Jonathan Balcon Side 1 

end

Roy Fowler  0:00  
The day is the 1st August 2001. Um I should add the copyright of the following recording is vested with the BECTU History Project, if that's agreeable to you Jonathan, and the subject we're about to embark I suspect on a marathon discussion is with Jonathan Balcon, who is the son of Michael Balcon. Jonathan now, we're going to range over vast areas of territory so where do we start in this? I think maybe the Balcon family itself, the origins and ...

Jonathan Balcon 0:35  
Yes Roy I think probably you are right. But can I just say that to start as it were in the middle, as I think you know, he was knighted in 1947 for services to the British film industry during the war. He was also a Knight First Class of the Order of St. Olaf, Norway, which he and Charlie Frend acquired I think because of the "Return of the Vikings", I'm not sure about that. He was also a Chevallier Des Arts et Des Lettres, France and curiously enough, my sister was in Paris the day he died, buying the Insignia because in fact the French are too mean to give it to you. But there we are. He was a Fellow of the British Film Institute; he was a Fellow of the Royal College of Art; he was an Honorary D Lit Sussex University and he was chairman of the various companies later in life that we'll come to. But let us go back to the beginning. He was born in Birmingham in 1896. Now 1896 is always taken to be the year that the British film industry was discovered as it were and came into being. So it is rather nice to think that in 1996, was the centenary of the British film industry and in fact in 1996, if my mathematics are correct, Mick would have been 105. He had he was the, with his sister Nettie, he was the youngest of five he had two other brothers and an older sister. His two older brothers, Chan, of course, who was a regular soldier to all intents and purposes and had been to university and fought with some distinction in the First World War worked for Mick at  Ealing and indeed before then at Gaumont. And it's quite amusing that there was I understand at the old Gaumont  Studios, a long corridor, which was known as the Polish Corridor because the Balcons were at the end of it!  Anyway, he, the family was a middle-class Birmingham family, my grandfather, who I knew quite well, Louis, was an extraordinary man who never really did a stroke of work all through his life. My grandmother I never knew, Mick's mother, I'm always given to understand that she couldn't speak very good English. And when in late 1890s, early 1900s, Louis said he was just going out to take the dog for a walk in fact he was going to South Africa to try and earn his fortune. It took us some weeks to realise that a) he never went for a walk anywhere and b) they hadn't got a dog. But that is an apocryphal family story, but quite an amusing one.

Roy Fowler  3:53  
Where had the family originally come from in Europe? 

Jonathan Balcon  3:56  
Well now this is an interesting point. The Ukraine covered a large amount of territory. On the other hand, at times parts of the Ukraine belonged to Poland. So they came from somewhere around a town, which is now in Poland, called Konin, K O N I N and a book has been written called Konin by Theodore Richmond, I think his name is, which describes this town in detail - it was totally destroyed by the Germans in the last war. But my cousin Dorothy, who was the daughter of one of Mick's brothers, has done a lot of research on the family and has come up with the fact that some of our antecedents did come from this particular part of the world - whether Louis did or not I don't know. The other distinguished member of the family who also came from that part of the world and his grandfather was Louis' brother, was my distant cousin Sir John Balcombe, B A L C O M B E, who was a Lord of Appeal and a very distinguished judge, who died last year and had the most marvellous ecumenical service in the Great Hall at Lincoln's Inn. I did query with him why the name was spelt differently, he said when they first came over to this country it was in fact spelt B A L C O N and his father changed it when his father started working here, but I don't know how true that is. The other story that goes around of course is that depending on what port of entry an immigrant came in, the immigration officer wrote down the name of the person as he thought it was spelt phonetically. This is as maybe but to side track for a moment in 1944, when I was with Mick down in Mevagissey when they were making "Johnny Frenchmen", the Breton fishing fleet was in Mevagissey, waiting to go back to Brittany, which was about to be liberated and it was in charge of a captain whose name was Michel Balcon. So whether or not the name originated in France I just don't know but as you as you realise the French word balcon call means balcony. Numerous friends over my last 69 years have sent me postcards of the Hotel du Balcon from various parts of France.  Anyway, he had a conventional grammar School education Mick, quite a good rugby player. He had a congenital defect in his left eye, in which he wasn't quite blind, but it did prevent him, his eyesight, from being called up in the First World War when all his brothers went off to fight and Chan indeed ended up the war a Half Colonel.  But Mick went off to Dunlops, where he met Sir Charles Tennyson, as he subsequently was, and of course out of that bloomed the relationship and the subsequent employment of Pen, which we'll come to in a minute. I have at home here his quote 'Certificate of Protection' unquote. Evidently the ladies of Birmingham in the days when the war was on in 1915 if they saw a young man on the streets who they thought was worthy of military service they would go up and present him with a white feather but if you waived your 'Certificate of Protection' at them they used to take their white feathers back. Mick always used to say, tell quite an amusing story because one of our neighbours later in Sussex in fact, was Bill Slim, the famous Field Marshal and he and Bill in fact did go along to join up in a "Pals Battalion" a Birmingham Pals Battalion on the same day, and Mick always says the only difference between the two of them really was that Bill Slim ended up as C.I.G.S., and Mick ended up as a Lieutenant in The Home Guard. But that was the sum total of his military service and I have in fact also got his home guard identity card. He served in Dunlops, as I said, from about 1915 onwards, he literally started on the shop floor fitting solid rubber tyres onto lorry wheels. He then in fact, was taken out of that and given a job in the accounts department, I think bookkeeping, and he always had a very good financial and mathematical brain. Although later in life he spent his time thinking he was going bankrupt. Anyway when the war was over, and thanks to the good offices of various people, not least of all um CJ Wolf ...

Roy Fowler  3:56  
CM, CM

Jonathan Balcon  9:43  
CM Wolf sorry, CM Wolf yes, I do get names wrong. He formed with Victor Saville a production company making advertising films. This was in 1919 and it was not unnaturally called The Victory Motion Picture Company. And Victor Saville himself was also a Birmingham boy and they'd obviously known each other and in what I imagined in Birmingham in those days was a comparatively close Jewish community.

Jonathan Balcon  10:13  
They weren't related ... 

Jonathan Balcon  10:15  
They weren't related, 

Roy Fowler  10:16  
I'd heard they were cousins.

Jonathan Balcon  10:17  
No, no, no. They did have a big fallout later on in life. But as a result of their success making advertising films they teamed up again in 1923, and raised sufficient money through what was then the National Provinicial Bank and CM Wolf, to make a film called "Woman to Woman" 

Roy Fowler  10:47  
Yes. 

Jonathan Balcon  10:49  
And apart from being a good film, and a film that made a lot of money, it was famous because they actually employed an American actress called Constance Smith?

Roy Fowler  11:03  
I wouldn't be sure. 

Jonathan Balcon  11:05  
I would have to look that up.

Roy Fowler  11:06  
Yes, yes. But it would be a matter of records.

Jonathan Balcon  11:08  
Yup, at a 1000 pounds a week. So even if you needed a fortnight's work in those days for 2000 pounds that was a great deal of money. 

Roy Fowler  11:17  
Well that was a Hollywood rate I would have thought ... 

Jonathan Balcon  11:20  
I would have thought 

Roy Fowler  11:20  
It would have been $5,000 a week.

Jonathan Balcon  11:21  
Yeah. 

Roy Fowler  11:23  
Tell me, tell me Jon did he ever given an indication what attracted him to the film industry in the first place?

Jonathan Balcon  11:30  
I think as a boy he used to go to the what, weren't they Penny Arcades or whatever?

Roy Fowler  11:38  
Yes I suppose they were yes. Where they had the crank machines. Yes.

Jonathan Balcon  11:43  
Yes that's right. And I think this fascinated him. And I think goodness knows where he got it from there was a vague sort of creative urge inside him and I think he felt it was a medium that he would like to be involved in, it was new, it was exciting.

Roy Fowler  11:59  
Right. Was he adventurous do you think as a young man, in that sense that he would latch on to a new idea and pursue it?

Jonathan Balcon  12:08  
I think yes he was. I think yes he was, I think he wanted to get out really of the rather sort of closed Birmingham, middle-class rut that he felt he was in. And I think he felt that this was, I think it was greatly helped by CM. I don't quite know how CM came on the scene originally, except, of course, in later life we were always friendly with John and Victor Saville, of course, was John's son-in law.

Roy Fowler  12:37  
I did ask John once, that's to say John Wolf, how his father got into the business and he said he wanted to start a family business. Just after the war with his father, with his brother-in-law, I believe.

Jonathan Balcon  12:52  
Yeah, yes, and this sounds absolutely fine.

Roy Fowler  12:57  
And by the time your father came along he was quite a figure in the distribution business was he not? 

Jonathan Balcon  13:03  
CM?

Roy Fowler  13:04  
CM.

Jonathan Balcon  13:05  
Yes.

Roy Fowler  13:05  
Because it was W & F Films I think. 

Jonathan Balcon  13:08  
Yeah, that's right. 

Roy Fowler  13:10  
So that explains your father presumably went to him to say, look we want to make this film will you back us? 

Jonathan Balcon  13:17  
Yup. I think that in those early days I'm sure that's what happened. But then of course we jump ahead very slightly. and we get I think it's to 1923, '24 and he and Victor Saville and various other people including ... Oh, goodness, it'll come to me in a minute. He was the father of quite a well known actress of the day, founded Gainsborough pictures.

Roy Fowler  13:54  
I'm not at all sure, can't help.

Jonathan Balcon  13:57  
Yeah. I'll have to look him up. Cutts, Patricia Cutts, Jack Cutts.

Roy Fowler  14:05  
Oh alright.

Jonathan Balcon  14:06  
Sorry I'm getting like you, I don't always remember names.  Anyway they acquired Islington Studios. Now Islington Studios had been owned by Famous Players-Lasky I believe, and Famous Players-Lasky had not made any money in their British production ventures and we're only too pleased to sell the studios to Mick for £14,000. And in fact, if you go there, even today although the site is being developed, on the big wrought-iron gates into the yard it quite clearly says Gainsborough Pictures, or Gainsborough Productions. And I believe the gates have got a preservation order slapped on them.

Roy Fowler  14:58  
Yes I would think so. Right. So they are the original, the first Gainsborough company gates are they?

Jonathan Balcon  15:04  
Yup. By acquiring Islington, of course he acquired Hitchcock. Because Hitchcock, at that time had been writing, I don't know what you call them captions for silent films, he'd also been in the art department and he was desperate to direct pictures. And I believe that they had given him the opportunity to direct in a minor way one or two smaller pictures. But he in fact was given his first major opportunity by Mick which was "The Lodger" with Ivor Novello in them in the main part. I think people forget that Ivor Novello, the great romantic figure of the '30s and '40s was in fact alive in the First World War, very much so, and wrote that famous song  "Keep the Home Fires Burning".

Roy Fowler  16:03  
Indeed.

Jonathan Balcon  16:07  
My mother always had a thing about Ivor I mean, we all know what his leanings were, but she she thought he was the most lovely person. And I remember when he did eventually die, she was totally devastated. But there we are, she was inclined to be over emotional at times, like others in my family.

Roy Fowler  16:25  
I guess Ivor was the archetypal luvvie was he not?

Jonathan Balcon  16:28  
I suppose this was it, and one used to see him. I mean, I remember seeing him during the war sitting at lunch in the Ivy, you know with with with various women swooning  all round him [LAUGHTER] But the Hitchcock era really started. And then of course, Islington went on to make films with various people, including in Germany, he went to Ufa for a time and of course Adrian Brunel worked for him. Christopher, as you all know, and will remember, was a leading light in the ACTT when it was when it was going, and his mother in fact, and I didn't know this until she died, had been quite a well-known silent film actress. I can't remember what her name was but Babs, in fact married Adrian, and I don't know how many people know this but Adrian was also the spitting image of Claude Rains. And in that ghastly Gabby Pascal film "Caesar and Cleopatra" many of the scenes it was in fact Adrian they shot and not Claude Rains. He he did a stand in for them, I think at that time he was fairly short of funds and they lived in a modest way in Gerrards Cross and I think he was only too glad to be called back to Denham studios to do this small ...

Jonathan Balcon  16:28  
Well that's fascinating because there were great problems between Rains and Pascal and also for tax purposes ...

Jonathan Balcon  18:09  
Oh I'm not surprised.

Roy Fowler  18:09  
... great problems yeah.

Jonathan Balcon  18:13  
About this time, of course, the Ostrers were developing Gaumont British at Shepherds Bush. And in that great year 1931, which was the year I was born, he was invited Mick to become production head at the new Gaumont Studios in Shepherds Bush. And a great era of British filmmaking started really and then, as you know it. I may be wrong in my assessment of this but I always think in that period the British film industry constant, concentrated rather too much on British middle-class habits almost exclusively and embarrassingly and all the men changed into white tie and tails for cocktail parties and dinner parties and ...

Roy Fowler  19:10  
And the rest of the British population was represented by Kathleen Harrison as ...

Jonathan Balcon  19:16  
The eastenders were rather a joke and the police force of course was even more of a joke. But there we are, it's it's curious even in the comedies with Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge they were always on very much middle-class subjects. My recollection, I didn't really start my film going until much later in life but I've I've caught up a great deal on the older films, and until the great Hitchcock era, but even there when you look at films like "The Man Who Knew Too Much", and "The 39 Steps" and "The Lady Vanishes" of Hitchcock they were all again on middle-class subjects really. Now, there's an interesting story about "The Man Who Knew Too Much" Roy which you may know and that is Hitch, who was establishing himself by this time, with Mick running both Islington and Gaumont British Studios at Shepherds Bush, Hitch came to him in 1935 I think it was, and had with him the synopsis for "The Man Who Knew Too Much". And Mick liked the synopsis and said to Hitch, "What do they want for it?', '£500' said Hitch. 'Right' said Mick, 'Give it to them.' What Hitch didn't tell Mick was he'd bought it for £100. As a result of which, of course, his Catholic conscience pricked him and he commissioned a sculptor called Epstein to do a very nice bronze bust of Mick, which is now reposing in the National Portrait Gallery. And if anybody could be bothered to go up to the first floor into the whatever it is the contemporary or not contemporary but well-known figures of the last century, he's behind a pillar in the sun and very happy.

Roy Fowler  21:17  
Was that a donation to the nation or did that stay in the family?

Jonathan Balcon  21:21  
It was, I in fact, when I heard that Puttnam was anxious to acquire it for BAFTA, I offered it to the National Portrait Gallery, which I thought was a better venue. And the family did receive money for it. Not a lot, but I mean, market, market value I would have thought. We had it at the Grey House in Seal for some time and it used to wear a fur hat in winter and a straw hat in the summer. And it really ought to be exhibited because it's a very, very good likeness. 1931 of course, he had, the year I was born he had a nervous breakdown whether or not it was enhanced by my arrival or not I don't know.

Roy Fowler  22:11  
Your sister preceded you by how long?

Jonathan Balcon  22:13  
Seven years, seven years and has never forgotten it [LAUGHTER]

Roy Fowler  22:19  
Maybe it was she who occasioned the break down who knows.

Jonathan Balcon  22:22  
Could have been, could have been.

Roy Fowler  22:24  
But do you have any idea why possibly he was getting a little unstrung? It was, do you think it was the Ostrers ...

Jonathan Balcon  22:28  
I think he was doing too much. 

Roy Fowler  22:30  
Right. 

Jonathan Balcon  22:30  
And of course even in those days although he had a permanent contract, or seemed to have a permanent contract with Gaumont British ... their lifestyle even in 1931 was pretty good and I think you know, expenses always rained fairly, fairly heavily in the family and he spent most of his life always thinking as I said that he was going to go broke. Luckily he never did. But the period with the Ostrer's of course, was again a curious one. But he met some marvellously interesting, or he had some marvellously interesting people who passed through his hands, most of whom became the great filmmakers of ...

Roy Fowler  23:19  
Indeed.

Jonathan Balcon  23:20  
... the last century. One of the more interesting ones who I was very fond of was Ivor Montagu, son of a peer, member of the Communist Party, a man of the dirtiest fingernails I've ever seen in my life [LAUGHTER]

Jonathan Balcon  23:20  
A member of a great banking family.

Roy Fowler  23:38  
A member of a great banking family but an absolutely super chap. And I remember there was an occasion, I can't remember what the occasion actually was, but Ivor was going to, I think it was probably a first night, possibly even of 'The 39 Steps" on which Ivor worked but, Mick made Ivor go out and hire a dinner jacket which he'd never had. Because he'd paid the higher fee Mick said he arrived at the studio in the morning wearing this bloody thing and remained in it for the rest of the day [LAUGHTER].

Roy Fowler  24:12  
Right. 

Roy Fowler  24:13  
It was during, Roy, his period at Gaumont that they made "Jew Süss"

Roy Fowler  24:19  
Right before we get onto that just a short step backwards: how well did he get on with the Ostrers at the beginning? Any idea?

Jonathan Balcon  24:30  
My recollection is that at the beginning fine but there was a sort of armed neutrality between them. I don't think they interfered too deeply.

Roy Fowler  24:42  
They were a mixed bunch anyway. 

Jonathan Balcon  24:44  
Oh very odd lot. The one I knew best was, was it Isadore?

Roy Fowler  24:49  
Isador was the money man. 

Jonathan Balcon  24:51  
Who wrote about Geld.

Roy Fowler  24:52  
He was the brilliant one, yes.

Jonathan Balcon  24:54  
I met him at Upper Parrick and I thought he was er sort of intellectually way above have us all and talked in terms that seemed absolutely marvellous. The boys, the boys were, one of the boys was my was my contemporary at school. The older boy I can't remember, one of them married, it was older boy I think, married a cinema usherette which didn't go down frightfully well with the Ostrer family. But I think, I don't quite know latterly what went wrong and why he left Gaumont or why his contract was terminated. But it was certainly I think they had a disagreement about the type of films that Gaumont we're making which were costing too much money and not making enough.

Roy Fowler  25:47  
So Mick really wanted to conquer the, the international market, which has always been the Holy Grail, hasn't it?

Jonathan Balcon  25:53  
I think so, yes I think so but of course was a total reversal afterwards. Well we'll come to that. 

Roy Fowler  26:00  
Right.

Jonathan Balcon  26:01  
We'll come to that.

Roy Fowler  26:02  
You mentioned "Jew Süss", which was indeed one of the more expensive pictures and failed in the States.

Jonathan Balcon  26:07  
Yup, during the making of "Jew Süss", of course, which I think was '36? 

Jonathan Balcon  26:14  
Around, there yes. 

Jonathan Balcon  26:16  
Hitler had been in power in Germany for some time, three or four years and the German Embassy sent a delegation down to the studios to ask for the film to be dropped. They of course got their marching orders. The film was not dropped, it wasn't as you said, an enormous success. And the interesting thing, of course is that the Nazi Party remade it in 1939 in Germany but with a totally different ending. So it was obviously even in those days a very controversial subject. This Jewish thing in the family is very odd because it was something Mick never told us, any of us about. He never had any religious teaching himself and it's something that certainly Jill and myself were never conscious of as children. Although K???'s there's a marvellous photograph, of which I have a copy of going back to Mick's father when he was in Johannesburg, he was made an elder of the first synagogue that had been built in Johannesburg. And this was roundabout the time of the Jameson Raid and all that, but they thought it would be only polite to invite Oom Paul down from Pretoria to open it. And the Presidential train duly arrived, and Oom Paul descended in his stovepipe hat and he was taken to the doors of this synagogue. And he stood in the doorway and he removed his stovepipe hat and he said, 'In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I declare this synagogue open'. [LAUGHTER] And I have this photograph of the elders, one of whom was my grandfather, looking absolutely shattered as though a thunder bolt had struck them [LAUGHTER].

Roy Fowler  28:24  
Because of that phrase?

Jonathan Balcon  28:26  
Because of that phrase.  With Oom Paul sitting in the middle looking quite unconcerned. 

Roy Fowler  28:30  
Right. 

Jonathan Balcon  28:31  
But that's another nice little piece of family history you know, that ...

Roy Fowler  28:37  
Does that mean there's any sense of Jewish identity or total thorough assimilation? 

Jonathan Balcon  28:42  
No.

Roy Fowler  28:43  
And Mick was what first generation in effect was he?

Jonathan Balcon  28:48  
First generation English. 

Roy Fowler  28:50  
Yes, born in this country.

Jonathan Balcon  28:51  
Yes. Although Philip Kemp has discovered a birth certificate of Louis' saying he was born in Aberdeen, and I said, it must be a forgery [LAUGHTER] 

Roy Fowler  29:01  
Curious.

Jonathan Balcon  29:01  
It was much more likely he came over on an onion boat and landed in Aberdeen. Oh, no, no, there was no doubt about it, there was no sense of that at all. Except, of course, he was obviously extremely worried by the news coming out of Germany. He was instrumental, he in fact he employed Renata Muller in a film. He was responsible indirectly for getting a number of Jewish German actors and actresses out of Germany by offering them contracts. 

Jonathan Balcon  29:35  
Technicians too I believe. 

Jonathan Balcon  29:37  
Technicians, I believe. Now we were always, we always rather thought that he was on the Nazi death list for as and when they landed over here. In fact, I've got a copy of the death list and he's not on it, but the Ostrers are. [LAUGHTER]

Jonathan Balcon  30:32  
Probably not because they were Jewish though [LAUGHTER]

Jonathan Balcon  29:58  
But there's no doubt about it I mean that we would have been gonners as well. We'll come to that in a minute. The Gaumont British episode I think, I know that he was paid I think his salary in 1931 was certainly £2,000 a year which was again a lot of money. And it was at that time while still owning Tufton Street where the Westminster City Council in their wisdom put up the green plaque and where you and I first met.

Jonathan Balcon  30:36  
I started there that wasn't Westminster.

Jonathan Balcon  30:38  
Well you started, yes, of course you did. And as a result of which now English Heritage have got on to the ballgame, but as well as owning tufton Street, which incidentally after the war he sold for £5,000 [LAUGHTER]

Roy Fowler  30:56  
Oh well the heart bleeds.

Jonathan Balcon  30:57  
He hired or rented a house not very far from here at Ide Hill called Henden Manor, most beautiful house, I've got photographs of it.  Where I was brought up as a child and curiously enough there was a kindergarten in the, in the village - sorry he's barking at the dustman - there was a kindergarten in the village run by a dear lady called Mrs McDonald where Sally and I first met, because she lived on the other side of Ide Hill and I lived this side of Ide hill, we did lose touch after that. But Henden Manor was the most lovely house and he very much wanted to buy it, but he also very much wanted to have, as Jill I think once said in a television programme about Ealing, he wanted a little bit of England. And the house was owned by Hudson who was then the Minister of Agriculture, and an MP obviously, and it had a farm attached to it but Hudson would have sold him the house but not the farm and um as a result of which we moved literally just across the border into Sussex. But this was all happening at about the time that he left Gaumont British in 1937 and went and joined Metro Goldwyn as production head of MGM UK.

Roy Fowler  32:26  
Had he put himself on the market or did they come to him do you think?

Jonathan Balcon  32:31  
I rather had a feeling they came to him, I'd have to check in his book about that. I've got a copy, I've got the original somewhere of the most ecstatic, nauseating Western Union cablegram from Louis B Mayer welcoming them both to Hollywood. My mother hated every moment of it and in fact started writing a diary which I have the first 15, 20 pages of, which is almost unpublishable.

Roy Fowler  33:12  
Written when she was when she was in Los Angeles at Metro?

Jonathan Balcon  33:17  
At Metro. Father tells some quite amusing stories about Metro, not least of all the one, Louis B Mayer, being again of Jewish extraction, and having been a poor boy on the streets of New York, the one thing that he'd always wanted when he was poor, was chicken noodle soup - Jewish penicillin. And every meal served in the restaurant in Hollywood there was always chicken noodle soup on the menu. And whenever there was a celebration for Louis' birthday, whatever anniversary it was, always the first course was chicken noodle soup. And on this particular occasion, I think it was his birthday party, and it was obviously quite an important birthday party because there was an enormous tent erected on the lot, and there was flunkies in white wigs and white gloves who leaned over you with their golden cords dangling in your chicken noodle soup and said, 'Can I get you guys anything?' Anyway, whether it was an excess of chicken noodle soup, or whether it was a foretaste of things to come, suddenly in the middle of this Louis B Mayer collapsed and it was wind round the heart or something but one of the flunkies dashed out to get an ambulance and as he dashed out the MGM Symphony Orchestra which was waiting outside thought this was the scene [LAUGHTER] for them to strike up for 'He's a Jolly Good Fellow' [LAUGHTER] And this macarbre scene took place with Louis B Mayer being taken out almost as it were on a door, or on a stretcher, and the MGM Symphony Orchestra playing away 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow' followed by I think 'Happy Birthday to You' [LAUGHTER]. And it was one of the scenes that always remained in Mick's mind.  He made, as you know, one major film for them which was successful, which was "A Yank at Oxford", um Vivien Lee, Robert Taylor. And even in those days he said the teenyboppers used to stand outside the windows of Robert, Robert Taylor's. [DOG BARKING IN BACKGROUND] Is that going to worry you?

Roy Fowler  36:00  
Well, no, it's okay it's way off in the background. Like I'm not even sure I can hear it on the cans.

Jonathan Balcon  36:07  
Oh that's alright. They used to stand  under the window of Robert Taylor's room at the Ritz and catch his dogends as he threw them out of the window [LAUGHTER]

Roy Fowler  36:17  
Tell me, have you ever read Graham Greene's piece called 'Film Lunch'? 

Roy Fowler  36:22  
No.

Roy Fowler  36:23  
Ah, there was a glorious luncheon given by LB at the Savoy to launch the production of "A Yank at Oxford", your father must have been there, and apparently he made a speech, everyone was going to be restricted to 15 minutes, but he droned on for a couple of hours [LAUGHTER]. I have it now I'll make you a copy it's fascinating. It  beautifully written needless to say.

Roy Fowler  36:46  
I'd love to.

Roy Fowler  36:48  
Right. I'll give it, we are meeting next week so I'll bring a copy.

Roy Fowler  36:53  
Lovely. 

Roy Fowler  36:53  
It was in Night and Day, if you remember Night and Day, the the English answer to, the British answer to the New Yorker, which failed.  Anyway.

Jonathan Balcon  37:03  
Well, then, of course, "A Yank", I don't know whether it was successful at the box office, I think it must of ...

Roy Fowler  37:12  
Immensley so, a great hit.

Jonathan Balcon  37:14  
He then also set about setting up or arranging the preliminaries on "Goodbye, Mr Chips." when something went seriously wrong, I don't quite know what it was whether he had a row with Irving Thalberg or whether he had a row with somebody. But he went out to Hollywood and I understand that in front of an open window and a crowd of several thousand extras Louis shouted at the top of his voice, 'If it takes a million dollars Balcon I'll break you' to which Mick quite rightly replied, 'Oh I can assure you it won't take as much as that' and walked out.

Roy Fowler  37:52  
It's documented is it?

Jonathan Balcon  37:54  
That's documented, yup.

Roy Fowler  37:55  
That's lovely, that's great. 

Jonathan Balcon  37:57  
And he had of course, we must go back a bit now let's go back to "39 Steps" at Gaumont. One of the assistant directors at "39 Steps", on "39 Steps" was Pen Tennyson, now Pen I suppose was the nearest thing I had to a brother in as much as my father, in the healthiest possible way, absolutely adored him. I think Pen represented everything Mick would like to have been, and in fact everything he hoped that I might become. Pen was good looking; he came from an established English family; he was artistically bent and I mean the word in the leaning sense; he was mad about films and he had two delightful parents in Charles and Ivy who were his mother and father. Ayway, and this is a perfectly true story and I'm sure the film industry know it ... what was the name of the female lead in "39 Steps" wasn't Merle Oberon it was ...

Roy Fowler  38:36  
No Madeline Carroll. 

Roy Fowler  39:26  
Madeline Carroll in one of the scenes where she had to totter across a Scottish bog in high-heeled shoes, refused to do it. So without any more ado Hitch made her take-off the suit she was wearing, acquired a blonde wig, put Pen into the suit, put the wig on Pen and made Pen do the shot in long-shot. And in fact when you see this figure running across the bog in Scotland, it's Penrose Tennyson and not Madeline Carroll.

Roy Fowler  40:03  
A nice little sidelight.

Jonathan Balcon  40:05  
It is a nice little sidelight. But Pen became as it were part of my father's team and when he finally left MGM as you probably know, Basil Dean had been making a series of pretty awful films at Ealing and had put various stars under contract, I think probably the best of the bunch that he made was the one with Gracie Fields, which again rather mocked the working class, but it it "Sing As We Go".  Is that the one?

Roy Fowler  40:49  
Well that was a Gracie Fields film.  I think there were several Fields that were made at Ealing at that time.

Jonathan Balcon  40:54  
And Stephen Courthauld who was was the majority shareholder at Associated Talking Pictures, which was the holding company at Ealing, had said to Reg Baker, who was the managing director, 'Reg, you know, I've got to get rid of Dean and this crowd making, losing money hand over fist at Ealing. Can you find me somebody who can make films?' And it is alleged Reg Baker, said, 'Well, Steven, the only person I know who's available at the moment, if he's available, is Mick Balcon' and this is alluded to in fact in Steven Courthauld's, or the Eltham Palace booklet that you get when you go around the palace there's a little bit about this and about Mick in that. Anyway, Mick said to Reg Baker, 'Look, I have no intention of tying myself down under contract to any production organisation. But what I am quite prepared to do is to come in with my team' and I think his team consisted of people like Walter Ford, Pen Tennyson, Mick, I'd have to get the list of films that, those early Ealing films that he was responsible for to give you the full list, I've got it upstairs. But it was, he said, 'I will come in with my team and we will be an independent company within your organisation but we won't be tied down.' Anyway Mick always alleged when he got there on the first day there in the parking bay was a large measure saying Michael Balcon Esquire, and he said he knew he was lost then. And we know the subsequent story from there, but they did initially, they made a number of films: "There Ain't No Justice", "The Ware Case", Jimmy Handley was in one or two of them.

Jonathan Balcon  41:47  
As a child presumably?

Jonathan Balcon  43:04  
No in "There Ain't No Justice", Jimmy was a teenager, he was a boxer. And I think he became a drunk later in life you know, whether it was when he was first married to Diana or not I didn't know.  But I always thought Jimmy was a lovely actor and I thought, again I'm rushing ahead a bit, but his performance in "The Blue Lamp" was absolutely superb. But um I've also there is a nice little, upstairs, which you'll see ...

Roy Fowler  43:37  
Before you go on though let me change the tape.

End of Side 1

Side 2

Roy Fowler  0:01  
School's out since.

Jonathan Balcon  0:02  
Yes.

Roy Fowler  0:04  
 Right sir, you were about to say?

Jonathan Balcon  0:06  
Yes, what was I about to say?

Roy Fowler  0:07  
Er, ah ...

Jonathan Balcon  0:13  
Upstairs which you will see in the computer room as I call it, I've got framed a pound note and a ten shilling note in a glass frame with 'Walter always pays' written as a sort of caption on it. And evidently, Walter Ford at some stage must have borrowed thirty bob off Mick for something and it must have worried Mick [LAUGHTER]. So Walter instead of paying him back actually had the thing framed and given to Mick, but I don't know quite what the origin of that.  His association with Edgar Wallace was obviously quite a happy one. I've got a marvellous cigarette holder upstairs about that long, which says a 'Happy New Year from Edgar Wallace'.

Roy Fowler  1:01  
Right, this is an audio tape so that long is what about a foot something like that?

Jonathan Balcon  1:05  
No a bit bit shorter than that about  eight inches. And those early films I think we're reasonably successful. I know that one of the contracts he had to take on when he eventually became production head at Ealing. And I think he acquired with Reg Baker, quite a number of Associated Talking Picture shares from Steven Courthauld. One of the contracts he had taken on was George Formby, of course, well now, whereas we all know that George Formby was a talented player of the ukulele, his wife I understand was the most formidable and unpleasant person who had to be dealt with and kept a very, very close eye on what George got up to particularly where the ladies were concerned. We now come actually to the point where I saw my first film, and I saw it in the Granada as it was then in Sevenoaks, and it was George Formby in "It's in the Air" which I think was directed by Anthony Kimmins.  Anthony Kimmins famous as you probably know for the commentary during the war on the Malta convoy even more famous for a pl, very bad play right call "While Parents Sleep" and I think ...

Jonathan Balcon  1:21  
And a very bad film he made for Korda called "Bonnie Prince Charlie". 

Roy Fowler  2:21  
I was going to say and various other reasonably [LAUGHTER], bad films but an interesting character and I never really knew Tony I met him. But then you see Jill and I were, to a certain extent we led a very protected life particularly at Henden Manor going back for a fraction. And it was a, of Mick's thought a conventional English way of bringing up children, we had nanny, a housekeeper, a man servant who drank, a parlour maid and two people in the garden and Jill and nanny and I stayed in the house all the time. And were brought down on a Sunday to Sunday lunch, particularly if there were guests obviously, where Mick and  Aileen having arrived home on a Friday night, I and my Daniel Neil shirts and shorts with little Cromwellian shoes. And the moment lunch was over we were dispatched back to the nursery where we stayed for the rest of the week. But I mean, in a way it was a very happy childhood, I don't remember being terribly unhappy as a child.  My own ...

Roy Fowler  3:51  
How did you regard your father with awe or as a remote figure?

Jonathan Balcon  3:57  
A rather remake figure. You see he used to, around that period he used to disappear off to Hollywood and Hollywood was something one had heard about but didn't really know what it was. One's life really revolved around nanny, the garden, ones toys and of course the occasions when we were taken up to London to a pantomime.  Because in addition, this was the other extraordinary thing, in addition to Henden Manor and subsequently Upper Parrick, he not  only had Tufton Street, which he let, he had a flat in Lansdowne House in Berkeley Square. And it was really I think as a result of owning all this bricks and mortar that he finally decided that he ought to sell Tufton Street. It was during the war completely destroyed by enemy action. It was um I'm just gonna have a cough clear rebuilt as my mother would have liked it by the war damage commission and I have very little recollection of being there, I do remember being a pageboy at my cousin's wedding and that was about all. My, all my recollections, childhood recollections are Henden Manor and at Upper Parrick.  But enough of that, he he yes he was a I suppose a remote figure.  I remember   some very curious things he he never drove a motor car. It's always alleged he was involved in an accident in the Edgware Road very early on and swore he'd never drive. So he always had a chauffeur. He always had, we only had in in my lifetime, we had two chauffeurs both from the same family, father and son. They were both called Shackleton. And I remember well, it must have been about Munich time, we came down on a Monday morning for my, to say goodbye to them to go back to London and they're in the drive was a black Vauxhall motor car, in addition to Mick's car and he said to Shackleton, 'Whats that?' and he said, 'Oh, that's Mrs Balcon's new car.' 'What?' said Mick and Aileen turned round and he said 'What is that?'. She said, 'I bought that for myself.'  'You won't be driving it' he said, 'you haven't got a driving licence'. She said , ' Yes I have, I learned to drive in South Africa.'  And indeed, she drove. Likewise, in 1939, not long afterwards, when she joined the Red Cross, as part of the war effort, he tried to put his foot down on that. But of course, she had a very successful war war career and ended up as a very senior officer of the Red Cross and acquired an MBE for so doing.

Jonathan Balcon  4:40  
Jon we haven't said anything at all really about your mother until this point, is this now the stage at which to do it or another time?

