Oscar Profile #127: Jack Clayton

Born March 1, 1921 in Brighton, England, not much is known about Jack Clayton’s early life. What is known is that he began as a child actor at the age of 8 in the British film, Dark Red Roses alongside his sister Jill. He wrote to producer Alexander Korda asking to be taken on as a tea boy, a young apprentice whose job, among other things, is to make tea for his associates. He was hired by Korda at the age of 14 and rose to assistant director and film editor. Among the films he worked on as assistant director were 1940’s The Thief of Bagdad and 1941’s Major Barbara.

Clayton directed his first film, the 1944 documentary Naples Is a Battlefield while in the Royal Air Force during World War II. After the war he worked primarily as an associate producer on such films as 1949’s The Queen of Spades; 1952’s Moulin Rouge; 1955’s I Am a Camera and 1956’s Moby Dick. He was finally given an opportunity to direct another film, the 1956 short The Bespoke Overcoat which he co-produced with George K. Arthur. The film won an Oscar for Best Short Subject, the award officially going to Arthur. Clayton had received an award of his own for the film from the Venice Film Festival when it was shown there in 1955.

Finally given a major film to direct, Clayton received an Oscar nomination of his own for that first film, 1959’s Room at the Top which earned a total of six nominations and won two for Neil Paterson’s screenplay and Simone Signoret as the year’s best actress. Despite the acclaim, Clayton would direct only six more feature films, all of which were noteworthy. They were 1961’s The Innocents with Deborah Kerr for which he was nominated for the DGA award by his fellow directors; 1964’s The Pumpkin Eater with Anne Bancroft and Peter Finch; 1967’s Our Mother’s House with Dirk Bogarde and Pamela Franklin from a screenplay co-written by his wife, Haya Harareet; 1974’s The Great Gatsby with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow; 1983’s Something Wicked This Way Comes with Jason Robards and 1987’s The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne with Maggie Smith and Bob Hoskins.

Clayton made a comeback which earned him a BAFTA nomination with the 1992 British TV production of Memento Mori from Muriel Sparks’ novel with Maggie Smith, but that was it. He died February 26, 1995, eight days before his 74th birthday. Former actress Harareet, co-star of the 1959 epic, Ben-Hur was his third wife and widow.

Although Clayton’s output was sparse, he was hailed during his lifetime as an exponent of social realism and one of the most literary of filmmakers. Six of the seven films he directed were based on novels.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

ROOM AT THE TOP (1959)

Based on John Braine’s 1957 angry young man novel, Clayton’s film presents an uncompromising look at a post-World War II England in which a social climbing heel played by Laurence Harvey will stop at nothing to achieve financial success. He badly mistreats the married woman (Simone Signoret) who gives up a comfortable life to become his mistress while pursuing the young and naïve boss’s daughter (Heather Sears).

The film received plenty of awards recognition, most of it directed at Signoret who won both an Oscar and a BAFTA for her performance. It brought Clayton his only Oscar nomination as well as the only nominations for Harvey and Hermione Baddeley as Signoret’s blowsy friend whose memorable telling off of Harvey’s character is one of the film’s highlights..

THE INNOCENTS (1961)

Generally regarded as Clayton’s most masterful film, this version of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw leaves it open to viewer interpretation as to whether the sexually repressed governess (Deborah Kerr) imagined or intuited that her young charges (Martin Stephens, Pamela Franklin) were possessed by the ghosts of the children’s former valet and governess. Georges Auric’s foreboding score and Freddie Francis’ chilling cinematography add to the uncertainty.

The screenplay by William Archibald and Truman Capote won an Edgar Allan Poe award and was nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award for Best Written Drama. Clayton received his only nomination for a Director’s Guild Award for this film.

THE PUMPKIN EATER (1964)

Clayton’s penchant for getting strong performances from his female stars reached its zenith with Harold Pinter’s austere adaptation of Penelope Mortimer’s semi-autobiographical novel. Anne Bancroft, who bore a striking resemblance to Mortimer, gave one of her best performances as a woman who is pregnant with her ninth child from three different husbands. Mortimer, who was married to actor Jon Mortimer, had six children with four different men, only two of whom she married. Actress Emily Mortimer is her daughter with Sir John.

Clayton not only gets a terrific performance from Oscar nominated Bancroft, but also from Peter Finch as her straying third husband; James Mason as a particularly nasty troublemaker; Maggie Smith as one of Finch’s conquests and Sir Cedric Hardwicke in his final role as Bancroft’s father.

THE GREAT GATSBY (1974)

Francis Ford Coppola adapted this version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel the same year he won an Oscar for directing The Godfather Part II. Another Coppola film, The Conversation lost the Best Picture Oscar to Godfather II. There’s no way of knowing if Coppola had directed Gatsby if the film would have turned out any better, but Clayton is clearly out of his element here. His usual expertise in directing strong women completely fails him in his direction of a badly miscast Mia Farrow as Daisy. Robert Redford looks the part, but is woefully wan as Gatsby while Sam Waterston as Nick and Bruce Dern as Tom are left to carry the film. A 2000 TV version with Mira Sorvino as Daisy, Toby Stephens (Maggie Smith’s son) as Gatsby, Paul Rudd as Nick and Martin Donovan as Tom was infinitely better. A new version form Baz Luhmann is on the way.

THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE (1987)

Clayton’s last theatrical film from Brian Moore’s novel was one of his best. Clayton, who described himself as an “ex-Catholic”, was the perfect choice to direct this film about a devout Irish Catholic woman in early 1950s Dublin gradually losing her faith.

Maggie Smith delivers one of her most unforgettable performances as the lonely spinster who opens her heart to a dumpy little man, played by Bob Hoskins, only to find that his only interest is in the money he thinks she has.

Smith won one of her numerous BAFTA awards for her performance but regrettably missed out on a deserved Oscar nomination.