David Puttnam

27:51Maybe, you know, you tell me if I'm mischaracterizing that, But I think somebody says the name David Putnam, even today, 40 plus years after the film that I'm going to mention, I think the first one for many people that comes to mind is Chariots of Fire, for which you won the Best Picture Oscar and all kinds of other accolades. But I just I think it's kind of one of the crazy things about this business that where where great things come from, how happy accidents in a way. And it sounds like the the it's not that you had some longstanding interest in in the Summer Olympics or or running or anything like that.

28:32Just as an example of how fate kind of plays such a big role in careers and lives and this business, what inspired you to pursue Chariots of Fire? Well, there were a number of triggers. I mean, the first one is my dad, when he came back, was at Associated Press. He was head of photography at Associated Press and was given the job of overseeing all the photographic coverage of the 1948 Olympics. Now, I'm seven years old, and he took me with him. and you know it was Wembley it was post-war people now would think it was kind of quite small but I saw Fanny Banker's Co and I saw Emil Zatopak I saw these people and they were heroic figures to me so that certainly was a trigger without any doubt at all and then in 64 I think it was the Tokyo Olympics 64 yeah 64 um the uh there was a movie Tokyo Olympiad movie and I saw this extraordinary race where a woman called Ann Packer, who had won a silver medal in the 400 metres, but was rated in the 800, or was allowed then to run the 800.

29:37And the most amazing race you'll ever watch. She was last at 300 metres to go, and she'd won. And it was an astounding race, absolutely incredible race. And so these were things. And then Connie Shikawa did a very good movie called Tokyo Olympiad, losing slow motion. That also was a kind of trigger, I think. But the real one was, I was in LA and I read a book. I was in a rented house and I picked up an official history of Olympic Games. And I got to 1924 and I read this literally one paragraph about this guy, Eric Little, who had refused to run the 100 metres and then won the 400 metres of World Red.

30:16I thought, this is insane. That's completely crazy. And so I developed it from there. I found a writer I knew, Colin Welland, wrote a beautiful screenplay. And I'd been working with Hugh Hudson on some other stuff. And then he read the script and went nuts for it. And we managed to, with a lot of help from Sandy Leiberson, I should say, who was at Fox at this point, managed to scramble the money together. But there's a little story I would like to do because it pertains to what you do and what The Hollywood Reporter does. I couldn't get a US distributor In fact, it was even turned down for television in the US, literally.

30:51And so I arranged a screening at the MGM Theatre. And Chuck Champlin, who I knew a little bit, not that well, came to the film. And there were like 40, 50 other people there. And the film played. I knew it was playing quite well. And at the end of it, Chuck stood up in the middle of the audience. He stood up and started applauding. And I just saw the, you know, as well, Toot Hollywood turned around. So here's the critic of the LA Times applauding this movie. Next day, we're able to make a deal at Warders. So, you know, I always liked he was a really fine man. I owe him everything. That's amazing.

31:27But I also can't believe I thought you were going to say, you know, maybe in script form or something, nobody would have any interest. But even after they were seeing the completed film, there still wasn't interest in distributing it. It's unbelievable. And in fact, I I I didn't know that it was universally kind of passed on at that point. But here's something. And again, maybe it's wrong and you'll you'll have to please correct me. But I think this is the ultimate poetic thing that in August 1979, David Putnam received a letter from Columbia Pictures. Quote, I'm sorry to tell you this has no validity at all in the American marketplace because of the style and tone as well as the subject matter.

32:10close quote, this was Columbia, which you would later run, passing on chariots of fire? I had it framed over my office at Columbia. It's absolutely true. It's, yeah, it's amazing. There's another lovely story. Norman Levy, who was the distribution head of Fox at the time, who could have had worldwide rights, as it was, thanks to Sandy, the rest of the world. The day after the Oscars, apparently, I'm told this by staff, he walked into a staff meeting, rolled up the Hollywood Reporter and committed seppuku and slumped on the table. Oh, my God, that's great. And just to establish, you know, for the historical record, the people who did believe at least a little bit in chariots of fire, this is what I've read, and maybe you can contextualize.

33:02So Sandy Lieberson at this point had become president of Fox, which i guess so he goes to alan ladd jr who's running fox and and gets them to put up three million of the budget 1.2 1.2 excuse me and then the rest comes from the fayad family this is the future uh uh unfortunately both uh killed with princess diana dhoti dhoti fayad but this was Egyptian shipping? How did they get involved with Chariots of Fire? Because it's happened to me twice. It was with the Bronfmans, originally, with Melody. They wanted to have a movie company and started one. The Fires had started a movie company. They financed two films which had been unsuccessful.

33:50And a guy that worked for them called Tim Burrow had read and liked Chariots. Now, the really extraordinary piece of luck was their lawyer, a man called David Norris, had been at the same school as Eric Little. He's the only person in the world who knows Eric Little because there was a statue of Eric Little at his school. And he loved the idea that there might be a movie about Eric Little. And so I had their in-house lawyer and a guy that worked for them kind of rooting for it, saying, look, we've lost money on these two films. Why don't we give this one a go? And that's how it happened. Amazing.

34:22And there's somebody else in another company I just want to ask you about because it feels like these names have popped up in connection with a number of your films, I believe including Triads of Fire, but certainly others. Can you just explain for folks who may not know or may not remember, who was Jake Ebbets and what was Goldcrest? Jake Ebbets was the founder of a tiny company called Goldcrest, which was a film finance organization that was owned by Pearson, the Pearson Group in the UK. And they put up the original£17 ,000. I didn't have it. The original£17 ,000 for the script that Colin Welland wrote.