Jonathan Balcon  7:21  
Oh yes my Mama. My Mama was the most lovely person. She she was, she used to get furious if anybody said she was South African. She wasn't South African. She was brought up in South Africa. She was born over here, she went out to South Africa and then she was brought back by my grandmother, who along with her sister my great-aunt were two very naughty women. And she was hawked round Europe as a possible, what do you call somebody who plays the piano very well? Not a diva, but I mean ...

Roy Fowler  8:02  
A child prodigy.

Jonathan Balcon  8:03  
A child prodigy.  And poor Aileen was hawked round Europe while this was going on, and didn't really enjoy it very much, although she played the piano quite beautifully. One of the curious things about her she always led, alledged  she married Mick when she was 18, in fact we discovered she was 20 [LAUGHTER] because I've got her marriage lines upstairs and her birth certificate. And I don't know why she kept this myth up but she did. She was um, I've also got which is quite extraordinary, I've got about a half a dozen letters that Mick wrote to her when they were 'courting', quote, unquote. And I can't honestly say there is a sign of affection in any of the letters at all but he was obviously absolutely entranced by her. I think I can safely say he never looked at another woman all through his life, nor would she have let him.  Her mother, we were always brought up, both Jill and me, to think of our grandfather, Harry, as our proper grandfather and that Aileen's name was Leatherman and his name was Harry Leatherman. In fact it turned out that Leatherman wasn't her name at all, Bea, my grandmother, had divorced her first husband who was called Jacobs. And Aileen was in fact Aileen Jacobs and her brother Gerald was also Gerald Jacobs. But they both adored Harry so much that they changed their names to his. Um Bea and Harry were over here in 1939 when war was declared and were due to sail back to South Africa on the Athlone Castle ten days into the war. And they did in fact sail back I think it was the Athlone Castle it may have been one of the other castles, Union Castle boats. And they successfully got back to South Africa and safely although I believe they were chased by U-boats at one time.  But that, she was er, my great-aunt Florence, Beatrice's sister, my grandmother's sister, was an extraordinary woman she was still entertaining American Colonels in a negligee in a flat in Grosvenor Square at the end of the war.

Roy Fowler  10:43  
Good for her.

Jonathan Balcon  10:43  
She married a chap called Aubrey Heimann who was a pathetic little man really who was obviously very rich and kept her in the the style to which she may or may not have been accustomed. But their brothers were called Spencer Freeman and they were bookmakers and they were highly successful bookmakers. And they founded the Irish sweepstake, which was a fix anyway I understand in later life. And they used to wander around with suitcases full of money. And they also found er I don't know if you remember if you're not a racing man you may not, there was a very well known bookmakers called Douglas Stewart. 

Jonathan Balcon  10:43  
I've heard the name.

Jonathan Balcon  11:31  
Well they founded Douglas Stewart and for years my Mama had an account with Douglas Steward and I always remember her picking up the telephone and saying 'Ah,' she said, 'Mrs Balcon here nom de plume Blessing.' [LAUGHING] 'Shut up, Basil go away.'  They ended up in fact, funnily enough, living in the South of France and it is alledged, although we looked for it we couldn't find it, but in Cannes there is an avenue Spencer Freeman but the French change the names of roads from time to time, and I didn't think and I don't think it probably exists anymore. But they, they're rather interesting because they had a daughter, my cousin Jacquie, who got through a series of husbands that at one stage she was living with the head of Cosa Nostra in France and my other cousin, Toni, Antoinette, used to say when she went to see her in the bushes on one side of the gate would be the gendarmerie watching the mafia on the other side of the gate [LAUGHING] But I've lost touch with that side of the family really, my cousin Toni who lives in Switzerland now is the only close member that I keep in touch with and she in fact, is a very close friend of Virginia McKenna's because they were both at the Central School together. But Aileen's family, Mick was very funny not only about Aileen's family but about his own in a way because he always said because Louis had no idea about birth control there were 101 cousins in South Africa when he was out there that Mick had never met. And also one of his great cries, although it's slightly different now was 'I keep them all why should I have to see them?' And I suppose it's perfectly true, he did certainly on his side of the family to a large extent, look after them. 

Roy Fowler  12:54  
Really.

Jonathan Balcon  13:37  
I keep very closely in touch with his one remaining niece who's still alive my cousin Barbara, who's an absolutely delightful person, she lives just down the road at Lewes, Jill keeps in touch with her too. I keep in touch with my cousin Dorothy, Dorothy, she's Dorothy Moncrief. She gave a lunch party for relations recently, when I say recently in about the last three years, and there were 33 relations there, including a large block of people from Manchester. Now they are rather an odd lot, I'd met them before and I don't know if you knew but there is in fact a big firm of loss adjusters up in that part of world called Sydney Balcombe, B A L C O M B E and they recently made an enormous fortune adjusting the losses after the Manchester bomb and the Birmingham bomb. Anyway, when I first started working in the city father sent me a copy of a letter from Sydney Balcombe saying, 'Dear Mr. Balcon, I think we're cousins. I run a loss adjusting firm in Manchester. I would love to meet you one day etc etc.' Mick sent this letter on to me and said, 'Look if he's a Loss Adjuster, he may be able to do you some good in your business' being an insurance broker. It subsequently transpired that Sydney Balcombe and Co had been involved with Leopold Harris. Does that mean anything to you?

Roy Fowler  15:36  
No

Jonathan Balcon  15:37  
Leopold Harris um there was a famous case, Leopold Harris' firm were known as the fire raisers and they burned down any business for you to get the insurance money. And they had everybody in their pocket: fire chiefs, police chiefs, and the whole thing was bust open by William Charles Crocker?

Roy Fowler  16:01  
No ...

Jonathan Balcon  16:01  
William Charles, Sir William Charles Crocker was a very famous solicitor, Crocker's, and his daughter Phyllis was Mick's casting director subsequently at Ealing. And anyway, I duly met the B A L C O M B E's in a restaurant in the city, um didn't like them at all and about a fortnight later, in those days I was a Manchester Guardian reader as it was in those days, there was a tiny little paragraph on page three in the Manchester Guardian, which said the firm of Sydney Balcombe & Co were today fined 1000 pounds in Manchester Sheriff's Court or whatever they call it for ambulance chasing. So I cut this out and I sent it to Mick my dear I had him on the phone 'have nothing more to do with it, absolutely nothing, I'm sorry, I'm terribly sorry I should never have got you involved'.  I said to Mick, 'For God's sake Mick forget it. I said, you know, it ain't the biggest crime in the world and I said, but people do take a fairly poor view of people who listen in to ambulance/police via radio. Funnily enough old Sydney who was still alive was at this lunch that Dorothy gave two or three years ago. I didn't bring the subject up again but I recognised him instantly. And there's no doubt about it they are cousins. Likewise, there is a cousin in in Los Angeles at the moment who spells his name B A L K A N who's in the documentary film business, Ed and he certainly is a cousin he looks like a Balcon there's no doubt about that. Aileen's family I've told you about um ...

Roy Fowler  17:55  
Are there any other any other film or showbiz connections at all or ...

Jonathan Balcon  18:00  
Not, apart from Jill not really. And once you get onto Jill of course you get on to Daniel and Tamazin, Jill's children Daniel, of course, as you know, a highly successful actor.

Roy Fowler  18:13  
Do you think we could do something about the barking I'm sorry but it will be um ...

Jonathan Balcon  18:25  
Right where we?

Roy Fowler  18:27  
Other possible connections ...

Jonathan Balcon  18:30  
Daniel, as you know, I've said to Silver Apples that of course I would raise no objection if Channel 4 want Daniel to do the commentary on this programme they are going to make, from a commercial point of view it seems obvious an obvious thing to have him do and wont involved me in any way. Tamasin writes for The Daily Telegraph, a cookery programme which I find rather recherche as all her suggested recipes are far too expensive. She was married and is in fact still married to number three he was at one time in the BBC called John Shearer. He was known as 'Vulcan the Exterminator' because he was responsible for cleaning everybody out making them redundant. And Jill wrote to me, in the days we were speaking, a slightly emotional letter saying poor John has been made redundant and I wrote back and I said. 'Jill, it's a sad fact of life these days of those who make others redundant are themselves made redundant in due course.'

Roy Fowler  18:34  
Sooner or later, right.

Jonathan Balcon  19:00  
Which again, didn't get done very well. But no, there's no other connection really at all. The extraordinary thing is that I think you'll know that Sally's sister married Basil Dean's son, Joe, who's a retired judge, a lot older than Jenefer. And I've said to Silver Apples that I think it's incumbent upon them to interview him about his father because I said, if you're doing a programme on Ealing, you've got to mention Basil. And if he doesn't do it, then one or other of his brothers must do it and I think Joe has agreed to do it because I had a word with him on the telephone the other day. He has of course two very talented children: his daughter Tacita was runner up in the Turner Prize three years ago. She recently had three, five rooms at the old Tate Gallery, Tate Great Britain.

Roy Fowler  21:13  
Good Lord.

Jonathan Balcon  20:48  
She works almost entirely in film. I'm afraid Sally and I and her mother and father think it's School of Rubbish but she is very highly thought of, she exhibits all over the world. Even the night the exhibition at the Tate opened, they gave a dinner party for her at the Tate which Serota made a most tremendous speech. Um I understand she's just been out in Washington and ...

Roy Fowler  21:31  
We better hold it for a moment [LAUGHING] We do have a lot of sound effects on this tape, do we not? There we go. That's fine. 

Jonathan Balcon  21:38  
It's Gatwick, you see. 

Roy Fowler  21:40  
Ah, is that it right.

Jonathan Balcon  21:45  
She was in Washington recently and Mrs Bush in fact, was entranced by her. I haven't heard any more than that. Joe's son Ptolemy, it is unfortunate enough to have three children and call him Antigone, Ptolemy and Tacita.

Roy Fowler  22:05  
The judge clearly had a classical bent.

Jonathan Balcon  22:09  
Oh yes.  I also said to him, Joe were they all conceived on Greek beaches? Anyway, um, Ptolemy is a very successful young architect; he's an authority on Sir John Soane; he is honorary advisor for the Soane Museum; the partner in the firm for which he worked at the time fell off the roof of something he was doing and Ptolemy had to take over his work on Southwark Cathedral. I don't know if you've been in Southwark Cathedral recently, but they've got a new refectory and all that, which Ptolemy has done; he has got, various other, he's got two banks in America he's doing at the moment and he's just been appointed to totally restore Westminster School. And quite apart from being a very charming young man, I'll show you some of him drawings, which are dotted around this house because he's a very talented artist as well. So that really is that side of the family. There's a very apocryphal story again that when Basil and Michael Powell were both alive they met one day, and they didn't like each other very much let's be honest about it, they met one day on the steps of the Garrick Club, on the stairs of the Garrick Club halfway up the stairs Basil put his hand under Mick's elbow and said, 'Mick my dear I think our boys have done quite well for themselves' at which Mick gave a stifled hiccup, fell all the way down the stairs, broke his ankle and swore that Basil had pushed him. [LAUGHTER]

Roy Fowler  23:57  
Lovely. 

Jonathan Balcon  23:58  
I can't confirm that story. He, Mick and Victor Saville as you know, had a big fallout, I think partly because Victor, didn't Victor disappear to America during the war?

Roy Fowler  24:07  
No, I I think principally because he took over from your father at Metro.

Jonathan Balcon  24:15  
Ah, is that it. 

Roy Fowler  24:16  
I think so.

Jonathan Balcon  24:17  
I thought Sam Eckman took over.

Roy Fowler  24:19  
Well no Sam Eckman was managing director of MGM British generally, largely on the distribution side. 

Jonathan Balcon  24:26  
Ah.

Roy Fowler  24:27  
Production I think, was inherited by Saville, Victor Saville. 

Jonathan Balcon  24:31  
Well anyway.  Yah.

Roy Fowler  24:32  
Which took him to America subsequently, but ...

Jonathan Balcon  24:34  
They had a great, they had a great reconciliation because for Mick's 80th birthday, Victor gave a party a lunch party up at the Garrick and he'd done his research well because he had everything on the menu that Mick adored asparagus, smoked salmon, gulls eggs. I'll never forget because I was there and it was a super party and some very nice claret. The other thing of course was I mean, I can't remember the exact details of this Roy but you may know more about it than I do: Mick wrote a very scathing article in Picture Girl or or one of those magazines just before the war, verbally crucifying those members of the British film industry in particular those of Jewish background who had fled to Americans. 

Roy Fowler  25:14  
Yes I've heard of it.

Jonathan Balcon  25:14  
I've got a copy of it somewhere because as I, as you know part of the archive is in the garage and part at the moment is still down in Dover and the BFI gonna take it off me very shortly the rest of it.

Jonathan Balcon  24:41  
'Gone With the Wind Up' it was called.

Roy Fowler  25:44  
Something like that. 

Roy Fowler  25:45  
Ah not necessarily your father's article. That was the general thing at the time, wasn't it?

Jonathan Balcon  25:50  
But as a result, you see Hitch took offence of this article, but of course it wasn't directed at Hitch because after all Hitch had already had an American contract. All through the war years Hitch wouldn't speak to Mick at all. But they had a great rapprochement again after the war was over, which was when Sally met him again. And subsequently, every Christmas would arrive from California a case of the most delicious claret, which Mick was very fond of, and a case of pink grapefruit because Hitch had a grapefruit farm somewhere. So there was a great rapprochement there. But you see, he did feel, Mick, very strongly you know, I suppose a total xenophobic, chauvinist way about this country.

Roy Fowler  26:53  
And why is that? Do you think? Did you ever ask him all about it?

Jonathan Balcon  26:57  
No, but let's let's just look at some of the films. Practically every film for which he was responsible, not all, seem to centre around a small section of a tightly knit community, be it a family, or a village, or a military selection, section or a ship or a group of people they came to a city but it was, they were all united in one thing, and a lot of them were united in fighting bureaucracy. Tilting at windmills was a great thing in Mick's life and I mean, he's left me with this legacy, I tilt at windmills practically daily in a quixotic way. But it's always a number of things I will never forget: two really important occasions on about June 10 1940 he called us all into the dining room at Upper Parrick, now Upper Parrick wasn't a very big house, but he called in Jill, me, Nanny, Rhoda our dear housekeeper - a remarkable women she came as a temporary to Aileen six months before I was born, and was still with us when I got married [LAUGHING]

Roy Fowler  27:33  
Yes.

Jonathan Balcon  27:40  
 ... I mean probably one of the best plain cooks in this country, she was fabulous, she was a, an unforgettable character. Thomas Atkins, the butler, who taught me how to tie my shoelaces and tie my tie because war having been declared I was being sent off to prep school. I had been sent off at the age of 7 to board and I could look up the hill and see the house and couldn't get there and cried for a year before I went to my proper school in Oxford. He called us in and I can't quote him verbatim but it went something like this: as you know, we are a Jewish family - I hadn't got the vaguest idea what he was really talking - he said things aren't looking very good at the moment. Johnny and Jill I have had many requests from various people to send you to America, I don't intend doing so. If things get bad we will all go down together and there will be no hope. But I believe in this country and I don't believe things will get that bad and we're going to stay and see it through together. And that was it. And he felt very strongly about this, very strongly. Apart from the fact that he hated Nazism, fascism, whatever it was, totalitarianism, he hated anybody, that's why he hated Louis B Mayer, because Louis B Mayer was a dictator let's face it.  It was an extraordinary feeling of patriotism he instilled in one ...

Roy Fowler  30:36  
Yes

Jonathan Balcon  30:36  
... all right it was jingoistic, but then don't forget, in many ways, he was a late Victorian.

Roy Fowler  30:43  
It raises some interesting questions because somehow it relates to Charles Barrs fascinating book about Ealing Studios, which he presents as a microcosm of of Britain. 

Jonathan Balcon  30:55  
Yes. 

Roy Fowler  30:56  
And you can say well that's a little far fetched, but now maybe less farfetched than one might imagine. It raises the question of the extent to which every film made at Ealing was, um your your father was directly responsible for presumably ...

Jonathan Balcon  31:12  
Initially, latterly he wasn't. 

Roy Fowler  31:15  
No.

Jonathan Balcon  31:16  
I mean latterly it was a Michael Balcon production produced by Monya Danishevsky or Leslie Norman ...

Roy Fowler  31:22  
It was never produced by associate producer

Jonathan Balcon  31:24  
No. 

Roy Fowler  31:25  
Are you sure. Ahah ok right.

Jonathan Balcon  31:26  
'Cruelty' produced by Leslie Norman 

Roy Fowler  31:28  
Ahaha. Okay. 

Jonathan Balcon  31:29  
I've got it here so we can check on that. 

Roy Fowler  31:31  
No.

Jonathan Balcon  31:32  
I think I'm right there.

Roy Fowler  31:33  
So maybe Charles has a point that your father's personal predilections somehow shaped this image of the studio.

Jonathan Balcon  31:46  
Roy, just cast your mind back most of the wartime films behind the logo is the Union Jack. 

Roy Fowler  31:55  
Mmmm.

Jonathan Balcon  31:56  
And at the end it says a British film produced at.

Roy Fowler  32:00  
And a degree of paranoia too because they all have to do with fifth columns or spies.

Jonathan Balcon  32:04  
My dear a total degree of paranoia.  I couldn't agree with you more. Oh, absolutely. Look at 'Went the day Well' you see.

Roy Fowler  32:12  
Yes, indeed right. So you think this stems from your father? 

Jonathan Balcon  32:15  
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean he instilled in me then, he instilled two things in me, which Sally says is extraordinary because she thinks that I'm in many ways very German in my outlook, it instilled in me a hatred of things German. A reasonable hatred of things Japanese but that was only because of the dreadful things they did in China. And I remember an edition of Picture Post showing the Japanese atrocities which really as a child had a great effect on me. 

Roy Fowler  32:49  
Really.

Jonathan Balcon  32:50  
I thought this was unbelievable. But there was another instance too, I was staying with them, this was a very curious month in fact, I think it was it must have been the Easter holidays, yes it was the Easter holidays in 1941 and Pen I think was killed in 1941. 

Roy Fowler  33:15  
Yes. 

Jonathan Balcon  33:17  
About sometime before he was killed, it may have been months, few weeks, I was sleeping in the flat in Lansdowne House in a camp bed at the end of my parents bed in their bedroom and every time the siren went we went down in Lansdowne House to the cellars to the basement where allegedly there was an air raid shelter, what people didn't realise ... I don't know if you know that part of the world, do you know Lansdowne Row? 

Roy Fowler  33:44  
Well, yes.

Jonathan Balcon  33:45  
Which runs between Berkeley Street and Square. Well, in those days, Lansdowne Row was a row of shops and there was a well behind it, literally and of course, the basement of Lansdowne House was at the bottom of this well, so there was no protection at all.  Anyway, it must have been in April 1941 I woke up, no let's go back to Pen for a moment. Pen came into my room and he took off his watch and he said, 'Jonny, I want you to have this.' And I've got it upstairs, it's falling to pieces and it just says to Jonathan from Pen 1941. Something like that it was a very cheap watch, but it was a nice gesture. He said, 'I've also got a 12 bore shotgun which when you're old enough I would like you to have. It's at the moment reposing in a gunsmith's near Charing Cross, but when you are old enough to have, to learn to shoot' he said, 'it's yours.' And within what three months he was dead, most extraordinary. That moved me considerably as a child. In April 1941, I woke up in the middle of a blitz in the most terrible agony in the stomach and it was appendicitis, but acute appendicitis, and none of the teaching hospitals would take me because the air raid casualties they were full of. And I remember being carted in a hearse converted into an ambulance, privately, from Lansdowne House to the London Clinic and all Mick would say to me was 'Do you realise this is costing me 20 guineas a week' [LAUGHING]. It's now 20 guineas a minute, I think.

Roy Fowler  33:45  
Yes. at the very least. Yes, indeed. Yes.

Jonathan Balcon  35:53  
And he said 'The surgeon fee you know was 100 pounds, 100 guineas 100 guineas' he said, 'very expensive.' I said, 'Oh I'm frightfully sorry.' 'That's alright dear boy, that's alright'.  

Roy Fowler  36:05  
It does, sorry ...

Jonathan Balcon  36:05  
I was in the London Clinic for three weeks. It was an interesting time because every night we were wheeled in our beds into the lift, down again into the shelter and there we sat. The shelter was in fact right alongside the Baker Street tube line, Bakerloo line, and it was very difficult to tell the difference between the trains going past and the bombs falling. And I do remember that it was a pretty nasty period. Anyway, I came out of the London clinic on the morning of May the 10th 1941. I was taken by Mama to Hamleys and bought some soldiers and an anti-aircraft gun and some sandbags and I was going to convalesce for three weeks from the following day down at Upper Parrick. May 10th 1941 you may not remember but it was the night of the largest blitz on the west end. We went down to the shelter early. Now my camp bed in the shelter was alongside this well wall and the first thing I knew was I been thrown out of bed by a stick of something bursting outside. And we were turned out of the shelter and we had to go and sit in the corridor and there was a steel door which led through to the Air Ministry's air raid shelter, the Air Ministry was in that big building on the opposite side of Berkeley Square at that time and we always knew when there was going to be a raid because the flags on the roof used to change colour. Anyway, we asked if we could use the facilities of their shelter and they refused to open the door. So we sat in this corridor and literally every time a bomb fell another bit of plaster would come down and the dust would go up. And Mick said, 'I'm not usually a pessimist' he said, 'but somehow I don't feel we're gonna survive tonight.' This was about three o'clock in the morning, well, by that time it tailed off.

Roy Fowler  38:17  
It's been so cheerful as keeps me going

Jonathan Balcon  38:19  
Absolutely. And with much relief we went back upstairs, every single window in the flat was out, the beds were all full of broken glass, my soldiers my anti-aircraft gun, which I'd laid out on what was his dressing-room windowsill, were all smashed. Within 24 hours they'd received notice to quit because the building had stood up to whatever it had stood up to and the Ministry of Economic Warfare took it over. I was dispatched back to Summerfields which was my prep school when I should have been convalescing. And they went off to live with Aileen's brother at Stanmore because, my uncle Jerry, I haven't talked about him uncle Jerry was a fascinating character. He died only recently. Apart from marrying his first cousin, his first wife, he was a very eminent dentist, but a very eminent dentist and in the latter part of his life he should have been knighted, but nobody, he had nobody to recommend him. He was Chairman of the International Dental Federation and he was the man entirely responsible for what you and I these days know as dental hygiene. He got, he joined the Air Force at the beginning of the war and he was so appalled at the state of the airmen's teeth. that he personally trained 2000 WAFs to be a dental hygienists and out of that grew all the scraping and things that we go through today. But he was a lovely man Jerry. He was a great racing man, again bookmaker in the blood you see. And I know very well that famous day when Frankie Dettori won every race of Ascot. He was leaning over from wherever he is up there because in the morning I said to Sally, 'Do you now I've got a sneaking feeling Frankie's going to go through the card today' and I didn't have a bet, I've regretted it ever since. [LAUGHTER] But anyway, there we are, they went off to live with Jerry until they got established. And they then ...

Roy Fowler  40:46  
People were slung out at that shorter notice they ...

Jonathan Balcon  40:49  
I think it was actually 36 hours.

Jonathan Balcon  40:51  
Even so.

Jonathan Balcon  40:53  
It not only became the Ministry of Economic Warfare, it then subsequently became the Ministry of Defence. And this is the funniest thing now, Roy I must, is this awfully boring? 

Jonathan Balcon  41:03  
No, no, no. It's fascinating.

Jonathan Balcon  41:04  
I must tell you this, because two things happened in the flat, which I shall never forget. But anyway, subsequently, it must have been let me think, ooh, about 15 years ago, 20 years ago, the telephone rang in the office and a voice said, 'Jonathan' and I said, 'Yes' he said 'It's Mike Matthews here.' Now Mike Matthews when I was a sergeant in the Roughriders Mike Matthews was a regular soldier who was our adjutant and he tried desperately to get a commission for me, but there's a long story attached to that, which we, if you're interested I'll tell you later. Anyway, Mike said, 'Jonny, your father used to have a flat in Lansdowne House.' So I said, 'Yes, Mike.' He said, 'Number 61 on the fourth floor.' I said 'Yes, that's right, Mike.' He said, 'Well come and have lunch with me tomorrow' He said 'it's my office.'

Roy Fowler  42:01  
How extraordinary. It's a small world as they say, we're at the end of this tape.

Roy Fowler  42:07  
Right.

End of Side 2

Side 3

Roy Fowler  0:01  
This is Jonathan Balcon tape two

Jonathan Balcon  0:06  
Right, the other extraordinary thing that happened in 61 Lansdowne House going back a bit, I'm sure you will recall just before Dunkirk there was the abortive Norwegian Campaign. Well now in those halcyon days - oh incidentally also another thing I'll never forget is in 1938 I was up in the flat and Aileen had two Austrian maids in those days and they both at the time of the Anschluss put on swastika armbands and disappeared to Victoria station [LAUGHTER] ...

Roy Fowler  0:49  
Oh dear, oh dear.

Jonathan Balcon  0:49  
... which always caused Mick much amusement in view of certain things we've talked about. No but anyway just before Dunkirk in the Norwegian campaign Aileen had a charming parlour maid, I think they were called that in those days, called Helen. Now Helen had been put the previous winter, or the previous year in the family way by a Scots Guardsman and my Mama being my Mama in that dreadful winter in 1939 marched them up to Colemans Hatch Church and got the vicar to marry them. [LAUGHTER] Anyway, Peter being in the Scots Guards arrived at 61 Lansdowne House not on embarkation leave but in full kit, what they call field service marching order, to say goodbye to Helen because he was being dispatched to Norway. So anyway, Aileen very discreetly left them together in the kitchen, and I remember this vividly, there was  suddenly the most shattering explosion came from the kitchen and Peter had decided to shoot himself through the foot. 

Roy Fowler  2:04  
Oh God.

Jonathan Balcon  2:04  
What a call I believe a blighty one. Believe it or not, he got away with it. But while this kerfuffle was going on, while the ambulance was being sent for, while Aileen was trying to calm Helen who was having hysterics, I quietly said to somebody, I can't remember who, 'I wonder what happened to the bullet?' It had gone through a compound floor and had lodged itself in the kitchen table of a couple beneath who were having breakfast and they hadn't even noticed, because that's where the police found it [LAUGHTER]  Anyway, that was the other amazing incident in Lansdowne House. But from staying with Jerry, the point I'm getting around to is this from staying with Jerry, Uncle Jerry, they eventually moved into um I suppose you would call it a Red Cross Hostel but it was in fact a hotel in Gerrards Cross called the Charlton Park Hotel.  Which again was quite interesting because there was quite a lot of film people around, it was near Denham Studios and it was near Ealing Studios, living in the hotel, but not only was my uncle Cham, Mick's brother staying at The Bull at Gerard's Cross, in Bulstrode Park, because he was commanding at that time an anti-aircraft battery, which was somewhere around in that area. But he was invalided out shortly afterwards, because he was a fairly great age by then for being an active soldier. Anyway, staying in the Charlton Park Hotel there were a number of very interesting people: there was a chap called Todd, who was head of, is it John Brown's Shipyard in Glasgow; there was Willie Cormack, the most lovely, delightful Scotsman who was head of Heinz; there was Sir Philip Chetwood, who was head of the Red Cross and Lady Chetwood, the old Field Marshal and he was a lovely man and there were various other people like that, it was quite a substantial hotel. And I remember Tony Havelock, Alan and Valerie coming to see us there and I remember Bill O'Brien and Liz Allen coming to see us there and in fact we had quite a pleasant time there until the doodlebugs came. But in 1944 I'm not really jumping the gun here I don't think, Mick said to Aileen he said, 'What are we going to do with Jonathan in the summer holidays? What are you going to do with him?' and Aileen said, 'I'm afraid Mick I'm not going to do anything.' He said, 'What do you mean?' She said, 'Well I can't tell you at the moment but I have a rather important assignment.'  'What do you mean you've got an important assignment? Tell me about it.'  She said, 'I can't tell you just at the moment.' This was about April or May. Anyway, just before the end of May, beginning of June it transpired that she was in charge of a railhead at Tibenham with her girls, and what was happening was the wounded from D-Day were being flown back to this American airbase and she and her girls were unloading them off the aeroplanes, putting them on to hospital trains and sending them all over England. And it was really rather remarkable because she got people like Willie Cormack and Todd Brown and various other notables to make up or subscribe to little packets so that when these lads, who literally had nothing, when they were just lying on stretchers they were given a sort of box in which there was a bar of chocolate, cigarettes, writing paper, a pen or pencil, a towel, soap, just something to make them feel you know that they weren't completely destitute. I've got some marvellous pictures, there's a picture in the sitting room you can see of her actually doing this job. And this was her other work she got the MBE for as I said.  But anyway, she did eventually tell Mick and Mick said 'What am I supposed to do?' 'Oh,' she said, 'It's quite simple. You take him with you if you're going to Mevagissey because the "Johnny Frenchmen" location is going down there', she said, 'Charlie and Sonya Frend are going, Cham's wife Aunt Adele is going.' She said, 'he'll be perfectly well looked after.' And he said, 'Where's he going to sleep?' 'He can share a room with you.' 'Oh, I'm not sure I'd like that.' Anyway that's exactly what happened and subsequently I was put in the charge of Tibby Clark. Dear Tibby, with whom until almost the day he died I used to go racing. Tibby said he always used to lie on the beach looking after me, watching me paddling and swimming in the sea and wonder if Johnny drowns what do I go back and tell Mick. [LAUGHTER] But that was an extraordinary location Roy because I don't know, there was Patricia Rock, there was Ralph Michael, there was Ralph Michael's wife, that lovely actress it'll come to me in a minute ...

Roy Fowler  2:04  
No I don't know.

Jonathan Balcon  2:58  
There was Tom Walls, there was Tom Walls' valet; there were a whole lot of Ealing people; there was Cham; there was Adele; there was Dougie Sutherland, who was the art director, and he had a wife called Queenie who was a musical star. I mean it was a hilarious time. And if you ever want to know what the White Hart at St Austell, where we were all staying, looks like you watch "Next of Kin" because a great deal of it is shot ...

Roy Fowler  8:09  
Really.

Jonathan Balcon  8:09  
... in the beginning of of "Next of Kin." Oh, lovely actress who played Desdemona to Jack Hawkins' Othello. Oh, famous actress, it'll come to me.

Roy Fowler  8:26  
It'll come, right.  Francoise Rosay.

Jonathan Balcon  8:29  
Francoise Rosay of course was there.

Roy Fowler  8:32  
What are your memories of her because she's rather forgotten now I suppose, at least in this country.

Jonathan Balcon  8:35  
She was a lovely person, I loved Francoise, she was always delightful to be with. And she'd been in a number of Ealing films as you know. But the interesting thing was, there was an enormous love affair going on at the time between Roy Kellino and Pamela Mason. I think I'm right there.

Roy Fowler  9:00  
Well, I'm not sure um he had been married to her I think ...

Jonathan Balcon  9:03  
Then he was having an affair with Patricia Rock. 

Roy Fowler  9:06  
Ah, that's more like it because I think Mason was on the scene and married.

Jonathan Balcon  9:11  
I probably got it wrong. 

Roy Fowler  9:12  
Yeah. 

Jonathan Balcon  9:13  
Wasn't she Pamela Ostrer?

Roy Fowler  9:15  
She was. Yes. 

Jonathan Balcon  9:16  
That's right. 

Roy Fowler  9:16  
She's in ...

Jonathan Balcon  9:17  
Don't forget I was only 12 and a half or 13.

Roy Fowler  9:21  
She's the young Jewess in "Jew Süss". 

Jonathan Balcon  9:25  
Oh is she?

Roy Fowler  9:25  
She plays that yes.

Jonathan Balcon  9:27  
You see I've never seen "Jew Süss" so I would'nt have known but ... 

Roy Fowler  9:30  
Rebecca, I think or some such name. 

Jonathan Balcon  9:32  
But it was a fun summer holiday and it was my, I had broken up from Summerfields, finished with Summerfields, and it was before I went to Eton. So I had a sort of tremendous summer holiday. 

Roy Fowler  9:46  
A couple of questions then. The kind of relationship you had with with your father ...

Roy Fowler  9:52  
Yeah. 

Roy Fowler  9:53  
... what, how would you describe that?

Jonathan Balcon  9:55  
It began to get much closer, he very much left the children to Aileen, particularly after the war. He was always very good about coming to take me out or he always came down, certainly to eat and for things like the fourth of June. There was a tremendous time when he was asked by the headmaster if he'd bring a copy of "Scott of the Antarctic" down to Eton and show it to the school. And there was a most lovely character who a lot of people remember at Ealing, the chief projectionist called Bert Minnell. 

Roy Fowler  10:34  
No I didn't know him.

Jonathan Balcon  10:35  
Well Bert was the  most lovely cockney. I can tell you a few Minellisms later. And Bert took one look at the two projectors in the school hall and he said, 'Governor I don't believe this' he said, 'I didn't think these sort of things were still around. [LAUGHING] Anyway he got through a showing of the film without any disaster. But I gather the arcs were ancient, you know, everything about them was ancient. 

Roy Fowler  10:35  
Yes.

Jonathan Balcon  10:58  
He was so funny about it. No Mick was um ...

Roy Fowler  11:12  
He was happy to have children was he? 

Jonathan Balcon  11:13  
He was happy to have children. He was determined that his children should have the best of everything educationally. Jill he sent to Roedean, myself he sent to Eton. He was going to send me to Stowe, was it Stowe, who's the famous headmaster?

Roy Fowler  11:35  
 Oh I don't know at that time.

Jonathan Balcon  11:37  
I can't remember now.

Roy Fowler  11:40  
There seems an element of snobbism in that. Can one say that Eton was the best education or was it just the most famous school?

Jonathan Balcon  11:47  
I think it's certainly the best education now because I've been back there several times recently. In my day, I think it was, it gave me an exceptional grounding. 

Roy Fowler  11:59  
Yes. 

Jonathan Balcon  12:00  
An exceptional grounding. Sadly I never took to science very much so when I got up to Cambridge they wouldn't let me read er Agriculture, which I wanted to do because I said I had no scientific subjects. What they didn't tell me was I could have taken an Estate Management course. Instead I tried to read Modern Languages my first year and hated it and I read English my second year and hated it and came down after two years, but I had two of the best years of my life. I don't think it was, I was down for a number of public schools including Westminster because he thought he was going to go back and live at Tufton Street. And my house tutor actually rang up when I was 12 and a half and said, 'Look, if Jonathan can come next half, I've got a place for him.' So I actually went there before I was 13. And it's a very str, it was a very strange because in many ways one was terribly free, but in other ways one was terribly restricted. But I was very happy there, the awful thing was, once I became a specialist, which you became after you've taken school certificate, I really didn't work terribly hard. And I remember, I took school certificate, I've missed out a bit Roy, we'll come to in a minute, I had a quite a serious accident which changed the whole of my life the year I was taking school certificate. And I'll never forget I took eight subjects. And that summer holiday I got a card from my house tutor, a postcard addressed to my father, and it said, 'Surprise, surprise. Jonathan has seven credits in his school certificate and one failure. I never thought he'd make it.' And the one failure was the New Testament in Greek, which I thought I knew backwards and of course I didn't.  But as a result of that I got into Cambridge, you see, that was in the days when you matriculated. 

Roy Fowler  14:12  
That's right.

Jonathan Balcon  14:13  
And Eton had its own 'A' levels as they weren't in those day, it was known as the July examination, and I passed that and I was into, into Caius without any problem. Um, thanks in many ways to Oliver John Hunkin, whose father was a fellow at Caius and Oliver John, I think you know, worked at Ealing for a time. He'd been a beak at Eton and he then took Holy Orders and became Head of Religious Broadcasting at the BBC and is now retired. But I did speak to him on the telephone the other day. He's still alive, well into his 80s.

