Alexander Mackendrick

At 81 years old, Alexander Mackendrick has this physical status:

At the start of the Second World War, Mackendrick was employed by the Minister of Information making British propaganda films. In 1942, he went to Algiers and then to Italy, working with the Psychological Warfare Division. He then shot newsreels, documentaries, made leaflets, and did radio news. In 1943, he became the director of the film unit and approved the production of Roberto Rossellini's early neorealist film, Rome, Open City (1945).

After the war, Mackendrick and Roger MacDougall set up Merlin Productions, where they produced documentaries for the Ministry of Information. Merlin Productions soon proved financially unviable. In 1946 Mackendrick joined Ealing Studios, originally as a scriptwriter and production designer, where he worked for nine years and directed five films made at Ealing; Whisky Galore! (US: Tight Little Island, 1949), The Man in the White Suit (1951), Mandy (1952), The Maggie (US: High and Dry, 1954) and The Ladykillers (1955), the first two and the last being among the best known of Ealing's films.

Mackendrick often spoke of his dislike of the film industry and decided to leave the United Kingdom for Hollywood in 1955. When the base of Ealing studios was sold that year, Mackendrick was cut loose to pursue a career as a freelance director, something he was never prepared to do:

The rest of his professional life was spent commuting between London and Los Angeles. His first film after his initial return to the United States was Sweet Smell of Success (1957), produced by Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions (HHL). This was a critically successful film about a press agent (Tony Curtis) who is wrapped up in a powerful newspaper columnist's (Burt Lancaster) plot to end the relationship between his younger sister and a jazz musician. Mackendrick got along poorly with the producers of the film because they felt that he was too much of a perfectionist. After Sweet Smell of Success, he returned to England to make the second HHL film, The Devil's Disciple (1959), but he was fired a month into production owing to lingering tension from their first project together. Mackendrick was devastated. In the same period, Mackendrick assisted Dutch film maker Bert Haanstra with the production of the comedy film, Fanfare (1958).

After his disappointment with HHL, Mackendrick directed several television commercials in Europe for Horlicks. Mackendrick was replaced on The Guns of Navarone for allegedly being too much of a perfectionist for spending more time than planned on scouting Mediterranean locations and insisting on elements of ancient Greek literature in the screenplay.

He also made a handful of films throughout the Sixties including Sammy Going South (1963) for former Ealing producer Michael Balcon now with Bryanston Pictures, A High Wind in Jamaica (1965), and Don't Make Waves (1967). Sammy Going South was entered into the 3rd Moscow International Film Festival. A project to film Ionesco's Rhinoceros, which would have starred Tony Hancock and Barbara Windsor, fell through at the last minute. In 1969 he returned to the United States after being appointed Dean of the film school of the California Institute of the Arts, giving up the position in 1978 to become a professor at the school.

Some of Mackendrick's most notable students include David Kirkpatrick, Doug Campbell, Terence Davies, F. X. Feeney, Richard Jefferies, James Mangold, Stephen Mills, Thom Mount, Sean Daniel, Bruce Berman, Gregory Orr, Don Di Pietro, Michael Pressman, Douglas Rushkoff, Lee Sheldon, David Brisbin, and Henry Golas amongst others.

Mackendrick suffered from severe emphysema for many years and as a result, was unable to go home to Europe during much of his time at the college. He stayed with the school until he died of pneumonia in 1993, aged 81. His remains are buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.

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