Film and TV producer Monty Berman, whose credits include the series The Saint, starring Roger Moore
Cinematographer, director, and film and television producer Monty Berman, whose television series The Saint became an international hit, died in London last June 14. His obit was reported in The [London] Independent on Aug. 4.
Born in London in 1912, at the age of 17 Berman became a camera assistant at Twickenham Studios. In 1935, he developed into a full-fledged cinematographer, working with Michael Powell on the Margaret Lockwood vehicle Some Day.
Berman’s career was curtailed by World War II, during which he served with the Eighth Army Film Unit. Once hostilities were over, Berman worked as a camera operator in films such as Hue and Cry (1946), Daughter of Darkness (1947), and The End of the River (1947).
Around that time, Berman and Robert S. Baker – both had been sergeants with the film unit – co-founded Tempean Films, which went on to produce about 30 B movies, mostly thrillers. Usually, Berman acted as both producer and cinematographer, with Baker at times directing. Since they couldn’t afford sets, Berman and Baker resorted to the then unusual (in Britain) practice of shooting their films on location.
Among their best-known productions were the thriller The Quiet Woman (1951), starring Jane Hylton and Dora Bryan (replacing a recalcitrant Diana Dors); the more upscale The Voice of Merrill / Murder Will Out (1952), directed and written by Tempean’s top director, John Gilling, and starring Valerie Hobson, Edward Underdown, and James Robertson Justice; The Lost Hours (1952), starring Jean Kent and Mark Stevens; Blind Spot (1958), with a young Michael Caine as a small-time crook; and The Siege of Sidney Street (1960), co-directed by Berman and Baker, and with Donald Sinden and Nicole Berger as the leads.
With the demise of the B-movie factory line because of television, Berman and Baker eventually opted to join the enemy. Their TV series The Saint, starring Roger Moore, became an enormous international success. It ran in the United Kingdom from 1962 to 1969.
Other TV series in which Berman was involved include The Baron, starring Steve Forrest as an undercover agent, and The Champions, also about spies.
Rank’s gong man Ken Richmond
The 6-foot-5 wrestler Ken Richmond, 80, the fourth and last bulky man striking the gong before the opening credits of the Rank Studio films, died on Aug. 3 at his home in Christchurch, on England’s south coast.
In 1954, Richmond was paid £100 (approximately US$280 at the time) to bare his chest and take a slow swing at a gong about 5 feet across. (Rank’s first gong-striker was bombardier Billy Wells, who struck the gong three times in 1935. The synchronized sound heard by audiences, however, was provided by percussionist James Blades striking a 30-inch Chinese tam-tam.)
Richmond was born in London on July 10, 1926. An amateur heavyweight wrestler, he appeared as an extra in British films, and had a small role in Jules Dassin’s film noir Night and the City (1950), starring Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney. Hardly cast against type, Richmond played a wrestler.
In 1952, the 265-pound athlete won a bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Helsinki, and two years later, he won a gold medal at the 1954 Commonwealth Games in Vancouver.
During World War II, Richmond, a Jehovah’s Witness, was jailed as a conscientious objector. In later years, he became a door-to-door missionary for his church.
For his role as Rank’s last gong-striker, he was interviewed for Tom Gutteridge’s 1985 British TV documentary The Golden Gong, an exploration of Rank’s impact on the British film industry. The Rank Studios had closed in 1980.
Lastly, bear in mind that Rank’s gong never actually rang. It was made of papier-maché.