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Yvon Jean Guillermin (11 November 192527 September 2015), known as John Guillermin, was an English film director, writer and producer. Working both in the United Kingdom and the United States, he was most active in big-budget, action-adventure films throughout his lengthy career.
His better-known films include I Was Monty's Double (1958), Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959), Never Let Go (1960), Tarzan Goes to India (1962), Waltz of the Toreadors (1962), The Blue Max (1966), The Bridge at Remagen (1969), The Towering Inferno (1974), King Kong (1976), Death on the Nile (1978), Sheena (1984) and King Kong Lives (1986). In the 1980s, he worked on much less prestigious projects, and his final films consisted of lower-budgeted theatrical releases and TV movies.
According to one obituary, "Regardless of whether he was directing a light comedy, war epic or crime drama, Mr. Guillermin had a reputation as an intense, temperamental perfectionist, notorious for screaming at cast and crew alike. His domineering manner often alienated producers and actors...But Mr. Guillermin's impeccable eye and ability to capture both intimate moments and large-scale action scenes usually overcame that reputation."
Guillermin joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 at the age of 17, lying about his age. This involved studying for six months at the University of Cambridge; when he was 18, he became a British citizen. He also studied flying at Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona. "The war basically saved me," he said later. "It got me away from my mother."
Guillermin wanted to be a director since he had seen Treasure Island at the cinema when he was seven. After mustering out of the Royal Air Force at the age of 22, Guillermin's directorial career began in France with documentary filmmaking, some of which was for the perfume company his father worked for.Guillermin p 5 According to a critical review of Guillermin's work, "One of his stylistic constants, an expert use of handheld camera to add grit and muscle to key scenes, may be rooted in those early efforts, and they function as counterweights to Guillermin's penchant for forceful lines, a very plastic sense of interior spaces, and use of overhead shots...Guillermin's interest in conveying how people and spaces relate to one another and how decisions are reached and carried out suggests a spark to his filmmaking that one might call John Grierson even if the grandfather of British documentary focused on social development and progress as opposed to collapse."
Guillermin went to another low-budget outfit, Nettleford, to direct the thriller Operation Diplomat (1953) with Guy Rolfe. This was described as "the first example of prime Guillermin...a 70-minute programmer so tautly directed that every image counts, every detail matters, every actor's movement feels perfectly timed—a true gem." It was followed by Adventure in the Hopfields (1954), made for Vandyke by the Children's Film Foundation, starring Mandy Miller. He also did The Crowded Day (1954), a shop girl melodrama with John Gregson, which was an attempt by Adelphi to enter bigger budgeted filmmaking.The Crowded Day/Song of Paris, Johnston, Trevor. Sight and Sound; London Vol. 21, Iss. 4, (Apr 2011): 85.
The market for British B films was growing tighter due to competition from television; Guillermin directed episodes of shows such as The Adventures of Aggie (15 TV episodes, 1956–57) and Sailor of Fortune (1957–58). According to the BFI, "it was a modest beginning but he soon hit his stride with a string of films that transcended their meagre budgets to reveal a genuine talent."
Following this, Guillermin announced he would make Insurrection about the 1916 Easter Rising for Carl Foreman based on a story by Liam O'Flaherty. Instead Guillermin made another movie with Mills and Setton, I Was Monty's Double (1958), the story of Operation Copperhead with M. E. Clifton James playing himself; it was made for Associated British. In between the two, Guillermin directed The Whole Truth (1958), a thriller produced by Jack Clayton with Stewart Granger, George Sanders and Donna Reed; it was distributed by Columbia.
Guillermin was hired by Independent Artists to make the crime thriller Never Let Go (1960) with Richard Todd and Peter Sellers; Guillermin also wrote the story. For the same company, Guillermin made Waltz of the Toreadors (1962), based on a Jean Anouilh play, which reunited him with Sellers. The latter was particularly successful at the box office.Laura Mayne (2017) Whatever happened to the British ‘B’ movie? Micro-budget film-making and the death of the one-hour supporting feature in the early 1960s, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 37:3, 559-576, DOI: 10.1080/01439685.2016.1220765 In between the two movies, Guillermin directed Tarzan Goes to India (1962), another popular Tarzan movie.
