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Very Naughty Boys: The Amazing True Story of Handmade Films
£2.80
It all started when Beatle George Harrison stepped in to fund Life of Brian when Monty Python’s original backers pulled out. His company, HandMade films, went on to make some of the best British films of the 80s (Withnail and I, Time Bandits and Mona Lisa among them), but then things started to go wrong… This is the incredible and often hilarious insiders’ story of what happened…
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Additional information
| Publisher | Titan Books, Illustrated edition (20 Sept. 2013) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 14016 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 353 pages |
| Page numbers source ISBN | 1781167087 |
by kevin john bailey
Interesting subject
by Wingate
The eighties were littered with corpses of British film production,Handmade being one one of the bigger.It is a truly sorry but absorbing tale starting with the Life Of Brian and ending in bitter court proceedings.There is a very obvious villain of the piece.Though in mitigation he did give a lot of people a start in the industry.You can only feel pity for George Harrison who was cruelly misled and left holding a substantial debt.An excellent read.
by Anthony H.
A very interesting insight into that period
by Simon Rompani
Everything you wanted to know about this unique company and the movies it created. I grew up watching Handmade films from Python to Mona Lisa and Time Bandits, Withnail…. not a rose tinted take on the story but an honest and revealing insight into Handmades highs and ultimately litigious lows.
by Kenneth Barrett
Poor George Harrison. He agrees to fund the Pythons’ Life of Brian when their backer pulls out a few days before shooting is due to begin, and finds he has an enormous success on his hands. A splurge of other hits follows.
For the making of each one, George guarantees the funding by jointly signing a contract with his manager-come-business partner, Denis O’Brien. Except that O’Brien doesn’t sign. He is in effect using George as a credit card.
And O’Brien, previously respected as a very astute banker and businessman, begins to feel that as a movie mogul, he should have a say in the creative process. The turkeys inevitably follow.
Suddenly George, who has no interest in the business side of things, discovers that rather than being a wealthy film producer he is almost bankrupt. O’Brien, who George has always trusted and defended, was not the messiah.
What a sad story. It could have all been so good – in fact, for a while it was. Robert Sellers tells a gripping story.
by B N / B R
all fine
by Makara
Hastily established to fund and save Monty Python’s seminal classic ‘Life of Brian, the quixotic Handmade Films Ltd went on to finance, distribute and/or produce some of the greatest, and indeed worst, British cinematic offerings of the 1980’s.
Initially a collaborative partnership between George Harrison, his scrofulous business partner Denis O’Brien and the Monty Python team this unlikely union was made possible after original backer EMI Films pulled funding for ‘Brian at the 11th hour. Horrified by the film’s irreverent takes on otherwise sacrosanct Christian/Biblical themes EMI’s upper management had belatedly intervened, terminating their support forthwith. Worse, the controversy ‘Brian was now beginning to generate in the media combined with this highly publicised setback had likely dissuaded interest from every other traditional investment source as well.
With just days to go before the first day of scheduled shooting began then the exasperated yet defiantly resolute Pythons sought financing from a more unconventional source…
Revelling in the millions subsequently raked in by ‘Brian, the embryonic Handmade sought to build upon these solid foundations, mostly via Python-orientated projects. Nevertheless further success duly followed via the acquisition and release of the classic gangster film ‘The Long Good Friday’ which received widespread acclaim in 1980. With Terry Gilliam’s dark fantasy ‘Time Bandits’ followed in 1981 and also triumphing commercially it seemed that this impudent little upstart, founded by a tax haven wiz, a former Beatle and a coterie of surrealist comedians, had the Midas touch.
Yet perversely it was these unprecedented early successes that would prove to be Handmade’s undoing. Fuelled by a rapidly escalating ego and augmented by a noxious cocktail of 80’s hubris, delusion and greed O’Brien cultivated a dangerously distorted view of the film industry. As such an insidious overconfidence pervaded the company resulting in mounting losses and sowing the seeds for it’s eventual, and perhaps inevitable, downfall…
Author Robert Sellers recounts the Handmade story in superlatively lucid detail throughout ‘Very Naughty Boys’ fifteen chapters. Though very much a celebration of Handmade and it’s checkered legacy Sellers refreshingly refrains from sugarcoating the company’s more tawdry episodes such as the execrable ‘Water’ and ‘Shanghai Surprise’ from 1985 and 1986 respectively.
Perhaps ‘Naughty Boys most laudable accomplishment though is it’s comprehensive portrait of Handmade’s chief. Enigmatic, eccentric and notoriously truculent when provoked, Sellers deftly cuts through the many distortions that still surround the late Denis O’Brien’s life and career. Instead this consummate hustler is depicted as the fascinatingly flawed and infinitely cunning human being he truly was.
Bolstered by recent(ish) interviews conducted with various Handmade alumni, Monty Python’s surviving members (most of whom are happily contemplative and philosophical on their ultimately acrimonious relationship with O’Brien) and some wonderfully scathing contemporary reviews by unimpressed film critics all serve to make ‘Naughty Boys’ a fascinating and ebullient read throughout!
CONCLUSION:
Accessible, meticulously researched whilst administering a modicum of sardonic wit where required, Seller’s riotous account of the Handmade Films saga is both insightful and refreshingly uncompromising.
Highly Recommended!
by Dave
This is a very informative book about the goings on at Handmade films from their heyday to present times. Worth a read.