Roy Fowler  14:53  
There was another question which rather surprised me that your father went down on the location on "Johnny Frenchman."  I mean, he's now a very considerable figure in the in the British film industry and right, he's the executive producer I would have thought rather than a hands-on producer.

Jonathan Balcon  15:09  
Yes, I, I, I've never sort of thought about that. 

Roy Fowler  15:16  
What did he do? 

Jonathan Balcon  15:17  
Well, you might say, as far as I know, he didn't do anything during the day he disappeared to the production office you know.

Roy Fowler  15:23  
He didn't roll his trousers up and sit on the beach.

Jonathan Balcon  15:26  
Oh, yes ... 

Roy Fowler  15:26  
He did. 

Jonathan Balcon  15:27  
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. All of that. I'll tell you something else too. Because don't forget he did the same thing when they were shooting Dunkirk at Camber he went down to the location, there's a marvellous picture of his trousers rolled up in the sea with Johnnie Mills. But it's one of the few pictures in existence of Mick and Chan together, there are very few but they're in, I've got it somewhere here I don't know where it is. They're in a fishing boat in Mevagissey talking to each other.

Roy Fowler  15:59  
Were they close or ...

Jonathan Balcon  16:00  
I think they were closer than the other two brothers. Yes.

Roy Fowler  16:05  
Because I somehow get the impression rightly or wrongly that the Balcons do have perhaps problems with personal relationships? 

Jonathan Balcon  16:14  
Yes, yes, yes.  Not my generation, but he certainly had problems with his family. I mean, after he died in fact Sally and I took on looking after Aunt Nettie, his youngest sister. And we used to pay her electricity bill and her gas bill and things like that, because she really was living on a very, very small pension you know. But we felt duty bound. As I think I said to you earlier what his great cry was, 'I keep them all why do I have to see them?' Which was a little unkind.

Roy Fowler  16:50  
Yes, yes, yes.

Jonathan Balcon  16:51  
But the other thing that impressed me I came across a letter some years ago now from David Niven and he had obviously written to David because whilst we were down in Mevagissey and St Austell "The Way Ahead" came, came out and Mick sent for a copy and we all trooped into the Odeon in St Austell, after it had closed at 10.15 one evening, and watched "The Way Ahead". Which again as a film impressed me enormously and Mick must have written to David and said, 'You know how, what a marvellous film and how much he enjoyed it' because David just said Mick your your kind words you know mean more than anything I could say. I've kept this letter. I always thought David was the most marvellous actor anyway. And curious enough at the Charlton Park Hotel where we were living at the time, his sister was living there as well. David's sister married to a delightful man called Mellor, who was in operations room at Uxbridge in the RAF.  So that was you know I got closer to the film industry I suppose then it was only time, I was always rather miffed that they were looking to cast a cabin boy in "Johnny Frenchman" and I was rather hoping that they would cast  me but they never did but it was an interesting summer holiday, was a very interesting holiday.

Jonathan Balcon  18:01  
When did you begin to go to the studio?

Jonathan Balcon  18:36  
From, rarely from the time I suppose halfway through my prep school. It was always a treat but the last day of the holidays I would spend at the studio and um it was always the same routine I'd see Mick, I'd see Miss Slater and Miss Taylor - don't forget Miss Slater ruled our lives. I used to ring up Miss Slater and say what's my report like and she'd say bloody awful. So I used to see a film, have lunch with Mick in the round or not or not the round table but in the sort of little director's annexe in the in the commissariat area of Ealing and then go back with him with Shackleton in the evening.

Roy Fowler  19:30  
So you were treated as the young master by the sound of it? 

Jonathan Balcon  19:34  
Not really.  No, not really. I mean, I always go and see Hal because Hal,  there was a truly remarkable man, Hal Mason. I don't know what Mick would have done without Hal I really don't. I suppose the people who governed his life more than anybody, apart from Aileen, were Miss Slater and Hal. Um, he had a curious fixation about Miss Slater it was a sort of love/hate relationship because she was an extremely good secretary, extremely efficient, very rarely made any mistakes but the moment she retired, it says there's a sort of psychotic thing here, he took her cushions out into the garden [LAUGHTER] behind his office and set fire to them [LAUGHTER]

Roy Fowler  20:29  
Well not many people know that!  Where had she come from, had she been at the studio, or did he take her there with him?

Jonathan Balcon  20:38  
You know I don't know where. I think she'd been with him at Gaumont.

Roy Fowler  20:42  
Yes. So she was probably indispensable and knew where all the bodies were buried.

Jonathan Balcon  20:48  
She was totally indispensible. Oh, I mean, she really did rule our lives.

Roy Fowler  20:58  
Was she a formidable character?

Jonathan Balcon  21:00  
No she was very mild.  Also she used to drive my mother mad, she had one of those handshakes, which as you put your hand out she slid hers away from it ... 

Roy Fowler  21:09  
[LAUGHTER] Off-putting.

Jonathan Balcon  21:09  
... it was always like a wet fish.  And I think she bullied Miss Taylor around, because latterly he had the two of them. She bullied Miss Taylor unmercifiully. But she was another great character. Until she died I kept in fairly close touch with her. And she and Steve Dolby who was a sound man at Ealing used to come and see us you know at the Grey House and have lunch and things like that. Then Miss Taylor latter in life had a great friend whom she brought to lunch you know.

Roy Fowler  21:44  
Were you fascinated by the filmmaking process at this stage? 

Jonathan Balcon  21:47  
Oh yes, I, this was the sad thing I very much wanted to act and didn't really quite know how to go about it. I staged, I did act at school quite a lot and I stage managed a number of productions at Cambridge. But you see, I wanted desperately to farm and we had this farm in Sussex. Mick sat me down literally when I came down from Cambridge and it was like the old Latin question which required the answer 'Nonne or nay'. He said to me, you don't want to come into the film industry do you? And the way he put the question I knew I had to say no. 

Jonathan Balcon  21:49  
Was nepotism a word not in his book?

Jonathan Balcon  22:35  
Nepotism was a word that played a very important part in his life. He said, in fact, he said to me, he said, 'I'm glad you said that' because he said, 'I never want to be accused of nepotism.' He said, 'I'm absolutely certain in my own mind that if I went to the ACTT and asked for a union ticket for you,' he said, 'they'd give me one.' But he said, 'I cannot possibly be put into the position where they turn around to me and say on any industrial dispute and say they could say we did this for you what you're going to do for us?'

Roy Fowler  23:12  
That's an interesting sideline. 

Jonathan Balcon  23:14  
Yeah. And those were his very words. And that was how we left it. And he's, he's sort of put his hands together, he said, 'All right, he said, you're not over enthusiastic about work.' But he said, 'I do suggest you go off and see a friend of mine in the city, who runs an insurance brokers at Lloyds. He's called Victor Gentry and the insurance brokers are called Hobbs Saville and they look after our business.' So I went off to see Victor, very pompous man, who said, 'Where were you at school?' and I told him, he said, 'Were you at university?' and I said,' Yes.' And I told him and he said, 'Well, you can forget all that if you come here.' And he offered me a job at £250 a year, which to me sounded like riches untold. And I took it. 

Roy Fowler  24:10  
What year would this have been? 

Jonathan Balcon  24:12  
That was in 1950.

Roy Fowler  24:14  
Right.

Jonathan Balcon  24:15  
1951. 

Roy Fowler  24:17  
I'm surprised in the city they forgot about Eton or Cambridge. That wasn't usual.

Jonathan Balcon  24:24  
Well I didn't go to the right broking firm. It took me in fact some time to discover that they did a lot of film business and I ended up running their film account for them.

Roy Fowler  24:38  
Is that really how your future course was determined? Your dad said go see ... 

Jonathan Balcon  25:17  
Yeah. 

Roy Fowler  25:41  
Quixotic? 

Jonathan Balcon  24:47  
Well you see, in those days, Lloyd's, I'd never heard of Lloyds and I didn't know what it was all about, I didn't know what insurance broker was all about, I soon learnt.  I soon learnt to hate the city. I just hated this whole feeling of making money rather than learning you know, which was always Mick's great cry too you don't make money you earn money.  Yes, I suppose you see what happened in those days firms like Hobbs Saville would take on the sons of clients, they would pay them nothing, virtually.  They would say we are prepared to pay you commission on business introduced and they would expect you to become working names at Lloyds on the syndicates which they control. And Mick always said, 'If you stick it out,' he said, 'I will make you a name at Lloyds.' Which in those days for a working name meant you had to show assets of 10,000 quid this was in the '50s.

Roy Fowler  26:01  
So that's a factor of what 100, probably. 

Jonathan Balcon  26:05  
Now?

Roy Fowler  26:05  
Yeah. Oh, now God, no, no. 

Roy Fowler  26:07  
I mean, in other words what would 10 grand be worth now? Oh,

Jonathan Balcon  26:10  
Oh I don't know. I suppose 100, yes.

Roy Fowler  26:12  
More.

Jonathan Balcon  26:13  
More, yes. But I mean, he said, 'Whatever I do for you, I have got to do for Jill as well' and I said, 'Fair enough.' I mean, on the basis of the fact that if you produce business you got commission at one stage, I was told that because of my commission account, I was earning more than most of the directors of the firm which didn't go down very well. And then, by the time I started getting underwriting profits from the syndicates I was on, one was getting paid, say 1000 a year. Well, another two and a half thousand a year on top of that and one was extremely comfortably off. And I was I mean, none of my children went, well one of them went to private schools, they were all state educated, but I mean one was able to live very comfortably and do the things from wanted to do and have foreign holiday and things like that. The only thing I think Mick resented was the fact that he thought we got married far too young. Now a very extraordinary thing about, both Aileen and Mick, because as I, to hark back to what I said before we had no religious instruction whatsoever. Jill and I were left entirely to our own devices. We were brought up as good conventional Church of England children through our schools. I was married in the church in Seal to Sally, as were two of my daughters; Deborah was christened at Hartfield, by the rector of Hartfield; Claire and Henrietta, we're christened at Seal. And all totally accepted, after Deborah's christening Aileen gave a small party for a few people at Upper Parrock After I'd announced Henrietta's christening in the paper, I rang Aileen up, I used to ring them up at least twice, three times a week. And I got what we all knew as a still small voice and I said, 'Come on what's wrong?' 'Mick and I have many Jewish friends you know' and I said, 'For Christ's sake Aileen what are you talking about?' 'There was no need to put Henrietta's christening in the Times and the Telegraph.' I said, 'Well you never raised this subject before?' 'Oh well your father and I are beginning to feel very seriously about it.' 'So I said now come off it.' And in fact that subject was soon dropped. But then when Deborah was confirmed, Deborah is now what 44, 44 she was given by her godmother a crucifix. And I suppose rather tactlessly she wore it round her neck at lunch one day at Upper Parrock. And this again seemed to upset Mick latterly.

Jonathan Balcon  29:27  
Roots are strange things are they not.

Jonathan Balcon  29:29  
And he actually got hold of Sally and he said, 'I do think if Deborah is coming to lunch with us, she perhaps oughtn't to wear it' and yet nothing had been said again.

Roy Fowler  29:40  
You were never Bar Mitzvah'd or not that he's thought of it presumably.

Jonathan Balcon  29:46  
Roy, I remember my first half at Eton Aunt Florence came across, I don't know where the hell she got her petrol from and took Aileen and me out to lunch at the Old House at Windsor, the Old House Hotel and we were sitting on the banks of the Thames afterwards in our large motor car and she said, 'When is Jonathan's Bar Mitzvah?' 'What the hell are you talking about?' said Aileen. And the other marvellous instance and this is jumping the gun slightly, the day Mick died I was in my office and the telephone rang and it was Aileen to say, 'Johnny, I can't wake your father up.' And I knew exactly what had happened. She said, 'He got up in the middle of night and sat in his chair in his dressing room.' And erm I've just seen what the time is we must have some lunch. 

Roy Fowler  30:45  
Okay. 

Jonathan Balcon  32:41  
In a minute. 'And he was still there this morning and I couldn't wake him up.' So I said, 'Don't do anything.' And I rang Sally and I said, told her what happened. I said, 'I'm coming down on the train. We'll drive straight over to Upper Parrock.' We drove straight over to Upper Parrock and Steven Watts was staying with them that weekend, who ghosted the book. 

Roy Fowler  32:07  
The book. 

Jonathan Balcon  32:53  
And Steven greeted me on the doorstep and went like this, you see, and I knew exactly what happened. So anyway, I hadn't got the vaguest idea what to do. And Aileen was in a frightful state obviously. So Sally quite rightly said, ring Aunt Gert, Mick's sister. So I ran Aunt Gert. 'Oh, Johnny' she said, 'I'm so sorry.' But she said, 'I'll tell you exactly what to do.' They both subscribed for years to the Liberal Jewish Synagogue at St. John's Wood, you ring 4059611 ask to speak to Mr Levy or whatever it is. Tell them what's happened and they will do everything. Did this after about my fifth brandy. And sure enough about half-past mid-day a long low Peugeot arrived out of which was produced something that looked like a portable wardrobe and these two chaps in skull caps and briefcases went upstairs and removed Mick, put him in the back of the car and came back with their briefcases still with their skull caps on and said, 'Right Lady Balcon now we must discuss arrangements.' So I said, 'Well, I think the arrangements are going to be quite simple.' I said, 'if Rabbi Rainer is available, it will be Tunbridge Wells crematorium in about a week's time.  If I, I will let you know how to book it.' 'That's fine' they said, 'that couldn't be better. Now Lady Balcon what about a memorial service?' 'Oh' said Aileen, 'that's dead simple St. Martin's in the Field.' 'Oh,' they said removing their skull caps' 'I don't think we will be involved in that.' [LAUGHTER]

Roy Fowler  33:03  
How lovely.

Jonathan Balcon  33:03  
And indeed, we had a very nice memorial service at St Martin's in the Field organised by Jill, myself and Austin Williams, who was a great friend of both our families. It was almost totally ecumenical not quite because I read the lesson from Revelations the usual one you know, 'I saw a new heaven and a new earth.' The Jewish cousins were a little dubious about it, but perfectly happy. Kenny Moore and that lovely lady who was a, Dilys Powell, gave short addresses. And I gave a small luncheon party afterwards. Kenny wouldn't come because he said, 'We have a great tradition at the Garrick we go away and we toast the deceased in champagne in the bar.' And he said, 'that's where I'm going to go.' I had invited him to lunch. And it went off perfectly. But again, Aileen you see didn't mind a bit. The extraordinary thing ... Roy, I hope this isn't boring. 

Roy Fowler  34:04  
No, no.

Jonathan Balcon  33:04  
When we got to Tunbridge Wells crematorium, I can never stop laughing about it, in the dust shadow on the wall [LAUGHTER] by this awful machine, you know, the lift that goes up you can see the outline of the cross that they had taken down. And Rabbi Rainer did it extremely well. And as we he was leaving, I said, 'Rabbi Rainer we're having a totally ecumenical memorial service at St Martin's in the Field I do hope you feel you could attend.' 'In no way' he said and walked away. And I was rather put out by that because of course things have subsequently changed. I mean, had it been Jonathan Sacks or any of the present ones they would probably have jumped at it you know.

Roy Fowler  34:24  
As one who regards all organised religion as total rubbish it baffles me how people ... but it's a great need, isn't it?

Jonathan Balcon  35:05  
Well, this is it Roy? I mean, I wouldn't go as far as to say it was rubbish I feel you, people have got to have something to latch onto, something. And I'd rather ...

Roy Fowler  35:15  
Most people do indeed yes. 

Jonathan Balcon  35:17  
I would rather they latched onto something that was how would you say non-physical than something that was physical like a political party in a way.

Roy Fowler  35:27  
Yes indeedn, reasonably civilised and urbane. Yes, yes. 

Jonathan Balcon  35:32  
But I mean that's my personal opinion. I'm not beyond saying the odd prayer or two, I must say, at time. Whether or not the power of prayer, I sometimes wonder how strong the power of prayer is, you know. I've been to so many funerals, and so many memorial services and written so many obituaries recently that I really am rather fed up with it. I've got to sit down and write my own fairly shortly [LAUGHTER].

Roy Fowler  36:02  
It's the best way.

Jonathan Balcon  36:03  
Oh, yes. And I've also got to, I've also got to make a, I would like a nice send off, I know exactly what I want in the way of a service.

Roy Fowler  36:16  
Send offs, there's nothing wrong with that it's fine. I'm rather baffled by this need. 

Jonathan Balcon  36:24  
Yeah. 

Roy Fowler  36:24  
It's just erm the ...

Jonathan Balcon  36:26  
I mean, I much enjoy, enjoy is the wrong word. I get very emotional at things like Remembrance Day Services, I get very emotional watching the Cenotaph Service.

Roy Fowler  36:37  
But that's a different matter ...

Jonathan Balcon  36:38  
Which is a different matter entirely.

Roy Fowler  36:39  
... it's remembering something that happened and people who've gone.

Jonathan Balcon  36:43  
And I keep saying to myself, if it hadn't been for what they did I wouldn't be here today. You know, I do feel strongly about that.

Roy Fowler  36:51  
Oh, yes. Well, that's gratitude and ...

Jonathan Balcon  36:55  
The ex-servicemen in me. I mean, Sally will tell you I only have to hear a military band and the tears stream down my face.

Roy Fowler  37:02  
No, my point is that the great questions of where do I come from? Who am I? Where do I go? Are unanswerable in effect and especially where am I going? 

Jonathan Balcon  37:14  
Absolutely. 

Roy Fowler  37:17  
I would like to know I would enjoy knowing but I don't believe I can ever know.

Jonathan Balcon  37:21  
Wasn't there a play, a film, a book called "I know where I'm going".

Roy Fowler  37:27  
Well yes. Mickey Powell and Emeric Pressburger. 

Jonathan Balcon  37:31  
They made a film, was it? 

Roy Fowler  37:33  
Yes, but it isn't really about that. It's about it's about it's about a class thing. Do you remember it was erm I just got the DVD from the States. It was Wendy Hiller and ...

Jonathan Balcon  37:46  
No I don't remember it. 

Roy Fowler  37:48  
They made it about 1945 or so.

Jonathan Balcon  37:50  
Yeah let's have a break. 

Roy Fowler  37:54  
Because you've done an awful lot of talking.

Jonathan Balcon  37:56  
I know, I hope to goodness, you don't half encourage me.

Roy Fowler  38:01  
These are all the things that don't end up in the books anyway. I'll tell you what we will do we will unplug this because those things. 

Roy Fowler  38:08  
So John post lunch, which was very gratifying. We'll resume not necessarily chronologically but going back to Ealing what in the late '30s, early '40s, when when you were visiting there as a schoolboy. People you knew, what was going on there? What your father was doing?

Jonathan Balcon  38:32  
Well now the extraordinary thing is in his protective capacity Mick very rarely invited people home for the weekend. But on the other hand he did have people of whom he was immensely fond and they were invited down I suppose rather like going into the headmaster study in a way. And they used to come and stay for a weekend and then there was Danischewsky and Brenda, and there was Charlie and Sonya Frend, who always kept one in stitches. Sonya was Norwegian, but with the most delightful English sense of humour, the most attractive personality. And of course, the actress I was trying to think of earlier who was married to Ralph Michael was Faye Compton. 

Roy Fowler  39:15  
Ah so. 

Jonathan Balcon  39:18  
Which has just come to me. 

Roy Fowler  39:19  
Good Lord. I never knew that, she was so much older than he.

Jonathan Balcon  39:21  
Oh indeed, indeed. And of course he was wildly attractive to women. And, of course, Bob Hamer used to come and stay and one of the great homosexual friends of Mick's, not in a homosexual capacity but because he was such an amusing chap, was Robin Maugham, who subsequently became Lord Maugham and wrote various things including that marvellous subject for Dirk Bogarde, 'The Servant', which of course the film put a slightly different connotation on the Servant than the book did, but it was an extremely good film. And I remember these people terribly well. I mean, Maggie Vonner, who worked at Ealing who was married to Leo Genn. There was a famous incident when Maggie, in the dining room at Upper Parrock there was a large multi-wave band wireless set lying on the floor and the telephone lay on the top of it and all the rest of it. And Maggie bent down to switch on a programme and then I couldn't resist it I stuck a corkscrew into her backside [LAUGHTER] And she never let me forget it for the rest of her life. She was another very attractive person who came to stay, Grizelda Harvey, the great BBC actress used to come with her husband, Diana Morgan and Bobby used to come and stay and of course, Penn Tennyson and Nova honeymooned at Upper Parrock when they were first married. 

Roy Fowler  40:58  
Did they?

Jonathan Balcon  40:58  
And as I've said to you earlier Penn was the nearest thing I had to a brother because Mick really thought he was a marvellous. And I don't know whether you knew this, but later on in the war Charles Tennyson also lost Penn's brother Julian, who was killed in Burma. 

Roy Fowler  41:16  
No, I didn't know that. 

Jonathan Balcon  41:16  
So Charles lost two boys in the war. And the third boy Hallam, who ended up at the BBC, in fact, during the war was a Quaker and became a member of Friends Ambulance, and served with some distinction as a as a stretcher bearer. But that's the Tennyson family, but we were actually, Julian's widow was staying with us at Upper Parrock when the news came through that he'd been killed. And it was absolutely devastating. But these people used to come for the weekend to Upper Parrock.  Bob Hamer I remember well as being the most tortured person, Bob could never really make up his mind what he was, he had a very tough girlfriend, although I think he had strong homosexual undertones to himself, but he was a brilliant director. To this day, I mean, "Kind Hearts" to me is a complete masterpiece.

Roy Fowler  42:17  
Unbelievable, I think he was the best of the lot, was he not? 

Jonathan Balcon  42:21  
Although Cavalcanti, again another homosexual, lived with mum, his mum I hasten to add, Cav was a highly emotional person and would get terribly worked up if Mick did something that Cav disapproved on and would sit there and in a Latin American way, throwing his arms in the air and weeping, but a lovely person.

Roy Fowler  42:48  
What was your father's reaction to that kind of temperament, to that kind of overt behaviour?

Jonathan Balcon  42:52  
He took it all in his stride. He took it all in his stride. There was the famous story I'm sure you must have heard this and other people at Ealing will confirm this.

Roy Fowler  43:01  
We're coming to the end of the side, so why don't I flip over ...

Jonathan Balcon  43:05  
Right.

End of Side 3

Jonathan Balcon Side 4

Jonathan Balcon  0:00  

The other famous occasion, I think it was the nephew of Warren Chetham-Strode was doing his national service and wanted to come into the film industry when he had finished and asked if father would see him, and father said, 'Yes, of course,' I think it was Warren Chetham-Strode's nephew. And in the course of the interview in that office at Ealing Mick said to him 'What are you going to do in your national service?' 'Oh' he said, 'I'm just off to Palestine to beat up those bloody Jews.'  Of course Mick thought this was the funniest thing [LAUGHTER] that anybody had ever said to him, how quickly the word got around the studio I don't know. But there was practically a lynching party out for this young man when he, when he left, I think, probably Miss Slater must have had the intercom on and passed the word around [LAUGHTER] but it did create much amusement and mirth. As far as Mick was concerned he thought it was terribly funny. The rest of them: Angus McPhail was a very sad case, Angus was a real drunk, a serious drunk. And in fact there came a day when he had to be carried out of his office because green snakes were writhing up and down the wall. But he was a very talented man and it was a shame that so many of them who were so talented, did take to drink in rather a big way.

Roy Fowler  1:27  

Was that Ealing do you think or the film busines or ...

Jonathan Balcon  1:29  

I think it was the film business in general because you know we talk about stress and pressure these days but there wasn't anything like the stress or the pressure in those days. I mean okay, they all had to make a living, but none of them got paid very much. I doubt it if there were many people in Ealing earning a tenner a week you know in those days.

Roy Fowler  1:52  

Well your father was I think notoriously under paying was he not compared to say Korda at Shepperton ... 

Jonathan Balcon  1:58  

I would have thought without a doubt

Roy Fowler  2:00  

Or the Rank Organisation?

Jonathan Balcon  2:02  

And yet his great cry was a labourer is worthy of his hire. It was one of those cliches he persistently ...

Roy Fowler  2:08  

To his own advantage. 

Jonathan Balcon  2:09  

Yeah. 

Roy Fowler  2:11  

How about Mr Balcon's Academy for Young English? 

Jonathan Balcon  2:14  

Young Gentleman.

Roy Fowler  2:15  

Young Gentleman yes.

Jonathan Balcon  2:16  

Well, there's no doubt about it if you take Charlie Crighton, Charles Frend, to a certain extent Bob Hamer, they were products of reasonable English schools and universities. And they all dressed, I mean, I don't want this to be misinterpreted, you see a soi-disant film director or film producer on the box these days and he's usually either in black leather trousers and a polo neck sweater, or else something equally as outre. These chaps were in nice tweed coats, corduroy trousers, a decent tie and smoked pipes [LAUGHTER] 

Roy Fowler  2:58  

Yes.

Jonathan Balcon  2:59  

And I suppose in that way yes they were, they were Mr Balcon's Academy for Young Gentlemen.  Mick had this curious idea. You see Roy we haven't really touched on this and this is Mick's politics. Mick was a socialist, quote unquote. He and Alan Sainsbury, the late Lord Sainsbury, formed a thing, and I've got a lot of the papers somewhere. I always thought it was called the 1944 Committee but I understand it was called the 1943 Committee I seem to remember having discovered the letters.  Which was dedicated to bringing a Labour government into power the moment the war ended. And this was slightly hypocritical of Mick because he always, one of his other great cliches, always to me and to a certain extent Jill when she was at home, which she wasn't very often was 'The one thing I must never be identified with is any political idea, or any religious feeling. I am responsible for a media of mass communication and I must therefore be free of anybody ever accusing me of bias.' Now I'm quoting him, and this is exactly what he said. And I always used to sort of think yeah, you know, because I knew what went on in his mind. It's alright. Okay. 

Roy Fowler  4:30  

Yes. 

Jonathan Balcon  4:31  

He um, he tended not to, he talked politics to me and let's face it his great friends apart from Alan Sainsbury were Michael Foot, Hugh Gaitskell, in fact he treated the Gaitskell daughters really as though almost there they were his grandchildren, Robin Maugham was also very left-wing, Robin Maugham's nephew who, Robin was born into the Maugham family very late, very late in life and his nephew David Bruce was at Eton with him, so that's, you know, that's how late in life he was born, but they all sat talking socialism at Upper Parrock.

Roy Fowler  5:24  

What was socialism then in those days? We're talking now during the '40s?

Jonathan Balcon  5:28  

We're talking about the late '40s before the '45 election. 

Roy Fowler  5:32  

The early '40s? 

Jonathan Balcon  5:33  

Yeah. 

Roy Fowler  5:33  

Before the war?

Jonathan Balcon  5:35  

The middle of the war '43.

Roy Fowler  5:36  

The middle of the war that's still the early '40s.

Jonathan Balcon  5:39  

Yeah I don't know ...

Roy Fowler  5:43  

But it wasn't Marxist was it? 

Jonathan Balcon  5:45  

It wasn't Marxist no.

Roy Fowler  5:47  

Social democrat or ...

Jonathan Balcon  5:48  

Yes I would have thought more social democrat. It was, it was a more equal opportunity for all. And yet, you know there was a great deal of have another glass of claret or pass the port please. And there was a certain amount of hypocrisy about the whole thing I found.

Roy Fowler  6:07  

Well, how did your father relate to the, to the unions?

Jonathan Balcon  6:15  

They were a necessary evil, I think. 

Roy Fowler  6:18  

There you are, perhaps mmm...

Jonathan Balcon  6:21  

I think I'll never forget he, the telephone rang one Saturday morning and I think it was Hal and there was an entire unit at Ealing waiting to start shooting. The carpenters were there, the lighting men were there, the actors were there but there was no electrician there and nobody would dare touch the main switch. And I remember Mick saying, 'I cannot believe that this is a restrictive practice that could be allowed to go on.' But he said if anybody had stepped forward and switched it on they would have, the whole lot would have come out. He used to get very irritated with Christopher Brunel. I think he took Sid Cole with a tongue in cheek slight, because we all knew Sid was, according to Sid, a 'raging red', but I don't think he was really. I mean Sid had mellowed a great deal by the time I knew him. He was a  card holding member of the party.

Roy Fowler  7:32  

Oh, yes. Yes, he was a party member without a doubt. As indeed I think Christopher Brunel.

Jonathan Balcon  7:36  

I can't see Sid really wanting to overthrow anybody but that's one of the nice things I suppose.

Roy Fowler  7:45  

They are very similar to the people we have today. They were, they were self-righteous, they knew exactly the way things should be and and beyond their horn-rimmed spectacles, or their rimless spectacles, they really could be commissar or they could be gauleiter for that matter you know. 

Jonathan Balcon  8:03  

But how many of them lived up to their own beliefs and went off to fight in the Spanish Civil War?

Roy Fowler  8:09  

Oh quite a lot of the ACT people did. 

Jonathan Balcon  8:11  

Did they?

Roy Fowler  8:12  

Well Sid did certainly ...

Jonathan Balcon  8:14  

I knew Sid did. 

Roy Fowler  8:14  

... and Ivor Montagu. 

Jonathan Balcon  8:16  

Yes I knew Ivor.

Roy Fowler  8:17  

There were several of those who did yes. Oh I think they were thoroughly genuinely in their beliefs.

Jonathan Balcon  8:23  

But then, of course, we had this extraordinary thing didn't we where having been the arch enemy Russia became suddenly the great ally.

Roy Fowler  8:31  

Overnight. 

Jonathan Balcon  8:32  

And as Sally said, because we had a village communist in Seal, who's now a councillor, just up the road here and he's mellowed a lot he's now a socialist councillor, a Labour councillor. But as Sally said, Walter was livid when he'd heard Sally had been to Russia and Sally said to him, 'Walter, if you want to understand what it's like go there' 'Oooh I don't want to go there' he said.

Roy Fowler  8:57  

Why was he livid?

Jonathan Balcon  8:59  

Because she'd been and he hadn't. But I mean that was what it was like.

Roy Fowler  9:04  

Class envy?

Jonathan Balcon  9:04  

Yes. And I remember her, because Sally went in 1975 to Russia. Just to sidetrack you for a minute, her great, great grandfather was a Welsh iron master, who's picture is in there called John Hughes. And he perfected a way of hardening steel for railway lines, amongst other things, and he was sent for by the Archduke Constantine and he produced all the hardened steel rails for the Trans-Siberian Railway. And he was given a plot of land in the Ukraine, where he sank a mine, built an ironworks and founded a town, it was called Hughesovka.

Roy Fowler  9:48  

Oh I've heard of this yes.

Jonathan Balcon  9:52  

We went, we took in 1991 just before the Perestroika, we took 30 either direct relations of John Hughes or direct relations of the Welsh workers he took with him out to Hughesovak, which is now called Donetsk and they have renamed part of the town Hughesovka. And we were treated like royalty except nothing worked, but nothing, it was pathetic. And what really upset me, and it was my first taste of seeing a communist country, they all went off to have tea with another ancient relation whose picture is just up there and our guide who came from the School of Mining took me to the, to the beryozka, to the duty free shop. And there shelf after shelf of things like Johnnie Walker Black Label whisky at the same price as you pay over here; television sets; beautiful shirts. Outside they were queuing for bread and that upset me terribly. If you have the mighty dollar you were in. And Sally and I sailed through that week pretty well on a pack, a carton of Marlboro cigarettes. But there we are and that was my introduction to communism but she she she'd been out there already, she knew what it was like. And she'd been to Outer Mongolia, she went Ulaanbaatar because a friend of ours was our man in Ulaanbaatar. I did say to him at the time, 'Miles what have you done to deserve this?' I wouldn't go because I'm rather sort of xenophobic about things like that. And I was involved in too many things to want to get involved in going to Russia.  But there we are that's a that's a sidetrack.  But we always rather, I suppose slightly scathing say Mick was a champagne socialist. It's terribly easy to talk about socialism with a glass of champagne in your hand it ain't so easy to actually practice it.

Roy Fowler  12:08  

Charles Chaplin I suppose is the prime example.

Jonathan Balcon  12:12  

The prime example absolutely. On the other hand I mean the antithesis you like of that I think the McCarthy era and  the Hollywood business was outrageous.

Roy Fowler  12:29  

I lived through all that.

Jonathan Balcon  12:30  

Well you were there at the time?

Roy Fowler  12:32  

Yeah, mmmm 

Jonathan Balcon  12:33  

Gosh I mean the man was a total disaster. Nixon was involved in that.

Roy Fowler  12:39  

But it could happen anywhere and it does. The same things have happened certainly in this country, I suppose in slightly different fashion we're going through some such now currently with this Brass Eye programme where it's immediately condemned by people who who haven't seen it.

Jonathan Balcon  12:59  

Who haven't even seen it! The most dangerous thing about that, of course, is the government ministers who pronounced upon it without even having seen it and I think that is terrifying. But you know, I suppose Roy the thing is you and I are too old, we are old fashioned liberals.

Roy Fowler  13:16  

We are too sensible. 

Jonathan Balcon  13:17  

Well, maybe but it seems to be people just sit by and let it happen now.

Roy Fowler  13:23  

Yes. We did during the McCarthy period because we were too terrified not to. It's all very well to condemn it in retrospect but as I say I was there at the time, and I barely lifted a half, certainly not a finger and a little boy. I tell you a terrifying story I was doing a programme with a director, with a producer rather I was directing, the producer was a man called Franklin Heller, when last I heard of him he was still alive at very bad state. And Frank and I were on our way to rehearsal one day, in a cab going up or down Broadway I can't remember which, and I said something about McCarthy and I got a violent dig in the ribs and I didn't quite know why but I continued with my query and this man pointed at the driver as if to say he could be listening, he could be taking notes, he could be reporting. Now we were both fairly of good standing in CBS television, responsible, I think, intelligent, adult and yet that was the kind of fear that prevailed. So one was dumb really to to carry it too far. Happily, those with, Edward R Murrow eventually did, but they were terrifying times.

Jonathan Balcon  14:55  

Larry Adler of course is a prime example.

Roy Fowler  13:31  

Well indeed all of the people ... I came back to live and work in this country in the '60s and I used to go play softball in the park with them, alongside the the barracks, and some of the best talent in America motion pictures was there playing softball because they couldn't work in the United States. You know they were here, Marty Ritt, oh I know, so, so, so many of them. Anyway, we're, we're, we're digressing. But I suppose my general point is where you have Russians or Jews or Germans or whatever we're all capable of it. But we did, we as a people did in the course of building the British Empire.

Jonathan Balcon  15:01  

Oh absolutely yeah.  I don't know if you, while you were coming down here by train this morning, Pinter was letting, sounding off on Radio 4 about how Slobodan Milosevic ought to be released. 

Roy Fowler  15:44  

Oh really.

Jonathan Balcon  15:59  

And I thought you've gone raving mad, you know, and then he was on about the atrocities committed by NATO and the Americans.

Roy Fowler  16:06  

Well you know.

Jonathan Balcon  16:07  

... and how Slobodan will never get a fair trial. I in the end, I gave up.

Roy Fowler  16:11  

Well I don't blame you. But I mean, how do the two things equate? Certainly in America is on occasions a ghastly country so is this. What's going to happen now under George Bush, it's the end of the world so far as I'm concerned. I'm sure that's an exaggeration.

Jonathan Balcon  16:30  

Except he has not got a majority in the Senate.