35:01So that was the engagement with Goldcrest. Other heroes in this, Terry Semmel, our lad, Junior, Jay Cantor, their team. Once the thing, once that Chuck Champlin situation had happened, everyone climbed on board, but with varying degrees of enthusiasm. It was great, John Cully. Really, yeah, I mean, the whole, it started a 20-year relationship for me, with Warner Brothers, which was the happiest time of my life. I had a wonderful relationship with the company. And I could be able to say, I'm trying to remember the rollout story of Transfire once the ball got moving. I think, is it correct that you, I don't know if this was where the world premiere was, but weren't you guys the first audience award winner to sort of get a launch out of the Toronto Film Festival?

35:53Yes, Toronto and New York in fairness, but Toronto definitely had a big effect. That was helped by the fact that Eric Liddell's widow lived in Toronto, and so the whole family turned up. It was a wonderful, very emotional screening, actually. Wow, wow. But, you know, another fascinating thing for Hollywood Reporter readers is that its biggest week, almost everywhere it opened, was week five or six. I mean, imagine that today. The film opened well and grew and grew and grew and became, as were, a hit in week five. Because word of mouth, you think. Yeah, absolutely word of mouth, yeah. so i guess the other reason maybe aside from the oscar and the success of the film and all that that people so associate chariots of fire you know that may be the first one that comes to mind with you is it seems like it's sort of the the microcosm of so much of what you were about first time feature filmmaker right you're betting on hugh hudson cast of non-stars at that time right people nobody they were these guys had been on tv but they were not and and i'm sure you would have had an easier time getting money if you had cast names at that point, right?

37:00And just so many different. And then the other thing is, I think it's sort of under noted how often your films have incredible music. And so I do have to ask you since again, somebody says, David Putnam, they hear they think chariots of fire, somebody says chariots of fire, I think they the score starts playing in their head. So how did I've heard it pronounced two different ways? Is it Vangelis? or do you say Van Gelis? Van Gelis. So where did he come from? He was a well-known Greek composer who'd done a lot of music, mostly, interested enough, for wildlife television series. But we knew him.

37:36He'd done a few commercials. Originally approached him for Midnight Express, but his record company, we couldn't make a deal with the record company. And George Amarota not only wrote the score, won the Oscar for the score. And so I went back to Van Gelis and his father had been two things. His father had been an Olympian. I think a hammer throw, I think. But his father recently died, and he really, really wanted to write a kind of oratorio. He wanted to write something about his dad. So he did the score, and it was fine. And he kept on and on at Hugh and I about, you know, I could do better, I could do better, I could do better.

38:09And he kept saying, you know, we're finishing the film, and he comes to me at a restaurant one evening, and he says, David, come out. I was with him, I was like, come out. We sit in the car, and he says, here. and he puts a little cassette into the car radio, that car thing, and we hear dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum. So I said, that's really great, Fangelis. That's fantastic, but it's too late. Well, what do you mean too late? I said, I've been telling you, the film's finished. It's finished, dubbed, mixed, finished. Oh, God. I said, I'll tell you what, we're still working on the front and end titles.

38:44We could try it over there and see what happens. And we did. and that's the only place that theme appears it's never in the movie that's unbelievable and and again only because i i have you and i want to get the historical record straight i heard there was another kind of just freak thing that made may have made his his involvement possible the we also you know you think of charis of fire you think of running on the beach i my understanding was that that had to be reshot and maybe that helped to delay things enough for vangelis's score to be at it it didn't help to delay things but what it did do we shot it the first day the sea was great everything was fine i got the call you dread at night from the laboratory the negative scratched some sand had got it some sand had gone the camera so it was an insurance claim and we went back i think the following day maybe two days later and the weather got much worse and so the t the sea was whipped up you had like white horses on the sea you know it was a much more effective shot so you had the wind blowing see in the background a much much more interesting shot than we got the first time fantastic so there are so many other films to ask you about but i do want to just zero in for one moment on the oscar experience with chariots of fire because i know first of all heading into that award season you i believe uh very sadly lost your father around that time.

40:09So I imagine this sort of was very an emotional time period. But then to start getting these accolades from BAFTA and elsewhere. But but Oscar Knight, what were your expectations going into it when you're nominated opposite for Best Picture? Raiders of the Lost Ark, Reds on Golden Pond and Atlantic City. I wondered what your what your expectations were and also when in the night, you know, in the course of the ceremony, it first occurred to you that you guys might actually win. Again, it's fascinating. When we arrived, I had no expectations. I mean, I've already been a loser once for Midnight Express.

40:50I knew that wasn't great. That wasn't a great feeling. And my wife arrived and I bumped into Sam Goldwyn Jr. And the day arrived, I think. And he said, you know, David, I've got a funny feeling about Charities of Fire. I think you'll win. I said, please, please, please. I'm here. I'm feeling very relaxed. But it kind of got into my head, you know, that awful thing. And my wife and I drove right out and got a sandwich, actually, along Pacific Coast Highway. And I just didn't want to talk to anybody. It really stirred, it really buggered up my equilibrium, you know. So we get to the awards. and sitting behind me, I've got a photograph here, sitting behind me is Steven Spielberg.

41:35And Dean Ward's star, Raiders won some very good technical awards and that kind of dried up. We then won costume. Now, you know, costume, this is guys in shorts. And I had a better pound to a penny that Reds would have won costume. And I looked across at Warren Beatty and I saw him look back at me and I could see he was worried. There are a lot of people that vote the card. Yes. Well, you're going to vote costume or warehouse. And then we won screenplay. Then we won music. And suddenly I had Stephen behind me. He's pounding my back. I think you're going to win. I think you're going to win. I think you're going to win.

42:17So then Warren gets director. 99 times out of 100, that means where the best picture's going. Then on Golden Pond, weirdly what wins both best actor, best actress. I'm sitting there.

