by Stephen Vagg
The head of MGM-British in the early 1960s
We recently did a piece on “the two Bobs”, Robert Weitman and Robert O’Brien, who ran Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the 1960s. Researching that piece made us aware of the contribution made to this (mostly) successful era by MGM’s British operation under Lawrence Bachmann [pictured second from right].
MGM had set up a British subsidiary operation in the mid-1930s, to have a base which could better exploit British talent and make films that would qualify for the British quota. From the late 1940s, MGM-Britain was based out of a studio complex at Borehamwood, that would rent out its stages for other studios as well as MGM. The subsidiary made interesting movies throughout the years – a lot of 1950s spectacles were shot there, like Ivanhoe (1952), as well as smaller movies like Tom Thumb (1958) and a series of films in association with Ealing, which included the Australian-themed The Shiralee (1957).
In December 1959, MGM’s then-head of production, Sol Siegel, hired Lawrence Bachman to work for Metro as “liaison representative for European productions”. This basically meant that he was head of MGM-British – although, since the studio also made movies in France, Ireland, Italy and Spain, Bachmann might have acted as a point man for those operations.
Who was Lawrence Bachmann? Well, he was an American writer and producer, born in 1911, who had worked with various studios over the years, including stints at Universal, RKO and MGM. He had spent a number of years in Europe, having studied at Oxford, and worked in Berlin for the US State Department; he wrote the script for the Rank Organisation adventure tale Whirlpool (1959) (discussed here) and had been head of production for Paramount’s British subsidiary before the Siegel offer.
Siegel wanted Bachmann and MGM-British to produce a small supply of modestly budgeted local movies, which would be scheduled around other big productions at Boreham. The largest cost for these small films would be a fee for an international star, which it was hoped would give the movies some sort of box office guarantee. The films would be virtually independent of MGM’s main office in Hollywood – so basically, Lawrence Bachmann had his own independent little fiefdom in London under the Metro umbrella.
The first five movies greenlit by Bachmann all fitted into the aforementioned template:
- The Village of the Damned – a sci fi tale based on John Wyndham’s novel The Midwich Cuckoos, starring George Sanders;
- The Green Helmet – a car racing drama based on Australian Jon Cleary’s novel, starring Bill Travers (who was kind of a name at the time off the back of films like Geordie);
- The Secret Partner – a thriller starring Stewart Granger;
- Invasion Quartet – a war film starring Bill Travers;
- Murder She Said – an adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel starring Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple.
It was a very solid slate: varied and commercial, inherently British but with the possibility of international appeal (some of the stars were world famous, sci-fi and mysteries tend to travel well), and nothing was overly expensive. Bachmann later claimed that all the movies made a profit – and MGM’s records confirm this, except for Invasion Quartet, which apparently made a loss (it’s not a well-known movie). But this would have been covered by the takings for Village of the Damned and Murder She Said, which were both break out hits. Indeed, they were so popular, Bachmann arranged for them to have sequels – Village of the Damned led to (the less good) Children of the Damned, while Murder She Said had three follow ups, all with Rutherford: Murder at the Gallop, Murder Most Foul and Murder Ahoy. The Rutherford Marple films are hugely enjoyable, although not particularly faithful to Agatha Christie; Village of the Damned is of course a classic.
Bachmann announced Agatha Christie would adapt Charles Dickens’ Bleak House for MGM but this was not made. Neither were other literary adaptations that he announced, including Ibsen’s Hedda Gabbler, RC Sheriff’s Journey’s End, and DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. All these films sounded interesting but there was clearly a limit to how much money MGM were willing to give Bachmann to spend.
Bachmann launched another slate of low budget movies. These included:
– Cairo, a remake of The Asphalt Jungle, that reunited the star and director of Village of the Damned, George Sanders and Wolf Rilla;
– Private Potter, a drama about a soldier played by Tom Courtenay in his film debut (no one seems to remember this movie);
– two Terry-Thomas comedies, Kill or Cure and A Matter of Who;
– an Eric Sykes comedy, Village of Daughters;
– a Peter Sellers comedy, The Dock Brief;
– a Spike Milligan comedy, Postman’s Knock;
– an investment in the spaghetti Western, The Savage Guns, directed in Spain by Michael Carreras;
– a TV series, Zero One.