Roy Fowler  16:35  

Yeah, that's happenstance as you know.

Jonathan Balcon  16:37  

Well I do know yeah.

Roy Fowler  16:40  

Anyway, let's get back to to Ealing, Michael Balcon, the Balcon family all that there. So where do we find ourselves? We haven't really covered the film's particularly have we? 

Jonathan Balcon  16:52  

We haven't covered the films particularly. Um it's very interesting he always purported not to worry about what the critics said about any of the films. And yet the first thing that happened when any film came out was every newspaper was sent for. 

Roy Fowler  17:13  

Yes. 

Jonathan Balcon  17:14  

And every criticism was scanned, some of them were a little unfair. I don't know if you remember "Ships with Wings"? 

Roy Fowler  17:23  

Yes I do yeah.

Jonathan Balcon  17:23  

Well now he became, it's the only time I know I've known him to be really angry with me because I saw "Ships with Wings" at Ealing and he said to me afterwards, what did I think of it.  And I said well Mick it is a good adventure story but I said it was spoilt by all those dinky toys going across the top of the dam. And he hit the roof. And I said, it's no good being angry. I said, I got those dinky toys myself and I said it was the most appalling balls up, well I didn't say balls up because I was too young in those days, by your model department. But he was very angry about that.

Roy Fowler  17:24  

Why is that he objected to criticism or?

Jonathan Balcon  17:27  

No he objected to the fact that I'd seen through these dreadful models. 

Roy Fowler  18:03  

Mmmm, well that's illogical.

Jonathan Balcon  18:08  

And it was.  Well, in some respects, it was a very amateurish shot.

Roy Fowler  18:17  

Oh the model shots were terrible usually in Ealing films. 

Jonathan Balcon  18:21  

Well you say that now.

Roy Fowler  18:22  

Well they were.

Jonathan Balcon  18:24  

You say that if you'd seen the model shop at Ealing, I mean they spent immense trouble making these bloody things. 

Roy Fowler  18:32  

It's the way they were photographed I think.

Jonathan Balcon  18:33  

 it's the way they were, but on the other hand in convoy now I was taken as a very young man to the studios at Wembley where they have this enormous tank and in the tank were I can't remember which pocket battleship it was, was it whichever one it was, there was a model of that and there was a model of the Ark Royal and they were beautiful models. They was beautifully made and you really couldn't fault them.  I'm thinking of do you remember "The Big Blockade"?

Roy Fowler  19:12  

Well, I remember ...

Jonathan Balcon  19:13  

I've got a copy of it here.

Roy Fowler  19:14  

Yes, I remember it but I couldn't be very precise about it.

Jonathan Balcon  19:18  

There were some pretty grotty model shots in that. 

Roy Fowler  19:21  

Well look at the the Hitchcock films, the the model shots, or the miniatures are always laughable ... 

Jonathan Balcon  19:27  

Yup

Roy Fowler  19:27  

... but it is largely is the way they're shot with too much light.

Jonathan Balcon  19:30  

That's the truth it's the light that does it. This was particularly you know, they were deep into supporting Mihailovich. Ealing were in a film called "Undercover" with John Clemens when of course, Tito came on the scene and Mihailovich was found to be a fascist. Yes it was called ...

Roy Fowler  19:51  

That was government policy was it not? 

Jonathan Balcon  19:53  

It was called Chipniks to start with and they quickly had to change the name to "Undercover" and John Clemens a Tito hero I remember that. But there was some model shots in that which which weren't weren't awfully good but ... latterly of course, when they got permission to go to sea with the Admiralty, and when they got permission to use War Office material, captured German film material, and when they got permission to actually use authentic stuff it wasn't too bad. I mean the shots in "Next of Kin", although it's pretty obvious what are cut in as newsreel shots on what aren't are extremely authentic.

Roy Fowler  20:39  

What kind of influence did officialdom, the bureaucracy in the MOI have on the studio on your father?

Jonathan Balcon  20:46  

I think a fair amount. Of course, they were responsible directly to the MOI, were they not also responsible for Ministry of Economic Warfare?

Roy Fowler  20:55  

I don't know.

Jonathan Balcon  20:56  

Certainly "The Big Blockade" was made under the auspices of the Ministry of Economic Warfare. Hugh Dalton was at the MOI wasn't he?

Roy Fowler  21:06  

I don't, I don't know I wouldn't say no and I wouldn't say yes.  Not Hugh Dalton ...

Jonathan Balcon  21:12  

Father was forever fighting bureaucracy. When "Next of Kin" first came out it was so close to what happened in the Dieppe raid that Churchill wanted it banned and not shown to the public, shown only to the military. And Father said no, this film was being made to show to the public well he won the day in the end and it was shown publicly.  But it was very close to the mark because of course it ended on a downbeat note with the raid having been not terribly successful, and a lot of casualties. 

Roy Fowler  21:50  

All our fault. 

Jonathan Balcon  21:51  

Yeah. beautifully made film. Thorrold Dickinson of course. 

Roy Fowler  21:55  

Yes. brilliant director. 

Jonathan Balcon  21:58  

Marvellous director, I gather he was a very difficult man to work with. But on a film in which Nova Pilbeam of course, played quite a large part. But I think he found, he found red tape boring ...

Roy Fowler  22:19  

Frustrating too?

Jonathan Balcon  22:20  

... and frustrating and certainly when latterly, you know after they were members of the Rank Organisation, or he was or the studio was taken under the Rank wing, and he found himself up against various government departments over something, various things. He just found it frustrating, I think that's the word, I think very frustrating.

Roy Fowler  22:48  

Well, during the war Ealing was very successful, very useful in producing what essentially was propaganda. It was easily assimilated propaganda and so therefore it must have been in favour. What is, do we have more to say about that era do you think? Is it the films or policy or did he bring problems home that you were aware of? Did he ever discuss them with you?

Jonathan Balcon  23:15  

Latterly but not at that stage. 

Roy Fowler  23:17  

No. 

Jonathan Balcon  23:17  

I mean latterly he used to chuck scripts at me like "The Cruel Sea", he chucked "Kind Hearts" at me and I thought it was marvellous.  "The Cruel Sea" I thought was fantastic. Eric Ambler did the um did he not ...

Roy Fowler  23:36  

The adaptation. 

Jonathan Balcon  23:36  

The adaptation.

Roy Fowler  23:39  

It is said your father didn't like "Kind Hearts" that he kind of disapproved of it.

Jonathan Balcon  23:44  

No.

Roy Fowler  23:44  

Would you say that was true? 

Jonathan Balcon  23:45  

No, no. 

Roy Fowler  23:46  

That's, that's usually said it was kind of sneaked through and you don't sneak things through a studio do you?.

Jonathan Balcon  23:52  

The thing he didn't like was a synopsis of "Lavender Hill Mob" that Tibi took to him. And he said I don't think Tibi this is going to be commercial and he loved it afterwards of course. I mean, he always said the greatest mistake he made in "Lavender Hill Mob" was not to see the potential in Audrey Hepburn, although he'd given her some sort of contract to be  what 30 seconds in the film, he always regretted.

Roy Fowler  24:22  

That's true again of so many producers we can't just put it down to him Mick Balcon can we? Jean Simmons somehow was recognised and Deborah Carr was somehow recognised but indeed to let Audrey Hepburn gowho was was insanity,

Jonathan Balcon  24:37  

Yes but of course, at that time, am I not right he was with the Rank Organisation and he had to a certain extent casting wise do what they suggested. 

Roy Fowler  24:48  

Yeah. 

Jonathan Balcon  24:48  

Which is how he got his hands on Dirk Bogard for instance in "The Blue Lamp".  Jack Warner, of course, was always a great standby. And I think in many ways um Jack was eternally grateful to Mick for "The Blue Lamp" and it's one of those most extraordinary things in British acting history is it not that there is someone who in the first 40 minutes of the film is killed, but out of whom grows a great legend. 

Roy Fowler  24:48  

Indeed.

Jonathan Balcon  24:58  

And indeed, almost a dynasty.  And I mean Jack was the most lovely person as indeed were his two sisters. And one of the things which I'm sad about that was stolen, along with the other silver, was a nice silver cigarette box, which Jack gave to me Mick just saying "Mickey with many, many thanks for all you've done" you know. Old Mick very graciously accepted these gifts [LAUGHING]

Roy Fowler  25:50  

Solid silver.  Did he have a favourite Ealing film do you think?

Jonathan Balcon  25:58  

I like to, I would always like to think that "Kind Hearts" was his favourite film.

Roy Fowler  26:05  

But that's regarded as being atypical Ealing being of its rather mordant acidulous side.

Jonathan Balcon  26:13  

I know everybody raves about "The Ladykillers". I enjoyed "The Ladykillers" but I didn't think it was anything more than than an enjoyable film.

Roy Fowler  26:24  

It's quite delightful indeed. The Mckendrick films, how did he feel about those? 

Jonathan Balcon  26:32  

Mckendrick films? 

Roy Fowler  26:33  

Yeah, the Sandy Mckendrick films: "Whisky Galore", "Man in a White Suit".

Jonathan Balcon  26:43  

"Man in the White Suit" he got very disgruntled when he heard that Cecil Parker has based his part on Mick [LAUGHING] as the benevolent managing director. 

Roy Fowler  26:52  

He heard about that? 

Jonathan Balcon  26:53  

He heard about that.  I ... you see one of all our favourites and one that was a great disappointment to Mick was "Saraband for Dead Lovers", which I always thought was one of the loveliest films to watch with the most marvellous cast, but it hit the market at the wrong time. And the other extraordinary thing it was as far as I remember Ealing's first venture into technicolour. 

Roy Fowler  27:26  

"Saraband" was? 

Jonathan Balcon  27:28  

"Saraband" was and I think it was, as far as I remember, it was technicolour on the three negative system rather than monopack and I believe Dougie photographed it. 

Roy Fowler  27:41  

He did.

Jonathan Balcon  27:42  

It was beautifully photographed. 

Roy Fowler  27:44  

Indeed a very handsome film. 

Jonathan Balcon  27:45  

Yeah.  And it was not a success and it was the most expensive film Ealing had ever made, and it cost 325,000 pounds I think which was, when you look at it these days ...

Roy Fowler  27:56  

Well indeed.

Jonathan Balcon  27:57  

... pea nuts. 

Roy Fowler  27:58  

But it never made it's cost back the first time around presumably.

Jonathan Balcon  28:01  

No. It's been shown since on television.

Roy Fowler  28:05  

Indeed. And I think it's recognised now as a very interesting film. It's a very stodgy script I have to say, it was Dearden and Relph wasn't it? 

Jonathan Balcon  28:15  

Yes. Incidentally I hear Michael Relph's not too well.

Roy Fowler  28:21  

Well that could be so I suppose because of his age. 

Jonathan Balcon  28:23  

But I didn't hear from Simon.  I heard on Monday. 

Roy Fowler  28:26  

But Simon was there last night but he didn't say anything. But I didn't ask him or no, no one to my knowledge asked him.

Jonathan Balcon  28:38  

Course you see, the boys of both Deardon and Ralph have done well. I mean ...

Roy Fowler  28:44  

Although James seems to have disappeared, hasn't he?

Jonathan Balcon  28:46  

Yes, he'd rather sort of fallen off the ... 

Roy Fowler  28:50  

A couple of hits ... 

Jonathan Balcon  28:51  

Then this happens in Hollywood you know.

Roy Fowler  28:54  

Merciless, absolutely. Right, back to our onions then, where are we? All the little sidelights on the studio I think are the most interesting ones because so much otherwise is known and is recorded. Were there any villains at the studio that you're aware of, [LAUGHTER] people who were not liked for one reason or another, or distrusted? 

Jonathan Balcon  29:23  

Well not, Jack Dooley, the stills man, was always a bit gritty but I don't think he meant to be I just think he felt you know, being a stills camera man in a movie films [LAUGHTER] ...

Roy Fowler  29:40  

Yeah, it's true the stills man always has been somewhat a disgruntled character because nobody will let him get in to take his stills I suppose.

Jonathan Balcon  29:48  

The real grumps, if you like bad tempered old bugger was Ernest Irving. 

Roy Fowler  29:55  

Aha. 

Jonathan Balcon  29:56  

And I didn't know whether you knew this, but Ernest developed a pathological dislike of Pentis [LAUGHTER] and they couldn't practically be in the same room together. 

Roy Fowler  30:07  

I didn't know that.

Jonathan Balcon  30:11  

But Ernest did some very weird things, I mean he could be very bad temper. But you see this was the extraordinary thing about Mick, Roy, he employed good composers, Ernest Irving was an excellent conductor. He employed super artists to do his posters, in fact, Ealing posters are almost classic now.

Roy Fowler  30:39  

Yes, indeed, yes. There is a book devoted to them is there not?

Jonathan Balcon  30:43  

Yes upstairs I've got the three volumes of all the press releases, which of course have got Edward Ardizzone and they've got John Piper. I did in fact, I don't know whether this is widely known, after mother died I found in the roof of the garage at Upper Parrock what I thought was a print of a poster for "The Bells Go Down" and I didn't think very much about it, but I was getting rid of a certain amount of stuff to Christies and they came down and they looked at it and they said, "This is no print. This is the original John Piper watercolour". And I sold it for 4000 pounds. And um it's now at the Imperial War Museum they bought it and I went to have a look at it the other day it's a beautiful poster, it's a beautiful poster and of course, I love Piper anyway. They had a Piper exhibition there, St John Woods of course, was responsible largely for coordinating. Oh, yes, I know that something's just occurred to me. I don't think Anthony Mendelson was an evil genius he, Anthony, had a sort of sinister look about him. The person who was incredible and made the most beautiful things was Andrew Lowe.

Jonathan Balcon  30:52  

I don't know the name.

Roy Fowler  32:06  

No well, he was in the art department at Ealing. And I got one or two things of his upstairs, well one one thing in particular because when you're knighted you have to do this ridiculous thing at the College of Heralds as they write to suggest that you ought to have a coat of arms. So Mick got Andrew to design a coat of arms for him and Andrew then did a model of it as it were in relief, which I've got upstairs, which is beautifully done in paper but it stands out in its frame you know. No there were some exceptionally talented people around the studio. 

Roy Fowler  32:48  

Why is it do you think they worked there if they were getting less than their commercial rate? Was it security, opportunity?

Jonathan Balcon  32:55  

I think security, I think opportunity, I don't know what the contracts were like. Were they on an annual basis?

Roy Fowler  33:00  

I've no idea. 

Jonathan Balcon  33:01  

I've no idea I mean ... there was an armed neutrality to a certain extent between Mick and Reg Baker, you know. Because Reg was very much the frontman and always, he was very tall ... Did you ever meet him? 

Roy Fowler  33:20  

No, I never did.

Jonathan Balcon  33:21  

... very tall, handsome ex-major.

Roy Fowler  33:24  

What were his areas of responsibility?

Jonathan Balcon  33:26  

He was managing director.

Roy Fowler  33:28  

The financial but principally it was ...

Jonathan Balcon  33:30  

Yes and his brother Leslie did the accounts. But Reg was the frontman with the Royal Film Performance and all that you know. I don't know whether you knew this, you know Reg had a son, Peter. Peter Baker, who had a very distinguished war and was a sort of a war hero, became an MP after the war, went into the publishing business and in fact eventually went to prison for embezzlement. 

Roy Fowler  34:12  

Didn't know. 

Jonathan Balcon  34:13  

Mick, in spite of all his feelings about that sort of thing, stood bail for Peter. Now Peter was a drunk, yet another one, but a serious drunk and he went on a bender between trials, collapsed completely and was taken off to Virginia Water, what's it called the Priory.

Roy Fowler  34:39  

Oh yes.

Jonathan Balcon  34:42  

On a Saturday night at Upper Parrock at three o'clock in the morning the telephone rang and the telephone was on Aileen's side of the bed and a voice said, 'Sunday Express here. Could we speak to Sir Michael?' So Aileen said, 'I'm afraid he's asleep.' 'Who are we speaking to?' and without thinking Mother said, 'Diana Dors.' [LAUGHING] 

Jonathan Balcon  35:10  

Oh bless her. 

Jonathan Balcon  35:12  

And there was a sort of gasp at the other end. And they obviously cottoned on it was Mother 'Was Sir Michael aware that Peter Baker had jumped bail?' Well Peter hadn't jumped bail at all, as I say he'd been taken into Virginia Water. But he did subsequently end up in prison and he ruined his career and practically crippled Reg. But then of course, Reg had a great attribute with the ladies because he is quite handsome. And when he, when he became a widower he went off to Australia , married an Australian millionairess who promptly died, so he married another Australian millionaire. Well, Reg is dead now but I mean, he didn't do too badly at the end. 

Roy Fowler  35:51  

It never happens to me. 

Jonathan Balcon  35:53  

No exactly. But he was a curious man Reg. I don't know what, I suppose you see Baker Todman, Baker Rook as it became and whatever it's called now Baker Tilly, were very distinguished film industry accountants at one time. And I mean, they looked after all our family affairs until they became too big and our affairs became too small you know.

Roy Fowler  36:26  

Did your father inherit Reg Baker at Ealing?

Jonathan Balcon  36:29  

Yes.  It was, it was entirely, Reg was there with with Basil Dean. Courthauld went to Reg and said, 'Look, for God's sake, find me somebody, find me somebody to make films and Reg said that the only person I know, as I've said earlier is Balcon and he approached Mick. They hadn't known each other I'm not sure they hadn't known each other at Gaumont or somewhere like that, they had met previously. Something in the back of my mind something tells me Reg had been an advisor on "Journey's End" because he'd had a very distinguished First World War. But I may be wrong about that. Now somebody asked me the other day, we haven't really talked about what I call the adventure films and the foreign location films, somebody asked me why Harry Watt, there was not a lot was written about Harry and I said I didn't really know. I always found Harry a most interesting person to talk to. "The Overlanders" was a fine production. I gather, he was a very difficult director to work for but he'd had a distinguished career with the GPO Film Unit and subsequently the Crown Film Unit, I think.

Roy Fowler  37:59  

Yes. Yeah, I'm not sure, I see your point. I'm not sure why he seems not to be taken overly serious.

Jonathan Balcon  38:07  

That's right yup.  But he was the one who was terribly excited at being sent to Australia. And he was very excited to be sent to Africa for "Where no Vultures Fly" and for "West of Zanzibar". But in a way, they were out of the out of ordinary Ealing films, I mean Father realised that he had to break out as it were of a rather restrictive stories going round in this country and he had to do something abroad. But again, all be it with with a small community you know.

Roy Fowler  38:44  

What about the Australian connection? Because that was quite surprising for its time, was it not ...

Jonathan Balcon  38:50  

It was very surprising

Roy Fowler  38:51  

... to send a unit off that far. 

Jonathan Balcon  38:54  

Well I think it was partly the Rank Organisation found themselves had some difficulty with their operations in Australia. And I can't even remember who came to him with the script for for "Overland". Maybe Harry did himself, but he thought it was a very exciting story, and he got very excited about the whole thing. And of course, with "Siege of Pinchgut", "Eureka Stockade", "The Shiralee", and "The Overlanders" really began to form the embryonic, if you like, Australian film industry, which matured into what it is today through Bruce Beresford and other people. And sure enough when Bruce was over here, we're talking now about the '50s, '60s, '70s they saw a great deal of Mick and Mick gave him a lot of advice. And Bruce now must be of an age, you know, but I remember having a hilarious lunch at Wheelers in Old Compton Street with Mick, Bruce Beresford and Dame Edna Everage - Barry Humphries.

Roy Fowler  40:11  

In drag?

Jonathan Balcon  40:12  

No, no. Barry was  himself but he was hilariously funny. As a result of that they made that dreadful film about the Australian character, you know who was always shooting?

Roy Fowler  40:24  

Oh Yes. Ah, I know who you mean.

Jonathan Balcon  40:28  

Yeah, but they've matured since then. It was a, you see again, after the Ealing era and well during the Ealing era Group Three, of course became something for which Mick was responsible. I again, I didn't think he was ever terribly sure about Group Three. Then of course we had Bryanston.

Roy Fowler  40:55  

Wasn't that after Ealing had finished.

Jonathan Balcon  41:00  

 Oh, yes. Yes. I mean ...

Roy Fowler  41:02  

Well, then let's sort of run our minds over Ealing to make sure we have covered that in as much detail as we can. At some stage the Rank Organisation came into the picture, what were your dad's relationships with Arthur and with Davis?

Jonathan Balcon  41:21  

He was never terribly happy about religious fanatics and he disliked John Davis more than I can say and my mother absolutely despised him. The only thing I can say is that both John and his lordship gave Sally and me two very nice pieces of silver when we were married, which I've subsequently sold.  Um he was very unhappy he had, if you remember, he had fought monopolies all his life, on and off, and he felt you know, to own an organisation which not only made films, not only distributed them but also exhibited them was a monopoly situation

End Of Side 4

Side 5 

Roy Fowler  0:00  

Tape three. Yes, you were saying a monopoly situation. Now on to the Rank Organisation, and yes.And JD, you know ...

Jonathan Balcon  0:07  

He had a seat on the board. There were certain people in the organisation he liked enormously. He didn't trust either Kenneth Winkles or the other one, there were two of them weren't there? Were PAs to John Davis. One of them had been Monty's adjutant , or staff officer under Monty, I think that was Kenneth Winkles. There were two of them, I can't remember the second one's name, but my mother absolutely hated John Davis. And of course, if you really, well I don't think it'll ever be published but some of the stories Dinah Sheridan tells about her married life to John Davis really makes your, your blood run cold. And the man was a brute. And a fascist, and a dictator.

Roy Fowler  1:00  

Yes, a hideous man. Yes.

Jonathan Balcon  1:03  

Of course, you know it was the beginning wasn't it, forget artistic merit what's the bottom line look like?

Roy Fowler  1:14  

Yeah, I don't know the extent to which it was ever different. But the film industry has always been that dichotomy of people trying to make good movies and on the other hand people trying to make a quick buck out of it. I suppose Davis is really the beginning of the serious green eyeshade people sitting there looking at the books. You spoke about the Prudential much earlier and of course they suffered so hugely the Kordas ...

Jonathan Balcon  1:43  

Well they actually paid Korda a million didn't they to relieve them of all commitments. 

Roy Fowler  1:47  

Did they? 

Jonathan Balcon  1:51  

Oh yes.

Roy Fowler  1:50  

But they built the studio and they lost vast sums of money on the production. And eventually I, he walked away having bought the rights to his films for an absolute pittance. 

Jonathan Balcon  2:02  

Absolutely.  The other curious thing, little experience I had, the BBC rang me and said, did I know what had happened to the unfinished 'I Claudius' with Charles Laughton?

Jonathan Balcon  2:05  

Yes. When was this? Ages ago?

Jonathan Balcon  2:25  

Ages ago, when I was at Hobbs Saville, '50s, '60s

Roy Fowler  2:32  

Had the company insured Korda?

Jonathan Balcon  2:34  

We hadn't no but I knew how the whole thing had gone. And I rang up Phyllis Crocker's father, William Charles Crocker, explained who I was and I said, I'm awfully sorry sir to worry you but I've just had a call from the BBC and could you possibly tell me because I knew you dealt with the claim on Merle Oberon. This was when she was injured in a car accident and the film was abandoned. Could you tell me what happened to the finished cans of 'I Claudius'? Of course I can he said, I'm sitting looking at them, they're on a filing cabinet in my office. He said I think there are four cans or five cans. I said would you be willing to get rid of them because I believe the BBC may be interested and he said, yes, of course I would, put them on to me. So I rang the BBC back and I said William Charles Crockers got them he'd be very interested. As a result of that they did a BBC programme on the making of 'I Claudius', not the series they eventually did.

Roy Fowler  3:42  

A stunning programme.  I have it on tape.

Jonathan Balcon  3:44  

Yeah and that was entirely my investigation and ringing William Charles Crocker. 

Roy Fowler  3:51  

Well that really is fascinating.

Jonathan Balcon  3:53  

I happen to know because I was in that side of the business in insurance, that William Charles had dealt with the claim. I can't remember the circumstances but it was one of the ... as you probably know, in a film producers' indemnity policy, you can do one of two things: you can, if somebody falls ill, one of the sheduled actors who's insured, you can pay the net increase in costs to complete the picture or you can abandon. The only thing about abandonment in brackets afterwards, with the consent of insurance. Now, years later, Edward G. Robinson had a heart attack on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro whilst making 'Sammy Going South'.  Mick rings me up and says, Hal tells me we've got to abandon. Mick I said you cannot abandon without the consent of insurance.  Don't you start quoting small print to me. I said, I'm sorry Mick you cannot abandon that. Well, he said, We'll see about that.  Anyway, subsequently what happened was, I said, it's far better let Edward G rest for 2, 3, 4 weeks and we'll pay the net increase in cost of the finished product. Which is what we did and it cost us a lot less money of course. But the point I'm trying to make is the Merle Oberon episode in 'I Claudius' was the only time I think a film was in fact abandoned and the words with consent of insurance, insurers wasn't, weren't in the policy.

Roy Fowler  5:33  

It's said that Korda arraigned because the, it was a very, very troubled production. 

Jonathan Balcon  5:41  

I'm sure.

Roy Fowler  5:42  

Sternberg was the wrong director and Lawton was having a tizz all the time and so it went went, soit said, and I'm sure it can't be true that the accident was, was arranged.

Jonathan Balcon  5:54  

Nothing surprises me.

Roy Fowler  5:57  

I wondered if you had any ...

Jonathan Balcon  5:57  

Roy I'll give you two little incidents: Lloyds paid out a million quid on Elizabeth Taylor in 'Cleopatra',which was the largest FPI claim that had ever been paid. Now, I happen to know that that was a fraudulent claim. She did not declare on her medical form that when she went to Dr Wilkinson that she was taking a certain drug. And this drug had the side effect, which actually caused her to be ill and have the tracheotomy. But rather than have the publicity Lloyds paid up. The other time was I insured 'The World of Suzie Wong'. Ray Stark, the producer, wanted to screw whichever girl it was who was playing Suzie Wong and she wouldn't have it. I rang the production company, and I said, look, there must be, apart from the Sterling element to this policy, there must be a dollar element. They said, Well, we haven't heard from Paramount about this. And I said, well you get on to Paramount and find out. They came back about 48 hours later and asked me to do the dollar policy as well and, at the same time put a claim in for the girl being ill. And I smelled a rat and there was a marvellous chap who worked for Toplis and Hardy. You probably never heard of Toplis and Hardy but they were probably the leading loss adjusters in the city at one time. There was a marvellous chap called Freddie Geddes who we flew out to Hong Kong and he came back he was able to prove that the claim had been made, that they knowingly had a claim when they asked me to place the insurance. So we got off the hook on that one. But when Freddie produced his report, he said, the original claim, he said, was quite extraordinary because it included four gold cigarette cases for Mr William Holden for various members of the crew; six bales of silk for Mrs. William Holden. And I mean, these weren't items that were included on the policy at all. And Freddie blew the whole thing wide open. In fact, we ended up paying practically nothing. I'm not even sure we did pay, because he, Ray Stark sacked the one girl and appointed somebody else. He sacked the one girl because she wouldn't sleep with him. Insurers are always considered fair game. You're not in the sun are you?

Roy Fowler  8:49  

No, no, no, I'm fine. Any more stories about insurance scams?

Jonathan Balcon  8:56  

Insurance scams, my dear. You only have to read the papers in the past five weeks don't you.

Roy Fowler  9:02  

What's been going on in the last five weeks. 

Jonathan Balcon  9:04  

Well, you had The Independent going bust, The Equitable ...

Roy Fowler  9:10  

Oh, I see what you mean. I mean, with reference to the motion picture industry.

Jonathan Balcon  9:14  

Oh no, no, no it wasn't too bad. It wasn't too bad ...

Roy Fowler  9:20  

What are some of the great insurance disasters with with films?

Jonathan Balcon  9:25  

Well, I suppose they mostly occurred under Korda. 'Cleopatra' was another ...

Roy Fowler  9:31  

Was there more to it than Taylor and her illness.

Jonathan Balcon  9:35  

No, no. Apart from the fact Burton spent most of his time in a pissed state. And Robin Mormor, I don't know if you knew this, had a house on Ischia and he said Burton came up to see him there and sat in the sun drinking this very strong white Ischian wine and then went to go and shoot a scene and they put his armour on him and he fell over. [LAUGHTER]  But I mean that's Robin being slightly bitchy, I think.  I don't think there's been any, I've always been highly suspicious of any claim. It is the easiest thing in the world to make a claim on a film policy. But if you've got a good Loss Adjuster you usually get away with ...

Roy Fowler  10:23  

Korda was probably the most notorious and there were all kinds of abandoned productions in the '30s at Denham.

Jonathan Balcon  10:29  

Yeah, but they probably weren't insured. 

Roy Fowler  10:32  

But the Prudential was his principal backer. 

Jonathan Balcon  10:34  

The Prudential may have backed the film but, they may not have insured it. Because the film producers indemnity insurance didn't come out really. It was originally a Norwich Union worded, believe it or not.  I mean, all big insurance companies were involved.  My cover, I had, I ran three covers, I ran an open cover; I ran a cover for ABPC and I ran an Ealing cover. And on each cover there was something like 40 underwriters at Lloyd's, and something like 23 insurance companies. So the risk was pretty well spread. And the covers I mean, Ealing got away with murder. They had the lowest rates of anybody which used to drive the other people up the wall, because everybody knewwhat Ealing rates were. But Ealing on the whole had until, until Edward G they had a pretty good record. Did I tell you ...

Jonathan Balcon  10:35  

Yes. Well your father was a very respectable character was he not? So presumably, was regarded as an honest operation, as  opposed to the ...

Jonathan Balcon  11:41  

Did I tell you about 'Man in the Sky'? 

Roy Fowler  11:44  

No.

Jonathan Balcon  11:45  

Well, my three great successes as an insurance man. I got Donat fully insured for 'Lease of Life' because he was uninsurable, because of his asthma. I got Katie Johnson fully insured for 'The Lady Killers' aged 83 when the age limit was 65. And Hal came to me when they were making 'Man in the Sky", and they got hold of Bristol freighter the things we used to fly ...

Roy Fowler  12:26  

We did go through  this yes, yes, yes. 

Jonathan Balcon  12:28  

And I insured that as an actor and the bloody thing taxied into a ditch.  But that wasn't put out of action for very long. But then I suppose, really, the worry was if anything went wrong what Mick's reaction would be because I mean, he wasn't the easiest customer to deal with. And he normally, he had a marvellous company secretary called Cyril Orr who I looked after, when I say looked after,I mean I did everything that Cyril asked me to do in the insurance. And in fact, it paid off handsomely, because when he, we also broked at Hobbs Savill for every single independent television company, with the exception of Yorkshire. And Cyril, when London Weekend started rang me up and said, I'd like you to handle business, which the firm were only too pleased to do.

Roy Fowler  13:21  

So what it was almost entirely profit?

Jonathan Balcon  13:24  

Almost. But the loss of profits insurance for television companies is very interesting because we pioneered, with the Commercial Union, a clause which was known as Memorandum Four. And whatit quite simply said was this insurance covers the insured for failure to transmit from any cause beyond the control of the insured. All right? I went to Yorkshire and I said, loss of profits insurance we don't believe in it. But I said, you cannot not believe in it because I mean, what about your mast? What happens if your mast collapses? Oh, quite impossible. We have just erected the latest Swedish mast of such and such a nature which is totally and utterly reliable. Three months later in the middle of a storm Yorkshire's mast collapses,

Roy Fowler  14:34  

Couldn't happen governor!

Jonathan Balcon  14:37  

Cost them over a million I think too, for they were off the air for quite a long time. Now Border continuously had American aircraft running into their mast, or the stays on the top of whichever fell it was but they never had a claim the mast never collapsed. And they were never off the air. But I said to you, I said to Paddy Cruickshank afterwards, I said, Paddy had you had insurance for that mast it would have cost you nothing because Memorandum Four would have would have covered it. But they still wouldn't insure, quite extraordinary what some people are like. Sorry, I've digressed. But I mean, it just shows you the sort of thing we came up against.

Roy Fowler  15:18  

They're all sidelights again, matters not covered elsewhere. So all very useful.

Jonathan Balcon  15:23  

But you see, Roy, we had extraordinary things because Granada, quite rightly, came to us. And theysaid, we are building up a massive library of VTRs. We must have some basis on which to insure them. And we sat down with insurers round a table and we worked out that once the programme had been initially shown then to all intents and purposes the production costs had been recovered. But there had to be a formula if it was put into the library and subsequently destroyed, not wiped by mistake, just destroyed. And we came up with a formula that was very satisfactory, to all concerned.  The trouble was the sum insured grew and grew and grew and grew and in the end I don't think Granada could afford it because it was all based on a rate percent. I don't know what's happened since. But that was one of the things we pioneered. And we pioneered cover for when the negatives were being processed at the laboratories.

Roy Fowler  16:28  

Well given now the value of the catalogues the the insured value must be absolutely phenomenal, sky high. Yeah,

Jonathan Balcon  16:36  

It was phenomenal. I mean, it was in the millions when I left and that was, I left Hobbs Saville in 1969 and set up on my own.

Roy Fowler  16:43  

Well, hardware and licences that really has nothing to do with it anymore. It really is the value of the software, isn't it?

Jonathan Balcon  16:49  

Yeah. But there we are, it's it's quite interesting.  Go back to Ealing

Roy Fowler  16:56  

Go back to Ealing in the '30s '40s, when did it all begin to taper off for Dad do you think?

Jonathan Balcon  17:04  

I think really it began to taper off, didn't it not after "The Lady Killers"?

Roy Fowler  17:09  

Yes.

Jonathan Balcon  17:13  

And I think a lot of, Michael Winner, who I can't bear ...

Roy Fowler  17:24  

[LAUGHTER]

Jonathan Balcon  17:20  

... says that of course Balcon was going broke or the studios were going broke. I don't think they were ...

Roy Fowler  17:27  

Did Michael Winner say that? He's a very stupid man.

Jonathan Balcon  17:30  

Oh yeah, horrible man. Have I not told you that story? In the Sunday Times some years ago he said:my close friendship with Michael Balcon. And I wasn't gonna take this lying down. So I wrote a letter to the Sunday Times saying my father was extremely careful about who he had as close friends. I said my father and I were latterly fairly close. I can recall at no time Michael Winner ever being invited to our house in the country. And I would have thought close friendship quote/unquote,was something that was not entirely correct. My dear, they published my letter. I had Winner on the telephone. I didn't really mean that you know. I said you may not have meant it but you said it. Oh we had business dealings together. I said I don't think you did because I said yours were the sort of  films he would have absolutely hated.

Roy Fowler  18:32  

And also a great disparity not just in outlook, but in age too. Michael then would have been very, Winner would have been very young. Yes, yes.

Jonathan Balcon  18:41  

So anyway, that scotched that one. But now after the 'Ladykillers' it was always put about, this maybe a bit of what the Labour government are famous for, their various advisors, but we were always told that they had outgrown the studios. The studios were no longer a viable unit for making the type of films they were going to make without actually saying what type of films they were going to make. But what have they made subsequently? They made 'Sammy Going South', 'The Long, the Short and the Tall' and 'Dunkirk'. That's all I think. And the studios were sold to the BBC. Sadly the films were sold to Warner Pathe and subsequently of course are now owned by Canal Plus.

Roy Fowler  19:45  

Whoever knows who owns the library these days. 

Jonathan Balcon  19:48  

Well Canal Plus, you've never heard my story. I took them to, very nearly to the courts here. 

Roy Fowler  22:06  

Yes. 

