Sadly, this item was to have been a tribute to Mr Zinnemann, celebrating his 90th birthday on April 29th this year, but now it has become an obituary. He died on March 14th.Sadly, this item was to have been a tribute to Mr Zinnemann, celebrating his 90th birthday on April 29th this year, but now it has become an obituary. He died on March 14th.
Fred Zinnemann was born in Vienna in 1907. In his late teens while studying law he became interested in movies. Impressed with the films of Eisenstein and von Stroheim he decided to quit law, and to the dismay of his family. went off to Paris to do an 18 month camera course. After the course he moved to Berlin and got work in German studios as a camera assistant.
With the arrival of talking pictures, European production slowed down so the young Zinnemann decided he must chance his luck in the USA to learn about the new technology. He arrived in Hollywood in 1929. Despite the fact that his application to join the cameraman's Local was sponsored by the great Billy Bitzer, he was turned down. That was the end of his camera career.
He got work as an extra on All Quiet On The Western Front which lasted several months. Later, during a job as personal assistant to Berthold Viertel, he met Robert Flaherty, the father of story documentary features. He talked Flaherty into taking him on as an assistant and returned with him to Berlin to set up a new mid-Asian documentary expedition.
It would seem he learnt a great deal from this relationship. In all his films Fred Zinnemann managed to get a believable feeling of reality as if the pictures had been taken of actual events. His years working in MGM's short film department on series such as Crime Doesn't Pay taught him how to tell stories economically and how to shoot without fuss.
He made a total of 21 feature films, five of which yielded 23 Oscars. He himself had three Oscars for best direction - From Here To Eternity, A Man For All Seasons and a short subject in 1938 That Mothers Might Live.
His films were far from stereotyped, ranging from Oklahoma, a musical, to High Noon, perhaps the greatest western; from Here To Eternity, surely the best film about the US Army, to A Man For All Seasons, certainly the best historical drama.
In 1967 he settled in Britain and had lived here ever since with his with Rene, an English girl he met 60 years ago when she worked in Paramount's wardrobe department. Their son Tim is now a Hollywood producer.
I an fortunate enough to have had the privilege and pleasure of working for Mr Zinnemann and consider The Day Of The Jackal the high spot of my career.
My first meeting with Mr Zinnemann was in 1969 when I was called to an interview for the ill fated Man's Fate. I was astounded next day when a voice on the phone told me "Mr Zinnemann would like you to do the picture" .
I started work, two weeks ahead of shooting, on equipment preparation and a request by Mr Zinnemann for me to watch rehearsals. While watching the rehearsal of a scene with an actor preparing to use a typewriter Mr Zinnemann must have been aware of my facial flinching as the actor spoke lines over the noisy action of putting paper into the typewriter. As the scene finished he turned to Charlie Torbett, stand by prop, and said "Charlie make sure you have some sound-proof paper for Bob"!
It was a great shock when the crew, called for a meeting on one of the MGM stages the weekend before shooting was due to start, were told by Mr Zinnemann that MGM had pulled the plug. Other backers were sought but none were found and 26 weeks work went down the drain.
We next met up in 1972 when producer David Deutch, who I had done two pictures for, asked me to do The Day Of The Jackal. David, later told me that Mr Zinnemann had asked for me as 'he owed me one'.
Even though I had been working in movies for some 30 years, I learnt a great deal about film making from Mr Zinnemann - his great attention to set details and set dressing with respect to the roles the actors had to perform in them; his private discussions and rehearsals with the actors; the respect he commanded from the crew, and the respect he had for the crew. He always asked the first assistant at the end of a print take "Was that alright for Bob?" Everybody called him Mr Zinneman and spoke of him as Mr Zinnemann or Mr Zee,
Two regrets in my career are not having been available when asked to work on Julia and Five Days One Summer.
We remained friends and exchanged cards at Christmas for the past 23 years. There was a standing invitation to visit him at his Mount Street office which I never took up. I was hoping to take advantage of it on April 29th to wish him a 'Happy Birthday'.
BOB ALLEN