HandMade films were one of the few bright spots in the British film industry in the early 80s. Formed by George Harrison and his accountant Dennis O'Brien to help bail out Monty Python on The Meaning of Life, they then funded Time Bandits - both films were big hits and HandMade suddenly found themselves in the movie business. Over the next ten years they made a handful of films that really stand the test of time, including A Private Function and Withnail and I. Eventually, as these companies always do, they went bust and it all ended acrimoniously when Harrison found that O'Brien had been ripping him off.
This book is mostly a collection of interviews with people crucial to HandMade, except O'Brien and Harrison. Harrison was dead and O'Brien not around - so he really cops it. I mean really cops it. The fact is the company wouldn't have existed and the films wouldn't have been made if it hadn't been for him - he had a real gift for raising finance (mostly on the strength of Harrison's personal guarantee), and also had a bright taste in comedy.
HandMade fluked into two massive hits to start up with (they also picked up The Long Good Friday, a solid success) but soon established a niche - British comedy. Since hardly anyone was making British features at the time, they could have kept their budgets low and enjoyed a longer life churning out these, living off the occasional break-through hit. But they got ambitious, and made Shanghai Surprise then moved to America. Actually even when they moved to America they didn't go Hollywood but still made artier stuff - but they went against their niche and ran into a series of flops which killed the company.
This is a very entertaining book on a very worthwhile subject. It probably needed some more hard data than being mostly interviews - many creative people like to whinge about executives - with the quality of access is high. Oh, one more thing - everyone bags Water but I loved Water, I think it really works.
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