Roy Fowler  19:56  

I get a small royalty every year from 'The Long, the Short and the Tall,' and they do this bloody silly thing, they send you what you're due on paper and say will you please send us an invoice. And it was the year before last and it was 350 quid or something. So I duly sent them an invoice and weeks later I still hadn't heard anything or had a cheque. So I rang up the litigation clerk at my solicitors who did the same law course as me quite recently at Canterbury and I said, Carol, what should I do? She said, Well, don't involve us, she said it'll cost you too much money. But she said go along to the small claims court in Tunbridge Wells County Court here, get the appropriate forms. Fill the forms in but she said don't get them stamped by the court because you'll have to claim, you'll have to pay 32 quid, which you can claim back from the people you're suing. So anyway, I went and got the forms and filled them all in and didn't get them stamped and added on the 32 quid so the whole thing came to 370 quid or something. I faxed a copy to Canal Plus at Boulogne, at Pinewood Studios, in Paris. I think that was about all because Carol had said fax it to them. My dear, I had some chap from Paris on the telephone the following day. I cannot understand what has happened and what has gone wrong, we have had problems in our accounts department. I said yeah I've heard all that before. He said, I said I'll give you five days to get you get me a cheque.  Anyway, it was the bank holiday Monday, the following Monday, and on the following Tuesday by special delivery I have a cheque. And it obviously put the fear of God up them,  just to see if they thought I'd issued a writ you see but it hadn't cost me a bloody thing.

Roy Fowler  22:06  

That's a neat dodge actually if I ever need that to not get it stamped.

Jonathan Balcon  22:14  

Don't get it stamped.  But whoever you're going to serve, this is in the small claims court, fax them acopy. And they were so they said to me Oh, you know, we have all your father's films here at Pinewood. I said yeah, I said if you haven't got them I'd be multi-millionaire by now

Roy Fowler  22:30  

Indeed everyone else is making a fortune out of them.

Jonathan Balcon  22:33  

This is what saddens me in a way is that Jill and I and our families have not benefited. I'll tell you what is integrity with life, don't forget I wasn't terribly involved in the setup at Ealing, financially. But Associated Talking Pictures had a number of outside shareholders in the Ealing area from way back. Some had 10, some had 100, some had one you know. And I remember that there was a chap called Hillier, who lived in Ealing who always created a fuss at the AGM and somebody I can't remember who wrote a poem which started off, you know, nothing could be sillier than little Mr Hiller. [LAUGHTER]  Anyway, that's beside the point. Because when the studios were sold, when the films were sold and the rights, and the only rights that weren't sold, dammit, if only he had realised realised about the rights, every single shareholder was paid the dividends that had been due to them from 1938 when he took over and none of them in fact lost out. And of course, the shares,eventually ATP was wound up and the shares were valueless but they all got their dividends.  But he and Reg I think had a pretty heavy stake in it at that time. I don't think, they came out of it reasonably well out of the sale. I don't know what the films were sold for but whoever bought, Warner Pathe must have have done extremely well, because Warner Pathe became EMI, EMI became whatever EMI became and then now Canal Plus has got them.

Roy Fowler  24:24  

Well there was Weinchild in there at one stage.

Jonathan Balcon  24:28  

Weinchild was in there you are absolutely right.  Now and then I believe I think I asked you this, I believe Spikings and Deely were involved in it somewhere along the line.

Roy Fowler  24:38  

They certainly were at EMI and knowing them they probably had a hand in the catalogue too.

Jonathan Balcon  24:43  

You see Mick fell for those two and I, we met Deely ,Sally and I and we said that man's a crook. 

Roy Fowler  24:50  

Wheeler Deely.

Jonathan Balcon  24:50  

Yup. Sally and I took an instant dislike. Mick and Eileen latterly weren't awfully good judges of character actually.  And I thought Deely was taking advantage of you over something you know. But I, who was I to say so I mean, I couldn't say so he'd would have said oh, you know, you're a bad judge of character.

Roy Fowler  25:11  

When did maybe his judgement begin to fail in that respect?

Jonathan Balcon  25:17  

Of people? 

Roy Fowler  25:18  

Well, yes, I, the business perhaps was leaving him or he was leaving the business. Um, tastes change. 

Jonathan Balcon  25:26  

I don't think to put it crudely Roy, I don't think his marbles ever failed rarely right up to the end.

Roy Fowler  25:32  

Well, it's taste isn't it? Taste whether people are going to pay to see the films or not?

Jonathan Balcon  25:39  

Yeah. You see, latterly, after Bryanston when he really wasn't, he wasn't doing much but advising other people and talking to people and giving lectures and doing the National Film School and the BFI was always a great, great thing of his. People used to flock down to talk to him, you know and he, he'd sit rather like the elder statesman and pontificate about various things.

Roy Fowler  26:16  

Well you said 'Ladykillers' was the point at which maybe the studio began to subside in whatever fashion either because they couldn't service the productions properly maybe because the films weren't being properly distributed, which I suspect is ...a more likely ...

Jonathan Balcon  26:33  

I suspect more than likely.

Roy Fowler  26:34  

Yeah, indeed. And the dreaded JD hovering around, did they get along? You said that they didn't like each other, well your father didn't like him.

Jonathan Balcon  26:43  

Well he had to get along with him at board meetings, but he couldn't bear him otherwise.

Roy Fowler  26:46  

Was that reciprocated in other ways?

Jonathan Balcon  26:48  

Oh don't I don't know what JD thought. But JD had a strong anti-semitic streak in him anyway. 

Roy Fowler  26:53  

Really.

Jonathan Balcon  26:53  

 Yeah. I mean, he ended up marrying a fascist, did you not know that?

Roy Fowler  26:58  

Well he married so many times. The final, the final one the last one ...

Jonathan Balcon  27:02  

The final one Diana was a member of whatever it is party.

Roy Fowler  27:06  

I didn't know that. I spoke to her on the phone a couple of times. And she always sounded as if she were about to declare the bazaar open but no maybe it was to declare the ...

Jonathan Balcon  27:18  

Yeah, did what he liked best and dressed in black and wore boots. 

Roy Fowler  27:22  

God bless her.  Ah, thank you lady!

Roy Fowler  27:28  

I'd call because I was trying for ages to get him to do an interview and everyone was saying to him,those who spoke to him still, because he was a rather pathetic creature I think at this stage. And they'd say, John you really ought to do it for posterity. Bill  MacQuitty did oh, several ...  Percy Percy, 20th Century Fox, Percy Livingston did. 

Jonathan Balcon  27:54  

Oh, yes, yeah. 

Roy Fowler  27:57  

So we'd talk on the phone but he was always convinced that we were out to get him and I said, seal the bloody tapes, you know, deposit them with your lawyers.

Jonathan Balcon  28:06  

That is sad.

Roy Fowler  28:07  

But she'd come on the phone and I'd say may I speak to him. And she said, in the garden,

Jonathan Balcon  28:15  

I suppose he had paranoia about being stabbed in the back.

Roy Fowler  28:19  

Yes. And I think he realised by that time how loathed and disliked he was and what damage, what damage, at least I hope he went to his grave knowing this. 

Jonathan Balcon  28:29  

The old man I liked a lot. I got him up to Cambridge when I was secretary of the Film Society. 

Roy Fowler  28:35  

Did you? We're talking about Arthur? 

Jonathan Balcon  28:37  

Arthur yeah. And he couldn't have been nicer. And he gave an extremely good lecture. 

Roy Fowler  28:42  

Yeah

Jonathan Balcon  28:44  

But of course, again ...

Roy Fowler  28:45  

man out of his time.

Jonathan Balcon  28:47  

Absolutely.  Mick was never quite sure of him. Was never quite sure he understood about film in spite of the Children's Film Foundation and his own production company.

Roy Fowler  28:58  

Well, I think that's absolutely right. I don't think he knew a thing about film. So he knew about flour milling but nothing beyond that.

Jonathan Balcon  29:06  

Our great friend in Hartfield was his nephew Joe, who ran the milling business. Joe sadly died quite recently having gone gaga.

Jonathan Balcon  29:13  

Would have been what Arthur's brother or nephew?

Speaker 1  29:14  

He was Arthur's nephew. But it was, yes they were curious days weren't they because ...

Roy Fowler  29:27  

They were indeed. If only the personalities had been different, with that kind of money and that kind of determination we could finally have built an international organisation.

Jonathan Balcon  29:38  

Yup. I don't know how or what effect the EDI levy had on the industry. 

Roy Fowler  29:44  

Very benevolent one I think. 

Jonathan Balcon  29:46  

It did have a benevolent one I think effect.  Mick was involved in the setting up of that I'm not sure about that.  He was certainly involved in the setting ups of groups one, two and three as I said to you.  He was certainly deeply involved in Bryanston.  Bryanston as a co-operative had a lot of merit and it had a lot of interesting films. But it was subsequently ...

Roy Fowler  30:08  

Indeed it was a whole new era. 

Jonathan Balcon  30:10  

But I was never quite certain of people like Maxwell Setton. I was never quite sure what...

Roy Fowler  30:16  

Their talent or whatever ... 

Jonathan Balcon  30:18  

Whether they were sincere filmmakers.

Roy Fowler  30:19  

Sure before we come on to that, because that is again a whole change of life I would have thought for your father. There was that period when the studio's Ealing was sold to the BBC and ceased to function. But yet the title remained and he made one film, two films for Metro?

Jonathan Balcon  30:37  

No he made two films for Metro I think. It became Ealing Films Limited. Now, I dispute but I wouldn't do anything about it, the fact that Shawn whatever his name is who's running the studio is using the Ealing logo. Now, I don't know whether he's entitled to that logo,  the lozenge with the two leaves and Ealing, a very simple but very nice logo

Roy Fowler  31:08  

Very sweet. Yes. And again, redolent of its time and standing.

Jonathan Balcon  31:13  

And if anything David Bill did, and what a lot of what David Bill did was nonsense, but he he did produce, I've got a number of badges with Ealing on it. I've got one of those disgusting jockey caps or whatever you call them with Ealing written on it.

Roy Fowler  31:26  

Have you?

Jonathan Balcon  31:28  

He produced all these and he produced T-shirts with the Ealing logo on it. When I tuned into the website the other day, they are still using the logo and my opening remarks to Shawn were, I'm not sure you're absolutely entitled to use this. But I suppose that I don't know you see, I never saw the original contract, so I wouldn't know. But it's um they moved into offices in MGM in Elstree. They became, they also had offices in the West End, Ealing Films Limited, I can't remember where, I'll have to look it up. I can't remember where

Roy Fowler  32:08  

Your father was what, managing director or chairman?

Jonathan Balcon  32:11  

I think he was chairman of Ealing Films. He then in but, we'd had a family company called Hartfield Film Productions Limited of which Eileen, Jill, Mick and me were directors. And we always understood that it was primarily that any royalties he got for lectures and books and anything else were going into this company. Out of Hartfield Film Productions grew Michael Balcon Productions Limited of which I ended up being chairman. But the revenue of Michael Balcon Productions Limited, of which I still have a great deal of writing paper, didn't cover the accountancy fees to present to the DTI each year. So in the end Lesley Baker suggested we wound the company up and we did. But Michael Balcon Productions Limited had a subsidiary called Great Shows Limited and Great Shows ... Yes, we'd love a cup.  Cold I think.

Jonathan Balcon  32:21  

Cold I think cold.  Yes, ideal. Thank you.

Jonathan Balcon  33:25  

Great Shows produced 'Sammy Going South'. Now whereas I've received royalties for 'The Long, the Short and the Tall' I have never for the life of me received royalties on 'Sammy Going South'. And it gets shown on television infrequently, but ...

Roy Fowler  33:44  

It must be in profit by this time?

Jonathan Balcon  33:45  

I would have thought. I wrote to Weintraub and I said, you have sent me a cheque for 'The Long the Short and the Tall' what about 'Sammy Going South'? This will amuse you. There was a sort of hiccup and a pause for about four days. I then got back a 53 page fax showing the contract Mick had signed when at  Bryanston for 'The Small, Sad World of Sammy Lee' which was an X-rated film and nothing to do with Mick at all. And Weintrob said to me that is the only film we have. But of course 'Sammy Going South' was called 'A Boy's 10 Foot Tall' for the American market. I have a pirated copy funnily enough on video. And when I got in touch with the production company, I was told it didn't exist, the people who produced the video. So I just don't know either I'm owed by somebody a fortune because it's several years now.

Roy Fowler  34:56  

Well indeed and as you say it's in circulation so ...

Jonathan Balcon  34:59  

And it's in circulation and we will go one stage further there was a delightful South African called David Schict. S C H I C T one has to be awfully careful how you pronounce it.

Roy Fowler  35:15  

Who was full of Schict

Jonathan Balcon  35:17  

He was a Boer. But he was a very long sighted Boer because he was, he was an African nationalist, you know, and he believed in the, in black supremacy and all that. And we had long talks. And he was a very scruffy individual but he's he's he's made a number of films. Now, for three years running, I suppose I can't complain he paid me £2000 a year to give him an option on making 'Sammy' into a television series. The last I heard of him was that with Common Market money, there is some film fund evidently. I didn't know about it.

Jonathan Balcon  36:24  

Well, there is and there isn't. Theoretically yes, it's difficult to get your hands on it.

Jonathan Balcon  36:06  

He produced a draft script, which I've got upstairs and that's the last I heard of him and that was about three years ago. And he kept ringing me up at that time and saying, well, but we were definitely going ahead with this. Well, I don't know what's happened to him. I tried the other day various ways of getting in touch with him. All I got was on the IMDb website his name came up as a film producer. But it didn't give any address or contact number, which is a pity because I'd very much like to get in contact with him. And I had the legal documentation to prove that Great Shows was a subsidiary company of Michael Balcon Productions Limited. And so anybody and I think this was Delian Spikings again, anybody who took 'Sammy Going South' away from me, where in fact taking away the asset of one of the subsidiary companies, which I once owned. But I mean, I may be wrong about this, I don't know.

Jonathan Balcon  36:33  

Well, somehow it should be made clear. In some document or the other the title did pass.

Jonathan Balcon  37:18  

Yeah. He he showed all the documents to his solicitors who said yes, this is absolutely ... Jonathan has absolute rights to sell you the television rights, or the film rights for television purposes. And that's the last I heard he may have killed himself in a motor accident or something, I don't know he had a small family and children. I remember I told him to come and have lunch at the City of London Club and of course, the City Club has a great rule about people wearing suits. And I was waiting in the hallway and this gloriously scruffy individual appeared in jeans and an open necked shirt. And I whipped him, luckily there was a very good restaurant just about 100 yards down the road, I whipped him into there and gave him lunch there. I've sinced resigned from the City Club because every gin and tonic I had was costing me 20 quid. Roy, where do we go from here?

Roy Fowler  38:19  

Well I suppose really, if that's the end of the second Metro phase, bearing in mind, it wasn't a happy experience I gather working with Metro Finance on that second time around, was it?  They made wasn't it 'The Scapegoat'?

Jonathan Balcon  38:37  

They made 'The Scapegoat',  they made 'Dunkirk'

Roy Fowler  38:48  

Was 'Dunkirk' part of that?

Jonathan Balcon  38:50  

I think Dunkirk was part of that. We can look it up because I've got it here. I've got all the books of reference here. Oh, darling, thank you. How lovely. Oh, goodness me. Isn't that very elegant? Oui elegante? I'll tell you something, Roy, I insured his contract.

Roy Fowler  39:17  

Is that yours? That's mine I'll put it over here.

Jonathan Balcon  39:19  

Mick never drew a salary from Ealing. He signed his salary straight back to the company, the studios and merely got them to pay for certain expenses. Is that alright for you? And this, this was an eternal thorn in the flesh of his income tax inspector. And he used to have frightful rows every year because they would query something. Why had I been included on a dinner at the Ivy or something like that you know? And Mick who was terribly honest, was sure they were out to get him, which I'm sure they weren't.  Oh well, the film industry was always vulnerable anyway. But when he went to MGM, his contract with Ealing Films and MGM, what do you think his pay was? 

Roy Fowler  40:14  

I have no idea

Jonathan Balcon  40:14  

He never drew it. And this was in 1950, 1956.

Roy Fowler  40:18  

Early '50s yes?

Jonathan Balcon  40:21  

 '56, '57, '58 - £60,000 a year on paper, he never drew it. But I had to insure him for that in case anything happened to him.

Roy Fowler  40:35  

Why would he not draw it?

Jonathan Balcon  40:37  

Don't ask me I never discussed money with him in that respect. He may have drawn something after that I don't know.

Roy Fowler  40:46  

Well, I guess he was by this time what you might call independently wealthy or rich or adequately provided for one assumes.

Jonathan Balcon  40:55  

He permanently thought Roy, his accountant said this to me. He every year thought he was broke. He had the most lovely collection of paintings. He had a Piper, he had a Passmore, he had a Henry Moore and he had a Graham Sutherland. And he sold, he sold the Henry Moore and the Graham Sutherland because he thought he had no money in the bank.

Roy Fowler  41:30  

Oh dear that's sad. I would have thought to, to have a Sutherland the last thing in the world one would ever want to do would be to dispose. 

Jonathan Balcon  41:39  

Well absolutely. The Passmore and the Piper I eventually sold only to stop the children, the grandchildren and Jill quarrelling over it. Because I said if we turn everything into cash and split it in the correct way then nobody can complain. 

Mrs Jonathan Balcon  42:00  

They were both incredibly gloomy both these paintings. and he went and looked at the Piper at the the national, in the Imperial War Museum. And it was very gloomy. The Passmore was extraordinary. It was a sort of in between period of Passmore and it was the most extraordinary picture for a Jewish person to buy. because it had the Christ figure in it, it was the resurrection. It was really the whole difference between Christianity and Judaism.  So that was different.

Roy Fowler  42:00  

And there are all sorts of dichotomies I think in in the story anyway, personalities and concerns. We're almost at the end of this tape. So right right, we'll turn over.

End of Side 5

Side 6

Roy Fowler  0:00  

Side six.  Yeah. So another point of transition, the end of the Metro era, Dunkirk was a very successful picture was it not?

Jonathan Balcon  0:12  

I'm not sure how successful it was financially I'm really not. It was very interesting. He was determined to make Dunkirk and there are various Dunkirk stories as you know or you may not know.  One of the earliest ones was by quite a well-known war author called Gun Buster, who wrote a book called Return via Dunkirk. And it was curiously, and I didn't discover this until much later, he was a member of Sally's father's regiment, the Kent Yeomanry, which was a gunner regiment. And it's a very good story. And I remember father sending for all these various Dunkirk stories, which I'd read and I had in fact, he ended up with one that I didn't think was the best story. But in fact, curiously enough, to go back to what I said to you about the films it was about a small collection of people pitting themselves against the odds. It was Johnny Mills, and five, a private, pitting themselves against the bulk of the German army and getting back to Dunkirk and of course the the actual evacuation, apart from the fact they use the Third Infantry Division of Camber, the bulk of the evacuation scenes were what were gleaned off official records you know, official films and again the the studio shots in that, certainly of the evacuation, were were very bad.  But Dunkirk, the Scapegoat again you see, a curious subject. Hamer again a curious subject for Hamer really.

Roy Fowler  2:15  

Well there was no consistency it seems on the part of any of them in that sense they kind of made whatever came along that was especially through Hamer who was a very good director clearly but he only hit it once with with Kind Hearts did he not? 

Jonathan Balcon  2:31  

Yeah.  What did he do before Kind Hearts?

Roy Fowler  2:34  

Um, well, I'm not sure the chronology but ...

Jonathan Balcon  2:36  

It'll be in Barr's book won't it? 

Roy Fowler  2:38  

Yes. The other one that's an extremely interesting film, atypical of what your father I think is thought to have overseen and that was It Always Rains on Sunday.

Jonathan Balcon  2:52  

Ah! Realism. This was of course, Ealing's first, I suppose descent into neo-realism was it not? In as much as you had a married woman having an affair with a convict in the East End of London with some very superb shots of Docklands and some superb acting both from Googie and from Ted Chapman and of course from John McCallum. A film that got very good reviews because it was neo-realism you know. Very widely accepted in France, Il Pleut Toujours le Dimanche, but then, of course, the French would have liked the the adultery scenes you see.

Roy Fowler  3:49  

Oh, I think the French have a better sense of cinema culture than just the adultery scenes.

Jonathan Balcon  3:56  

Well you know how staid the English are. Well they loved Kind Hearts didn't they, Noblesse Oblige.

Roy Fowler  4:06  

I suppose the French are the most appreciative audience for motion pictures in the world.  Right. Any of the personalities we touched very briefly on any of them?

Jonathan Balcon  4:22  

We touched on Angus, we touched on Robert Hamer, Charlie and Sonya Friend we've touched on. Sham my uncle was always very upright. He had a wife, my Aunt Adele, who could never stop talking, she suffered from total verbal diarrhoea and a nice woman but not of what I might call an artistic bent. [LAUGHTER] Who else now, Peter Tanner was a very nice man, he was the editor who I gathered died recently.

Roy Fowler  4:22  

Well, I hadn't heard he died. 

Jonathan Balcon  4:57  

Well somebody told me at Silver Apples that he was dead because they tried to get hold of him.

Roy Fowler  5:04  

It could be he was getting quite elderly was he not because he went back to pre-war days at Ealing I think.

Jonathan Balcon  5:10  

Yeah but not at Ealing?

Roy Fowler  5:12  

At Ealing

Jonathan Balcon  5:12  

Did he Peter?

Roy Fowler  5:13  

I think so I interviewed him for for our project. He was very cagey about his age, he wouldn't give his age but it was it was easy to ... kind person.

Jonathan Balcon  5:24  

Now the other person I knew who was at Ealing who died, of course, was David James. David James, Archie James was a director of the Rank Organisation and a director of Ealing. And he was a very woof-woof little Ex-Wing Commander from the First World War of the Royal Flying Corps who'd emigrated to Kenya, raised a herd of red polls in Kenya, had the most smelling awful motor accident, came back under Archie MacIndu's hand came out of hospital looking better looking than when he first went in [LAUGHTER]

Roy Fowler  6:01  

What are red polls?

Jonathan Balcon  6:02  

Red polls are a form of cattle with no horns. They're called polls because they have no horns. And he was a lovely man. He was an archetypal Colonel Blimp, Wing commander Archibald James, Sir Archibald James MP.

Roy Fowler  6:22  

Well, all this sounds terribly British, doesn't it?

Jonathan Balcon  6:27  

It was terribly British, that was what was so extraordinary. I mean Cavalcanti must have stood out like a sore thumb. Who else well of course they have Simone Signoret, Francoise Rosay. I never ...

Roy Fowler  6:41  

But its management that I'm curious about in that sense. 

Jonathan Balcon  6:46  

Well you see the person ...

Roy Fowler  6:47  

It's not exactly people who either know about or would seem to love and adore motion pictures, which I think is a prerequisite for making good films.

Jonathan Balcon  6:57  

I suppose you're right, I don't know. I mean what what made somebody like Charlie Friend want to direct pictures. What prompted Charlie Crichton?

Roy Fowler  7:10  

I'm talking about management rather than ..

Jonathan Balcon  7:12  

Management.  Well, Hal of course had been in, you know Hal's story do you?

Roy Fowler  8:09  

No I don't.

Jonathan Balcon  7:18  

Hal's real name was not Mason at all it was Tinkler. And his family were a family, were a troupe of acrobats in the circus. And he came from a circus family, how he got into the film industry I do not know but my God he was an efficient studio manager he ran a very tight ship.  And everything father did from Border Television upwards and downwards Hal was included in. I had to buy back all Hal's Border Television shares after he died because his widow didn't want them. And her solicitor rang me up and said would have would we would I as a family be prepared to buy them back and I said I'll buy them back at market price. Unlisted securities market that's what I was trying to think of.

Roy Fowler  8:10  

Forgive me I'm crunching on a biscuit

Jonathan Balcon  8:17  

That's alright my dear, it's homemade.

Roy Fowler  8:20  

Excellent too, delicious. I'm doing all the wrong things. So we're now I suppose into the last professional period of Mick's life, which is Bryanston and Woodfall and that era of the '60s and the extraordinary change both in the country and in the industry.

Jonathan Balcon  8:46  

Industry really became very mature in the Bryanston period, when you think of films like The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.  Tell me some more. Was Saturday Night Sunday Morning a Bryanston film it was either that or Fox wasn't it?

Roy Fowler  9:10  

You'll have to forgive my memory is not that good. I wasn't I wasn't in the country then you see

Jonathan Balcon  9:18  

But anyway, there were a series of very mature films

Roy Fowler  9:22  

And filmmakers

Jonathan Balcon  9:23  

And filmmakers, and they seem to get on extremely well. I got into, this was on a personal note, I got into a slight panic because I thought I was going to lose a lot of my production indemnity insurance business. And I got together with the boys who did the completion guarantees, Tufnell status rate. And I said now look here, a lot of these people in Bryanston are both our clients and I said I think the formula I am proposing to you is that if a Bryanston film comes up who is say your client you place the insurance, you take 50% of commission and you split the other 50% of commission between us other two brokers who are interested. And likewise we will do the same for you with our clients. And they agreed to that it was it worked extremely well I mean we had no quarrels at all. I was always very sceptical about the completion guarantors and Tuffnells and all the rest of it. And I was certainly very sceptical about David Metcalf and Sedgwick, no it wasn't Sedgwick Collins what the hell was it called? Florence Desmond's husband was was Managing Director and they offered me a job and I went to be interviewed by him in this ghastly office with rows of telephones and these little lamps on the table were hunting boots with lamps stuck in them. And he said, well, we very much, he had met Aileen at a dinner party, and she'd said I wasn't terribly happy at Hobbs Saville and he'd suggested I went to see him. And he said, well, of course, if you come and join us, you'll be working under David Metcalf and I said well that's  very kind of you sir, if I did come to you I think I'd be working with David Metcalf but left it at that never took the job. Charlie Houston, famous man in the aviation insurance world, Stuart Smith the firm had a terrible reputation. Terrible.

Roy Fowler  11:38  

What did your father hope to do seek to do in [DOG BARKING] going into those because the 60s, it now seems quaint to us, does it not but it was a highly transitional reformative period, I suppose in British history. What, how did your father relate to it any idea? Did you ever talk about it with him?

Jonathan Balcon  12:12  

He was beginning I think, Roy to get tired. I mean ...

Roy Fowler  12:17  

He was now approaching his 70s if not into his 70s, yes?

Jonathan Balcon  12:20  

He was born in 1896. So yes, he was into his 70s. Physically, he wasn't terribly, he was fairly strong. His health wasn't always that good. But he was such a fastidious man, he was forever washing his hands he gave himself quite serious eczema. And he at one stage in his life about that time wore white gloves all the time because he was so embarrassed by it.

Roy Fowler  12:49  

Really. He seems in that sense, compulsive or obsessional is probably too strong a word. 

Jonathan Balcon  12:56  

Well, no he was obsessed about certain things yes. Cleanliness, certainly. He was obsessed by well, yes extraordinarly they were married for 50 years. He was obsessed by Aileen, and he was very loyal to Aileen because although it was quite clear to him she was suffering from Alzheimer's or beginning to, he never let on to Jill on me or Sally. Although, a week before he died Sally and he went for a walk down to the River Medway, which cuts through the middle of our farm and he said to her, then he said, if anything happens to me, he said, I would be grateful if you and Johnny looked after Aileen. And that was the first inclination that we had that she wasn't well. And of course, she became quite seriously ill shortly after he died. I mean that's another of the bones of contention between Jill and me just to sidetrack you for a moment. We had Aileen for seven years, we had her living with us for a start, then we had her in a nursing home, Jill would perhaps come down once a month to see her in the nursing home. When she did come down matron used to hide. There was one famous occasion, matron had had Aileen in a ground floor room and Aileen had tried to escape twice and so matron had moved her to a much nicer room on the first floor. And Jill arrived in the afternoon went to the old room, bed made up, room empty, roared through to matron's office: my mother's died and you haven't bothered to tell me.  That was the attitude you know.  Anyway, after Aileen did die seven years later, we exchanged letters of condolence. Every one of Jill's friends had written to say, we know how much you'd done for your mother, which drove her up the wall of course.  And made me pretty angry because she really did not do a bloody thing. We bore the whole brunt of it. And we not only had my mamma to contend with, we had her dog and we had Sally's father living in the back end of our house as well. And he died shortly, shortly afterwards, shortly before.

Roy Fowler  15:35  

Does Jill take after anyone in the family or she is she her own woman.

Jonathan Balcon  15:45  

She's very much her own person. If you talk to people who are at school with Jill, and there are still a number around. They will tell you that at the age of 17, Cecil came down to lecture at Roedean and as he left Jill turned to the assembled company and said that is the man I'm going to marry. Mind you there are innumerable affairs in between. Mick took us all to Switzerland just after the war, it must have been in 1945. We actually flew out of Croydon I don't know if you have ever flown out of there. 

Roy Fowler  16:25  

I did. Yes indeed. Went to ...

Jonathan Balcon  16:27  

You would be of an age which would remember it. But he chartered this ghastly aircraft. And we flew out from Croydon and there was a Norwegian pianist in the hotel we were staying called Erik Stokstad who fell madly in love with Jill and I'm sure it was reciprocated. Coming back quite interesting we had a different sort of aircraft we had a de havilland Rapide, which I leant against at Zurich airport and the pilot said for God's sake sake don't do that it's only made of fabric. Anyway, we had to land at Le Bourget to refuel and I don't know whether you remember this but it was just after a Dakota had taken off from Le Bourget, done a tight turn and ripped its bottom out on a factory chimney and the only two survivors were John Slater and his wife.

No. No recollection of that at all.

Well that was still sort of in our minds when we landed Le Bourget. Jill was always the rebel. Jill would defy Mick at every turn, knowingly, you know the famous story about her and von Werra. Do you know who von Werra was?

Roy Fowler  17:47  

No, I'm not sure I do.

Jonathan Balcon  17:49  

von Werra was a German fighter ace. He was the one who got away. He escaped from prison camp at Shap Well Hotel ...

Roy Fowler  17:58  

I know the story, I didn't know the name.

Jonathan Balcon  17:59  

He got across to Canada, got across to America and got shipped back to Germany. Jill and a whole lot of Rodean girls came down from Rodean, which was evacuated to Keswick to take their Oxford entrance. Standing on Oxford station before going back to Keswick up the far end of the station were two enormous British red caps. And between them, Jill said was the best looking man she'd ever seen in her life, quite obviously in German Air Force uniform. And they made a few inquiries and found out it was von Werra being shipped back to the Shap Wells Hotel, which was the English equivalent of Colditz Castle for officers. They somehow inveigeled their way into his compartment. He spoke absolutely perfect English, was enchanted to be spoken to by three English maidens quote unquote. They showed him their German papers they'd just taken and he translated them all for them. Now this story got into the hands of Christianson and Christianson rang my father up and said, Look, we'd like to publish this in the Express. And Father literally said, Chris, if you love me at all, don't, please it will look so bad. And the story was in fact suppressed, But it gives a fair illustration. There was an, I'd never told you this, I've told very few people about this. She never used any of the family advisors, financial, legal, or anything. She always went her own way. There was an outrageous row when prior to Nicholas Nickleby. All right?

Roy Fowler  19:53  

The film.

Jonathan Balcon  19:54  

The film in which she played Madeline Bray. She announced she was going to change her name and Mick hit the roof. She said the fact that she was a Balcon would stop people employing her. And he really got on his high horse and he said look if you are not proud of being my daughter, he said there's no hope for you - or words to that effect. That really started the rot between them.  You're not in the sun are you?

Roy Fowler  20:26  

It's moving around over here. 

Jonathan Balcon  20:27  

Well come over here.

Roy Fowler  20:29  

Wow, okay, fine. I was alright for the moment. I keep an hour on it.

Jonathan Balcon  20:35  

The day she appeared on the front page of the Evening Standard being cited as co-respondent  in Cecil's divorce he burst into tears. And my mother said, Mick, I was there, my mother said Mick you have lived and worked all your life in an industry where adultery is second nature to some people. And yet, you cannot accept this. He said it doesn't happen in my family. He said she said it just has. The day Jill got married to Cecil she had a reception in the upstairs room at the Ivy. I don't know whether you would now it?

I remember the old Ivy yes.

Well, I went to the new Ivy recently, horrid, horrid people. Hal must have said something I don't know because he refused to come. And we were all up, I was 14 I seem to remember and Sean Day-Lewis mentions this in his book.  Aileen and I not only went to the wedding, we went to the reception afterwards. And about three o'clock in the afternoon was several people standing around congratulating Jill and Cecil and there was a sudden hush and there standing in the door was Mick with Hal, and he walked across and he shook Cecil by the hand and he gave Jill a kiss and he walked away again. But that was how strongly he felt about it.

Roy Fowler  22:05  

What then brought him there was he felt it was his duty?

Jonathan Balcon  22:09  

Now Hal had said to him, this is a family occasion you've got to go shake, wish Jill well.

Roy Fowler  22:17  

So much and no more

Jonathan Balcon  22:19  

But she does ridiculous things. After she'd sold her house in Crooms Hill in Greenwich, you know, she bought a house without looking at it. And rang me up in a terrible state. She said, I bought this house, I never went to look at it, I've just been to see it, it's terrible. I said, I didn't know what to say. I thought nobody in their right mind buys a house without looking at it. She was bloody lucky because a week later she sold it for what she paid for it. And she was bloody lucky.

Roy Fowler  22:51  

Well, indeed yes. Very strange way of going about things. Um mmm we're having all sorts of insights into the family. I suppose what I would like to put down what as far as we can is that period of the '60s now and  Shepperton too, remember we were going to talk about Shepperton.

Jonathan Balcon  23:16  

I know very little about the row with what I have always been known in our family as the 'revolting brothers' but I believe that they're known like that in the industry anyway arent they?

Roy Fowler  23:26  

I think opinions vary depending on the time of day. They did some interesting things, they I don't think they're regarded or were regarded as particularly trustworthy in any respect. 

Jonathan Balcon  23:39  

Well I, I think they've made some marvelous films, particularly the Peter Sellers film the famous one

Roy Fowler  23:46  

Indeed Yes.

Jonathan Balcon  23:48  

I'm Alright Jack. I once got threatened by I think it was Roy, not John, with forming a cartel. I think Itold you this, did I not, no perhaps I didn't. 

Roy Fowler  23:55  

No we haven't done this one.

Jonathan Balcon  24:03  

They came to me for a quote on an FPI insurance and I gave them a quotation. They went to three other brokers and got the same quote. And I said, Well, I'm sorry, I said it's a very restricted market and once we have a quote, we register it with our other broker. You're forming a cartel, it's a monopoly situation, I shall report you to the, well it wasn't the DTI in those days, or it was whatever it was, I don't whatever it was. I can't remember it now ...

Roy Fowler  24:33  

It sounds a bit cartelish to register it and everyone says right that's the figure or ...

Jonathan Balcon  24:39  

Roy wasn't so, it wasn't necessary, we weren't trying to stop competition. What we were trying to do was to say, look, it's a very restricted market this is the rate for this film. Take it or leave it.

Roy Fowler  24:52  

It depends how you define cartel I guess then in that case

Jonathan Balcon  24:59  

We didn't intend to form a cartel.

Roy Fowler  25:01  

No of course not.

Jonathan Balcon  25:07  

The one thing he was quite determined to do was to stop Sydney Box getting hold of Shepperton right. Sydney, this is stretching my mind a bit, as far as I know wanted to acquire Shepperton and sell it for development.  Right?

