by Stephen Vagg
Stephen Vagg’s series on forgotten British movie moguls looks at the second part of Nat Cohen’s career (for part one, see here).
In our previous piece on Nat Cohen, we discussed how he and his partner Stuart Levy established themselves – and their company, Anglo-Amalgamated – as leading players in the British B-picture world of the early 1950s, championing/exploiting such directors as Ken Hughes (Wide Boy) and Joseph Losey (The Sleeping Tiger).
Up until 1957, however, almost all their movies had pretty much been low-to-medium budgeted crime stories, usually with some imported B-list American star.
This article covers the next five years, when the duo expanded into other genres with spectacular success. To use an oil metaphor, Cohen and Levy dug wells in three different sites and came up with a gusher each time.
Their basic philosophy didn’t change – keep costs down, spread the risk, make it British but have one eye on overseas, follow the trends, identify talent and then give that talent freedom to make a film their way. But it was movies in these genres which, along with continued success in the crime sphere, that turned Nat Cohen and Stuart Levy into the most prolific film producers in Britain.
The first game changer was, of all things, a musical. The British film industry of the 1950s wasn’t overly famous for its musicals but they made some – the almost-forgotten It’s Great to Be Young was one of the biggest hits of 1956, and Cohen had some money in 1949’s half-musical Murder at the Windmill.
Cohen and Levy watched with interest the gross of American low-budget rock musicals like Rock Around the Clock and wondered if they could make a British version. They approached Tommy Steele, whose career had barely started (he was only nineteen) but who was Britain’s leading rock star and suggested they do a biopic.
Thus, The Tommy Steele Story was born. Cohen and Levy ensured the film was packed with songs, producer Peter Rogers counted every penny, writer Norman Hudis captured Steele’s voice, and the movie was shot over four weeks in March 1957 and in cinemas by the end of May. It was a box office phenomenon, one of the most popular movies of the year, and Cohen’s first really big hit.
Departing from crime (and imported B-listers) had paid off; parochialism could pay (although Cohen noted the movie’s success throughout the Commonwealth and Europe – American wasn’t the only market).
Cohen and Levy swiftly put Steele in follow ups – The Duke Wore Jeans (less good) and Tommy the Toreador (heaps of fun). They also adapted a popular television variety show, The Six-Five Special, into a film along the lines of ensemble American jukebox rock musicals like Rock Rock Rock and Jamboree, i.e. a loose storyline stuffed with a variety of music acts.
The Six-Five Special featured a young John Barry who director Alfred Shaughnessy says Cohen and Levy insisted appear in the movie because Barry’s dad owned cinemas and they wanted to ensure screenings. So, while Barry turned out to be one of the most significant film composers of the 20th century, technically he’s a nepo baby.
Cohen and Levy would make other rock musicals in the mid-sixties (we’ll talk about them in part three of this series) but they didn’t go “all in” on the genre, despite their success with The Tommy Steele Story. We think that the movies were too star dependent, which was never really Anglo-Amalgamated’s style, and there were only a few rock stars to go around. Besides, they had discovered a far more consistently lucrative genre: comedies.
Producer Pete Rogers approached Cohen and Levy with a novel about national servicemen he wanted to film, The Bulldog Breed. Comedy had been a blue chip genre for British movie companies throughout the 1940s and 1950s, but Anglo had stayed away from it, most likely because of (a) fear that comedies did not “travel” overseas, and (b) a desire to not pay the hefty salary of some star. But Cohen and Levy could also grasp the commercial possibilities of an army comedy if it could be made cheaply enough (national service did not end in Britain until 1960 and everyone knew someone in the services); besides, Rogers and writer Norman Hudis had certainly proved their bona fides to Anglo working on The Tommy Steele Story. Levy suggested the title be changed to Carry on Sergeant. The result was a bright, fun film, which in hindsight had the perfect cast and crew; it was one of the biggest hits of 1958, recouping its costs in Britain alone.
Cohen and Levy asked for a new “Carry On” movie, so Rogers and Company produced Carry on Nurse, which was number one at the British box office in 1959 – it was also a surprise success in North America. And so the Carry On juggernaut was launched – Carry on Teacher, Carry on Constable, Carry on Regardless, Carry on Cruising, Carry on Cabby, Carry on Jack, Carry on Spain, Carry on Cleo, Carry on Cowboy, Carry on Screaming, etc. Unlike many series, the films got better as it went on (the series would peak in the mid to late sixties).
