Alan Smithee

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Alan Smithee, Allen Smithee, Alan Smythee, and Adam Smithee are pseudonyms used between 1968 and 1999 by Hollywood film directors who wanted to be dissociated from a film for which they no longer wanted credit. It was used when the director could prove to the satisfaction of a panel of members of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers that the film had been wrested from his or her creative control. The director is also required to keep the reason for the disavowal a secret. The pseudonym cannot be used to hide a director's failures.

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The birth

The first movie to use it was Death of a Gunfighter. During its filming, Richard Widmark was unhappy with director Robert Totten. He arranged to have Totten replaced by Don Siegel. When the film was finished, neither Totten nor Siegel wanted to be credited with the result. At first it was decided that the credit should go to Al Smith, but the DGA said there had already been a director by that name. The DGA decided the film could carry the pseudonym "Allen Smithee". Smithee's work was praised by film critics. The New York Times commented that the film was "sharply directed by Allen Smithee who has an adroit facility for scanning faces and extracting sharp background detail."

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A prolific career

The name Smithee is used extensively in television and film, taking the direction credit for episodes of well-known series, including the pilot for the action-adventure series MacGyver. Jud Taylor twice used the pseudonym, for the TV movies Fade-In (a.k.a. Iron Cowboy) (1968) with Burt Reynolds and City in Fear (1980) with David Janssen. Taylor commented on its use when the DGA's Robert B. Aldrich Achievement Award was awarded to "Smithee":

"I had a couple of problems in my career having to do with editing and not having the contractually-required number of days in the editing room that my agent couldn't resolve. So, I went to the Guild and said, 'This is what's going on.' The Guild went to bat for me. I got Alan Smithee on them both. It was a signal to the industry from a creative rights point of view that the shows had been tampered with."

Smithee has also been credited with works in other genres, such as the music video for Whitney Houston's cover song "I Will Always Love You" from the soundtrack for The Bodyguard.

The Destiny's Child music video for "Lose My Breath" is also attributed to Smithee.

Outside films, several 1995 comics involving the Superhero Daredevil were attributed to the writing of Alan Smithee.

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DGA replaces the practice

In 1997 the comedy An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn was released, in which a director wants to disown a film but cannot because his real name is Alan Smithee. The publicity around this movie, and especially around the fact that director Arthur Hiller asked for and got an Alan Smithee credit for it, made the Directors Guild decide to discontinue using the Alan Smithee credit.

Another affair that may have played a role was the one around American History X, where director Tony Kaye asked for a Smithee but did not get it because he had publicly attacked the movie. Kaye later sued the Guild over its decision.

After this, the Guild decided to choose a pseudonym for each case separately, rather than re-use a particular pseudonym. The first such example is the Thomas Lee credit for Walter Hill on Supernova (2000), a film which starred James Spader.

This change has not ended the practice of using the Smithee pseudonym entirely. For example, the Canadian film Fugitives Run starring David Hasselhoff is also credited to Smithee, as are the 2003 films Cowboys Run and River Made to Drown In.

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Use in alternative versions

  • The TV versions of films are sometimes disavowed, even if the theatrical release is not:
    • One example is Scent of a Woman directed by Martin Brest which was "An Alan Smithee film" on television;
    • The extended TV version of the David Lynch film Dune was also credited to Smithee when Lynch objected to edits by its producers. The writing credit goes to 'Judas Booth', which is an inside joke for Lynch who states the studio betrayed and killed his film;
    • The same credit change happened with Michael Mann at least twice, for The Insider and Heat.
  • A version of Meet Joe Black edited for in-flight entertainment was also credited to Smithee.
  • A cable TV version of William Friedkin's The Guardian was credited to Smithee.
  • Backtrack, a 1990 film directed by Dennis Hopper and starring Jodie Foster, was originally credited to Smithee; a "director's cut" for a subsequent video release was credited to Hopper. Perhaps coincidentally, Joe Pesci, who appeared prominently in the film, also had the credit for his role removed.
  • The version of Ganheddo released in the United States was credited to Smithee.
  • A half-hour 1955 television drama called The Indiscreet Mrs. Jarvis starring Angela Lansbury was released on VHS in 1992 without its original credits but retroactively credited to Smithee.
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Other films crediting Smithee as director

The following films credit Smithee; the actual director is listed when known:

"The Twilight Zone" had a Smithee segment.