42:32And she comes out and opens the envelope, and there's an enormous pause. And she says, where are his chariots so far? And I tried to get up, and my legs went. And I was sitting next to her, and somebody propped me up. Actually, it was a priest, believe me. I was two dogs. Propped me up. And I remember trotting down, and I thought, shit, if I thought we'd win, I'd have got my hair cut. I then remember crossing the stage and trying to worry about slipping over. Now I'm walking towards, what was her name? Loretta Young, right? Loretta Young. And I think, hang on a second. I can't, I don't know this woman.

43:08I can't give her a kiss, but I can't shake hands. And the only time in my life I've ever taken that person's woman's hand and kissed her hand. I don't know where that came from as a kind of bizarre compromise. That's great. And yeah, I was in shock. well and and the the other thing is there was sort because i guess it was seen as a an upset although in hindsight it doesn't seem like that it should i mean it's certainly a worthy uh winner but i guess at the time there was this kind of conspiracy theory right that because she had that pause that is she and also i think you've said she said that she really wanted chariots of fire right so what was the i know that you have the actual evidence from what I've read.

43:53You have the card, but can you just take me through, was there ever any doubt in, you know, what did you make of these kinds of just, I guess you get what I'm saying. Like, what did she say to you that might have suggested where her mind was? No, not what I had dinner with her about a month later. She was, I was invited to a mutual friend to dinner. And she said to me, you know, what was really frightening for me? I opened the card. I so wanted you to win that I had to read it three times that I wasn't projecting my wish. And she said, that's why there was this long pause. I was terrified. I was going to read out the wrong name.

44:30Weirdly, okay, not many years later, I'm back at the Academy Awards, nominated for the Killingfields. And I'm sitting there. This is all happily above the record. And we're up against Amadeus. And it's really in a way, we know it's between the two of us. Okay. And we've won, I think we've won three awards that evening. and Laurence Olivier comes up and makes a kind of spacey speech about the stars as they look down on us and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He then, he does not open the envelope. He looks at the envelope. He says, and the winner is Amadeus. And there's a sort of amazing sign of the sculpture and two guys from KPMG, where they are, Bryce Wadders, come running from the site, literally, and they grab the thing and a guy opens it and he says, and he does this.

45:23Oh, my God. It was, we were all sitting there, I was in the front row, and with producer, and none of us know what to do. Yeah. Unbelievable. That was a much longer pause. Yeah. Oh, incredible. It's very funny how often, best picture, there's something weird happens with the way they announce it. Pacino did it weirdly with Oppenheimer. Anyway. Warren Beatty did it? With the wrong film? With La La Land? Yes, exactly. That one we blame Pricewaterhouse, but it was just crazy. So just to cap on Chariots, I believe at the time the highest grossing non-American film in the U.S. ever up to that point.

46:07I know you and Hugh Hudson did one more together 18 years later with My Life So Far. But after Chariots of Fire, when you have this this just incredible run of the next few years with local hero in 83 killing fields in 84 and the mission in 86 like chariots of fire uh uh killing fields and the mission were both also and like midnight express uh killing fields and the mission were also nominated for best picture i don't know if anyone's ever had four in nine years nominated That's pretty amazing. But did Charities of Fire, how do you think it impacted the British film industry in terms of morale or ability to get things made or or just it's looked at as I mean, you and it are sort of looked at as as kind of jolting and a whole national industry.

47:06And I wonder if you can characterize how you felt the impact was. Well, one was immediate and one was a little longer term. As I came off the stage at BAFTA, I was trying to raise the money for Local Hero. And I had half the money. As I walked back to my table, there were tables in those days, a guy stopped me, James Lee. And he said, you're still trying to raise money for Local Hero? I said, yeah, I am. He said, you've got it. Wow. So I went back to my table with a BAFTA and with a film finance. So literally a month, as you said, my dad had died two months before the Oscars. Within a month, six weeks maybe, of the Oscars, I was shooting Local Hero.

47:42But the very important thing that happened was I'd been involved in the group that agreed to finance Gandhi. And Dick Atmar was a close friend. He got Ian Charleston out of Chariots. And I came with him to the Oscars for Gandhi. And I think with Dickie and I, successive years, that kind of sealed the deal, really. I think either one of them would have been an interesting situation, but the two of them coming back to back. And then there were two or three other really highly regarded British films at the same time. So there was a cluster. I still think, certainly Local Hero is still my favorite film of anything I've made.

48:20I read you said that, and it's a wonderful movie. And I know for you, I think you've said you were hoping to make a kind of Capra-esque film, which it certainly was. But I guess what what is it about it? Just a four point five million dollar project. Right. And Goldcrest was Goldcrest the backer in that case. Not a first feature for Bill Forsyth, but third, but still very early in a career. Why? Why, in your view, is that the one that you're the your favorite of yours? First of all, it's the first time I'd ever had enough money to make a movie. Half the budget instantly went to Burt. I negotiated for a year with Burt Lancaster, never bought them to budge a penny.

49:08And then when the film came out, we sold the film to ABC for the TV rights for the amount of money it cost. And a Sunday rise was such a thing as a bargain that I had never fully appreciated before. But it was just a wonderful experience. The weather was great. The environment was great. the first time in my life I lived and worked in a non-urban environment. And it's one of the reasons, it's very much the reason I live here in West Gorton, I've done for 34 years. It's the experience of making Local Hero that altered my wife and I, I think, the way we live our lives and what we wanted out of our lives.

49:41And I'll just tee up one other crazy thing, because I believe you described that, you know, as you experienced a real-life version of that film, This was back in 2010, I believe, when a rich, insensitive businessman came to town and wanted to commandeer property. Who was this in 2010? It was earlier than that. He was very wealthy, and he wasn't connected to film industry, fortunately. And the level of insensitivity was massive, and he had no understanding of what this community is. I mean, none. This is not unlike your president. No, but that exactly happened in Scotland with Donald Trump. Exactly.