Producer Peter Rogers was perfect for Anglo-Amalgamated, with his strong work ethic and desire to keep costs down; the fact that the films were ensemble pieces meant if any actor asked for too much money they could be replaced. In turn, Rogers appreciated Anglo’s constant finance, hands-off approach and willing to go into bat for the movies – according to the producer, if the censor board ever proved tricky with one of his comedies, Stuart Levy’s “idea of negotiation was to woo the censor with long liquid lunches and drag him around the local striptease establishments.” Hey, whatever works.
Cohen and Levy knew Rogers was a Golden Goose, so got him (and others associated with the series) to pump out a string of comedies in addition to the Carry Ons: Please Turn Over, Watch Your Stern, No Kidding, Dentist in the Chair and its sequel Dentist on the Job, Raising the Wind, Crooks Anonymous, She’ll Have to Go, Twice Round the Daffodils, Nurse on Wheels. None had the cultural impact of the Carry On films, but they were consistently profitable. Thus, while Cohen began his career making internationally-orientated crime films, he found more money to be made with parochial comedies (which actually did okay outside of Britain). Comedies would be Cohen’s “go-to” genre for the rest of his career, even more than crime.
In addition to musicals and comedy, the third new genre for Nat Cohen, Stuart Levy and Anglo-Amalgamated was horror. Cohen had developed a strong relationship with AIP, the American company, since the latter’s establishment in the mid-1950s; Anglo distributed a large number of AIP films in Britain such as I Was a Teenage Frankenstein. In 1957, Anglo signed a two-picture deal with AIP to make two films in Britain, Cat Girl and Horrors of the Black Museum. Sometimes it’s claimed that this move was in response to the success that Hammer Films had with The Curse of Frankenstein but plans were in motion to make them before Curse came out. Horror was in the air at the time (for instance, Columbia was planning Night of the Demon).
Cat Girl, inspired by Val Lewton’s Cat People, was written by AIP’s regular scribe Lou Rusoff, and introduced horror fans to future scream queen Barbara Shelley. It was not a huge success but Horrors of the Black Museum, produced by another AIP regular (Herman Cohen), was a blockbuster. Nat Cohen also got Herman Cohen (no relation) to make two more movies: a horror comedy no one much remembers, The Headless Ghost, and a mad scientist/rampage monkey movie that everyone loves, Konga. Anglo and AIP also co-produced two excellent horror films from director Sidney Hayers and producers Julian Wintle and Leslie Parkyn: Circus of Horrors, and Burn Witch Burn (or Night of the Eagle). Black Museum and Circus in particular, were big hits and all Anglo’s horror films except Headless Ghost have, deservedly, become cult favourites. They are splendid, worthy challengers to what Hammer was making.
Anglo also financed Peeping Tom, which is kind of a horror movie, although really, it’s a psychological thriller: the tale of a serial killer who murders women using a portable camera. It was directed by Michael Powell, still highly regarded within the industry at the time because of The Red Shoes, although his fifties movies had been more patchily received. When asked why he was working for an exploitation company like Anglo-Amalgamated, Powell replied “Anglo is ambitious.” The real reason, of course, is they were willing to back him.
In 1959, Nat Cohen had declared that Anglo “will not try to make what are sometimes known as prestige pictures — the type of films which so seldom attract the general cinema-goer. The only prestige we want our pictures to deserve is that which comes from big queues and tinkling box-office tills. We have no intention of becoming arty, highbrow or long-haired.” However, a classy psychological thriller from a noted director, like Peeping Tom – that was fine. Cohen would have hoped the association with Powell would turn out to be as happy as the one with Joseph Losey. And the director did give Cohen one of the mogul’s greatest movies.
Unfortunately, Peeping Tom received blisteringly harsh reviews in London – not just unanimously bad, but hysterically so, with much pearl-clutching over the violence. (The lack of critical recognition of Peeping Tom on its original release is one of the many low points in the history of British newspaper film criticism. Trade journal Kinematograph Weekly was far more perspicacious, predicting, the film’s “time will come”.)