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Trivia

The 1955 film Mr. Arkadin, directed by Orson Welles, includes the following exchange between the title character played by Welles and Guy Van Stratten, played by Robert Arden:

Van Stratten: You don't have any memory of what happened to you before '27, right? So what makes you so sure your name is Arkadin?
Arkadin: Hmmm?
Van Stratten: Well, maybe it's Arkadine, or Arkadini, or Arkapopoulos, or Smithee!
Arkadin: Don't be a fool. I know my own name.

Although there's no evidence that this scene is the inspiration for "Allen Smithee" as the pseudonym-of-choice in direction, the circumstances surrounding the production and release of Mr. Arkadin (also released in the United Kingdom as Confidential Report) suggest that Welles might have disowned the work if the convention were available at the time. The editing of the film was removed from his control, the film was first released in a Spanish version with different actors, and various scenes were included or excluded in other releases.

The pseudonym is not entirely disused: In 2005 Gary Oldman was originally planned to provide the voice for the character General Grievous in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, but pulled out. The voice was eventually provided by Matthew Wood who, being a Lucasfilm employee, submitted his reading under the name of Alan Smithee and revealed his name after he was chosen, thus Wood is the name credited.

The name Alan Smithee is also an anagram of the phrase "The Alias Men".

In the episode "D'oh-in In the Wind" of the TV show The Simpsons, at the end of a short film directed by Mr. Burns, it reads "An Alan Smithee Film".

At some of Cineplex Galaxy's movie theatres in Canada, the coffee concessions are known as "Alan Smithee's."

The 2005 PlayStation 2 video game Wild Arms Alter Code: F contains a small reference to the name. A book found in one of the game's earliest dungeons, telling of the history of the game's class of "wanderers," mentions the following: "Folklore and writings tell us that among the first wanderers was a character named Alan Smithee. Alan Smithee's legend is steeped in mystery. In fact, recent studies suggest that it is doubtful that such a character ever existed. It is also suggested that the name Alan Smithee is only a euphemism to describe the morals and values of the Wanderer Culture. Whether there was ever a real man named Alan Smithee, we will never know for a fact."

The 2003 PC video game "Postal 2: Share The Pain" Also has a reference. Since many of the stock multiplayer levels are areas from the single player game converted for multiplayer, the level "Trainyard" is credited to Alan Smithee. This is more than likely to be Steve Wik, creator of Postal.

Alan Smithee even has an "offspring" who also directs, as Sam Raimi sometimes credits himself as Alan Smithee Jr.

In The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron episode Lights! Camera! Danger!, the evil Professor Calamitous has a robotic suit that he uses to disguise himself as a director named Quentin Smithee.

In 1992, a group of movie buffs in Ann Arbor, Michigan, created a tongue-in-cheek awards ceremony for the best and/or worst in B-grade and lower film, and christened them the Smithee Awards in honor of the famous pseudonym. The Smithees are held every year in Ann Arbor and, since 1994, at the Origins International Game Expo in Columbus, Ohio.

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Related pseudonyms

In addition, authors have been known to use Smithee-like pseudonyms on works they feel have been interfered with. The best known modern example of this is Cordwainer Bird, a name used on occasion by Harlan Ellison and a subtle play in the science fiction context on the pseudonym Cordwainer Smith; Ellison also used his Smithee variant when he removed his name from the credits of the 1970s TV series The Starlost, which he created.

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External links and sources

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