"The original Kong was part of my childhood and I loved it," said Guillermin. "I dreamed about it. What I wanted to do was to re-create what I'd felt about it the first time I saw it, but still adapt the story to our own day. I didn't think and still don't that you could simply remake it...We all wanted and tried to get back to that lyrical childhood idea of the beauty and the beast. It was tricky trying to balance all the jokes on the one hand and the danger of bathos on the other, but I wanted it to be obvious that we regarded the material with sincerity."
King Kong stars Jeff Bridges recalled "so many problems" on the film. "Every week or so John Guillermin would just explode, yelling at everybody. It got to the point where we waited for his blow ups." Writer Lorenzo Semple Jr said there was "a creative tension" between Guillermin and De Laurentiis which "helped us all". Guillermin said in a 1976 interview "I've been directing all over the bloody world for 27 years, learning my craft, and by now it's dripping from my fingers. I was ready for Kong and it was a lovely opportunity. It could've been better if we'd had more time. Still I'm damned proud. It works. It ain't bad." "I'm tired of being anonymous," he said around this time. "I admit I've been antagonistic towards the press and publicity. You must admit directors were not taking seriously for a long time." He added that "I've outlived most of my contemporaries who are either destitute or gone on to other things. I may have been anonymous but I've been working with quiet satisfaction and I've made a lot of money. My price per film now is one million dollars plus ten percent of the gross."'King Kong' directed by a cloaked 'Frog' by Ian Brodie 23 Dec. 1976, The Daily Telegraph (London, England)
He received an offer to direct the all-star film Death on the Nile (1978) for EMI Films shot in Egypt. "In Britain they seem to have run out of things to film," he said. "Over here there's an extraordinary freedom to take on an enormous variety of subjects." "Guillermin was not very nice to me," said Lois Chiles. "On my very first day when I questioned a direction I didn't understand, he stood there swearing at me. It was awful." In the late 1970s, Guillermin was attached to make The Godfather Part III and worked on a script with Dean Riesner and Mario Puzo. He made the Canadian horror film Mr. Patman (1980). After this, he was briefly connected to the film adaptation of Tai Pan to star Roger Moore.
Guillermin's son Michael-John died in a car accident during the making of Sheena. Guillermin was still grieving while making King Kong Lives. He occasionally left the set halfway through a day's shooting to go sailing. After one argument with the production staff, he stayed away for days. Filming was completed by uncredited, 21-year-old documentary film-maker Charles McCracken. Guillermin's last film was The Tracker (1988), a TV western starring Kris Kristofferson. For TV, he was one of the directors on (1989).
Memoirs of actors, editors and producers indicate that Guillermin was a difficult man to work with. He is described in Norma Barzman's book where he is mentioned in connection with the shooting of The Blue Max (1966) as having a "cold, stiff-lipped manner."Barzman, Norma. The Red and the Blacklist: The Intimate Memoir of a Hollywood Expatriate. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2003. p. 394. Elmo Williams, producer of The Blue Max, described Guillermin as a "demanding director, indifferent to people getting hurt as long as he got realistic action...he was a hard-working, overly critical man whom the crew disliked. However, Guillermin was a master at camera setup."Williams, Elmo. Elmo Williams: A Hollywood Memoir. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2006. p. 199
Producer David L. Wolper wrote that Guillermin was "the most difficult director with whom I'd ever worked." Wolper further described Guillermin as "a real pain in the ass." Guillermin was directing Wolper's The Bridge at Remagen (1969). When some members of the Czech crew were late for the first day of filming in 1968, Guillermin screamed at them. He was told by a crew member if he did this again, the entire crew would walk off the set. Guillermin later told Wolper he could not set foot on the set one day because of the complexity of the filming. Wolper told Guillermin he was therefore sacked. Guillermin apologised and was re-employed immediately.Wolper, David. Producer: A Memoir. New York: Scribner, 2003. p. 169
Ralph E. Winters was employed as editor for King Kong (1976) after a nice conversation with Guillermin. Winters described the director as "A skinny guy, dark, with very sharp features." In the screening room, Winters witnessed a frustrated Guillermin kicking the seat in front until it broke; Winters got an apologetic phone call the next day. Twenty-three years after the film was released, Guillermin called to compliment him on his work on King Kong.Winters, Ralph E. Some Cutting Remarks: Seventy Years as a Film Editor. Lanham, Massachusetts: Scarecrow Press, 2001. pp. 105–6. Charlton Heston described Guillermin as an "imaginative and skillful director" with an "irascible streak."Heston, Charlton. In the Arena: An Autobiography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. pp. 464–5.