50:34He managed to offend and alienate an entire community. I can't imagine that Donald Trump would have done that. But we had a similar experience here in my community here where someone came in and tried to buy up a slew of land, not knowing what he wanted to do with it. so that was 83 84 was the killing fields which i know you've and just again where you've been you've been i don't know if hard on yourself is the way to characterize it but you've said quote i always felt in my heart of hearts that killing fields was a better film than chariots i felt for the first time that i actually deserved the oscar close quote what was it about this one which 14 million dollars roland joffey's directorial debut right uh um again big player at the oscars in a number of ways but what was it that makes that the one that why do you regard that one as even better than chariots of fire um i think three reasons one is as i said my affection for local heroes a lot to do with the experience of making it conversely killing fields was unbelievably hard I mean, I lost stone in weight.

51:43I never, ever, ever worked so hard in my life. It was tough. Roland and I fortunately had a fantastic relationship. Otherwise, I'm not sure we would ever got through it. But it was a difficult film. We were making it. It was very recent, what had gone on. Cambodia was still under Pol Pot. So we shot as close to the border as we were able to. It was threatened. Most of the cast were literally refugees from Cambodia. It was very real. It was very, very raw. I mean, Hang Noir had been through that experience, as you know, and would always say to me, oh, David, what's worse, what's worse? So, yeah, it was kind of a grinding job.

52:26And we knew we'd done something special. Having said that, we then came back, finished the movie, two hours, 40 minutes. We thought it had a masterpiece, previewed it in the UK. Half the audience walked out. And that was the worst moment, I think, of my career. I sat with the editor and with Ronan. We could not work it out. And we'd asked too much of them. It comes back to the, in a sense, it's a weird version you asked about the Midnight Express thing. We just asked too much of the audience. So we had to go back and look at it, try and work out what was wrong. We took half an hour out of the movie.

52:5935 minutes out of the movie, and we reconstructed it, and I think certainly made it work. But we did think we'd created a masterpiece first time around. And it's interesting that, so you and Roland, just two years later, were again there with the mission. And another sounds like a nightmare of a shoot, not because of behavior, but just the circumstances around you, right? And this time, had you ever had a budget of as much as, I read,$26 million? dollars 22 22 i mean does that when for you given the things that you would later say about you know when you were overseeing columbia and stuff it's it i know that you're very budget conscious and want other people to be do you feel an added sense or did you feel an added sense of uh stress or whatever when it's that much on the line for a project no i'll tell you why because uh I mean, I'll just use Killing Fields as an example because the numbers are very precise.

54:01On the Killing Fields, Killing Fields was 14.4 million. 92 % of that budget was below the line. 92%. I think in the case of the mission, it was about 80-something percent. So my judgment was that at a time when I arrived at Columbia where 55, 60 % of the budget was below the line, there was something wrong. And I knew what was wrong. What was wrong was the amount of money being taken off the table by, I'd actually had an agent, William Morris, once said to me, you've got to understand, David, my job is to take as much money off the table before you start as I can. That's a perfectly reasonable position for him, but it's a terrible position for a producer.

54:43And that was, it was that imbalance I was trying to get right. Wasn't a question of how much money you spent on the movie that was on the screen that the audience could see. It was the amount of money taken off the table before. he shot a frame of film. Is that, I mean, does that make sense? No, it totally makes sense. Totally. Absolutely. And I'll, I'll, I know in a moment with, with your Columbia experience, I'll, I'll ask you a bit more about that, but I do want to ask you, there was this perception, I think, and I don't know if, I wonder if you think there was any fairness to this position or if it was kind of sour grapes or envy or whatever from others that.

55:26So in 1986, when you're coming off of this incredible run of the films that I've just mentioned, there's a quote here. It's from Stephen Frears in The New York Times, who's just come out with at that time, My Beautiful Lundrette. And he says, quote, if you're a British film director and want to make a film about England, people look at you as if you said something ghastly and feel sorry for you. The alternative is to make films for the American market as David Putnam does. Close quote. Is that a fair way to describe? Or was that just kind of a bit bitchy? I like Stephen very much as a friend. So I don't think it was intended in a bitchy sense.

56:09I think there's two things there. I mean, the idea that somehow or other local heroes made for an American market is kind of weird. Yes. It is absolutely true. that we actually added a shot at the end of Killing Fields, at the end of Joker Hero, where the phone box is ringing because when we previewed it in the US, it was clear people wanted some sort of resolution, which wasn't the original ending. So is that making a film of the American market? I don't know, maybe. The Killing Fields, it's just a story I read about American journalists and an extraordinary, it's a love story, The Killing Fields.

56:42Well, it could have been anybody. I mean, John Swain, who was actually caricatured in the movie would certainly decry that idea that it was an American film. It was a film. So I don't recognise the charge. I wasn't making American films. I think I've always tried to make films. I've always tried being very subject-driven. I did a film for HBO called Without Warning about Hinkley and Jim Brady and the Reagan assassination, attempted assassination, is that an American film? I don't think so. It's very easy if you're feeling a bit battered and you're from one of the smaller countries to start to try and apportion reasons for why you're not being as appreciated as you will.

57:35I mean, Stephen made that wonderful film, The Grifters. Yeah. I never crossed my mind that he was selling out make an american movie i actually think it's one of his best films well and and even if the charge being made was uh true in a few in some cases so what i mean it's not like you're abandoning uh everybody knew you're a british uh filmmaker and and i guess that leads to the kind of home stretch here of i wonder why in your view or what you've heard or gathered over the years there's no company in as i see it more american than coca-cola right what so coca-cola in 82 for whatever reason i don't know the answer acquires decides to get into the the film business and acquires columbia pictures they had a very tumultuous few years after that in particular as i understand it 86 when you were doing your still in producing they fire i think it's guy McElvain was the person before you.