Roy Fowler  25:29  

Was it Sydney? I am very, very vague about the history of this time.. It could well, I thought Sydney was somewhat out of the picture. But I mean, who knows, the names I remember, first of all John Bentley, who was a property developer

Jonathan Balcon  25:45  

I'll tell you about him in a minute. 

Roy Fowler  25:46  

Okay. But I can't remember quite the sequence of events. 

Jonathan Balcon  25:50  

He was an asset stripper. 

Roy Fowler  25:51  

Yeah. One of the early ones.

Jonathan Balcon  25:53  

I don't think Bentley was involved because around a little later on, a little later on Tamasin suddenly appeared at Upper Parrock with John Bentley in tow. And it's the, I wasn't there but I heard this afterwards from Aileen, it's the only time Aileen said I've ever known him get up, say to Tamasin, can you come into the next room and say to her, Tamasin, if you cannot produce reasonable people to come to this house, will you please take him away now? And don't come again and threw him out. Wouldn't have him in the house. I don't think it was Bentley. I think Bentley came later. I think it was Sydney Box now I don't know the ins and outs. Did you know Neville Breeze at all? 

Roy Fowler  26:42  

No. 

Jonathan Balcon  26:43  

Neville was the sort of general manager of the studios for a time, sadly dead, lived in Ziele lovely man, ex-sailor, played cricket. Neville never really talked to me about it but the fact remains the Boultings, Goodman, father et al got together and they bought British Lion. Now I don't believe he was long enough there as chairman for them to make any films was he? 

Roy Fowler  27:19  

I don't know. 

Jonathan Balcon  27:20  

No, I honestly don't think so. All I know is there came a point when the Boultings saw some loophole in what had been done and saw that they could make monetary advantage out of it and did and used Lionel Goodman to to get their own way. And Lionel was in fact, I think a very unpleasant man and very suspect.

Arnold, that is.

Roy Fowler  27:44  

Yes Arnold.

So this is why Sydney Gilliat was so reluctant to talk about it, they were all in it really ...

Jonathan Balcon  27:51  

They were all in it together. And I think they used Mick in spite of his age unmercifully as a stepping stone to get their own way

Roy Fowler  28:00  

As their front man

Jonathan Balcon  28:00  

Yeah. That's my, I may be totally wrong about it.

Roy Fowler  28:04  

Well as I said before, it was very significant it seemed to me that Sydney would not discuss the matter and could only read a prepared statement as it were. 

Jonathan Balcon  28:12  

Yeah and another curious thing Jill said to me, after Mick died, the year after he died I put a little thing in the Times saying Michael Balcon, how did I word it, it worded something like producer of many classics and loved by all and she rang me up and she said a lot of people hated him you know. I said I don't know no, how very odd, a lot of people disliked him intensely she said. There we are.

Roy Fowler  29:01  

There may or may not be I tell you a very a curious thing in my experience going back to the Tufton Street plaque. I did a design, a very conventional design that just had Michael Balcon filmmaker, lived here from whatever the dates were. And Kevin Brownlow saw it, the draft, and said oh, he wasn't a filmmaker, film producer, I think he insisted it should be but filmmaker bothered, in other in other words, according to him about his ability ...

Jonathan Balcon  29:45  

No technical ability.

Roy Fowler  29:46  

 Well that he didn't actually make films somehow he arranged for films to be made.

Jonathan Balcon  29:50  

I suppose you know. I suppose I can't remember what the wording on the English Heritage one is I've got it upstairs.

Roy Fowler  29:57  

Where is that going?

Jonathan Balcon  29:58  

It's going on the front office at Ealing, right, which I understand Ealing Council have listed Grade 1.  I also understand you probably knew this it is the oldest working film studio in the world.

Roy Fowler  30:13  

It goes back to

Jonathan Balcon  30:15  

1902

Roy Fowler  30:16  

Which was what Barkers wasn't it?

Jonathan Balcon  30:17  

Yeah. As as, as George Perry said to me, he said they want to list all the sounds stages. Grade 1 or grade 2 and I, but he said, I've said to them, how the hell can you list a lighting gantry? And I said, well, George, that's up to Ealing Council, not up to us. But I said, as long as the facade is there the front office bit, I mean, that is the bit that everybody will remember.

Roy Fowler  30:44  

Yes, I don't see how you can take the technical facilities unless you're going to make it a museum. 

Jonathan Balcon  30:48  

Yeah which they are not because they're going to make film there.

Roy Fowler  30:51  

It's a working studio. One hopes.

Jonathan Balcon  30:54  

They going to make one or two alterations I gather. Well, fair enough. God knows. 

Roy Fowler  30:59  

The external fabric really is all that you need isn't?

Jonathan Balcon  31:01  

As long as it doesn't become a housing estate. You see David Bill told me and I don't know how true, that White Lodge at the back was going to be renamed Michael Balcon House and was going to become the National Film School. Well, now of course, we all know that that was kyboshed I think by Putnam and the National Film School's gone back to Beaconsfield hasn't it?

Roy Fowler  31:24  

Yes and I don't know why they didn't take Ealing because I would have thought it would be ideal for them to have had Ealing.

Jonathan Balcon  31:30  

Well you know I don't know either.

Roy Fowler  31:34  

There are very strange murky shenanigans that always go on politically ...

Jonathan Balcon  31:38  

I mean, I might put it to you Roy I never understand why Putnam got a peerage nor do I understand why Dickie Attenborough got a peerage..

Roy Fowler  31:45  

Well Dickie I can understand to the extent that he is so bloody famous, and he's got his fingers in every single pie. I suppose that's true of Attenborough too, I mean Putnam too. But whether or not they're worthy of it is entirely another matter.

Jonathan Balcon  32:02  

Dickie is such an enchanting person. You can't not, you can't be angry with him. I mean, I wrote to Dickie a few Christmases ago, after one of my more vitriolic BAFTA efforts, and said, I feel the time has come you and I must have a rapproachement. And he wrote back and said, Johnny, darling, what do we need a rapprochement for we've never fallen out.

Roy Fowler  32:22  

Right. Well I'm still curious to pin down the '60s, if there is anything to say about that ... you keep  wandering off from ...

Jonathan Balcon  32:34  

You see, I keep wandering off the '60s because I really wasn't that closely involved. I was involved ...

Roy Fowler  32:40  

OK

Jonathan Balcon  32:40  

... let me just explain to you I left Hobbs Saville in 1969 and set up on my own with the help of £2000 quid from Mick. The only problem was I didn't realise I'd set up with a crook and I eventually lost my 2000 quid. And after that, I became employed again by other people. But Mick never lingered on this he just said to me that I could have told you that man was a bad character, you know, so it's a pity you didn't tell me at the time [LAUGHTER]  Mick was a bit, you know, what I call post natal [LAUGHTER].

1960, between 1965 and '67 I was a captain in my regiment. I spent those two years fighting a losing battle to keep the Territorial Army in existence and it was finally defeated by Harold Wilson  by one vote in the House of Commons. In 1967 I fell under the chop by which time I got my majority, I got my TD. And so what did I do, I went off and became a Special Constable [LAUGHTER]  because I wanted to wear my metal ribbon on something.  Sally, of course, said I had a uniform fetish [LAUGHTER]

Roy Fowler  33:48  

It sounds it. 

Jonathan Balcon  34:01  

But don't forget, I had three female daughters, a female wife, three female dogs, two female donkeys, and two female cats.

Roy Fowler  34:10  

So you yearned for a masculine society. 

Jonathan Balcon  34:12  

And the one thing I used to do when I came into the house every evening was put all the loo seats up. [LAUGHTER] Now when I mean that that's exaggerating so really the '60s and my family was growing up I was trying to earn enough money to keep us all. I obviously kept in close touch with Mick.

Roy Fowler  34:32  

You did go to see them?

Jonathan Balcon  34:33  

Oh my dear, do you know, for, we did have one monumental row. Shortly after I was married, we were married and for 18 years, less than that probably he refused to come to our house but every Sunday, every Sunday solemnly we drove the family across me and we had lunch with them. In the end, I don't know who said what to him, a number of people said he was behaving extremely stupidly towards me over this particular incident, I'll describe what the incident was in a minute. And we were all sweet and charming and lovely and he came before he died he came lots of times to us. What happened was when we were first married, we hadn't got anywhere to live and he gave us a cottage on the farm, which we had done up. And I can't remember where we or what we were doing, or we we were over, I think, at the Grey House which wasn't ours, we were staying with Sally's great aunt, because our middle daughter was about to be born in Pembury hospital here. Aileen rang me up and said, er, we've just sacked one lot of servants and we've got some Spaniards moving can they move into your house? And I quite rightly said no, if you don't mind. And they took tremendous umbrage at this. But they felt it was their right as their cottage, although it was our cottage quote, unquote. Sally's father,in spite of what I asked him not to wrote quite a rather silly letter to Mick saying not to upset us. And Mick took umbrage against him, which was why he never came to us for that lengthy period. But I mean, it never really meant anything because, as I say, we solemnly took the children over there at every opportunity,

Roy Fowler  36:43  

Was he as touchy, and as possibly self-centred as you make him sound or ...

Jonathan Balcon  36:48  

He was inclined to be in private yes.

Roy Fowler  36:51  

And did he relish power? I mean, did he enjoy being the head of a studio?

Jonathan Balcon  36:55  

I think, so. Oh I think so.

Roy Fowler  37:00  

Was it control of the people or their destinies or the project or whatever? 

Jonathan Balcon  37:04  

It was the projects I think. I don't think he relished control over people necessarily. Frankly, domestically, I thought he was a bad employer. I thought he treated his people not awfully well. Though they were very loyal to him. 

Roy Fowler  37:19  

They stayed? 

Jonathan Balcon  37:20  

They stayed. He was very good with the widow of our old gardener. And when he died, he willed that she should live in her cottage to her death, free of rent.

Roy Fowler  37:34  

It's all a bit feudal isn't it?

Jonathan Balcon  37:36  

Oh my dear he was inclined to be terribly feudal.  I mean, he really he was, he was the English gent monque in many sense. 

Roy Fowler  37:46  

Right. So in a sense, he had adopted a way of life. 

Jonathan Balcon  37:49  

Yeah, I mean, he loved walking around the farm with a twelve bore under his arm but he never bloody well could hit anything. 

When you talk about butlers for example. 

He rang me up one day and he said, Jimmy Waters, Jimmy was a great character who lived across the valley to us, Jimmy Waters wants to use our farm for part of his shoot. He doesn't know what rent I want he suggested a case of champagne. And I said, Mick, don't be bloody silly, don't have a case of champagne. Give him ME.  Oooh he said I never thought of that. And I used to get eight or ten days shooting a year for nothing. I mean, you know, two or three thousands pounds worth of shooting for absolutely nothing. And Jimmy was only too pleased to have, the fact that I don't shoot now is I can't see very well anymore. But I mean, he enjoyed that, he enjoyed that he enjoyed also the pheasants I brought him [LAUGHTER] But yes, he was very feudal in some ways. He left the running of the farm to my mother except the financial side he took control of

Roy Fowler  38:59  

The farm was was what dairy or ...

Jonathan Balcon  39:02  

Oh yes, we had a herd of  of 120 Friesians and their runners. And we went off to Maidstone market one day and we bought a pen of 30 Kent sheep. And they were more profitable than anything we did. The sheep were terribly profitable. 

Roy Fowler  39:02  

So it was a paying concern.

Jonathan Balcon  39:22  

 It wasn't paying terribly well. In the end, he got fed up with running it. And we had a dispersal sale he let the farm to a chap called Colin Clark who lived in Forest Row. And when he died, the executor said to me you it's a choice between keeping the Border Television shares and selling the farm or keeping the farm and selling the Border Television share. And I said well, I happen to have faith in Border Television we're getting 4000 a year in rent from Colin Clark. I said every time we try and put the rent up, he goes to arbitration. I said let for God's sake sell him the farm. So I sold him the farm got 500 quid maker for it which was in those days not bad for tenanted land you know. And I made the right decision there.

Roy Fowler  40:12  

We've got another minute or two on this side.

Jonathan Balcon  40:15  

But to go back to the '60s Yes, I suppose ...

Roy Fowler  40:19  

Did he talk about any of the characters Tony Richardson, for example, or Karel Reisz ?

Jonathan Balcon  40:25  

No, he was involved with two friends of mine. Who were the Shipman brothers do you remember Alfie Shipman of Shipman and King? 

Roy Fowler  40:32  

Indeed, right. 

Jonathan Balcon  40:33  

Well, Alfie was another tycoon who kept his two boys on literally on 30 bob a week, suddenly upped and died and the boys found themselves worth 2 million each overnight you know.  Kenneth went completely off the rails, in the nicest possible way, went in for witchcraft and all that sort of thing and sexy films with Guido Cohen at Twickenham. Gerald, who was my friend, was very much more conventional and very woof woof. And Mick was very fond of those two boys. They got involved in Bryanston, I don't think they did very much. Maxwell Setton I knew

Roy Fowler  41:20  

You said before you distrusted him.

Jonathan Balcon  41:21  

I never trusted Max. I don't know why there was just something about he seemed slick to me. Then I wasn't terribly fond of slick people, you know. Who else did I, what was the name of a chap who married not  ...

Roy Fowler  41:41  

While you cogitate I'm going to ...

End of Side 6

Side 7

Side 7

Roy Fowler  0:01  

We're on to what it is tape four? Yeah.

Jonathan Balcon  0:04  

Arthur Jarrett ?

Roy Fowler  0:06  

Yes 

Jonathan Balcon  0:06  

Do you remember Arthur Jarrett?

Roy Fowler  0:07  

Well before my time in a sense, but I remember the name of course ... 

Jonathan Balcon  0:11  

Naval Kinema Corporation

Roy Fowler  0:13  

... important yes and United Artists I think or was it was it not ... anyway an important man

Jonathan Balcon  0:18  

A most unlikely man to be an honoree Leiutenant Commander RN or RNVR. As a result of which Mick always used to every year go to dinners in the Painted Hall at Greenwich, which he loved

Roy Fowler  0:41  

Are we running out of steam for the day?

Jonathan Balcon  0:43  

I think so. Don't you? 

Roy Fowler  0:45  

Up to you.

Jonathan Balcon  0:46  

No you know you look tired 

Roy Fowler  0:47  

You've done the work.

Jonathan Balcon  0:48  

Oh, come on. I've done nothing but drone on.

Roy Fowler  0:52  

No we've covered a lot of territory. We have to erm ... I'm being brought a bone go away.

Jonathan Balcon  1:02  

They're refreshed. Just put it on the floor and say No go away!

Roy Fowler  1:07  

I'm treating it badly. 

Jonathan Balcon  1:12  

Baba Baba. Basil had his pill? 

Roy Fowler  1:18  

We're resuming on August 2. Quite early in the morning, Jon.

Jonathan Balcon  1:24  

One thing we haven't really touched on too, in too much detail is it were Mick and Eileen's private lives. In many ways, I suppose they were rather dull and conventional, apart from the things they had to do in connection a) with her charity work and b) with his official functions such as Royal Command Performances premieres and first nights etc. He was the most fastidious man. So much so he was forever washing his hands and ended up later in life with eczema of his hand which embarrassed him greatly. And in fact, at one stage at Upper Parrock after he retired he wore white gloves most of the time.  He never really did a domestic stroke in his life apart from pour the occasional glass of sherry for his guests. As a result of which, of course, I've become a not inexpert butler and housekeeper and along with my wife we do a lot of entertaining and it's a question of she makes it and I destroy it when it's over. But Aileen herself was the most marvellous housekeeper and kept an extraordinary hospitable home. She, like a lot of Jewish mums, she overfed us all, I suppose. Which really caused Mick's overweight problem and certainly caused my overweight problems in later life. But it may of course be in the aftermath of a war. During the war apart from her railhead, achievements after D-Day, from the beginning of the war she ran seven Red Cross canteens in the centre of London. And I used to when I was home from school in the holidays go round on a Friday with her taking the wages round. And it was really incredible how during the war even with strict rationing and all the rest of it these canteens produced the most marvellous meals for something like one and tuppence, one shilling and tuppence and her big main canteen was of course, at Grosvenor Crescent headquarters. There was quite an amusing incident there when old Field Marshal Philip Chetwode, who was the head of the Red Cross, the police called one day and asked to see him and they were shown up to his office. And he was severely reprimanded by them because nurses at St George's Hospital opposite had seen him shooting pigeons out of his office window in order to have them sent down to the canteen to be cooked for him, but that's a little sidetrack. They had an extremely contented weekend life  at Upper Parrick, occasionally, there were people staying but Aileen used to work like a proverbial black but Mick never really lifted lifted a finger and they will really in many ways, like, likes sessions of the great sage because he would expand on various subjects and listen to what his guests had to say and reply. He was mad about cricket and was a strong member of the Sussex Cricket Club. He always hoped that I would play cricket but of course I didn't know became a wet body until I had broken my arm and wasn't allowed to do anything. And there was quite an amusing time I think quite early on he had all the cricket kit in a bag which he gave me, stumps, pads, bats, bales, balls. And we set them up on the lawn at Upper Parrick and he bowled me a ball and I hit it and he caught it and broke his finger. We never had another session after that. He was also very involved in various outside charities, but particularly the Brighton Festival, which he and Rupert Level and Rupert Level's wife and various other people helped to get going initially. And of course, it has now expanded into a very substantial performance not unlike the Edinburgh Festival. Although it doesn't take part I think over quite so long a period. He was profoundly interested in all things to do with Sussex where he lived. There was one marvellous occasion we had a very pompous master MP, who was also a master of Fox Hounds, called Ralph Clark, Sir Ralph Clarke, well known character and at the end of the war he was sent on a parliamentary delegation to Moscow. Mick was very anxious to hear all about Russia. And the moment Ralph got back from Russia Mick rang him up and said come and have a glass of sherry next Saturday. And Ralph duly arrived and was warming his backside against ...

Roy Fowler  6:36  

Excuse me, you are covering the mic. Sorry, it muffles

Jonathan Balcon  6:40  

Ralph duly arrived and was warming his backside against the enormous fireplace at Upper Parrick and there was Mick almost with ants in his pants, dodging around waiting for Ralph to come out with some spectacular comments about Russia. And he was saying come on now Ralph, what was it like? What was it like and old Ralph who was a pompous old man, but delightful too, looked into the middle distance and he said Mickey it was quite extraordinary we were driven for about 20 miles outside Moscow, extraordinary country he said, not a strand of barbed wire in sight. There you have the memoirs of a foxhunting man who was also an MP and been on a very important parliamentary delegation for a country about which we all wish to know a little more. But it was one of those amusing stories that we dined out on in the family for many years. Politically which we alluded to earlier yesterday, I think Mick was a Gladstonian Liberal, who became a Gaitskillian socialist, in the current political atmosphere I think would have been a Liberal Democrat. He always pulled my leg when I became a Tory Councillor until I pointed out to him that I wouldn't have got a seat had I not stood for the Tory party. And then having got my seat, I resigned the Tory whip and went and sat with the Independents, that also amused him. The other thing which came to me in the night, of course, I don't know if you remember this, you were talking about Jack Hulbert and how you worked for him. You knew Jack was a Special Constable did you and one of the great sights on first nights in the West End was to see Inspector, Special Inspector Jack Hulbert, controlling the crowd, quite a character. The other great character of course, and also a great friend was Cis Courtneidge, Jack's wife. I'm side tracking again, but Cis again was very emphatic about the people who fled to America in the war. And when one of them came back, I read mentioned his name, partly because I can't remember it, but it'll come to me at some time, she got him in her dressing room at the Palace Theatre slammed and lock the door, looked at him and said and where were you when the bombs were falling? And he never really recovered from this but he was, she was part of that gang, Cis and Jack who used to eat a great deal at the Ivy which had become very much like a club under under Abel and there were a great number of people like Larry Olivier when he was over here, Ivan Novello, Francis Sullivan, a marvellous chap called Brigadier Turner who was in charge of all the anti-aircraft defences for London and various other notables. Not not least of all, Gielgud John and Val and as I said the atmosphere was very club like and in spite of being Italian Abel, I don't think was interned like a lot of Italians were at the beginning of a war One of the great things he used to do was rush around clearing  ashtrays, which always amused one because people smoked much more in those days, ???? closed because of the war.

Roy Fowler  10:11  

The Caprice was also another show ...

Jonathan Balcon  10:13  

Well, this was the this was the thing Mario was headwaiter at the Ivy but then a number of people, I believe Noel Coward was one, Larry Olivier was another and various people set Mario up in the Caprice.  He formed a thing called Mario Galletti Enterprises Limited which included the Caprice and the old Empress Club. And when I was old enough, Mario always said to me, he said if the girl is pretty enough, and you book a table, he said you can eat off the a la carte menu at ??? prices. And I thought that was very generous of him. And in my early married life, in fact, when we could afford it, we did eat quite a lot there. And the night after we became engaged Sally's mother who was married at the time to a Dutchman came over with her Dutch husband, having fled to Holland at the beginning of a war like an idiot. And when dinner was over, Mario came across to our table, and said I'd like you to have a drink with me. And we all said we'd love a brandy. And he produced an unlabelled bottle of brandy, which he had bought from Rosa Lewis' cellar at the Cavendish. I can only say it's the nearest thing to nectar that I've ever tasted, because as it touched your palate, the sense of a sense of extraordinary wellbeing became overwhelming. He would never tell me what it was. I presume it was extremely old, but it was also extremely good. Going back to Mick I think I said to you earlier, before the recording was going on, they neither of them drank. If anything, practically nothing, Mick loved a glass of claret, he would occasionally have a glass of Tio Pepe before a meal. If he was feeling low, he'd have a whiskey and soda. But as a result of this, they used to distribute lethal drinks to their guests. And one of Aileen's whiskeys and I said really would knock out an elephant. And I had to say to her one day look can I do it myself because I really can't drink as much as you give me. But they were extremely hospitable people and it irritate me that a number of people in the industry took hospitality and advice from them and then when either of them were not well or ill or after Mick was dead, they totally ignored Aileen and never even bothered to inquire about her. There was a famous night at the Grey House when the telephone rang and a voice said, Oh, I am Fleur Cowles' Manservant, well I happened to know she had to two queers as manservants, and he said Miss Cowles would like to know how your mother is. And I'm afraid that I lost my temper if Miss Cowles wants to know how my mother is she can damn well ring me up herself and put the receiver back. And about five minutes later, the telephone rang and I got a lot of verbal abuse from Fleur Cowles. And I thought well, you know, I struck you off my list. We only met them once in fact, Tom Meyers is I believe her husband, was I believe a very successful timber merchant. They didn't strike me as a very attractive couple and she also struck me as being extraordinarily self-opinionated. But there we are.

Roy Fowler  13:59  

One thing you said a moment ago, they were extremely generous. And yet, on other occasions, you indicated that your father was very conscious of spending money as when you had your appendix out for instance [LAUGHTER].

Jonathan Balcon  14:11  

He was conscious of spending money on the family. Yeah. But he was extremely generous with other people.

Roy Fowler  14:16  

That's interesting.

Jonathan Balcon  14:18  

I did when I embarked on life, he had made provision. He had made provision for both Jill and I we started our lives as it were with with allowances from Mick, under covenant which produced 75 pounds a quarter. And that was fine. And because it was under covenant, we also got the tax rebate on it at the end of the essay, it produced something over 400 pounds a year, which is not unreasonable in those days. The only thing was when I went up to Cambridge he insisted that I paid for all my own tuition and for my fees for boarding and all the rest of it and it left me literally with two pounds a week to live on. I never really complained about that but in order to keep a control on my spending until I was 21, he insisted on counter-signing every cheque that I drew. And that made life a little difficult when I was  up Cambridge because I had to send him a cheque before I cashed it.

Roy Fowler  15:21  

Did he think you were the prodigal son?

Jonathan Balcon  15:23  

No, it was just he didn't want me to be. It was as simple as that.

Roy Fowler  15:29  

He sees a man of many contradictions in these areas.

Jonathan Balcon  15:33  

Oh yes, definitely.  As far as the family and his personal spending was concerned he did carry money not a lot. He did carry money and Aileen use to carry the money and and hand it to him should he want it. Then of course, in being fastidious, and being the sort of chap he was, he only wanted the best he dressed at Huntsman but God knows what a suit of Huntsmans costs today, I would think 1500 quid now.

Roy Fowler  16:03  

Everything even more.

Jonathan Balcon  16:06  

His shirts came from Sulkas, his shoes came from Lobbs and his hats came from Locks.

Roy Fowler  16:15  

How early in his life did that start would you think?

Jonathan Balcon  16:18  

I think it started in the 20s 

Roy Fowler  16:20  

Really that early?

Jonathan Balcon  16:24  

He very soon discovered which were the places to go in London. And Uncle Joey was always very funny because Uncle Jerry said when he completed his training at Harvard in America and came over here Mick got hold of him and said you're looking very scruffy and hawked him round all the better shops and bought him clothes.

Roy Fowler  16:42  

Was that part of his image or his achievement?

Jonathan Balcon  16:46  

It was part of his image he always was impeccably turned out.

Roy Fowler  16:50  

And was he conscious of his standing in the industry? 

Jonathan Balcon  16:52  

No, I don't think so. 

Roy Fowler  16:55  

He didn't dress for the part? 

Jonathan Balcon  16:56  

No. He dressed because it was the best and he felt comfortable. In fact, when I was, I think it was when I was 21. His, one of his 21st birthday presents to me was a pair of shoes from Lobbs. And that was goodness knows me what 48 years ago. And about 10 years ago the telephone rang at the Grey House and a voice said this is Lobbs here we still have your last and we are going through the customers who haven't come to us again. Would you mind if we destroyed and it and I said well you never know when I might not be able to afford a pair of your shoes again, that's alright sir they said we'll keep it then.  Which I thought was really gentlemanly of them. It did in fact encourage one I suppose in those days not to necessarily to emulate him but to always try and look as as well dressed as he did. I mean, I the fact that I very rarely wear a tie nowadays and various things like that and hate putting on a black tie if I'm going to some formal occasion. I think would amuse him greatly because of course he was perpetually putting on a black tie to go to first nights or or or premieres.

Roy Fowler  18:27  

And a lot of it was white tie in those days

Jonathan Balcon  18:28  

A lot of it as you say was white tie particularly the the Royal Command Performance and most Ealing premieres I went to with him, most Rank Organisation premieres I went to with him if I was at home from school, or otherwise when I was  a bachelor and I always enjoyed that. Quite often they used to get first night tickets for the theatre for various things, and if Aileen was feeling tired or didn't want to go Mick would take me. The one I will remember to my dying day is the first night of Oklahoma.  London had seen nothing like it since the war and this extraordinarily colourful and moving musical, and I have never known an audience get quite such a standing ovation as that did. It was a very memorable evening. To go back to his his private life. Yes they led I think a comparatively quiet private life at home at Upper Parrick. They took a great interest obviously in the running of the farm. There's nothing he liked better than walking and I used to go on a long walks with him because Upper Parrick was at the top of a lane which went right round in a circle between Hartfield and Forest Way and we used to do what we call the circle. And when anybody looked at the Graham Sutherland which was called Lane Opening and said what on earth is that? It was the most lovely picture actually. Mick  I will take you if it was high summer down to a place and show you what Sutherland was trying to paint. And it was a place where the branches grew over the lane and there were great shafts of sunlight came through the gaps in between them, which was what had been captured by Sutherland absolutely beautiful, but almost in primary colours, yellow and green and black you know.

Roy Fowler  20:39  

Did they vacation?

Jonathan Balcon  20:41  

Yes, they did. Latterly they they they vacationed in Greece, in South Africa, in the south of France, Italy, mostly in Europe. Aileen and Jill I remember once went off on a Wine and Food Society tour and came back feeling thoroughly bloated. The end of the war Aileen and I went off on holiday because Mick couldn't come and we went to Kingsgate Castle near near Margate. That was an interesting week. But they went off every year together and of course, for his 80th birthday. I don't know if you remember this, but whoever it was responsible organised that they go to the Cannes Film Festival at somebody else's expense and had I believe a very, very good time there. Although he wasn't terribly keen on film festivals, he went to the Berlin Film Festival, he went to the Venice Film Festival.

Roy Fowler  21:49  

Did they ever give him an homage at Cannes.

Jonathan Balcon  21:55  

Lavender Hill Mob won something at Cannes.

Roy Fowler  21:58  

But he as an individual. Yeah, that's a shame. 

Jonathan Balcon  22:01  

des Arts in the late part of his life.

Jonathan Balcon  22:06  

aren't the late part of his life. I did think they gave them a special award not when I come across. As I said you are eating picked up various awards from various festivals including the deployments from from Indian film festivals and things like that. I got this one week look at upstairs a cover what it says. And really, he was terribly modest about these things. And he always used to recount stories about himself and any of his achievements in a rather sort of modest way that you know, he's playing it down. He's playing in town. He wasn't he wasn't prone to being pompous about his achievements. He was some

Roy Fowler  23:06  

Yes, I think you you

Jonathan Balcon  23:07  

deduced he was. He was a curious mixture. But I must have a cough sorry. Okay. Let's get back right to Woodfall. Shepperton, as I think I said to you yes to Shepperton, as far as I know he was pushed into to stop Sydney bots developing within into a building site. Quite what happened? I don't know. I really don't accept that he forever after cursed both Lord Goodman and and the building's amongst others. have frozen Branston wood floor and all that goes. I don't know whose idea it was originally. But it the he I believe he was chairman of Bradstone. I'm not sure.

Roy Fowler  23:59  

I think he was.

Jonathan Balcon  24:00  

And I think it gave him even if it was a sign of Cal position. It gave him a feeling that he was still taking part in the industry when it really he was his professional life is almost over that he was

Roy Fowler  24:15  

what's the word? Not godfather? Exactly. But he was one of the best known figureheads in the industry in the industry.

Jonathan Balcon  24:25  

But you see, the curious thing is he may have been one of the best and figureheads, but he never made what I call a blockbuster, like Lawrence of Arabia, or any of the other. I think he rather wished he'd been involved with the James Bond films financially. He always used to refer to cubby broccoli as a man with like a vegetable. Which I think possibly was a little unfair. I didn't know how well he knew him. But those sort of Latter Days It was difficult because he lived almost they gave up their flat in London and lived almost permanently without preparing. And people used to come to see him. Rather than he gonna see them or go up to London to an office. He had an extremely nice secretary, I'd have a Parakh, who worked well. He dictated write letters to all sorts of people and all sorts of institutions. He was still involved, I think, with things like un as a cinematic RAF Benevolent Fund. Yes. And there's other things like that, although I don't think I always had a feeling there was a slight arm neutrality between him and the Brahmins.

Roy Fowler  25:46  

They rivalled for the charities.

Jonathan Balcon  25:49  

I think, sir, I think, sir,

Roy Fowler  25:51  

I suppose really what he was at this point is in the figurehead is perhaps the wrong word and elder statesman, perhaps an elder statesman,

Jonathan Balcon  25:58  

I think, some some situation up more than adequately I think. As I said to you yesterday, of course, people like Putnam used to pick his brains are mercifully. In fact, there was one stage and I thought Putnam thought he was the reincarnation of Mick because he if he ever corresponded to you with you, it was always on postcards showing the scenes from eating films or copies of Ealing posters. And probably a little ungenerous about that. I think we've discussed

Roy Fowler  26:32  

I believe Mr. Putnam is more of an opportunist.

Jonathan Balcon  26:34  

Yeah. And of course, he now likes to be known for his other good works on this he did anything in the past to do with the film industry. It always amazed me when he became chairman of whatever it was countryside commission or something like that. Because I have no idea he has aspirations in that direction. I tried to do business with a monster and went to see him in his office as anyone any man but I find him a very difficult man to make contact with. This has proved subsequent a Mick was also a bit of a collector you apart from paintings. He had a marvellous collection of books, a lot of which was stamped scenario department, Ealing studios. And it was quite obvious that they'd sent them down to him to read need Harold, either to make it subsequently or not. When Philip Kemp was spending an awful lot of time with us, he went through the books, he said, you know, you've got an awful lot of first editions there. Well, I think what he meant was first impressions because none of them were very valuable books, per se ...

Roy Fowler  27:44  

You never know, you never know ...  the only thing I

Jonathan Balcon  27:46  

The only thing I have got, I got a first edition of Pickwick Papers, which I've had valued. It's quite a well known first edition, and it's valued at about 300 quid. Don't ask me where it is. Sally keeps asking me and I think it's in the garage. It's quite safe. It's dry. It may be up in the library where we are, but I haven't seen it since we moved and I haven't sold it. But it's around. And it's right in ...

Roy Fowler  28:14  

Modern first editions can be quite ...

Jonathan Balcon  28:16  

Well one or two I did sell. 

Roy Fowler  28:18  

I mean, if you had, for example, Catcher in the Rye, the first edition of that that's in the thousands now but that's indicative. There's not that many, but some, I've got, I bought it because Kubrick was going to make a film of it, Clockwork Orange. So I have a first edition of that in very good nick and that's worth several 100 pounds now, which I find astonishing.

Jonathan Balcon  28:39  

I liked the film The Clockwork Orange..

Roy Fowler  28:41  

Well, yes, I'm a great Kubrick fan. 

Jonathan Balcon  28:42  

I thought it was totally violent. In a way I thought Adrienne Cory gave a marvellous performance. She's not my well, she she was married to a very old friend of mine, Daniel Massey for a time. Dan sadly died as you now. But Dan was a bit he was younger than me. I seem to remember.  Were we at Eton together? Yes. I think we were. We were roughly the same age or would have been. But I went to see him in something just before he died and wrote to him and said how much we'd enjoyed it. I can't remember what it was. But that was very sad.

Roy Fowler  29:22  

Did you father save scripts by any chance? Did he have a script collection of the films that he had done through the years?

Jonathan Balcon  29:30  

I must admit that I had a copy of every script that he was responsible for from Gaumont British. And I sold them to Robert. To Ronald Grant, do you know about Ronald Grant?

Roy Fowler  29:44  

Yes, indeed. Yes. The Cinema Museum? Yeah. Oh, well, they are in a safe if somebody ...

Jonathan Balcon  29:51  

Yeah, Ronald is, I love Ronald Grant dearly he's such a strange character. He's a very great friend of my niece Tacita, who I told you about the painter, or the artist. A lot of the memorabilia I sold through Christie's and Ronald bought it. So it's in his museum. And I must go and see it because I don't know what he did buy. All I know is I got a cheque at the end of it. One of the things I did sell, when I think again he bought it, we had every single Gaumont film that Mick was responsible for we had a book of stills. And they really took up a hell of a lot of room, they were big books like that. And that's gone and I think Ronald's got those and I know there's one unmarked because the title, the title fell off the back. I know what it is and I hope everybody else that I, in fact, was of the Ghost Train and they were looking for stills from the Ghost Train some time ago. But I think Ronald's got those.

Roy Fowler  30:59  

The original Ghost Train or the remake, the Arthur Askey one or the the ...

Jonathan Balcon  31:05  

No, no, no the original one. 

Roy Fowler  31:05  

The Cicely Courtneidge one.

Jonathan Balcon  31:07  

Yeah. Made by Gaumont.

Roy Fowler  31:09  

Well, there was a remake during the war ...

Roy Fowler  31:12  

That I didn't know.

Roy Fowler  31:13  

With Arthur Askey. 

Jonathan Balcon  31:16  

Gosh, yes. Of course, as you know, various programmes have been done by the BBC. They did one on Ealing which was extremely good. It was either Omnibus or one of the other programmes, I've got them on tape. They did an extremely good one on the making of Whiskey Galore, of the aftermath, which I also ...