Before filming started on Midway (1976), producer Walter Mirisch replaced Guillermin with Jack Smight after Guillermin requested more time and equipment, particularly aeroplanes, than the budget allowed.Mirisch, Walter. I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. pp. 332–333. Guillermin was also replaced as director on Sahara (1983) by Andrew V. McLaglen. Novelist James Dickey, who worked with him on the unfilmed Alnilam project in 1989, wrote that Guillermin was "one of those megalomaniacal directors who have to be given the gates of Heaven before they consider doing a project."
His work was re-appraised in Film Comment.
Why has Guillermin's career gone unrecognized? Easy: bad timing. Guillermin hit his stride at the end of the Fifties, just as a post-studio system style of filmmaking was arising with the French New Wave, Britain's Free Cinema, and so on. For the admirers of these idioms, Guillermin's meticulously executed and unapologetically classical works, such as The Blue Max (1966) or The Bridge at Remagen (1969), were anathema. The only Guillermin film that was somewhat in synch with the fashion of the day is Never Let Go (1960), an excursion into England's underworld that functions as a perfectly constructed parable about the new middle class's fear of falling—a kitchen-sink noir. The problem wasn't so much the disdain of new wave hipsters, as it was one of the director's attitude. Guillermin is something of a melancholic: In his coolly unflinching cinema, tired, traumatized men in desperate situations fight with dour determination for a few shreds of dignity. There's nothing conventionally uplifting about his films; his tales of violence, grimy glory, and defeat conceded with stoicism, don't make for easy viewing experiences. At their finest, Guillermin's films are howls from the soul's darker recesses—theirs is a savage heart.
"You know, there's really nothing like an exciting film on a big screen," Guillermin said in a 1990 interview. "Hopefully, I've made a few in my career."
On 27 September 2015, Guillermin died in Topanga, California, from a heart attack. He was 89. Guillermin attributed much of his famed bad temper to depression.
| + !Year !Title !Notes | ||
| 1949 | High Jinks in Society | co-directed, co-written and co-produced with Robert Jordan Hill |
| 1950 | Torment | also screenwriter and producer with Hill |
| 1951 | Smart Alec | |
| Two on the Tiles | ||
| Four Days | ||
| 1952 | Song of Paris | |
| Miss Robin Hood | ||
| 1953 | Strange Stories | co-directed with Don Chaffey |
| Operation Diplomat | also screenwriter (with A.R. Rawlinson) | |
| 1954 | The Crowded Day | |
| Adventure in the Hopfields | ||
| 1956 | Thunderstorm | |
| 1957 | Town on Trial | |
| 1958 | The Whole Truth | |
| I Was Monty's Double | ||
| 1959 | Tarzan's Greatest Adventure | also screenwriter with Berne Giler |
| 1960 | The Day They Robbed the Bank of England | |
| Never Let Go | also story writer with Peter de Sarigny | |
| 1962 | Waltz of the Toreadors | |
| Tarzan Goes to India | also screenwriter with Robert Hardy Andrews | |
| 1964 | Guns at Batasi | |
| 1965 | Rapture | |
| 1966 | The Blue Max | |
| 1968 | P.J. | |
| House of Cards | ||
| 1969 | The Bridge at Remagen | |
| 1970 | El Condor | |
| 1972 | Skyjacked | |
| 1973 | Shaft in Africa | |
| 1974 | The Towering Inferno | |
| 1976 | King Kong | |
| 1978 | Death on the Nile | |
| 1980 | Crossover | |
| 1984 | Sheena | |
| 1986 | King Kong Lives |
| 1949 | Bless 'Em All | associate producer | Directed by Robert Jordan Hill |
| Melody in the Dark | co-written and co-produced with Hill |
| + !Year !Title !Notes | ||
| 1953 | Your Favorie Story | 4 episodes |
| 1956-1957 | The Adventures of Aggie | 15 episodes |
| 1957-1958 | Sailor of Fortune | 13 episodes |
| 1978 | Death on the Nile: Making of Featurette | TV short documentary |
| 1988 | The Tracker | TV movie |
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