WORKING WITH LLOYD RECKORD.

Loyd Reckord in Danger Man

David McGillivray alerted me to the recent death of Lloyd Reckord. Working with Lloyd on the English short films Ten Bob in Winter and Dream A 40 in the sixties had been one of the most intense professional experiences I ever had. Two temperaments like his and mine learning on the job - it’s a wonder we never came to blows.

Lloyd was a coming young West Indian actor in sixties Britain. He had successes in the Bristol Old Vic “Nude With Violin”, a 1958 St. Martin’s Lane production of  Ted Willis’ “Hot Summer Night”, which significantly was adapted for TV’s Armchair Theatre, and in his Brother Barry’s “You in Your Small Corner” directed by Claude Watham, along with a long run in the West End “South Pacific.” He picked up a few unmemorable movie rolls in productions like Sapphire and  What a Whopper and was the bar keeper continuing character in the Danger Man series.

TV's first interracial kiss - Elizabeth MacLennan and Reckord You in Your Small Corner.

I ran into an old school friend in London and he mentioned that his flat mate had made a movie which (familiar story) came to a halt in the editing stage. It turned out to be Lloyd Reckord’s BFI Experimental film fund effort Ten Bob in Winter, shot by Joe Losey’s son Gaverik. I said I’d look at it and they showed me a twenty nine minute mute rough cut. Kevin Brownlow saw it and observed that nothing there resembled a movie. I said I’d put in a weekend on trying to shape it up.

Three months later ... I’d taken it down to eleven minutes. We had Jon Noble shoot a title background and a couple of linking shots, made a credit sequence, got John Ponsford to lay in the Joe Harriot Quintet score and Ian Duff mixed a track for it. It played the London Film Festival’s short film program first in the line up and was greeted by a thunderous round of applause. Lloyd and I were in the audience and I turned round to him and said “The distributors are here. We’re made!” Then the second film came up and was greeted by a thunderous round of applause and I realised that the audience was entirely made up of friends and relatives of  film makers.

Ten Bob in Winter made Lloyd the first black man to direct a dramatic film in the UK. It should have generated some interest in him but all that followed was his soso BBC documentary about Jamaican artists.

We offered Ten Bob in Winter around and were told that it was very nice and we should show people our next one, which was not the return on that amount of effort we’d hoped for. Lloyd had the movie bug and wanted to make a something more ambitious. He ran a number of proposals past me and I pictured the same people giving the same response. Then he came up with a story about two male lovers driving together and I said “That one. That’ll generate a bit of outrage. It’ll be conspicuous.”  

Chant d’amour was circulating, though we hadn’t seen it, and a couple of British features with homosexual themes were in the pipe line -- The Leather Boys and Victim - but it was still a risky proposition. We worried unnecessarily that the labs might refuse to process it.

I sold a few copies of Ten Bob in Winter which was an embarrassment to the BFI because they were claiming that they didn’t have any money for productions, so they gave us the returns. Karel Reisz had gone on record that the Free Cinema movement was over and there weren’t any hopefuls out there deserving the support he’d mustered. We had this one ready to roll so he felt compelled to make a few ‘phone calls.

Dream A40 was a step up production wise. It was shot on the new Ilford Stock that was their answer to the fast Kodak film first used in Alphaville. This provided fine grain and a range of tones not previously available in 16mm. I introduced direct sound and a feature dub into the process. While everyone else seemed to be making Jean Luc Goddard knock-offs, we were more interested in the Hollywood model, trying to find how it worked and whether we could make it do for us what it did for them.

 

Lloyd thought the new film could be brought in for less than Ten Bob in Winter, about which I was skeptical. While shooting the motor cycle cop scene they were bailed up by the home counties constabulary and arrested for riding without a license and impersonating a police officer. By the time that was sorted it had swallowed a third of the budget. The case was heard in some local court where they’d never seen a West Indian and the judge was overwhelmed with liberal sentiment. Having copped a fine and had the other charge dismissed, Lloyd came back in his best suit, grinning “Some times it pays to be black.”

Dream A40 - Mike Billington & Nicolas Wright

While all this was happening, Lloyd was drawn into our posse of movie enthusiasts homing in on one-off London Screenings. He loved The Congress Dances and Alf Sjöberg and, to his surprise, enjoyed Charles Laughton doing Captain Kidd. I don’t feel the Republic serials were Lloyd’s idea of fun however. I went to his impressive student production of his brother’s “Skyvers.”

Money and patience running out, we found ourselves working through the night in cutting rooms used in the day by Derek Knight and trundling the production up and down Wardour Street in a hand cart. Looking for support, Lloyd showed the work print to one of the Bolting Brothers without telling him what it was about. The Bolting Brother became progressively more disturbed as it ran and exited with Lloyd, arguing about the ethics of the production - leaving me to pay for the theater.

Debts mounting, we finished the film the week I had to leave for Australia. This one was later also shown in the London Film Festival -  followed by an absolute silence. The BFI refused to distribute it and their Monthly Film Bulletin gave it a damning notice when it eventually did turn up in a program of shorts I put together. Lloyd went back to Jamaica so we never did get to test it’s European potential.

A few of years later I got it run in the Edinburgh Film Festival and the Paris Cinémathèque but the heat had gone out of the issue by them and nothing followed.

I’d brought Dream A40 to Australia. The censor’s theatrette mysteriously filled up for their screening. David Stratton’s festival wouldn’t show it but it was a hit on the Underground Circuit. Intriguingly, Lloyd's apple eating sequence, which never cracked a smile with small groups, brought the house down when the film showed to three figure audiences. My hopes for a success from scandal were justified. It proved to the most popular film I handled. We struck twenty six copies, which gives you a measure of the scale of that operation.

It also meant I had something ambitious to show as an example of my work. I still think it’s the most sophisticated piece of film editing I did. The ABC’s chief editor was nonplussed, said the titles were too long and offered me an assistant’s spot which I turned down. Stanley Hawes at the CFU was, as I would have hoped, more impressed, and gave me a job in their press office switching me to production when I had another offer. I wasn’t a good match for that operation but I did generate their WW1 Feature Compilation.

Lloyd found the whole film experience too frustrating and went back into stage work, running the Jamaican National Theater with some distinction.

Fifty years later Dream A40’s first film on a BFI compilation DVD and being hailed as a pioneer and perceptive piece of gay cinema, which is a bit odd and a bit late. I’d lost touch with Lloyd. When the disc came out I meant to contact him but I never got around to it and I regret that. I remember him warmly.