Roy Fowler  31:40  

I've never seen it.

Jonathan Balcon  31:40  

Yeah, which was also very well done. I've got a lot of his work, most of most of his works are on tape now. A lot of them of course, I taped off the television and I wished I had some system of cutting out the advertisements. But that's beside the point. I lent my granddaughter a tape of Kind Hearts and Coronets which she promptly lost she promptly lost. How the hell you lose a tape I do not know. But her husband, my son-in-law, very currently went out and bought me a new one. And I do watch them I mean, the film as I think I said to you yesterday had more impression on me as a young man than anything else was Next of Kin.  Next of Kin and Nine Men, both war films, I found absolutely fascinating. And always asked to see them again whenever I was at the studio. I sat down and watch The Big Blockade the other evening. And it's quite an interesting film because Charlie Friend takes part in it as the director, David Bowes-Lyon takes part in it because he was at the Ministry of whichever it was, Board of Trade. In many ways, it's very amateurish, Will Hayes is in it, Michael Redgrave's in it

Jonathan Balcon  32:27  

It's made in the very very first days of the war I believe ...

Jonathan Balcon  32:39  

Very early days of the war about how well we were doing in in stopping the Germans get raw materials. It was commissioned, I think, by the Board of Trade. As a propaganda film it's perfectly perfectly adequate. There was a I don't know if you remember a writer in the Sunday Express called Nathaniel Gubbins do you?

Roy Fowler  33:37  

Yes, I remember the name. 

Jonathan Balcon  32:27  

Who used to during the war write this wonderful column which started off say it was on a German air raid shelter 'vot vas dat, dat vas a bomb. But the Fuehrer says the British will never drop the bombs on the ballet. [LAUGHTER] It was very much that sort of atmosphere in parts of parts of A Big Blockade. But I think I think whoever made that particular sequence had Nathaniel Gubbins in mind.  Latterly you see again, round about the Woodfall Bryanston era he was also getting deeply involved with Bruce Beresford, and the Australians. And Bruce was over here. I don't know but I'd love to see Bruce again, he's such a nice man and I did insure one film for him, which was the Barry Humphries film.  And to a certain extent, of course, Bruce went back to Australia and revived the ailing Australian film industry. As a result of which they produced some very mature stuff, like Gallipoli. Credo Morant was it?

Roy Fowler  33:54  

Breaker

Jonathan Balcon  33:54  

Breaker Morant incredibly well made film

Roy Fowler  33:54  

Its a very viable industry now ...

Jonathan Balcon  33:54  

A Bad Day at Ayres Rock.  What was the one where the girls vanished?

Roy Fowler  33:54  

The Ayres Rock one. Yes, Peter Weir.

Jonathan Balcon  33:54  

Doesn't matter, but they were all very mature films. Whereas one imagines the earlier Australian films must have been pretty crappy

Roy Fowler  33:54  

I think they were, yeah.

Jonathan Balcon  33:57  

I never thought, I never understood I never understood the Siege of Pinchgut why they made that and why they used the American what's his name?

Roy Fowler  35:34  

It is not a movie I've seen, I've no idea who's in it.  If it was an American actor then it would have been for box office purposes.

Jonathan Balcon  35:41  

And of course, lately there was quite a lot of that as we know

Roy Fowler  35:45  

Did your father ever go to Australia? Because Ealing made two or three prominent films there didn't they?

Jonathan Balcon  35:53  

Eureka Stockade, The Overlanders, The Shiralee, The Pinchgut I think that was it. No I think after The Overlanders apart from the Shiralee the rest weren't really rarely anything to, they didn't come up to the standard of The Overlanders. The Overlanders is still quite a moving film. I saw it again the other afternoon and there are some fine performances in that.  I gather, I may be wrong about this, I seem to remember Harry Watt saying that they'd had to dub the dialogue on certain of the people in it because they're Australian accents was so broad that they just didn't make sense. He was very fond of Where no Vultures Fly. I was never quite sure what he thought about Sammy Going South.  Although the conception of Sammy Going South was a splendid story of this little boy who had heard that he had an aunt in South Africa and thought it was just down the road and trekked all the way down there. And the very moving scenes with Edward G. Robinson as the white hunter. But I feel once the studios had gone the atmosphere in the films that they made were never quite the same somehow.

Jonathan Balcon  36:03  

I think that's true.

Jonathan Balcon  36:55  

I mean, Dunkirk I suppose the nearest thing to a blockbuster they made after that. And apart from, you don't like Johnny's performance, I thought it was a splendid performance. 

Roy Fowler  37:19  

I don't like him particularly as an actor.

Jonathan Balcon  37:30  

Isn't that funny. Yes.  And I didn't like Dickie Attenborough as an actor you see and Dickie doesn't like himself as an actor. I remember him sitting at Upper Parrock and saying, you know, these character parts are killing me. He said, I'd like to do something really on my own without the sort of weird characters I have to play. But I mean, they've been at it for a helluva time haven't they. And, and I mean, Johnny and Dickie, and to a certain extent, Bryan Forbes, are synonymous with the British film industry.

Roy Fowler  38:12  

During a certain period, yes. 

Jonathan Balcon  38:14  

I mean I hated Ice Cold in Alex for instance, I thought it was unauthentic and as far as I know, no parts of the Western Desert look like that anyway, that's another story. But there we are. The interesting thing is, of course, in many ways, the Americans emulated some of the Ealing films, there was a Humphrey Bogart film called Sahara, which was about a little group of men lost in the desert. There was, The Eagle Has Landed, which was based on Went the Day Well.  So it's not entirely I suppose, he criticisms that have gone on about Saving Private Ryan, and various other films the Americans made, like Burma and and proving that they had won the war on their own, I think they took they took some of the hints from what the  British had done before.

Roy Fowler  39:16  

I think probably it's a very general thing in the film industry plots are recycled and stolen, and the Americans are particularly chauvinistic are they not?

Jonathan Balcon  39:26  

Indeed, but now you've used the word you said, I was absolutely horrified when I read it some years ago, and again recently, that it was intended to remake some of the Ealing comedies. I wrote a very strong letter about it to The Telegraph, which they refused to publish. God knows why. I've since written to Sight and Sound the same letter and the truth is the Americans have run out of material. They don't know a good story now when they I see one, I don't think

Roy Fowler  40:02  

It's the audiences I think that are the problem. There are still very capable people working in the American film industry. But the audience essentially, the mainstream audience in America, is that how shall we describe them? Illiterate mouth breathing pubescence is a phrase I used in a recent piece I wrote.

Jonathan Balcon  40:23  

Gosh.

Roy Fowler  40:27  

Their actual mental age is around 12 I suspect.

Jonathan Balcon  40:31  

Frightening actually. 

Roy Fowler  40:32  

Yeah, but that's for whom films are made, other than in the independent sector.

Jonathan Balcon  40:37  

But when I think of films like 12 Angry Men, A Bad Day at BlackRock, some of the Spencer Tracy other films, some of the John Ford seventh cavalry films, many of the John Wayne films, they were super films to sit and watch and you sat on the edge of your seat. Like many of the Hitchcock pictures. I personally, and I may be quite wrong about this, don't think Hitchcock's later work matches up to his original work at Gaumont

Roy Fowler  41:14  

Well, the the British stuff is, I think, more pleasing for us finally, although some of the films he made in the States are really quite excellent. But he tailed off towards the end ...

Jonathan Balcon  41:24  

North by Northwest. 

Roy Fowler  41:25  

I think North by Northwest is a very good film, do you not?

Jonathan Balcon  41:28  

Yes.

Roy Fowler  41:28  

We're approaching the end of this tape and then yeah ...

Jonathan Balcon  41:35  

I think we're beginning to run out of material.

Roy Fowler  41:37  

Well, I want to go back to the studios, right we'll flip over

End of Side 7

Side 8

Roy Fowler  0:00  

You said your father, loved cricket so much, was there a cricket team at the studio?

Jonathan Balcon  0:05  

There was indeed and I have photographs upstairs which I can show you. And every year the team came down and played Colemans Hatch. The son of our gardener, our gardener was called Ted Pollard and he had a son called Dennis. Ted was captain of Colemans Hatch cricket team and Dennis was good enough to be given a Kent trial. He never made it but he was an extremely good cricketer and it was an extremely exciting match. And Colemans Hatch cricket pitch was on the top of Ashdown Forest, in the most lovely setting with views on all sides, right next to two delightful old ladies who lived in a thing called Chapel Cottage known as the Miss Leesons and the cricket balls were forever going into their garden but they were so sweet and nice about it. It was Miss Dolly and Miss somebody else but they were really a pixelated old couple, almost like a Margaret Rutherford character but not quite. And great friends of the family along every year couldn't wait for the next Ealing Coleman's Hatch cricket match. Very rarely did a star come down for it. It was mostly, it was everybody's, carpenters, electricians, technicians, masons you know and it was always an exciting afternoon and there was always a delicious tea afterwards. 

Roy Fowler  1:35  

That sounds great fun.

Jonathan Balcon  1:38  

That was one of the things that the Mick helped to organise.  He also produced every year for them a Hartfield someone to open their fete. And it was extraordinary thing because after we were married, the rector of Hartfield was married to a cousin of Sally's. So there was a sort of guild thing there. Sadly, they're all dead now. But I then got of course, when I got across to Seal I got lumbered with producing people to open what was known as the Seal Charter Fair. Jack Warner did it for me twice, Adrian Cory did it for me once.  That was quite fun. But you know, one gradually, as I say, lost touch. Over at Seal of course, we had Sydney Bernstein and he used to produce a team each year to play Seal. And that was always quite an exciting time because there were more stars in that and the village enjoyed that enormously. But no, Mick's Ealing team was, I've got a photograph of it upstairs. I can't identify any of the people in it because, I think Hal was there he may not have been but Hal was usually over.  You do know don't you that Hal was very severely injured?

Roy Fowler  2:53  

We touched on that yesterday, in a fire, in a fire right? 

Jonathan Balcon  2:57  

Well as far as I remember a barrel of flash powder went off alongside him, now I may be wrong about this, and he was quite severely injured and in hospital for a deal of time. And it was that in fact that he finally died of. I mean, there was the extended repercussions of that because he died quite young Hal. I have nothing but affectionate memories of him. He was I think one of the great Ealing characters. He was tough, he wasn't always popular. He was marvellous with Aileen and he was also whenever Jill and Mick had a row, on the occasional time that I and Mick had a row or Aileen and I had a row, Hal would always intercede for one or other on our behalf and sort of bang our heads together and say stop being so silly.

Roy Fowler  3:54  

Were there very volatile fights and did you all stomp around hating each other for a while?

Jonathan Balcon  4:00  

No, no not hating each other, we, non-speakers for 24 hours

Roy Fowler  4:05  

Oh yes, that's standard I suppose, that's not too bad.

Jonathan Balcon  4:09  

And over the most stupidest of things, over ridiculous things.  I learned to drive when I was 17 and Mick, this is again a typical Mick you see, he said right he said I suppose you want to buy a car. So I said that would be very nice, so he said go and see Mr Thomas at Kings Garage in East Grinstead. Thomas was a typical car sales except he only had one arm. Oh, he said I've got just the car for you. And took and showed me this very nice shiny 1937 Morris 8 and it looked good and I said how much and he said 220 pounds. So I went back to Mick and I said 220 pounds, Mick said that's marvellous he said you've got 200 pounds, he said, in Savings Certificates in the bank in my name, which you can have and I'll give you the odd 20 quid. So he got out of that one very easily.

Roy Fowler  5:13  

Well, my father was considerably more generous than your old man. 

Jonathan Balcon  5:18  

Well wait a minute. I had this car for two years, I flogged the living daylights out of it. I absolutely adored it. I don't know if you remember the old Moriss 8 but it was an upright thing, it looked like a perambulator on wheels practically. Anyway after two years, I sold it in a howling gale in the drive at Upper Parrock for 200 pounds. So all I lost on it was was Mick's 20 quid.  I then was carless for 6 months. Yes, because if I bought it when I was 17, no I must have bought it when I was 18 because I had it for two years and just as I was about to be 21 I thought, well, this is rather silly. And I went, we had the most marvellous bank manager called Mr Sparks. And Sparky hated the bank, he loathed it. And we banked at 25 Shaftesbury Avenue, which is where an awful lot of Wardour Street people banked and I went to see him and I said Sparky, I want to borrow 700, 800 pounds. I'm 21 and I want to buy an SS Jaguar 100 and he thought for a moment, he did a sort of calculation on a bit of paper and he said, Johnny I am not going to lend you 800 pounds to buy an SS 100 Jaguar secondhand, he said, let me lend you 1200 pounds and you can buy a new Hillman Minx.  I'm not sure if I got the figures exact.  Anyway, I went to Rawson's in Tunbridge Wells here, who were the main agents for Roots Group at that time. I've got another story for you after. And ordered this drop-head Hillman Minx it arrived, it was delivered on a Saturday morning to Upper Parrock and Mick said, what on earth is that? I said, that's my new car. It's what?  I said, that's my new car. His reactions were exactly the same as when Aileen bought her car in 1939. He said, where did you get the money from? I said, if you must know Sparky lent it to me? He what? What interest rate are you paying? I said, I don't know I did not ask. He said, how are you going to service the loan? I said, well, you do give me some money every year. Well, he said, I hope I hope it covers it. Anyway, we soon got over that one and it was the car I had in fact when Sally and I first got married. I might say I went down the scale after that, at one stage during the Suez Crisis I had a Ford Thames van.

Roy Fowler  8:07  

Don't you wish that you had that Jaguar SS though?

Jonathan Balcon  8:07  

Oh God what it would be worth now!

Roy Fowler  8:07  

That's a beautiful car.

Jonathan Balcon  8:16  

Now Mick, never had, I told you he never drove he always had a chauffeur. He had two marvellous chauffeurs, one of whom taught me to drive, Alan Shackleton. I'd love to know what, Alan must be dead now he was a sergeant in the war. So he must be over 80 if he, but he was a very expert observation chap for the gunners and he used to draw these panoramas when he was in Italy fighting. And he showed me them afterwards and they were quite remarkable. But he was one of the most brilliant aggressive drivers I ever met. He didn't I mean, he wouldn't exist today because he didn't, wouldn't give the other man an inch. He, he drove by the book and it used to irritate me dreadfully. Anyway, Mick had a series of interesting cars.  During the war he had a Lanchester fluid flywheel, which was quite comfortable. When, at the end of the war ...

Jonathan Balcon  9:14  

He was allowed a gas, petrol ration during the war

Jonathan Balcon  9:24  

He was allowed a petrol ration because he was as far as they were concerned, he was working for the Board of Trade in the film industry, so they got a petrol ration.  Aileen got a petrol ration through the Red Cross. At the end of the war he wanted a new car and the only new cars on the market, they were the most impractical car for Mick, were Armstrong Siddeleys. It was a, it was a lovely car ...

Roy Fowler  9:42  

Beautiful.

Jonathan Balcon  9:43  

... but it was a drophead coupe and bloody uncomfortable in the back. But it was, Mick was very fond of it. 

Roy Fowler  9:52  

It was a very good looking car

Jonathan Balcon  9:54  

A very good looking car with a sphinx on the front and I used to be driven back to Eton in it down the Great West Road, you know sitting next to Shackleton. At the beginning of the war he had a Packard 8 which he was extremely fond of. And that was a lovely car and it, if you, it still appears in a number of films. I'm not sure it wasn't in The Ladykillers because I think he sold it to one of those people who hire old cars out to to film companies. He always swore he would never have a Rolls Royce. He said, only producers smoke cigars and  have Rolls Royces, it's not in my line of business. Then when he was made a director of The Rank Organisation, The Rank Organisation had an agreement with the Roots Group, I don't know if you knew this, but all cars appearing in Rank Films were Roots Group cars and all Rank directors were, every three years I think it was in those days, given new, depending on there grade, Mick got a Humber Super Snipe. Very comfortable car, super , a snipe on the front with a rubber beak because so many people lost out and they were cracking them and the number of it was KLM 999. Within a week of him being allocated this number KLM wrote to him and said we'll offer you 100 pounds for the number and Mick said in no way will I change it.  So instead they sent him a gold keyring just as a good will gesture for advertising KLM. Anyway, the number passed to various cars that Mick had after that, passed to Aileen, on Aileen's death it passed to me. I had it on a very super car that Sally had and then when we ran into money difficulties my daughter Henrietta bought the number off me for 1000 pounds, and she has it on her car to this day.

Roy Fowler  11:55  

That's how long in the family now, 40, 50 years?

Jonathan Balcon  11:58  

When was The Blue Lamp? That's why he kept the number. 

Roy Fowler  12:00  

Well, that would ...

Jonathan Balcon  12:00  

'49?

Roy Fowler  12:00  

Yes, in the late '40s I think. Yes. 

Jonathan Balcon  12:01  

And it was the 999 that got him you see and he said I'm not getting rid of this. And we've kept it ever since. So 49-99 is 50 years, 52 years. It's been in the family and she will, she, Henrietta who is richer than all of us, thanks to her husband, will go on paying whatever you have to pay, 150 quid each time you change your car.

Roy Fowler  12:25  

Family heirloom.

Jonathan Balcon  12:25  

Yeah. Clare was a little angry I must say, why didn't you offer it to me? I said at the time you didn't seem to want it. But Henrietta, it's on Henrietta's very large Mercedes at the moment and she she she's very proud of it. But he, as I say, then, of course, he bought, then he had a Jaguar, which he hated. Because rather like me I can no longer get down into cars, having got down into a car I can't get out again.

Roy Fowler  12:58  

A Jaguar saloon?

Roy Fowler  13:00  

Yes. So he quickly got rid of that and he bought a Bentley and actually it was a lovely car, and he was very proud of it.  But at the time of the Suez Crisis, no it must have been later than that, when he retired, he said, I can't really afford to keep running this and he bought Aileen, a new small Humber, sort of souped up Hillman Minx and that was the car they had when he died. She had two Hillman Minx's actually because she had one in the garage that she'd been unable to sell and I got Rawsons to come over and collect it from Upper Parrock and I said, look, I'm prepared to spend 150-200 quid on it, which I did and I gave it to Daniel. And it was Daniel's first car. And then it collapsed. Then Aileen had this Humber, then she couldn't get on with the Humber, this is just before she died or had her, her Alzheimer's took a hold, I bought her a Citroen because everything was done for you, you know, it was even more than automatic. She didn't have to, but she never really drove that and in the end I got that over to the Grey House and sold that. But I was very fair you see Roy, I must tell you this story just let's get the Jill perspective right. About a week before Aileen was first taken ill we had a meeting with Linklaters, who were the family executors, by deed of family arrangement, which as you know you can do, we re-arranged Mick's will, although he had been dead for some time. Okay?  In favour, parts of it to the grandchildren and they were left with the grazing rights on 30 acres of land, which produced for them at that time, it was producing for each of them, five or 600 a year, just the grazing rights. The other parts of his will had all been dealt with and I sold the farm, the cash had gone to pay off any debts there were and we kept the Border television shares etc, etc. Until the executors rang me up and said, I think it's now time that Jill and you took over the Border television shares and that's another story. Aileen sat down, and they rewrote Aileen's will. And it was very simple, it was a dead simple will, it was 80% of what she left would go to Jill and myself in equal proportions and 20% would be divided between the five grandchildren, my three daughters and Jill's two, which couldn't have been simpler. When she died, I hear on the grapevine that Tamasin was hiring a pantechnicon, driving to Upper Parrock and stripping it of furniture.  And I'm afraid I had to ring her up and I said, to her if you do that I'll put the solicitors on to you, I said.  But Aileen always said in her lifetime I could have what I wanted. Tamasin, I said, I dare say she did but she's now dead and the terms of her will are quite clear. And it was so bad if you look at the gate out here there's a large piece of hardened steel chain but really hardened steel chain that I lock it up with at night. I had to put those two chains on the gates of Upper Parrock and leave instructions with the gardening boy I said, if a pantechnicon appears you're a) to send for me first and then the polic, so there was a little acrimony there.  I then, Sally was marvellous she stripped the house, all the junk we put into a skip, sadly, sadly she got rid of two cabin trunks which I could have sold for god knows what but I wasn't there to see them. But I mean that's a minor thing. They never found aliens MBE although I found the miniature, so I don't know what happened to that. She may have given it away. Sally emptied all the stuff, all the china, all the silver, all the pictures and they were brought over to the Grey House and in fact for six months I couldn't use my garage because it was full of Aileen's china, glass of which she had a great deal including some very nice glass animals by the Frenchman ...

Jonathan Balcon  17:54  

Lalique?

Jonathan Balcon  17:55  

Lalique.  Jill came across, went through everything. I said Jill take what you want. She, you know over-emotional, tears streaming, Oh, I remember this in the nursery. I said, just take what you want. So she did she took some plates, she took some silver and she said what are we going to do with the rest? I said, it's quite simple. We know the terms of the will. I'm not going to have the children fighting over anything. I said we will sell everything and turn it into cash with the exception of one or two pieces any child might want. And I said, we will then split that cash 80% to you and me and 20% to the children. Fine, she said. Deborah had a grandfather clock and I think a desk, Tamasin had a Knole sofa that came out of Elton Palace that Mick had bought off Stephen and the dining room table from Upper Parrock, which Aileen had bought at the beginning of the war from Stanley Woolston in Cambridge for 10 pounds, which had been ordered for, it was a refectory table, that had been ordered for one of the colleges and found to be too high and Stanley Woolston couldn't get rid of it. And all the dining room chairs and then moaned at me because she and oh and the four poster bed she had my four poster. Oh, everything's in such bad condition. Tamasin I said they've been in store for seven years, what do you expect? Daniel wanted one particular thing which was Mick in his study, and there are photographs of him been standing by it, he had an astralabe, astralabe and it came out of storage in the most appalling condition. It had split in the middle and looked very ropey. Now in Seal we had a very nice old friend, still friend, who restores furniture. He's a brilliant furniture restorer. And I said, Tim, can you restore this? And he said, Yes, it's going to cost you but I said the estate will pay. It cost me 900 quid to have it restored, it came back looking pristine. And I shipped it out to Ireland to Daniel.  It must be worth 4 or 5000 pounds, probably more. So on on the whole were satisfied. I turned everything into cash. I paid out everybody. And Jill has got signed receipts and I've got signed receipts and we've got signed letters to the building society into which I put all the money. And it was only after I'd made the final payment and the final payment was 18,000 quid to Jill and 18,000 quid to me, and I'll tell you what happened to that in a minute, that this bloody letter arrived from Linklaters saying can we please have another 30,000 pounds each. In fact, the 18,000 that I my payout, I bought shares from the firm I worked for shares. I bought 2000 shares at £12 a share valued by Ernst and Young. Well we've just wound the company up finally and although I've had three dividends of 2000 pounds each, I'm still 12,000 quid light on the value of the shares. And I've got no capital gains to set it, set it off against you know, but I mean, that's just one of those things. We had a director who went potty and when a lot of our names said oh we didn't want to go on that syndicate or that syndicate he didn't argue he paid out their losses out of our profit commission. And suddenly then put his keys on the desk one day and walked out of the office. This was long after I'd retired. But I mean you know, it completely mucked it up when we came to sell the firm, but that's the story there. I'm not a trained accountant.  Linklaters asked me to do the paperwork. I did the paperwork. I had a very good chap do all the selling for us, Jill saw all the documentation because I wouldn't draw a penny without her not countersigning but signing the letter to the building society. And so it was very unkind of her to say that I had ruined her our old age. But there we are. You have heard the whole sage now Roy.

Speaker 1  22:49  

It's sad, it's unfortunate, isn't it but there we are.

Jonathan Balcon  22:55  

I don't necessarily believe in primogeniture but to a certain extent I was the senior male member of the family and it was my responsibility and I accepted the responsibility. And I took it upon myself to do this. And the family suffered in no way at all. The children all got cash. The only people who suffered were Jill and me.

Roy Fowler  23:18  

Isn't there any recourse against Linklaters?

Jonathan Balcon  23:21  

Linklaters worded their letter in such a way that McFarland said there's no recourse against them.  They said, we will handle this for you for 5000 quid, and in fact, it ended up  I had to pay them another 150 quid about two years ago. It was quite interesting you see because MacFarlands are the trustees for my son-in-law, Tim Brightmire, Henrietta's husband. And he got to hear about this that they were acting for me and he asked me all about it. Jill convinced herself that I had borrowed the money from Tim. Barbara, my cousin, who sees Jill quite a lot, is in touch with Jill was here to lunch the other day, I said, Barbara, I want you to know, I haven't told you this before, there was no way I borrowed that 30 grand off of Tim. I said, thanks to you and Dick, because you gave me the idea I went to the Bank of Scotland who do a shared mortgage plan, a shared mortgage plan is one where they lend you the money and then nothing happens until you die. And when the property comes to be sold, they take 20% of the difference between what they left you and what the property fetches. So it's not a bad deal. You pay no interest and that's how I raised it on this house. And Jill doesn't know that. But I did point out to Barbara that if you're talking to Jill you can say that that's in fact what I did. And I hope she feels ashamed about what she, the thoughts that she harboured about me.

Roy Fowler  25:08  

Yes and spreads them around. But as well you said she's the more dramatic one

Jonathan Balcon  25:17  

Yes the tragedy queen. The other thing she was known as when her children was smaller was 'smother love'. She and Tamasin anyway have an armed neutrality, because Jill doesn't really like any other women around, she was always very jealous of other women whatever capacity and yet we had some marvellous times together as a family. I mean, we used to, Aileen, Jill and I used to sit rocking with laughter about various things in the dining room at Upper Parrock after dinner or something was over. I must be honest again I don't know whether you've seen her perform in anything. I've seen her perform in both films and on the stage. And she hasn't got an exceptional talent, she has the most marvellous speaking voice.

Roy Fowler  26:08  

Yes. She seems to specialise in radio these days

Jonathan Balcon  26:11  

Absolutely. Absolutely. Although I think she feels the BEEB rather look on her as an old warhorse  you know.

Roy Fowler  26:19  

Yes. Well, I don't mean it unkindly but after all that kind of age, there aren't that many parts. Certainly on the stage or in movies is in this country.

Jonathan Balcon  26:30  

She was in a touring company you may not remember with Wolfitt. Well, she started off at the Old Vic in Midsummer Night's Dream and Tamburlaine. She played Zenocrate in Tamburlaine and she played Titania in Midsummer Night's Dream that lovely actress Irene Worth was also in it and they came on when I was up at Cambridge on a touring company. And I used to escort Irene home from the Arts Theatre Cambridge every evening because she's practically blind Irene I mean, she's very short sighted. And she was living in the University Arms, which was right the other end of the town, I used to walk her home each night before I went back to college. Anyway, Jill and I, I was at Somerfields with a lot of quite eminent theatrical people like Julian Slade. I saw Julian during the period Jill was up there and he said I'm giving a party in Kings tonight do bring Jill along. So after the theatre came out, we went. And we hadn't been in the room where there was dancing and music in candlelight for more than about five minutes when Jill hissed in my ear, for Christ's sake, get me out of here. So I did exactly what she asked and walked back to her digs and I said what was wrong? She said, I was the only woman there. Julian being that sort of way inclined and Kings of course had that sort of reputation. 

Jonathan Balcon  28:17  

Oh yes.  Those were the days of ...

Jonathan Balcon  28:18  

Dadie Rylands was there of course the great mentor at King's in those days, a great member of the English faculty.

Roy Fowler  28:23  

The writer, the novelist. He was at Kings wasn't he?

Jonathan Balcon  28:28  

Oh, all sorts of people were at Kings. Simon Raven?

Roy Fowler  28:32  

Yes. Um ... It's ridiculous. The man who wrote Passage to India and ...

Jonathan Balcon  28:42  

Let's skip over it

Roy Fowler  28:43  

I'm ashamed of myself for not being able to recall him

Jonathan Balcon  28:47  

Really Roy for the last 24 hours you've sat and listened to me. You haven't really asked me any questions properly. I mean, you ...

Roy Fowler  28:56  

There's been a flow that you say. I've tried to delve into various areas. We have a few minutes left on this side. I suppose historically, the, since we don't know the details before Bryanston and all that and Shepperton it's the Ealing era, that's of most consequence historically.

Jonathan Balcon  29:22  

It's the Ealing era I really thought you wanted to know about. I'm sorry about the. Woodfall Shepperton Bryanston era. I really do think the person who probably knows more about that than anything else is Philip Kemp

Roy Fowler  29:35  

Indeed and his book no matter how much delayed it is it will appear I guess at some stage.

Jonathan Balcon  29:40  

I presume it will appear at some stage 

Roy Fowler  29:42  

Whenever I see him I ask him. 

Jonathan Balcon  29:44  

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you do because I do. I read Philip up twice a month and in fact, he and his dark lady friend are coming to have a picnic with us in Knole Park sometime soon. 

Roy Fowler  29:56  

I get the same answer as you do that he's got to make a living 

Jonathan Balcon  30:00  

Yeah, that's that's his argument. 

Roy Fowler  30:02  

He's got mouths to feed. 

Jonathan Balcon  30:03  

Yeah. On the other hand, you see, I don't know how well the Sandy McHenry book sold or whether it's sold at all, he got a grant to do that, you see?

Roy Fowler  30:11  

It wasn't very good. I wasn't happy with that.

Jonathan Balcon  30:15  

I must admit to not having read it. But I mean, I was just pleased he gave me a credit in the beginning because I did give him access to anything he wanted. Now that's the other thing of course, as you know, the Michael Balcon papers are all in the BFI. I get the odd academic, when I say odd I don't mean odd , I mean odd, academic ringing me up and saying, Look, we're researching this, we're researching that, may we look at the Balcon papers. And I inevitably write back and say with the greatest of pleasure, the only thing I would ask you is not to put any political or religious connotation on anything that you may write, because I said, I don't think father would have wanted that. But I've never refused anybody, I've bent over backwards to be co-operative whenever, whenever I have to be. And I think I said to you Silver Apples on Monday said to me, what, would I raise any objections to Daniel doing the commentary on this Channel 4 piece? And I said, look, it's not up to me to raise any objections. I said, if it's a commercial proposition, and you can get Daniel to do it, and it's it's going to sell it for God's sake, get him to do it.

Roy Fowler  31:26  

He was very fond of his grandfather was he not?

Jonathan Balcon  31:30  

Yes.

Roy Fowler  31:32  

That's the impression I got from something from ...

Jonathan Balcon  31:34  

From Jill, probably.

Roy Fowler  31:36  

Well either from Jill or from the book. 

Jonathan Balcon  31:39  

Well, Tamasin and Jill, Tamasin and Daniel Aileen was very good with but Aileen wasn't as good with Daniel as Mick was. Jill always says, you know, your mother hated Daniel, and I said, I don't believe it, Jill. Oh well she adored Tamasin and I said yes, I know she adored Tamsin but I said Tamasin was very naughty don't forget when Mick strictly said to Tamasin don't swim in the Medway, which is filthy anyway, and he went down, took a walk down there and there they all were stark naked swimming in the deep pool just by the bridge and he was absolutely furious with her. Particular as my children were, were much younger and with her as well. But he used to take Daniel to watch cricket at Brighton when Sussex were playing. He was very good, I think and I don't mean this unkindly I think in many ways, he made-up in his dotage to Daniel what he had not done with me. Because he had more time to spend. And I'm sure this was a very good thing. I was a little hurt, a little but what's the point of being hurt in retrospect, when going through his correspondence, and I've got it out there somewhere, there's a fair amount of correspondence with the ACT and I think that Alan Saper giving Tamasin a union ticket and I thought you old bugger you know, if you were prepared not to do anything for me and you go and do it for Tamasin I said, I think that's a little .. this is what went on in my mind.

Roy Fowler  33:23  

The grandchildren are always treated from kids, from offspring.

Jonathan Balcon  33:29  

I mean, he himself, you know, when I saw his name up on the board in the boardroom at BECTU, he was terribly proud of being an honorary member of the ACT.

Roy Fowler  33:37  

It meant something in those days, it doesn't anymore.

Jonathan Balcon  33:41  

It meant an awful lot to him because, you know he felt that they didn't think he was as big a bastard as all that

Roy Fowler  33:48  

Some of it, like the gongs handed out with the rations, but mostly they were people who had achieved something, Chaplin or Hitchcock

Jonathan Balcon  33:58  

On the whole he treated the ACTT very fairly. And I think he appreciated, as I say, because he knew Christopher Brunel he used to get very irritated by some of the things Christopher used to write

Roy Fowler  34:10  

ACT was not without blame. A very curious outfit. Tell me that do you think there's a kind of streak of eccentricity that runs in the family?

Jonathan Balcon  34:23  

Oh yes.

Roy Fowler  34:26  

Where does that come from your father's side or ...?

Jonathan Balcon  34:29  

Both sides, both sides. 

Roy Fowler  34:31  

Right. 

Jonathan Balcon  34:32  

And what is more, we are not very consistent people I mean, any of us, you know, we ...

Roy Fowler  34:39  

and volatile?

Jonathan Balcon  34:40  

We're slightly volatile. Yes. One of my senior police officers who were, the chap in ..... division I worked for said the trouble with you Johnnie is you have got a very, very short fuse. And at times, I'm afraid I have Yes. 

Roy Fowler  34:56  

And that was true of Mick?

Jonathan Balcon  34:58  

It was true of Mick at times for no reason.  He'd go for Aileen for no reason at all. 

Roy Fowler  35:05  

Something would just trigger it?

Jonathan Balcon  35:06  

Yes. And you think as a small boy, oh my god they are going to divorce you know. But it was all over in about 20 minutes and he'd forgotten about it.

Roy Fowler  35:15  

We were saying last night over dinner, and this relates now, that there were clearly elements of insecurity, I know this this cheap 25 cent psychology but ...

Jonathan Balcon  35:24  

For God's sake Roy, there are elements of insecurity that have been with us all our lives, you know. Maybe it's congenital because we're Jewish. Maybe it's in the blood. Maybe it's we're never quite certain that things aren't going to happen to destroy our modus vivendi. 

Roy Fowler  35:48  

Your expecting the worst?

Jonathan Balcon  35:49  

Yes. My worst times are between three and four o'clock in the morning. But the moment I go to sleep again and then wake up and get up I feel quite different once I come downstairs. But I do, there are times when I feel dreadfully insecure and there were times when Mick felt dreadfully insecure. His accountant said to me one day he said the trouble with your papa he said is he permanently thinks every year he's going broke. And I said Dick why does he think that? and well he said I don't know.

Roy Fowler  36:22  

Did he amass a deal of capital?

Jonathan Balcon  36:26  

No. He didn't. He, what he did amass was, when you know, he amassed a deal of capital goods. He had Upper Parrock, he had the farm. Cazenoves looked after, when Aileen's mother died she left Aileen about 100,000 quid and Cazenoves were handed this to look after and they did do very well out of that. Mick had a small portfolio, he also had a lot of totally dud shares the certificates of which I've got upstairs [LAUGHTER]

Roy Fowler  37:06  

Join the club!

