Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I GENRE
- 1 The Future Catches Up with the Past: Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets
- 2 Surrealism and Sudden Death in the Films of Lucio Fulci
- 3 Flash Gordon and the 1930s and ’40s Science Fiction Serial
- 4 Just the Facts, Man: The Complicated Genesis of Television’s Dragnet
- 5 The Disquieting Aura of Fabián Bielinsky
- PART II HISTORY
- 6 Fast Worker: The Films of Sam Newfield
- 7 The Power of Resistance: Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne
- 8 Beyond Characterization: Performance in 1960s Experimental Cinema
- 9 Vanishing Point: The Last Days of Film
- PART III INTERVIEWS
- 10 “Let the Sleepers Sleep and the Haters Hate”: An Interview with Dale “Rage” Resteghini
- 11 Margin Call: An Interview with J. C. Chandor
- 12 “All My Films Are Personal”: An Interview with Pat Jackson
- 13 Working Within the System: An Interview with Gerry O’Hara
- 14 Andrew V. McLaglen: Last of the Hollywood Professionals
- 15 Pop Star, Director, Actor: An Interview with Michael Sarne
- Works Cited and Consulted
- About the Author
- Index
13 - Working Within the System: An Interview with Gerry O’Hara
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 September 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I GENRE
- 1 The Future Catches Up with the Past: Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets
- 2 Surrealism and Sudden Death in the Films of Lucio Fulci
- 3 Flash Gordon and the 1930s and ’40s Science Fiction Serial
- 4 Just the Facts, Man: The Complicated Genesis of Television’s Dragnet
- 5 The Disquieting Aura of Fabián Bielinsky
- PART II HISTORY
- 6 Fast Worker: The Films of Sam Newfield
- 7 The Power of Resistance: Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne
- 8 Beyond Characterization: Performance in 1960s Experimental Cinema
- 9 Vanishing Point: The Last Days of Film
- PART III INTERVIEWS
- 10 “Let the Sleepers Sleep and the Haters Hate”: An Interview with Dale “Rage” Resteghini
- 11 Margin Call: An Interview with J. C. Chandor
- 12 “All My Films Are Personal”: An Interview with Pat Jackson
- 13 Working Within the System: An Interview with Gerry O’Hara
- 14 Andrew V. McLaglen: Last of the Hollywood Professionals
- 15 Pop Star, Director, Actor: An Interview with Michael Sarne
- Works Cited and Consulted
- About the Author
- Index
Summary
Gerry O’Hara is a true original and, if he never really got the chance to definitively climb out of the ranks of assistant directors into the realm of fullfledged feature directors, he nevertheless managed to carve out a solid career in the cinema working with such luminaries as Sir Laurence Olivier, Ronald Neame, Michael Powell, Sir Carol Reed, Anatole Litvak, Ken Annakin, Terence Fisher, Sidney Box, Otto Preminger and many more in his early years, before striking out on his own with several low-budget sixties British films – the most memorable of which is The Pleasure Girls (UK, 1963), recently rereleased as part of the BFI's “Flipside” series of lesser-known films that nevertheless deserve attention. Despite its unfortunate title, The Pleasure Girls is, in reality, a deeply moving feminist document of ‘60s London, shot in a real apartment building as four young women come to London to make their way in the world.
Throughout his career, O’Hara has had to do a number of projects he didn't really want to do, but he also got a chance to work with some of the greatest talents in the history of the cinema and is frank about his past, including the biggest mistake of his career: walking off Lawrence of Arabia (dir. David Lean, UK, 1962) as first assistant director during early preproduction, after which he alleges that Columbia Pictures effectively blacklisted O’Hara within the industry as “unreliable.” I couldn't possibly cover all of his credits even in this lengthy interview, but suffice it to say that Gerry O’Hara was extremely active from the early 1940s on, working with all the major talents in the field; he certainly left his mark on the cinema industry. But let him tell it in this interview conducted on 3 December 2010.
WHEELER WINSTON DIXON: You were born in 1924.
GERRY O’HARA: Correct.
DIXON: And your father was a bookmaker?
O’HARA: That's right. He was just small time. He was the equivalent of what was called a street bookie. In those days, it was illegal to take cash for wagering. He was just a very smalltime bookie in a little country town – Boston Lincolnshire – where I was born.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cinema at the Margins , pp. 157 - 178Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2013