Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

82 DOCUMENTARY FILM NEWS John Taylor A Close-up by early in ad 1930 there entered the dingy cutting rooms of the EMB Film Unit (then three souls strong) a plump and repulsive small boy who had clearly graduated, multa cum laude, from Dr Will Hay's noted academy. This boy was soon voted impertinent as well as repulsive; he jammed the spike of a Debrie tripod on to J. D. Davidson's foot and knocked Grierson's hat (a very fine Borsalino) into the Thames near Gravesend. At that time the multitude and variety of bad ends prognosticated, and even desired, for this young gentleman were remarkable. Few of those who came perforce and reluctantly into contact with him realized (a) that he was working out of his system a grouch against human-kind caused by his forced entry into films as an alternative to running away to sea, and (b) that the adolescent tortures he so skilfully inflicted on his superiors were the first signs of that strength of character which, with the passing of the years, made him the most reliable, courageous and persistent member of the documentary movement in Great Britain. It would be difficult to find so far a cry as that from our first impressions of this foul urchin to the solid figure we know today as John Taylor (his middle name, you may care to know, is Elston), producer-in-charge of the Crown Film Unit, creator of Realist, married man with two uproarious children (his wife is Barbara Mullen), and proprietor of an impressive estate which is somewhat cluttered up not only by extensive asparagus beds but also by the micro-manipulator and other accessories of Photomicrography Ltd — another Taylor creation. To be quite truthful, only a short period elapsed between John's press-ganging into documentary and his emergence as a valuable addition to a movement whose speed of development in those early days called for great intensity of work and an enthusiasm for films which some contemporary technicians might well emulate. John became a good camera-assistant, a good cutter, and a good getter-on-with-any-job. He was assistant' to Flaherty during the period of Industrial Britain, and if you get him and Golightly into a good mood they will tell you what happened in Birmingham one autumn evening in 1931. He so impressed Flaherty that he was pinched from the EMB and worked on Man of Aran from beginning to end. For the record, let it be remembered that John Taylor, who was still quite a kid, ran the location laboratory which Flaherty set up in Aran, and that the bulk of the negative passed through his hands. He came back from his Irish sojourn both wiser and wilder. Almost immediately he had to buy a dinner jacket and a tropical outfit and go on location in Ceylon where, thanks to careful arranging, he never had to carry anything heavier B. W. x than the superbly equipped Leica which Flaherty had given him after the Aran film. Again for the record, let it be remembered that the enormously comprehensive set of stills of most aspects of Ceylon — many of which dealt with subjects not in the film — were entirely his work ; and that as a location organizer he proved magnificent. Round about this time John began to feel that his education had been too rudely interrupted by the claims of documentary, and with everyone's blessing and approval he took a year off and studied the Arts, etcetera, at the University of Edinburgh. John has always had an instinctive and indeed uncannily accurate appreciation of true values, with the result that the academic opportunities of Edinburgh were quickly and usefully absorbed, and he acquired one of the few attributes he had hitherto lacked — the ability of organized thinking. To this he shortly added a pungent, individual and effective prose style which he should employ (at least in the interests of documentary journalism) much more frequently than he does. At this period, too, he emerged as a film director. Eastwards he flew, shooting with Strand for Imperial Airways at Bahrein, and then, in solitary state but with Arthur Elton's blessing, directing and photographing that extraordinary study of an oriental country on to which a dictator was billposting Western technologies — Dawn of Iran. Then, with Elton and Anstey, he worked (and how he worked) on Housing Problems. On this film he was partnered on location by the everlamented Ruby Grierson. This partnership continued on many films afterwards, culminating in that lovely and simple film of the early war days — They Also Serve, which, in effect, they made together. Reverting, however, to chronology, John then joined Realist as a director and made The Smoke Menace and The Londoners. The latter was one of the first feature-length dramatized documentaries, and people might as well realize right now that John's reconstructions of Victorian London — done in a small studio and not with all that amount of money— still match up to a lot of much more elaborate stuff which has come out of the camera in subsequent and more luxurious days. It was about this time that the then producer and managing director of Realist, convinced that the journey to Carey Street was imminent, presented the tottering firm to John Taylor, and fled to the flesh pots of Film Centre. Since that day Realist has never looked back. During the war years it became the focal point of forthright production — so much so that some of its best films were consigned to the deepest oubliettes of the MOI immediately the show-copy was ready. In the war years John, with Frank Sainsbury and Max Anderson as constant aides and boon companions, was responsible for an output of films whose variety, high standards, and integrity could not be equalled by any other unit. This happened because John Taylor made himself become a really superb producer. Commanding then, as he does now, the absolute loyalty, confidence and respect of those who work with him. he built up at Realist a team of film-makers (and a very large one at that) which was — and still is under Brian Smith — pretty nearly unbeatable. Today he is at Crown — the first producer of that Unit to show not the slightest sign of a nervous breakdown. His appointment to this post was significant. John Taylor has never sought, nor pretended to, the frills and furbelows of civil service diplomacies. He frequently appears to be almost inarticulate — a Machiavellian tactic which has caused many a flj Whuehallite to bite the dust. For John knows verv well what he is up to: he is after producing the best films on the most-needed subjects, and behind what ap (Continued foot of column 3, opposite page)