This line-up was less varied, with an over-reliance on comedy. It appears to have been less successful at the box office – the Terry-Thomas and Peter Sellers films did okay, no doubt helped by the fact that those stars were internationally known. Village of Daughters, Postman’s Knock and Private Potter struggled with their lesser-known leading men (we’ve got to admit that we’d never heard of Private Potter before researching this). The Savage Guns made a little money and came about via an interesting way – Carreras had made a film for Hammer, Ten Seconds to Hell, based on a novel by Bachmann; MGM would later invest in some other Hammer films such as Hysteria and She – possibly this was due to the Bachmann-Carreras relationship.
MGM British also made bigger-budgeted movies in the early sixties. It is likely these had more input from the studio’s HQ in Hollywood due to their costs, but they were all “European-ish” stories:
– two melodramas with Peter Finch directed by Robert Stevens: I Thank a Fool, and In the Cool of the Day;
– two “three girls” romantic comedies in the style of MGM’s 1960 hit, Where the Boys Are: Come Fly with Me, about air hostesses in Europe, and Follow the Boys (which had four girls) about women who follow American sailors from port to port around the Mediterranean;
– an all-star melodrama, The VIPs, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor hot off Cleopatra, backed by a galaxy of names (including Margaret Rutherford, Orson Welles and Australia’s own Rod Taylor);
– a horror movie, The Haunting, from the novel by Shirley Jackson.
Incidentally, Follow the Boys was based on a story by Bachmann, who had a house in the south of France – nice work if you can get it.
The Finch movies both lost money, the “three girls” movies were not hits but have never been out of circulation and are likely to have been profitable, The Haunting became a classic, and The VIPs was a huge commercial blockbuster. The success of the latter led to another popular all-star movie from the same writer, producer and director – The Yellow Rolls Royce (1964) – which also did well.
Bachmann signed a three-picture deal with the team of Virginia and Andrew Stone that resulted in The Password is Courage, The Secret of My Success and Never Put it in Writing. These were a mixed bag – Password was a hit in Britain, Never Put it in Writing (shot in Ireland with Pat Boone) was eventually palmed off to Allied Artists, and The Secret of My Success was one of several films post-Zulu that failed to turn James Booth into a star.
The last films made for MGM-British under Bachmann’s auspices appear to have been:
– Night Must Fall, a remake of a 1937 MGM film, with Albert Finney starring and Karel Reisz directing. (Bachmann is credited as a producer on this one, so presumably had involvement behind the scenes);
– two attempts to kick off a Bond franchise – Where the Spies Are with David Niven and The Liquidator with Rod Taylor;
– The Hill from Sydney Lumet and Sean Connery, produced by Ken Hyman of Seven Arts;
– Operation Crossbow, an all-star guys-on-a-mission war movie produced by Carlo Ponti;
– The Alphabet Murders, an attempt to do for Hercule Poirot what Margaret Rutherford did for Miss Marple, with Tony Randall (!) as the Belgian detective (again Bachmann gets a credit).
MGM also made films shot in Ireland, Young Cassidy and Of Human Bondage, so Bachmann may have had something to do with these. He announced a project called The Scorpio Letters, which was eventually made in the US for MGM Television.
Those are all fairly classy credits, even though some disappointed commercially –for instance, most contemporary observers thought the Albert Finney Night Must Fall would do better than it did, and none of the proposed franchises took off. This perhaps contributed to Bachmann leaving MGM British in January 1966 to become an independent producer. We have no idea whether he resigned of his own accord or if he was pushed. He’s an unfairly shadowy figure in most movie histories of this period, which tend to focus on stars and directors.
Over the next few years, MGM British continued to turn out some of Metro’s best films (Blowup, The Dirty Dozen, 2001, Where Eagles Dare, Get Carter) – as well as, it must be admitted, some expensive fiascos (Alfred the Great, Goodbye Mr Chips). The Borehamwood studio was eventually sold off as part of general cost cutting by Metro under James Aubrey.
Bachmann became an independent producer and continued to write. His credits included Whose Life is it Anyway (1981) from a Broadway play, made for MGM. He died in 2004.
It’s always hard to gauge the contribution of the head of a studio but you can look at overall output, and based on this, Lawrence Bachmann was a successful executive of MGM British. Consider just some of those credits – the Rutherford Marple films, The VIPs, The Village of the Damned, The Hill, Operation Crossbow, The Haunting. The movies ranged from glossy all-star melodramas and bright romantic comedies to intelligent drama and gripping sci-fi. England suited MGM very well – glamour, talent, stars, stories. It was a major mistake for it to dispense with that arm of its operation. And Lawrence Bachmann should not be forgotten.
