition the DGA to have your name taken off and come up with your own synonym. All right, guys, thanks so much for listening. That is it for today. I will see you back here tomorrow where we will be covering the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, also known as, AFTRA. Also, if you have not done so yet, please subscribe to the show in iTunes and we will see you back here tomorrow.

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