58:40When did you first get an inkling that there was even interest in you coming over to head the company? And why, as you understand it, were they open to going sort of so far out of the box of what they would normally seek? That's no slight against you. I think it made a lot of it, but I'm just wondering, How did this unfold as you understand it? Okay. It's very simple to explain. Early in 86, probably about February, March, a guy called Art Barron came to see me, flew over to see me. And I was offered the co-chairmanship of Paramount. Now, I was very friendly with and liked very much Frank Mancuso.

59:24So we got into a conversation and I said to Art, well, it's not really what I'm looking for in life. it really isn't but on the other hand I like Frank very much maybe it would be an interesting partnership so I get on the plane they asked me and I flew out to LA and I arranged to go up and see Frank in his home his wife opens the door and she's looked like fun she's kind of thunderous so I go in and Frank I've always had a great relationship with we always sit down he says he'd only just been told I literally had only just been told why I was there so I said Frank, let's be very clear here. I have no interest in this job unless it's because you want a production, a producing partner.

1:00:08And it was a really embarrassing conversation because I was a person I really admired and liked. So I came back and I wrote to Art Barron a long, I think, good note. I tend to write these letters explaining exactly why this couldn't work for me. My lawyer was a man called Tom Lewin at Simpson Thatcher. I sent Tom a copy. I then go to Cannes. This is quite extraordinary, isn't it? And we, with mission, get the palm door. I'm walking down the red carpet, and my wife says to me, well, that's really great. You know, you've always been on. I think seven times I've been up for, you know, you've got to go around the track again.

1:00:46What are you going to do now? We get back to the hotel. There's a phone call. Ring Tom Lewin. I think he's calling me. He's heard to tell me about, you know, congratulate me. He says, you're not going to leave this, David. I just had lunch with Faye Vincent, and I showed him your letter to Art Barron. And Faye looked at it and said, well, you know, we'd have no problem with these issues that David's raised. And I knew Faye from Binance Express. So again, now I go back to New York. We start a series of conversations. And I still, the conversations are very advanced. I call Dick Gallup and Faye.

1:01:20And I'm in a hotel, and I'm saying to him, yeah, I mean, this is really interesting. and I keep coming up with reasons why it wouldn't work, OK? I'm really looking for it. And they keep saying, no, that would be all right, that would be all right. I swear to you, I get in the lift to leave that meeting, and Tom, you know, he's punching my arm, saying, look, every single point you raise they've agreed to. I said, Tom, in my stomach, I feel this is wrong. It's here, it's wrong. So I said, anyway, I've got to go and talk to him. I've got a contract with Warner Brothers. So I fly up, and this is the most important thing, one of the most important moments of my life.

1:01:58I sit in Terry Semmel's garden with Terry and Bob Daly. And I tell them what's happened, and they say, well, we really don't want you to go. And I say, well, I'm not sure I want to go. But this is, and they offered, I mean, it was, there's a moment in your life where you think, well, you know, I'm not going to have to worry about pension anymore. And I'm not a mercenary person, but certainly. So he said, look, this is David. He says, David, we'll match, financially we'll match what they're offering, but we're interested to be here and we're interested to produce. But we're going to do that. We need to have a boss on the phone.

1:02:34So they call New York and they get Steve Ross. And Steve Ross on the speakerphone. And we explain the thing. And Steve says, what do you think, David? I said, well, it's a really extraordinary offer. And he said, you know what? He said, you've got to get it out of your system. you're not going to like it. You're going to stay under contract to us. We'll loan you. I swear to you, we'll loan you. I said, really? He said, yeah. He said, but it's got to be time-limited. So I go, all right, three years. Three years. I go back to, hey, for instance, I said, we're going to deal. It's three years. It's a loan out.

1:03:14They agree. And that's the way the contract's drawn up. And that's exactly what happened. I'd always wondered where that three years thing came from, because I know you've said that was probably the original. The original sin. Sin, right? Because you put a time on yourself, right? But that was Steve. Steve said, it's a loan out, but it's three years. Really interesting. And I guess, you know, I've seen you say, when you look back at that time period, I want to find the quote. I've seen it's characterized a number of different ways that are quite almost like Rashomon. So I want to ask you what the, maybe it depended on the day somebody caught you, but quote, quote number one, I have no regrets at all about having gone to Columbia, close quote.

1:04:01Quote number two, I hated almost every day of it, close quote. Quote number three, probably the single worst year of my professional life, close quote. So are all of those true or Or how do you, and I guess if it's okay with you before you answer, I just want listeners to hear me enumerate what I believe and what I've read were some of the underlying points of contention. And then if I can leave it to you to just say what's real and what's not. But apparently, you know, among the people who took issue with the way you did things, Michael Ovitz. But that makes sense. you didn't like having packaging imposed upon you, right?

1:04:45Ray Stark, who had been working with Columbia for many years as a producer, but you didn't apparently feel somebody's entitled to a green light because of past, you know, you got to earn it. Bill Cosby, you know, yes, he was associated with Coca-Cola, but some of these movies were Leonard Part 6 or whatever was not great. and then Bill Murray apparently again it's this idea I guess of stars taking a lot of the money right off the top again I'm not meaning to put words in your mouth but I'm just trying to get to the underlying you know these are it seems like so in a way maybe the the way I'm interpreting it was that because you are you had these feelings but also articulated them or shared them, maybe that made people particularly resistant to you?