Powell felt Cohen did not support the movie enough after this backlash, claiming the executive “was scared out of his tiny mind” and that he and Levy “cancelled the British distribution, and they sold the negative as soon as they could to an obscure black-marketeer who tried to forget it, and forgotten it was, along with its director, for twenty years.”
Film critic Alexander Walker alleged in 1997 that Cohen dumped the film because he “feared that being accused of handling pornography would jeopardise any hope he might have of a CBE or KBE on the Honours List”. This claim has been repeated endlessly by historians without interrogation and has done much damage to Cohen’s critical reputation. Walker varied the story a little in 2000 saying that members of the Variety Club (where Cohen did a lot of charity work and networking), worried about their knighthoods and awards, pressured Nat Cohen to pull the movie.
That sounds a little more believable. But the thing is, Walker didn’t offer any evidence to back up any of these claims and we’ve never read anything else to support it that wasn’t a re-hashed version of Walker’s articles. Based on newspapers from the time, Peeping Tom wasn’t “pulled” from cinemas – over the next few years it was screened throughout Britain, and the rest of the world, including Australia (where Colin Bennett of The Age gave it a bad review), Canada and the US.
We cannot see Cohen dismissing a film in the hope that he’d get a knighthood – this was a time he also had Circus of Fears and Horrors of the Black Museum in circulation. To be fair, maybe what Walker claims was true – after all, we all have our weaknesses; Michael Balcon and Alex Korda had been knighted by this stage, and impresarios such as Lew Grade, Bernard Delfont, James Carreras and John Davis all would be knighted within the next ten or so years. But another possibility is that Walker’s story isn’t true, and it was just a bitchy rumour that he invented, or repeated without fact checking, because he was a little embarrassed by the fact that the British critical establishment dismissed a film that has come to be regarded as a masterpiece, and helped wreck the career of one of Britain’s greatest directors. Further scholarship may resolve this.
We do acknowledge that it’s clear from reading contemporary newspapers that Peeping Tom didn’t receive a big PR push on its release. However, we can also imagine Cohen being reluctant to pump a lot of money into the film after it got such a harsh critical reception. It also appears that initial commercial response was poor – not due to reviews from key critics, but from word of mouth. Because Peeping Tom was, and remains, a confronting film to watch. Yes, Psycho had many similar story elements and became a huge box office success when released shortly after Peeping Tom. But Psycho had the box office insurance of Hitchcock (a brand name as big as any star in 1960) and made you identify with its victims: we don’t know the truth about Norman Bates until the end. Peeping Tom had no “names” and makes you identify with a killer from the opening sequence, literally putting the viewer in his shoes; that killer is depicted very sympathetically and also as someone who murders innocent women. That is part of the fascinating aspect of the movie – but it’s also very challenging for audiences, even now.
Powell blamed Peeping Tom’s reception for wrecking his career although the commercial failure of Honeymoon, The Queen’s Guards, They’re a Weird Mob (in Britain) and Age of Consent would not have helped. He trashed Cohen in his memoirs, and was supported in later years by Walker’s Cohen-wanted-a-knighthood story. Thus Nat Cohen, the man who gave Michael Powell complete artistic freedom as well as the money to make Peeping Tom, became a useful “baddy” in the film’s mythos for lazy auteurists. The most unfortunate thing: if Peeping Tom had been a hit, or at least a critical success, Powell would likely have kept working for the impresario, and we’d have a few more Michael Powell masterpieces.
Cohen kept quiet on the subject of Peeping Tom in later years. While Psycho’s huge success prompted Hammer Films to make a series of psycho thrillers (Taste of Fear, Maniac, Nightmare) Anglo-Amalgamated steered clear of that genre after Peeping Tom. Indeed, the company only made a few horror films overall, despite the obvious commercial possibilities of that genre, and its strong track record in doing so. Maybe Cohen did want a knighthood. But we are not going to take a critic’s word for it.
Throughout all this period, Cohen continued to finance its traditional crime films, both as “Bs” and “As”. Vernon Sewell, mentioned in part one, kept busy making films for Anglo, and a new favourite director was Sidney Hayers, who in addition to the aforementioned Circus of Horrors and Night of the Eagle made The Violent Moment, The White Trap, Echo of Barbara, The Malpas Mystery and Payroll (especially good).
