"the Golden Years": An Interview with Ronald Neame (Interview‪)‬

Ronald Neame is one of the last surviving members of the British film industry during what he himself terms the "golden years" of British film. An intimate of Alfred Hitchcock, J. Arthur Rank, Noel Coward, David Lean, and numerous other luminaries of the classical British cinema, Neame began his career in the industry as a camera assistant in 1933, and then went on to photograph some of the most memorable classics of the British cinema, including Gabriel Pascal's Major Barbara (1941), Noel Coward and David Lean's In Which We Serve (1942), and David Lean's Blithe Spirit (1945), before moving over as a producer on Lean's films Brief Encounter (1945), Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948), and finally creating a third career for himself as a director, on such superb films as The Horse's Mouth (1958), Tunes of Glory (1960), I Could Go On Singing (1963), and the film that remains (somewhat to his dismay) his most resounding commercial success, The Poseidon Adventure (1972). Speaking from his house in Los Angeles, Neame was candid and nostalgic as he remembered working with Coward, Lean, and other of his late compatriots, and simultaneously shrewd in his assessment of the current state of the British and American film industry. This interview took place on January 29, 2004. Wheeler Winston Dixon: Tell me a little about your early life, and how you got involved in the industry.