1:05:45Or how would you, is that correct? Yes. I mean, everything you're saying in different respects is correct. So here's the issue. Because I've been successful through the early 80s, very successful in the early 80s, people were very polite to me and treating me very well. Well, not just the people I was fond of at the studio, but generally. The industry was polite to me, all right? And therefore, a lot of the fears I'd had began to sort of subside. And what happened was I then arrived and discovered that a lot of those fears were real. For example, that just about every relationship, outside of the cocoon at Warners, which I was in, just about every other relationship was transactional.

1:06:24So suddenly, there were no friends. There were just transactions. And I found that weird. I'd never experienced it before in my life. or maybe I've been protected from it, sorry, I should say. So that was one. So that would have been the issue really with Ovitz and the Ovitzes. I didn't respect them as people. That was the problem. It would have been nice if I had, but I didn't. I thought. So that was an issue. Bill Murray, I've never met to this day. The situation there was really simple. Someone comes in with a spreadsheet for you and says they want to do Ghostbusters 2. But by the way, there's no way we can ever, ever make money on it.

1:06:58The nature of the deal. So you're sitting there, you know, you've just got a job, and you say, what? Well, I mean, the only reason to do it is it keeps some slots open in the theatres for us. And I'm saying I can't think that's a good enough reason to be spending a very, very large sum of money, which is pretty open-ended because it could have cost a lot more, because literally the spreadsheet's saying we can't make money. There were some lovely people. I liked Jerry Weintraub very much indeed. He was a guess. And Ray Stark, weird, Ray Stark tried to create the situation, an impression that I had had him to thank for getting this job, which is absolutely nonsense.

1:07:37It absolutely wasn't. But he wanted to believe that. That was all right. I went along with that. And then we had a breakfast early on. And I said, there's something I'll tell you that's funny. I said to him, Ray, I love the idea that you're prepared to be a counsellor to me, whatever, what do you want to call it? I said, but that can't put me under any obligations. to, no, no, no, he said, I've made enough movies in my life, I've got enough money, no, I love the idea that I can be of counsel to you. Great. So I'll leave the, I'll go back, and what walks into my office is a script, which is, what was the Fanny Bryce movie, too?

1:08:16Oh, yeah, well, they did originally Funny Girl, and then it was Funny Face, was it? Funny something, funny something. And with a kind of note saying that he'd really be grateful to have a great... I mean, it was absurd. I'd left him. I'd left him an hour ago. And I thought, you know what? This isn't going to work. So we had another conversation where I said, Ray, in that sense, it's a straight playing field. You're on the same playing field as anybody or anybody else. He hated that. I mean, it was a very painful discussion. By the time I got back to the studio, I could feel the kind of wires to Atlanta going.

1:08:54Cosby, interestingly, and it's easy for me to say this now because of everything that's happened since, I found him creepy. There's the honest to God truth. I found him a very creepy guy. He was too egregious. So he's this enormous star who's like being Mr. Humble. And it made me very uncomfortable, indeed. Plus, also, the script was terrible. The Coca-Cola themselves already committed to it. There's no way I was going to stop it. And then I've made a terrible mistake. He said I'm looking for a director, and I've recommended a very good guy, a very, very nice man, Paul Wayland, who did it. And then, in a sense, Paul was crucified during the making of it.

1:09:32It really hurt him badly. So I could explain each one of the relationships, if you like. I mean, they've got this other thing with, what was it, a film with Hoffman and Baiting. Oh, yeah, Ishtar, yeah. Which, to this day, I've never seen. I had nothing to do with it. You inherited it, right? I inherited it, it was made. I had a very bad... I got the preview results. And the overwhelming thing was that young ladies didn't know who they were. I mean, I promise you, we got this thing as, who are these two elderly guys? It was... So I stayed a million miles away from it. So you couldn't win that one.

1:10:10You either did get involved and got trapped, which I had done with, in a sense, one or two of the movies, or you stayed out of it and you got... It was horrible. The staff, the people I worked with were wonderful. I made such great friendships. I'm very lucky. There's a lovely moment when I told them I was going. There was a camera who were doing a monthly thing. And it was worth looking at. There was a lot, a lot, a lot of tears. Now, I don't know how many studio heads have left with their staff in tears, but they were fabulous. But the stress on me, I was ill for quite a long time. I got to a thing called Emmy, a sort of autoimmune incident that saved me.

1:10:50I still have it to an extent. So it did my health in, that's for sure. Did my confidence in for a bit. I don't, honest to God, I think what happened was I fell out of love with the film industry. And I've been passionately in love with it. I mentioned that people I really admire, the Spielbergs, the Scorseses, who really loved movies. I was one of them. And it led directly to me going to politics. I thought if you can't do it from the outside, if you can't do it from the inside, maybe you can influence it from the outside. One last Columbia question, and then just a minute of random potpourri or whatever, the first thing that comes to your mind.

1:11:31But the Columbia thing, I mean, again, it's one of these things where and I get it as somebody who covers the business. Everybody has a different version of things that happen and whatever. It's been reported that you decided to leave. It's been reported that you were pushed out. It's been reported that, you know, just all these different things. What how did it actually come to an end? And when it did, was that something that you were, it sounds like you were relieved, but just how did you, how would you characterize the way it came to an end and how you felt about it in terms of that Columbia chapter?

1:12:04I'll tell you exactly what happened. I was very unhappy and I knew I was struggling. I was sort of by this time hating it. I flew out to New York and I met, had a meeting with Victor Kaufman. And what had happened was Columbia had sold, I can't remember if it was, Columbia was sold, try to, anyway, there had been a transaction. In my contract, I could only be employed by a wholly owned subsidiary of the Coca-Cola Company. Happily for me, all this is evidential. It's all set in the British Film Archive, you know, because I did write voluminous letters all the time. Much to people's shag around.