A young Sean Connery starred in The Frightened City (as well as Anglo’s comedy On the Fiddle). Crossroads to Crime was the first movie from Gerry (Thunderbirds) Anderson, who Cohen hired while Anderson was seeking money for his series Supercar; in her memoirs, Anderson’s wife (then fiancée) Sylvia says the widowed Stuart Levy (whose wife died in 1956) took a shine to her, not knowing she was with Anderson. Joseph Losey, who’d made The Sleeping Tiger and The Intimate Stranger for Anglo under pseudonyms, returned to the company for The Criminal [below], a terrific drama with Stanley Baker – this time Losey was allowed to use his real name on the credits.
The market for crime had clearly not lessened: Anglo also kicked off two new series of support features. The most famous was The Edgar Wallace Mysteries, low budget adaptations of stories from author Edgar Wallace. These proved very popular, particularly in Europe – Anglo ended up making almost fifty of them (though definition as to which is an “official entry” varies). Lesser known was Scales of Justice, a sort of follow-up to Anglo’s Scotland Yard series, discussed in part one (it had the same presenter, Edgar Lustgarten) – this series was set in the law courts and there was 13 of them.
By 1961, Anglo-Amalgamated had become the most prolific film producing company in Britain, with a staff of 350 (it had started with six). To properly understand this achievement, it was a time when television was causing film attendances to constantly decline, and British film companies were collapsing or going out of business (eg. Ealing, Renown, Herbert Wilcox, Sydney Box). Even the biggest ones had to be bailed out by the government (British Lion) or Xerox machine sales (Rank). Anglo-Amalgamated not only expanded, it made significant contributions to the British musical, comedy, psychological thriller, horror, and crime movie. It also continued to give early support to figures who turned out to be major talents (Gerry Anderson, John Barry, Sean Connery, Sidney Hayers) and back the work of maverick artists (Michael Powell, Joseph Losey).
We would have a little trouble doing a “Nat Cohen top ten” for the years up until 1956 but zero problem for 1957-61: Horrors of the Black Museum, Peeping Tom, Circus of Horrors, The Criminal, Payroll, Tommy the Toreador, The Frightened City, Carry on Sergeant, The Tommy Steele Story, Carry on Constable (we may have lowbrow taste).
Cohen was asked in a 1961 interview what he and Stuart Levy had learned over the years. He replied: “To take it steady. We have climbed slowly but surely; to listen to the pulse of public taste, not to rush in for anything but to rush in when the subject is important enough. In other words, we realise we have to keep feeding exhibitors, but not with just any film. We feel that the way we approach a subject is important.
“We don’t make a film for a specific country. We make it for our exhibitor customers wherever they may be. Our average of successes is probably the highest in Great Britain. We feel we are more progressive than the average company. We like to give new people a chance. We attempt to put more on the screen. We try to be elastic with budgets. It is not the cost of a picture that counts; it’s the story; its entertainment value and the way it is promoted. But, if the subject requires a big star or a big budget, we stick to it.
“We have created a successful trend in British comedy pictures. Our success in America, apart from the basic quality of our productions, comes through encouraging people who distribute for Anglo over there. We don’t just rely on the major companies, but we select small companies who will get behind a picture and promote it for all it is worth. We have found that it’s not the size of the company, but the people in it and, if you find the right people, it’s a good policy to go with them all the way.”
Cohen and Levy owned racehorses as a sideline. It made sense, as there are many similarities between horse ownership and making movies: it’s about identifying talent, good practices, making calculated gambles. On 31 March 1962, one of their horses, Kilmore, won the Grand National, perhaps the biggest horse race in Britain, at odds of 28/1.
A few days later, it was announced that half of Anglo-Amalgamated had been bought by Associated British, the huge film, TV and ten pin bowling group. This meant more money and greater access to cinemas for Cohen and Levy – Anglo-Amalgamated was now one of the biggest film companies in Britain. They were the establishment now.
Then, in July 1962, Sally Levy, 21, Stuart Levy’s only child, fell from the sixth floor window of the apartment she shared with her father in Regent’s Park, London. She hit the concrete and died of massive injuries. The coroner ruled it to be an accidental death with no possibility of suicide.
Life, as they say, has a habit of punching you in the face.
And there was more life to come…