Jonathan Balcon  37:07  

There were some debts when he died which was why Dick Rawlins and and Linklaters said to me, you must either keep the Border television shares and sell the farm or keep the farm and sell the shares. That was when I came to the, and the Border television shares, I mean had I still got them today I would have been extremely rich. Jill, I think has still got most of hers and if she got 13 quid a share for them she's bloody lucky. Because the last lot I sold which were my final lot of 20,000 I got, I got a quid each for. But you know that's c'est la vie. I'm reconciled to the fact that I will never have any money in any quantity. I occasionally have a decent win on the horses. I mean, I, I went to Royal Ascot when I was well down and I suddenly on a fancy put an each way bet on a horse I got 109 quid back, you know, and it paid my losses. And I enjoy doing that sort of thing. I went to Ascot last week, I made one absolutely fucking stupid bet which I could kick myself for but as it is, I'm still getting a check this week for about 12 or 15 quid. Okay, Sally and I live off our pensions. I did get my deposit back from Lloyds but not in full. And I've got, I get, I've had 1500 a year from Lloyds because they took 9000 quid off us, must be five years ago now, and they are repaying it back to us at 1500 a year -  what they call a special deposit. But Lloyds is a crook organisation anyway. And I fight that battle, it's one of the big windmills I tilt at

Roy Fowler  37:05  

Are you part of group doing that because Lloyd's as you say is recognised as being a crooked outfit ...

Jonathan Balcon  37:57  

I am not part of a group. The refuseniks who you may know to whom I'm referring was the Jaffrey people who had this enormous case, they came to Leonard Black who did those illustrations, by the way for Conin, which dropped out of the book last night, and me and they, we gave them a lot of advice. None of which they took, had they taken it they would have won the case and they never paid us. And the point being that they sued Lloyds but we are all Lloyds. They should have sued the individuals. And they didn't, they should have sued the individual members of the council.

Roy Fowler  39:53  

We better not get into all that in details. That would take no I think we'll end this tape.

End of Side 8

Side 9

Roy Fowler  0:00  

Jon Ah, this is tape five. Yeah,

Jonathan Balcon  0:02  

Mick curiously enough underneath everything was a crashing snob in as much as he did love titles. I think he his proudest moment really was when he was knighted. And it was quite extraordinary, I've got the letters upstairs funnily enough, but Aileen the year before, two years before had received her MBE, so when the letter was waiting for them at Upper Parrock she knew exactly what it was, although she didn't know it was a knighthood. And she said was shaking hands she went down to meet him off the train at Forest Row and they opened it in the car, and she said, What is it? What is it? And he said, Well, you won't believe this, but they are going to knight me.  And she was thrilled of course. I remember that, because it was one of those, this is another thing, they never really celebrated Christmas, per se. I never remember getting, I never remember getting any decent Christmas presents from them really decent ones. But it happened over Christmas as you appreciate, or just before Christmas, and I came in one evening and it must have been about early December, late November and the house was full of the press and there were flashbulbs going off and people with notebooks and I said to Aileen, what's going on? and she said, I can't tell you at the moment, I'll tell you after. Then, of course, when they'd all gone and before we sat down for supper, she said your father's in the New Year's Honours List. She didn't tell me what it was. That's all she said. And I said, Oh how very exciting and as I say I've got the letter upstairs. And you must have seen these letters you know, I'm instructed by the Prime Minister to say that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth or His Majesty King George VI, it has been recommended that you be included on the New Year's Honours List with a knighthood or words to that effect. Would you please acknowledge this letter by return and say whether you agree or not. And so whenever, I always have a slight chuckle when I hear these actors and actresses say, well it came completely out of the blue, it doesn't come completely out of the blue it comes at the beginning of November. But you know I am an awful cynic in a way. It's just I listen to too much wireless and read too many newspapers, I suppose, you know people's reactions are so funny to these things. In my own little way, this was quite extraordinary, I must tell you this before we get onto the studios, in my own little way: I suppose I'd been in the Special Constabulary 4 years and, when was the Jubilee '75?

Roy Fowler  3:01  

I think possibly '77 around then.

Jonathan Balcon  3:04  

I can't remember. We'd had a call-out, the Specials were called out on an emergency the previous night and it had come to nothing. Although we all said yes, we'll turn out I forget what it was a minor rail accident or something like that. Anyway, the Sunday morning I heard the letterbox go and I thought that's odd and I went downstairs, about half past seven, and there was the beginning of a long telex message sitting in the letterbox and I pulled it out and I hadn't got my glasses on and Sally said what is that?, and I said, I think it's a list of the people from the police who were called out last night but didn't have to go. She said, show me. Ooh, she said, it's not, they given you a medal. And I said, What are you talking about? She said, read it. I put my glasses on it just said, Her Majesty the Queen on behalf of the Chief Constable of Kent is pleased to award her Jubilee medal to the following officers and there was my name on the list. And I found that very exciting. You know, I'd done it for services to the Kent Police. My services have been you know, had been a bloody nuisance most of the time [LAUGHTER]

Roy Fowler  4:31  

I think the Jubilee was '77 because she ascended in '52. I remember 

Jonathan Balcon  4:38  

That's right. 

Roy Fowler  4:39  

It's in my memory that I was going uptown on the IRT subway, I lived downtown at Astor Place and opposite me someone was reading the Daily News I think it was and the headline I remember to this day said George Dead Liz Queen.

Jonathan Balcon  4:58  

Hits, Sticks, Picks, Nicks!

Roy Fowler  5:03  

Right. 

Jonathan Balcon  5:03  

Roy I marched in the coronation procession, did you know? I'll show you the picture upstairs, quite an adventure.

Roy Fowler  5:11  

You've been around on these grand occasion. 

Jonathan Balcon  5:15  

Anyway, Mick was very pleased to be a Sir, delighted. And it's almost become a cliche, it hasn't been when anybody gets an honour of any sort, this may be an honour to me personally, but I must say, accept it on behalf of everybody. I'm sorry to be cynical about this but I mean, he did sincerely feel that it wasn't just to him it was for the studio. Now that was fine but I can tell you whose nose was put well out of joint was Reg Baker. And it was always felt Reg should have got an honour and not Mick. Who am I to query that? You know, I don't know. 

Roy Fowler  6:00  

Why not the two of them?

Jonathan Balcon  6:02  

Why not the two of them? The honour obviously came through his connection through the Labour Party. Whether or not he subscribed money to the Labour Party, I don't know but I have a feeling he did.

Roy Fowler  6:15  

This was during the Wilson era.

Jonathan Balcon  6:17  

Yes, this was during the Atlee era. It was after the '45 election. 

Roy Fowler  6:22  

The knighthood?

Jonathan Balcon  6:23  

Yes. 

Roy Fowler  6:24  

It was that early? Ah!

Jonathan Balcon  6:25  

It was '47

Roy Fowler  6:27  

Ah I thought it came later. Right.

Jonathan Balcon  6:30  

'47/'48 so it was an Atlee. And you know, he, as I say he and Alan Sainsbury and various others had done a lot to support Atlee getting in

Roy Fowler  6:40  

But also the studio had a great reputation for being patriotic as you say the flag was always in the background ...

Jonathan Balcon  6:46  

But it also had the reputation of being fairly left wing amongst certain sections of it. 

Roy Fowler  6:53  

Yeah. 

Jonathan Balcon  6:54  

I don't know what people like Charlie Friend, Charlie Creighton, Cavalcanti,  Basil, Michael.

Roy Fowler  7:04  

I think they all would have been left of centre.

Jonathan Balcon  7:06  

I think they would have been left of centre

Roy Fowler  7:07  

And Ivor Montague was as he was a member of the party 

Jonathan Balcon  7:11  

Ivor indeed. But of course Ivor, Ivor didn't stay at Ealing that long did he?

Roy Fowler  7:18  

Um, well again I guess not. I don't know, we would have to look it up

Speaker 1  7:21  

I don't think he did. I think he went on to work for somebody else. What always amazes me is the number of people who prior to Ealing passed through Mick's hands from Ronnie Neame and David Lean downwards and  upwards and indeed you yourself raised one or two well-known names. The other person and this is not really an Ealing thing, with whom I know he had a lot of problems was Robert  Flaherty, particularly over Man of Aran. Now I can't remember whether Mick was responsible for Nanook of the North, I don't think he was no.

Roy Fowler  8:02  

No, that was the Hudson Bay Company was responsible for that.

Speaker 1  8:05  

But he was responsible for Man of Aran. And of course, out of Man of Aran came Barbara Mullen and I remained firm friends with Barbara right up until the time she died. She was delightful with a slightly difficult husband. And then, of course, ah, I'd forgotten this ... There was the famous law case. This isn't Ealing, this is post Ealing and this was when he first met a young QC who he said to me afterwards, that man is not only brilliant, he's going to be a very successful lawyer, Leon Britton. And what happened was they had, because of Mick being Jewish, they had a second unit in Egypt to do certain exteriors that was run by a totally arian if you like chap, I can't remember his name, it'll come to sometime 

Roy Fowler  9:09  

This was on a specific picture do you mean? 

Jonathan Balcon  9:11  

This was on Sammy Going South

Roy Fowler  9:12  

Ah right.

Jonathan Balcon  9:14  

And something went wrong and this chap sued Mick and lost, but that was the only law case Mick got directly involved in as far as I know.  Although you will remember the MGM film about Rasputin when it was alleged that Prince Yusupov and others had murdered him, which indeed they did.

Roy Fowler  9:47  

Well, the implication in the film was that Princess Yusupov had been raped by by ...

Jonathan Balcon  9:56  

A libel action was brought

Roy Fowler  9:57  

That's right. 

Jonathan Balcon  9:59  

And as a result of which MGM lost?

Roy Fowler  10:01  

Yes, they did and had to pay, nobody quite knows still the amount. It was a very large sum of money.

Jonathan Balcon  10:07  

That's right. And as a result of that, when Mick was making I was a Spy, which could have been construed to refer part of it to a woman who was living in Belgium, he sent out, I can't remember who the hell he sent out but it was somebody quite well-known, with the script and this chap who had fought in the First World War discovered that he knew the husband of this woman, or had met him during the war. And they both got extremely drunk together and the husband and the wife signed every, initialled every page of the script, and he came back and Mick was off the hook. It alleged she'd been a whore or something like that. And I can't remember the true details it's in the book, it's in his book, including the name of the chap who went out were One thing did upset me terribly and I don't blame whoever did it in a way because they probably thought it was something else, but after we were bombed out in London instead of sending all our possessions down to Upper Parrock all of our possessions that came out of the flat in London, and eventually the Cheltenham Park Hotel were put into a dressing room at Ealing, including I might say a lot of my toys, like Skybird soldiers, Skybird models of the fleet, Britain soldiers, a lot of quite valuable stuff, and it was all stolen, or it all disappeared. Now what I think was these models were found by somebody in the dressing room not knowing what they were and thought they belonged to the model shop.

Roy Fowler  10:53  

Well, possibly on the other hand they could just have been simply nicked! {LAUGHTER]

Jonathan Balcon  10:53  

They could just have been simply but it did upset me at the time quite considerably because I could have sold them very handsomely. About, I mean they were beautiful models, little destroyers and aircraft carriers and battleships, the things a child had you know.

Roy Fowler  10:53  

How did Mick hire people do you have any idea? Did they come to him and he would interview them?

Jonathan Balcon  11:39  

He would hire people like script writers. I imagined he talked to Bill Rose himself for instance over the, over The Ladykillers. Tibby of course was on the staff. Certain young men would go to him like Michael Burkett. In fact, what I think happened with Michael Burkett was Rank said I've got this young man Burkett hanging around Pinewood he hasn't gotten an ACTT ticket at the moment but would you take him on in some capacity and Mick said yes. And in fact, Michael's stories of the making of The Ladykillers are quite amusing. I don't know if you knew it but in that final scene in The Ladykillers when the signal comes down and hits Alec on the head, it actually did happen and it knocked him out. 

Roy Fowler  13:18  

I didn't know that.

Jonathan Balcon  13:21  

And Alec was very upset about that

Roy Fowler  13:23  

Understandably

Jonathan Balcon  13:24  

Understandably. But as you can imagine, Michael said that as a unit it was hilarious because what with Peter Sellers and the others he said one really never stopped laughing. And Peter Sellars was a complete clown and a very  talented chap.  Hiring and firing ...

Roy Fowler  13:43  

There was  a lot of internal promotion too, from editor to director for example

Jonathan Balcon  13:49  

There was a yes. Yeah, it was run run very much on the lines of filling somebody else's shoes. He used to, I don't think I alluded to this yesterday at all after Hue and Cry, Henry Cornelius felt that he ought to go out, well Henry directed Hue and Cry didn't he or was it Passport to Pimlico?  I can't remember now. He went out on a limb Corney if you remember and he made the Galloping Sergeant, the Galloping Major ...

Roy Fowler  14:25  

Away from Ealing? 

Jonathan Balcon  14:25  

Away from Ealing, and Mick was furious you know. He used to take the attitude very much like a headmaster if my school is not good enough for everybody why the hell should they go anywhere else? They are being disloyal. And I found this slightly odd because I felt the one thing people ought to have is freedom of movement. He was a little upset when Dearden and Ralph went off on their own, particularly as they had made such a good team on The Blue Lamp. Particularly as Basil had made, although it wasn't successful, it was a beautiful film which we alluded to yesterday, The Saraband for Dead Lovers. But as you know, they set, I can't remember what they called themselves in the end, but he always felt it was slightly disloyal to do anything except under the Ealing orbit. And I thought this was a little cruel. 

Roy Fowler  15:15  

So they were his people in effect?

Jonathan Balcon  15:16  

They were they were my people and they've done things for me. I think Tibby alludes to this in his book, because I don't know if you ever knew Tibby did you?

Roy Fowler  15:32  

No

Jonathan Balcon  15:33  

One of the more delightful people I've ever met, but Mick kept him at arm's length, really, because they lived quite close, they lived at Oxted. And he had a very distinguished family Tibby because I think it was his brother was a general or quite a well-known soldier of some sort.  But Tibby who you would look at and think that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth had this incredible sense of humour. And of course, beautiful timing. And I thought was one of the funniest men I've ever met you know.

Roy Fowler  16:04  

A mischievous sense of humour do you mean?

Jonathan Balcon  16:07  

Pure mischievous. He was, he was absolutely, he had a wicked sense of humour. Just, sorry, post nasal drip. 

Roy Fowler  16:31  

Do you want to stop? Rolling. 

Jonathan Balcon  16:35  

Right sir. Tibby. Yes, he, I suppose you can attribute I mean, let's forget the actual physical directors for a moment. You can attribute the great success of the comedies particularly to Tibby and to people like Hal Mason, who kept the units going.  I mean Mick admits in his book that he saw the synopsis for Lavender Hill Mob and never thought it would make a good comedy. Of course, Johnson Massey loved it because it was all about their refinery in effect. And this is what the original story was going to be about was about Johnson Massey and refining gold in some form or another when Tibby came up with this brilliant idea. But ...

Roy Fowler  17:39  

Well, this is one of the especial things I think about Ealing with the comedies especially they had very tight scripts. There was none of this nonsense about new pages today that people suddenly had to learn and clearly it had all been written very carefully plotted ahead of time. Least I assume so because ...

Jonathan Balcon  18:01  

No, I think you're absolutely right.

Roy Fowler  18:02  

I mean, they're very neat films.

Jonathan Balcon  18:04  

Because the final drafts of most of the scripts, I think, are in the BFI. 

Roy Fowler  18:08  

Yes.

Jonathan Balcon  18:08  

Of the Ealing scripts. The ones I used to read were always very tight documents. I mean, I remember The Cruel Sea you know. Reading a script was a curious thing isn't it because you'll get these abbreviations like i-n-t and e-x-t, and unless you're one of the cognoscenti, which I'm not really, you don't know, there's a certain amount of difficulty in reading ...

Roy Fowler  18:35  

It is the shorthand yes

Jonathan Balcon  18:36  

Reading that sort of dialogue

Roy Fowler  18:37  

That reminds me I had I had one letter from your father when you said The Cruel Sea it suddenly struck a chord because I saw that in New York and I found it very difficult to understand the sound, the voices, the and I wrote and said, is this some fault of the recording or is it this proverbial problem of English accents in an American context? And it was your father who replied. I think he said they took the utmost caution or care in the recording

Jonathan Balcon  19:11  

We've got a copy here there's no problem in the dialogue.

Roy Fowler  19:14  

Indeed now I've seen it since subsequently and there is no problem. It must have been the cinema in where I saw it

Jonathan Balcon  19:18  

I mean, you know the famous story about The Cruel Sea of course? 

Roy Fowler  19:20  

What is, what's that? 

Jonathan Balcon  19:22  

Well, you know that, the very moving scene where he depth charges the survivors? Well, if you look at the seagulls closely ... 

Roy Fowler  19:31  

They are going backwards 

Jonathan Balcon  19:33  

It was printed the wrong way round

Roy Fowler  19:35  

Well, it's not printed the wrong way round it is much easier to back away. You do this with car crashes too ...

Jonathan Balcon  19:41  

Oh do you?

Roy Fowler  19:42  

yeah, run the camera in reverse rather than actually run over an actor [LAUGHTER] That would have been too dodgy for the people in the water.

Jonathan Balcon  19:50  

I had a great friend, terrible reprobate, I mean, his sex life was quite disgraceful. And he had a terrible drunk and he was an ex-lieutenant fleet air arm and he was in fact the master bomber at Toranto when we sank the Italian fleet. And he had a terrible thing happen to him, in fact in the Pacific because a prop flew off an aircraft and castrated him. So that was why his sex life was so odd. But he was one of the naval advisors on The Cruel Sea, I didn't know this until long after. And they had, whether it was I can't remember it wasn't a Corvette. It was what it was one of those little ships and they were sailing out of Liverpool or somewhere to do some exteriors and a Royal Naval Ship signalled them you know who the hell are you? Charles signalled back being a naval officer, HMS Compass Rose bound for The Cruel Sea.

Roy Fowler  20:53  

Mad.  Tell me, the other people Michael Schuman, did you know Michael Schuman?

Jonathan Balcon  20:56  

I did know Michael.

Roy Fowler  20:57  

Lovely man I thought.

Jonathan Balcon  20:59  

A nice man, but I never got to know Michael that well, he, from what I remember he was fairly rubicon character. He had quite a pink complexion didn't he?

Roy Fowler  21:11  

Yes I guess he did. 

Jonathan Balcon  21:13  

I think he was another of the Red Lion lot.

Roy Fowler  21:15  

I think he was and he died young, probably from cirrhosis

Jonathan Balcon  21:18  

But what did Michael do? Was he as an assistant director?

Roy Fowler  21:21  

No, he was a director.

Jonathan Balcon  21:23  

What did he direct? Titfield Thunderbolt no?

Roy Fowler  21:28  

I can't remember. Well ...

Jonathan Balcon  21:29  

I can easily look it up. I've got a list of all Mick's pictures upstairs.

Roy Fowler  21:33  

He had a wicked sense of humour, which in a way you were talking about Tibby Clarke before, all of them were a little ...

Jonathan Balcon  21:38  

Yes it all fits in. And then there were the odd chaps. There was a chap called Rudkin who was Hal's assistant. And whenever we were going abroad, or we were travelling anywhere, Ruddy was always the one who had to go and collect our passports and present them to us. And we were feather bedded as a family there's no doubt about it. And when Mick and Aileen went off on the boat train to Southampton bound for South Africa, I mean a sort of entourage saw them off you know.

Roy Fowler  22:09  

Didn't Mick maintain his distance at the studio. I gather he did right? He, you said before there was always a certain arm's length ...

Jonathan Balcon  22:19  

Well, let's put it this way. He spent a lot of time in the little office and it was a very unpretentious office you know. I don't know if you ever saw it?

Roy Fowler  22:30  

I did indeed. Yes. The villa up front?

Jonathan Balcon  22:33  

Yes. It's had a freize of San Demitro by Barnett Freeman on one wall, had a picture of a Aileen, it had a large silver cigarette box with MEB on it, because there was a source of Players perfectos cigarettes that he always seemed to have and he smoked a lot in those days. There was a diary clock which I'm sad to say I gave to David Bill so that was obviously snaffled by the liquidators and it was against each hour, with a clock in the middle it it said Miss Slater filled in what he was doing. A nice blotter which I got upstairs, but it's falling to pieces; a large ashtray with an Alsatian dog on it, some nice limed oak furniture, chair, desk; nice curtains which I think Aileen arranged for him. You couldn't get much else into the room. And then of course, he had his back to the French windows and the garden which he loved.  But he did wander out, yes, he did wander onto the set, but I think he felt like a lot of commanding officers feel and certainly like a lot of naval captains feel, you don't go into the wardroom unless you're invited - you know the attitude of mind. And I often felt when I went onto the set to watch something it was I wonder why Mick sent for him to have a look you know.

Roy Fowler  24:06  

Spying for the front office.

Jonathan Balcon  24:09  

And I told you about the famous occasion with George Barnes did I?

Roy Fowler  24:13  

No. I think not.

Jonathan Balcon  24:16  

Anthony Barnes, his son was a tiger scholar at Eton and was a contemporary of mine. And George was a friend of Jill's and of Mick's and they had this house called Prawls which was on the cliff above Romney Marsh.

Roy Fowler  24:31  

We're talking about George Barnes the BBC man?

Jonathan Balcon  24:33  

Yeah. And I was invited down to stay the night as one does with a school friend and I think children know call it a sleepover don't they, or something like that.  Anyway it was a nice summer evening like yesterday and George and Ann Barnes and Anthony said, Let's go for a walk. And you wont believe this we walked literally 100 yards out of Prawls and over a sort of little tor and there was an entire Ealing unit on location with Charlie Friend making The Loves of Joanna Godden with Googie. And Charlie looked at me and Charlie was not the easiest person when he was directing a film, I mean, I loved him dearly afterwards, but he look round and thought, God Almighty, what's this? And I said to George after I said, I don't think we should have stayed too long. I said, I don't think Charlie Friend appreciated us. 

Roy Fowler  25:19  

That's hilarious yes.

Jonathan Balcon  25:29  

There they were the whole lot with lights and those awful bits of tin, reflectors aren't they? And Googie doing something, again a nice, pleasant Ealing film. I mean, it was and Googie, as always at her best. I remember her in a non-Ealing film right at the beginning of the war, with Ralph Richardson playing a Dutch lady. Do you remember that? 

Roy Fowler  25:58  

Yes that ...

Jonathan Balcon  25:58  

Where he was a shipbuilder, and he eventually sabotaged his own ...

Roy Fowler  26:02  

Yes that was Nick and Emeric. 

Jonathan Balcon  26:04  

That's right

Roy Fowler  26:05  

Um, The Silver Fleet wasn't it?

Jonathan Balcon  26:09  

The Silver Fleet, still shown on television.  Now Ralph Richardson I don't think played a lot at Ealing did he? I can't remember him ...

Roy Fowler  26:22  

We'd have to look it up.

Jonathan Balcon  26:24  

Yes, I don't think so

Roy Fowler  26:26  

For a long time he was under contract to Korda. That was before the war of course.

Jonathan Balcon  26:31  

Of course he was, The Shape of Things to Come

Roy Fowler  26:33  

Indeed.

Jonathan Balcon  26:34  

Yes I'd forgotten that. And of course, the l film I still love The Four feathers, showed last week. Bloody well made.

Roy Fowler  26:45  

Did you, you saw it did you?

Jonathan Balcon  26:46  

I saw the end of it because I love the battle scene. You know my frustrated military. I'm not sure how militarily correct it is, but it was I mean, it's the old story the British Army slaughtered the native army because it had proper weapons for once. Mind you it got it's comeuppance from the Zulus.

Roy Fowler  27:04  

Indeed. We haven't really, we mentioned the Red Lion but we haven't said a great deal about it, did you, but you were probably too young. 

Jonathan Balcon  27:13  

I was too young to go into the pub.  All I remember is that Charlie Friend was a great connoisseur of bitter beer. And he was also a great connoisseur of the Kentish hop fields. And I always remember Charlie said, when you're older enough, he said, there's only one beer that's really worth drinking and it's brewed I think by Shepherd Neame and he said, it's called Faversham Triple X. I don't think they brew it anymore. But he really was a pinter man you know, nothing would Charlie love more than sitting in a pub with a pint in his hand listening to people talk. And he was, he was a dire character in some ways, but he had this gorgeous wife. Sonya was a laugh a minute she really was. It was tragic really because they were such a devoted couple and when Charlie died, and he died quite young, she completely went to pieces and as his widow she came to stay at Upper Parrock and all the verve had gone out of her. She was Norwegian by extraction. You probably saw on the back of a door in your bedroom the citation did you? 

Roy Fowler  28:32  

I saw it, I didn't read it. Yeah. 

Jonathan Balcon  28:35  

Well, it starts off. It always amuses me because I've got some Norwegian friends who love reading it Vert Haakon norwegian conna, which somehow always amuses me. And of course the Hailsham picture that I picked up that night at the National Film Theatre is in your room too. That's the one of London Bridge. 

Roy Fowler  28:57  

I didn't notice it. 

Jonathan Balcon  28:59  

Over the little dressing table by the door.

Roy Fowler  29:01  

I'll check it all out before I leave.

Jonathan Balcon  29:02  

That was the Purcell award. Those sorts of things I've hung on to. I did sell, and I think Ronald Grant has got them again, there was a little award for The Lavender Hill Mob won at the Cannes Film Festival. I did sell and David Bill bought it I think say it's in the hands of the liquidators, the Ealing visitors book, which was done in Ealing what I call Ealing green, {LAUGHTER]  with the logo on the front specifically for the visit of the princesses when they came down that day, and they both signed it.  And I said, Bill, David Bill, bought that so I presume the liquidators have got that. I didn't really sell that much. It was only that we were so hard up at the time I had to have some cash. And I didn't think they were things that would matter and because they were going to somewhere like Ronald Grant I didn't mind

Roy Fowler  30:06  

No providing they do have a home that will look after them

Jonathan Balcon  30:09  

I was delighted to see that the two John Piper pictures were in the Imperial War Museum exhibition. He had two John Piper's, one that Sally was a very dull picture. The art department at Ealing of course was interesting. Anthony Mendelsohn was ...

Roy Fowler  30:32  

Ernest Irving

Jonathan Balcon  30:34  

No that was the music department.

Roy Fowler  30:35  

I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon.

Jonathan Balcon  30:36  

I think, dear old Ernest, yes, the most bad tempered man who hated Penn. I think the reason he hated Penn was everything Ernest wasn't he was young good looking and had a beautiful wife. But Ernest I understand, I mean, I was always if I was near the music recording studio terribly careful not to go near it because I'd be warned Ernest would blow his top if anybody interfered with him. But um, there are various stories about Ernest in the book. But again, you see the music, let's face it rather like the artists that were chosen to do Ealing posters, the composers that were chosen to do Ealing music were all extremely high quality. 

Roy Fowler  31:28  

I'd say, yes. 

Jonathan Balcon  31:29  

Vaughn Williams, William Walton. I had, I didn't tell you this, but not last year, the year before we had lunch on Ischia with Lady Walton and she was waxing lyrical about Mick and I said, Now, come off it. I said, you know, he, your husband did not do that much work for him. And she said he, oh, I do remember him so well. She's a bit fey now I might tell you, she's a lovely person and she’s got the most beautiful garden. But it was it's so nice to go abroad and meet somebody like that and hear them talk about one's parent in the sort of terms they did.

Roy Fowler  32:09  

I cut you short when you were going to talk about Anthony Mendelsohn.

Jonathan Balcon  32:13  

No Anthony Mendelssohn in the art department on the, you insist I say costume, on the costume side, and Andrew Lowe, whose work I showed you upstairs. The art department on the whole were very good and I think most of the sets that were designed for most of the productions were very authentic. I remember the set of Halfway House, I remember watching the final scene of Halfway House being shot when the building is burning and Glynnis and Mervin are standing, these two ghosts are standing in the middle. I found the Halfway House a very moving film funnily enough. A little out of the ordinary for for for Ealing, as indeed was Dead of Night but Dead of Night ...

Roy Fowler  33:05  

That's my favourite. 

Jonathan Balcon  33:06  

Isn't it extraordinary?

Roy Fowler  33:07  

I love that film.

Jonathan Balcon  33:08  

You see Dead of Night is still talked about as one of the great Ealing productions. I agree that that final sequence of Michael Redgrave is one of the most horrifying I can remember. You know where you are left in that final scene with the first scene repeating and you just don't know what to think you know. I had nightmares for months. 

Roy Fowler  33:30  

Yes it sticks in the memory that film

Jonathan Balcon  33:31  

That awful Hugo, ugh!

Roy Fowler  33:34  

"I have been waiting for you Sylvester". 

Jonathan Balcon  33:36  

Yes, oh and that terrifying bit when he smashes Hugo's head and then talks in the same voice as Hugo, oh brilliant. Who directed it?

Roy Fowler  33:47  

Cav

Jonathan Balcon  33:47  

Cav directed that one did he?

Roy Fowler  33:49  

Yes

Jonathan Balcon  33:51  

Now Cav you see was a sad case. Cav had been very much involved in in, in in the avant garde movement in France had he not?

Roy Fowler  34:01  

Indeed he had, he had made experimental films. Rien que les heures I think was his

Jonathan Balcon  34:07  

Brazilian by extraction, lived with mum. I don't think a practising homo but definitely homosexual. Cried at every opportunity, adored Aileen and Aileen adored him she had a thing about poofs actually because she loved Ivor Novello and she adored Robin Moore.

Roy Fowler  34:27  

They are gay people nowadays not poofs.

Jonathan Balcon  34:29  

Sorry, gay people. She of course, I think it was a safety factor with her because I think a lot of men were very attracted to her, a lot of men and she would wouldn't have any of it. She gave them the brush off completely. The one thing I never ever saw her do was flirt with anybody and I think she had many admirers because she was a very good looking woman.

Roy Fowler  34:54  

Was she grand, sort of? A grand lady?

Jonathan Balcon  35:01  

That is a very difficult, no I didn't think she was, she certainly had the common touch partly because, I say this unkindly, a lot of her relations were very nouveau, as indeed let's face it so was Mick but he somehow seemed to carried it off. Aileen I don't think was grand no, she liked to play the big hostess. I don't think she was grand you'd have to ask Jill about. No you could never have called her a grande dame, she put on airs from time to time.

Roy Fowler  35:40  

Conscious of what, her position as the wife of the head of a studio?

Jonathan Balcon  35:44  

Yes and I remember being acutely embarrassed in certain shops she used to go.  She had one terrible failing, terrible failing, she became over familiar with people, particularly people from, who were slightly lower than her, like shopkeepers, and restaurant managers and greengrocers. And they would do something wrong and she'd cut them out of her life completely having been over familiar and they couldn't understand that.

Roy Fowler  36:19  

Good God.

Jonathan Balcon  36:20  

Don't misinterpret this, Roy, I'm sure you understand this better than me. There is a way of dealing with people who may not be from the same background or the same intellectual capabilities as you as yourself without being patronising and without making them feel awkward. Now, this may sound awfully trite to you, but that is the secret of being a good officer.

Roy Fowler  36:48  

I think that's absolutely true. Not just an officer but any kind of boss

Jonathan Balcon  36:52  

I mean I use officer in the broadest sense that is what the TA taught me. 

Roy Fowler  36:56  

You get people to do things for you.

Speaker 1  36:58  

And my troops, I like to think would have done anything for me. The only person, now this will amuse you, I ever had a serious row with, and it had never happened in the regiment before, was my own squadron Sergeant Major, who believe it or not, was Father of the Chapel for the Daily Mirror and he used to sit in a little office with let's go with Labour up on the wall and he used to invite people round to his little office after a drill night at Lincoln's Inn and he'd say, if a member of the management comes through that door, he said, it's out, everybody out. Anyway, I had a blazing row with him and I had to say Sergeant Major Knowles you will go and sit in the guard room until I send for you. Because I said, I will not be spoken to like that. And he said, what?  I said, do you want me to place you under arrest? He said, no. I said, well go and sit in the guard room and wait there until I send for you. Anyway, believe it or not, we are now the firmest friends. Poor old Eric Knowles, he's going blind but he's a guide at one of these military museums up in Lincoln and I ring him up once a month just to find out how he is and we're on Jon and Eric terms. Well now you know that's how I feel it should be, he was bloody rude to me, he behaved disgracefully and in any regular regiment he'd have been court martialled actually and reduced to the ranks but I wasn't going to have that I was going to make an issue of it, I just said,  go away and cool off.

Roy Fowler  38:33  

Well people do push they they see how far they can go especially ...

Speaker 1  38:38  

I will be pushed so far but then I suddenly say we call a halt.

Roy Fowler  38:45  

Enough is enough.

Jonathan Balcon  38:48  

I was on duty in Tunbridge Wells one day over the air the station officer said to one of the regulars oh don't worry, it's only a bloody special. And I was I was commandant at the time and I walked straight back to the front office at Tunbridge Wells Police Station I said to the sergeant, could you have a word with me outside?  I wouldn't do it in front of everybody. And I got him in the corridor I said, if I ever hear you say a word like that again over the air, I said, I will crucify you in front of the Chief Constable and he apologised but it really upset me that sort of thing you know. Anyway,

Roy Fowler  39:25  

Anyway. Well, run your mind over the various departments and buildings. 

Jonathan Balcon  39:35  

Bert Lee Mill we've talked about a great character, chief projectionist, a real cockney. When his wife was 42 he came to Mick in the office he said, I don't know, governor, he said I'm going to swap her for two 21s. That was Bert's sort of sense of humour. I always enjoyed seeing ...

Roy Fowler  39:53  

A lovable cockney huh?

Jonathan Balcon  39:54  

I always went to see him whenever I was in the studio. He always showed me any film I wanted to see. The camera department I didn't really know because people like Dougie Slocombe and others were Gods really, the directors I more or less knew all of them. Except Michael Truman I didn't know that well. The casting department, there was a gorgeous girl in the casting department who we all fell in love with when we were older. What the hell was she called? I can't remember what she was called, Phyllis Crocker was one of the people but this other girl I can't remember she  had long blonde hair and I thought she was an absolute cracker when I was 16 I can't remember what she was called now. Hal of course, one loved and Hal had his entourage from him, around him;  the money bags like Reg and Lesley Baker, I always found very dull and dreary and Reg I thought actually was a pompous git. He could be terribly pompous Reg, and he had the most frightful habit of sort of going [SNIFF, SNIFF] every few minutes, which used to drive me up the wall, but I was always mitigated by the fact that Reg had a very distinguished First World War and was always known in the industry as the major you know.

Roy Fowler  41:15  

Now, he and your father got along well together or was there ...

Jonathan Balcon  41:21  

They got along I don't think there was any great affection there.  It's difficult to say I think you know they were partners but that was no more. I remember going to Lawndon which is near Tenterton, which was the house that Reg bought he had to sell it thanks to Peter's debacle.  I went once I think, there was an occasion when it was thought that Jill and Peter might get off together. But I mean, Jill, I think would have had a fit had she got involved with Peter, he wasn't the most attractive character. And Gwen, Reg's wife, I'm sad to say was a very physically unattractive woman. And one always wondered why such a handsome man as Reg acquired such a really not a terribly physically attractive woman but I suppose that's life I don't know. Yes, the money people were boring. The little room where we all had lunch was quite fun. I mean, if Mick couldn't have lunch with us, we went and had lunch with Miss Slater or somebody like that in the little executive dining room at Ealing, but when it comes down to electricians, plasterers carpenters, I didn't really know too many of them, although I knew them by sight you know, and they were always very pleasant.

Roy Fowler  42:54  

And did you, were you treated like the boss's son?

Jonathan Balcon  42:57  

No, no, nobody ever grovelled

Roy Fowler  43:01  

It sounds very friendly. Yes,

Speaker 1  43:04  

Grovelling wasn't in the nature of anybody there. It was a film factory and they were there to make films and they enjoyed doing it within the parameters of what they were allowed to do and not allowed to do. There was comparatively little labour trouble there were always the odd threats of strikes you know.

Roy Fowler  43:23  

Let me turnover.

End Of Side 9