1:12:39So I flew at Sim. I said, look, clearly this is not working. I've got an out. I've got a contract right out. And what I would do, I said, I'm a film producer. we could make a deal where I could have three films a year a put deal to see out the rest of my 18 months contract I could do three three films a year and I'll get rid of this so Victor became very kind of edgy now weird weird things Victor had been the assistant to Tom Lewin who'd drawn up my contract now you should make stuff out can you and um well I'm not sure that could happen I'm really not sure that can happen you know I think we could so um okay so I come back and your rival company Variety.

1:13:19There was a very, very nice editor there called Will Toscher. And I phoned Will. I said, Will, tomorrow night I'm meeting staff. It's a monthly thing. We filmed it. Would you like to come to it because I think there might be some news? So he said, Will's sitting there. So I said to the staff, I'm really sorry. This is not working for me. I'm going to go home. And the reaction was on film. And Will printed it next morning. If you look at Variety following the morning, a great deal of unhappiness at Columbia pictures because they claimed that they wanted to get rid of me well maybe they should have said so but uh uh and I walk into the office and two lovely things happened Will's piece and I get a phone call very first phone call and it's from Lou Wasserman look he said David I've been reading variety I said yeah he said um I don't know what the hell's happening over there but if you need a home you'd be very very welcome here and what a great classy call wow you know what an unbelievably classy call absolutely and that's why i said i said lou bless you but actually i'm under contract with one is i'll be back there tomorrow um but but that was one of the most he he was a great man i don't think people realize what great man lou was maybe now they do amazing um okay so with this sort of just rapid fire and i guess just to come back i think the name maybe you were you were uh reaching for there was it tristar right was victor was tristar which was tristar and essentially columbia had been put under tristar or tristar had acquired columbia or however we put it i don't know they they'd sold what had happened was that columbia pictures was no longer holding onto the century of coca-cola my contract was very clear in fact so much so tom and actually put in the in the event of dispute this clause because I didn't want to work for a movie company, but I figured that Coca-Cola can probably trust them.

1:15:14Right. Okay. And by the way, just so people know, because this is the kind of poetic bow on that whole chapter, I don't think almost any of the films that you had backed ended up coming out after you were gone. And when they did, not only were there some kind of cool choices like School Days, Spike Lee's second film and others, but also... Hope and Glory.

1:15:38David Puttnam:Well, I was going to say, the two Oscars, the year that you left, can you just share what the two films were that completely dominated that year's Oscars and how they came to Columbia? Well, Hope and Glory and The Last Emperor. I'd done a pick-up of The Last Emperor because Jeremy Thomas was a friend of mine. We picked it up very early on. And John Boehm and I knew, and Hope and Glory. The other fascinating thing, you know, that year, probably been superseded since, Columbia Pictures got more nominations than any studio ever, ever had. It's really bizarre. The other thing I'd done, incidentally, I'd put into production the recreated version of Lawrence of Arabia.

1:16:23And for whatever reason, no one ever wanted to admit that I'd done that. But I put out that money. There's two million Daunts. And you never got any thank yous from any of these people? I'm sure Dawn was a very nice woman in many ways, but she omitted to mention that. Dawn Steele, right, who took over. Okay, here's that final part. Just rapid fire, were there any films that you green-lighted, green-lit, that in hindsight you wish you had passed on? Yes. I'm afraid it's a fairly long list. What I've forgotten is that when you green-light a picture of yourself, you know you're going to be there, You're going to deal with the issues and you can deal with the problems.

1:17:04What used to happen to me is when we greenlit something and someone would leave my office, the best bit of me went out the door with them. That's my job. That's what I should have been doing, getting on with that movie. Not sitting there saying, next, please, with a dozen refusals. It was horrible. Were there any films that you passed on that in hindsight you wish you had greenlit? Yes.

1:17:30a lovely film by Norman Jewison. Oh, Bootstruck. Yeah, stupid. Yes, yeah, yeah. That's the only one. Got it. In hindsight, if you could go back in time, would you still have accepted the job at Columbia? I always wish I could go back to that moment in Terry Semmel's garden. But I suspect, you know, that Steve Ross, a very wise man, I think he was right. You need to get this out of your system. So the only answer is, if I was sitting here now and you said to me, do you wish you'd ever been out of a studio? It's not a question anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Any rhyme or reason for why male friendship seems to be a theme throughout almost all of the films you've produced?

1:18:18Yep, because I've never understood women. Well, at least you admit it, which is more than most people. Very much so. No, I think the great thing is, you know, you go through a script and you know why people do various things. Right. And if it says she does, and I think, well, would she, did she do that? Why did she do that? If it's a guy, you say, oh, yeah, he'd do that or he wouldn't do that. So you lose that sense of certainty about your characters. Right. Two random people who I've sort of discovered, this was before my time of covering this industry, but who I think you crossed paths with or may have crossed paths with.

1:18:51And I just wonder what stands out, if anything, about these people. I believe there was a marketing executive at Columbia who was really kind of a trailblazer in terms of black studio executives, Ashley Boone. Do you remember Ashley Boone? Very well. He was amazing. In fact, Ashley's one of the people I've got to thank for chariots because Ashley was the PR guy on chariots before he rose up to even greater heights. He was a lovely, lovely, lovely man. And I guess when you say it helped with that one, nowadays, as I'm sure you're, you know, you even though I know you've stepped away from the filmmaking side of things for a while, but like, you know, there's a whole cottage industry now around Oscar campaigning, pursuing Oscars, all that.

