Oscar Profile #218: Ronald Neame

Born April 23, 1911 in London, England to early British film director Elwin Neame and his wife, silent screen star Ivy Close, Ronald Neame was one of the true renaissance men of the movies, working as an assistant director, cinematographer, producer, writer and ultimately director.

Neame was only 18 when he worked as assistant director to Alfred Hitchcock on the 1929 film, Blackmail. By 1933 he earned his first credit as cinematographer for the musical comedy, Happy. His career as a cinematographer reached its apex in the early 1940s with Gabriel Pascal’s film of George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s One of Our Aircraft Is Missing, Noel Coward and David Lean’s In Which We Serve and Lean’s This Happy Breed and Blithe Spirit. He became a producer and writer on This Happy Breed. Already an Oscar nominee for Best Special Effects for 1942’s One of Our Aircraft Is Missing, he earned additional nominations for his adapted screenplays of 1946’s Brief Encounter and 1947’s Great Expectations, both directed by Lean.

Neame married his first wife Beryl Heanly in 1932. Their son Christopher became a successful producer as did their grandson Gareth Neame.

Neame directed his first film, the thriller Take My Life in 1947. Having worked with Alec Guinness as cinematographer on Great Expectations and Oliver Twist, he directed him to great effect in 1952’s The Promoter, 1958’s The Horse’s Mouth and 1960’s Tunes of Glory. He also had great success directing Gregory Peck in 1954’s Man With a Million, Clifton Webb in 1956’s The Man Who Never Was, Judy Garland in 1963’s I Could Go on Singing (her last film), Deborah Kerr in 1964’s The Chalk Garden, Shirley MacLaine in 1966’s Gambit, Maggie Smith in 1969’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Albert Finney in 1970’s Scrooge, the all-star cast in 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure, Jon Voight in 1974’s The Odessa File, Sean Connery and Natalie Wood in 1979’s Meteor, Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson in 1980’s Hopscotch and Matthau and Jill Clayburgh in 1981’s The First Monday in October.

Having divorced Heanly, his wife of sixty years, in 1992, Neame married second wife Donna Friedberg in 1993. He received the BAFTA Fellowship Award, the British Academy’s highest honor in 1996 for his contributions to the British film industry.

Ronald Neame died as the result of a fall in his Los Angeles home in 2010 at the age of 99. His son Christopher died the following year at 68. Grandson Gareth carries on the family’s show business tradition.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

TUNES OF GLORY (1960)

Having worked with John Mills and Alec Guinness as producer and writer on David Lean’s Great Expectations and Guinness again in Oliver Twist, The Promoter and The Horse’s Mouth, Neame was the ideal director for this military outpost drama in which the two actors play the opposite of their usual personas – the usually garrulous Mills is the introverted one here and the usually introverted Guinness is the garrulous one. The film’s screenplay was nominated for an Oscar. Mills and Guinness, as well as the screenplay and producer Neame were nominated for Baftas. John Fraser and Susannah York stood out as the young lovers in the supporting cast.

THE CHALK GARDEN (1964)

Gladys Cooper, who played Deborah Kerr’s dictatorial mother in 1958’s Separate Tables was to have repeated her Tony nominated portrayal of the even more demanding grandmother of troubled Hayley Mills who battles governess Kerr for the girl’s soul in Neame’s adaptation of Enid Bagnold’s play, but overtime on My Fair Lady forced her to withdraw. She was replaced by Edith Evans who played the part in London the year after Cooper created it on Broadway. Both actresses were Oscar nominated at year’s end, Cooper for My Fair Lady, Evans for this. They lost to Lila Kedrova in Zorba the Greek. Evans and Kerr were both nominated for Baftas.

THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE (1969)

Vanessa Redgrave triumphed as the self-absorbed title schoolteacher in London and Zoe Caldwell won a Tony for the Broadway version, but Maggie Smith in her first Oscar winning role is the Jean Brodie that is preserved forever in Neame’s beautifully rendered screen version. The equally superb supporting cast includes Robert Stephens (Smith’s husband at the time) as her married lover, Pamela Franklin, the best child actress of the 1960s (The Innocents, The Legend of Hell House) as her protégé and ultimate betrayer and Celia Johnson, for whom Neame supplied the screenplays for This Happy Breed and Great Expectations as her nemesis, the school’s headmistress.

SCROOGE (1970)

Albert Finney’s portrayal of Dickens’ Ebinezer Scrooge is arguably the screen’s second best interpretation of the character behind Alastair Sim in 1951’s A Christmas Carol. Alec Guinness, with whom Neame had collaborated on previous Dickens adaptations of Great Expectations and Oliver Twist had the small but impressive role of Marley’s Ghost. Edith Evans, with whom Neame collaborated on The Chalk Garden and (uncredited) on Prudence and the Pill, played the Ghost of Christmas Past. Kay Walsh, the former Mrs. David Lean and Guinness’ co-star in Oliver Twist and The Horse’s Mouth had a bit part.

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972)

Neame’s biggest box-office success was this classic all-star disaster movie which came halfway between 1970’s Airport and 1974’s The Towering Inferno.Nominated for eight Oscars, it won for Best Song (“The Morning After”) along with a Special Oscar for Best Visual Effects. The all-star cast included previous Oscar winners Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Shelley Winters and Jack Albertson, along with Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowall, Leslie Nielson and two-time nominee Arthur O’Connell. Two-time winner Winters was the only one nominated this time around for her sympathetic portrayal of a former champion swimmer.