1:19:41Did that exist at the time that you were there in any way? When you guys wanted to support your films to campaign for Oscars or get the word out or rally support or whatever, was that just done sort of in-house PR or marketing? Or how did that? You know what happens is, this is the best news about the industry. Individuals become absolutely committed. So people don't remember anymore. In the case of Cheris, Bob Dean Gillian and Ashley Boone and a man called George Nelson, who ran Warner's in New York, heroic, they bust a gut. And the film would never, ever, ever have won the Oscar without those three guys.

1:20:21They carried it over the line. You know, it is a football metaphor. They were amazing. In the case of The Mission, Barry Reardon at Warner's, he just became obsessed with the film and just, again, became the ball carrier. one of the sad things about the business is that it doesn't look down enough at the water carriers because sometimes it's those water carriers that have not just saved the day they've saved you they've saved you from dying of thirst absolutely the other person i was going to tee up here in the rapid fire don rugoff do you remember don rugoff very well indeed very well he's another one of these guys who i feel like has been forgotten so i wonder if somebody's listening They've never heard of Don Rugoff.

1:21:04Can I just ask you to share, why was he a significant person? Because he was this huge man. He owned the plaza at a time, I think, in New York and a distribution company. He was the only place you could go. Well, actually, it's not quite true. Sam Arcoff. Does anyone remember Sam Arcoff? Sam Z. Arcoff, right? Sam Z. Arcoff. If you were making movies in the UK and you wanted to get any chance of getting some screen time in the US, it was Don Rugoff or Sam Arcoff. They were it. Last three here. What's your sense of the state of the British film industry today? Is there another David Putnam out there, someone who you look at and you say, you know, I'm really impressed by this producer or executive, British producer or executive?

1:21:47Yeah, I mean, there's a number. I think that Tim Bevan and Eric Felner have done extraordinarily well. A friend of mine who's not well at all, the moment Duncan Kenworthy, has been a tower of strength as a producer. Those are very good producers. The bigger problem is to the degree to which we become a streaming service provider. So there's some sensational producers working in streaming. Whether they have the ambition to or whether they're ever going to make the transition to making features, I don't know. Well, I do know. The greatest privilege of my life, let's take the mission, because it's such a big movie.

1:22:22I doubt very much that very many producers will ever again, I know I've heard Spielberg say this, will ever again look at a movie on a screen that size with that score, with that orchestra, with that. Maybe that will never happen. And so possibly the kind of people you're talking about will have wonderful careers, but will never have that experience. Right, right. For you today, if you either seek out or just happen upon one of your great films from from yesteryear, I wonder what it's what's it like for you to watch it? I mean, something like chariots of fire i was as i prepped for this i realized almost everyone's gone uh the director the stars um killing fields i mean i would it's terrible to think about what happened to hang hang no right i think he was uh murdered is that right he was he was murdered yeah he's murdered in his own garage and i know you were worth saying tragically murdered because whilst they took his Rolex watch, he wouldn't give them the gold thing around his neck, which had been given to him by his fiancée who died in his arms in Cambodia.

1:23:31And he wouldn't give it to them. Again, you can't make these stories up there. No. And I know of all the people you worked with, it sounds like maybe you were as close to Alan Parker as anybody. So, I mean, I just wonder can you enjoy if you go and see all these great films we're talking about, can you still enjoy it or is it tough to watch at this point? I enjoy them vicariously because I teach. I teach and I have done for the last 13 years at a number of universities. So through the students, it may sound evasive, it's not. Through the students, I'm able to enjoy them because they get to see them as a kind of set piece.

1:24:10They then criticize and we discuss them. So vicariously, yes, I do. The problem is you look at them, You could see everything that you wish, you know, oh, God, if we had done a couple of thousand dollars, we would have done that. There tends to be that. But I'm still a fanatical film fan. I saw every single one of the Oscar-nominated movies, including the shorts and everything else. And, yeah, it's, I mean, I loved Sentimental Value. I think he is a truly, I think he's a great director. Not just what he does, but why he does it. Absolutely. Joachim, yeah. Can I say something? because Ken Loach, a very good friend of mine, has stopped now making movies.

1:24:51He'd said something to me very important years ago. We were talking about the how he'd done something. And he stopped, it was Alan Parker and I, and he stopped us and said, you know, you're asking the wrong question. It's not how, it's why. And I think if as filmmakers we stop and ask why we're doing what we're doing, we might end up making better movies. Very last one right here. After all this, it's been so terrific. And I thank you. Many years from now, when we have all shuffled off this mortal coil, how would you like people to remember Lord David Putnam? Oh, gosh. I think that if anyone goes through my, as I call it, there's not that much I'm ashamed of.

1:25:37There's not very good movies, but I could explain exactly what went wrong with each film that's not very good. So I think the notion that I really, really tried hard. I don't think anyone could have tried harder. Did I always succeed? No. But God, I tried. I tried so hard at Columbia. I just, it was an environment that I found really impossible to cope with. And that's a flaw in me, not in the system. Well, I think it's a pretty incredible career. And I think anybody that has listened to this conversation or goes back through the films and the stories as I've enjoyed doing prepping for this, I mean, it's amazing.

1:26:14And so I and that we haven't even we didn't even talk about the all the political and philanthropic things that you've done over the most recent decades. So anyway, I just want to thank you so much for making the time and for all the great films and and really, really appreciate it. Well, as Frank Capra would say, it's been a wonderful life. That's it. That's it. Well, you be well. And thank you again. Thanks a million.

1:26:42Thanks for listening to Awards Chatter. We really appreciate it and would really appreciate you taking just a minute more to subscribe to the podcast and to leave us a rating and review on your podcast app. And to follow us on Twitter and Instagram, where our handle is at Awards Chatter. On those platforms, we announce upcoming guests and provide details about special live recordings of the podcast that you can attend. Until next time, thanks again for tuning in.