John Glen (director)

John Glen (born 15 May 1932) is an English film director, film editor, and author. He is best known for his directorial and editing work on eight James Bond films from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Life and career

Glen had his start in the film-making industry as a messenger boy in 1945.^[1] By the late 1940s, he was working in the visual and sound editorial departments of Shepperton Studios for films directed by Alexander Korda,^[2] such as The Third Man (1949) and The Wooden Horse (1950). Moving up the ranks, Glen made his picture editorial debut on a documentary series titled Chemistry For Six Forms in 1961, and his directorial debut on the TV series Man in a Suitcase in 1968 (directing the episode "Somebody Loses, Somebody ... Wins?").^[3]

During the 1960s and 1970s, Glen served as a film editor and second unit director, working on such films as Superman (1978) and The Wild Geese (1978); he also contributed to three James Bond films: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979). Following the release of Moonraker, Glen was promoted to the rank of official director of the series;^[4] he went on to direct all five Bond films of the 1980s. He holds the record for directing the highest number of films in the series to date, just one film more than Guy Hamilton. The films are:

• For Your Eyes Only (1981)
• Octopussy (1983)
• A View to a Kill (1985)
• The Living Daylights (1987)
• Licence to Kill (1989)

After Bond, Glen continued to direct, with credits including Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992) and The Point Men (2001). He also directed episodes of the science-fiction television series Space Precinct (1994–95). In 2001, he published his memoir, For My Eyes Only.

Directorial style

Glen's films contain a recurring motif in the form of a startled pigeon that makes the actor (as well as the audience) jump;^[4] it is especially noticeable in his five James Bond films. Variations exist; in some cases, the animal is a cat (A View to a Kill) or a monkey (The Living Daylights). As editor of Moonraker, Glen was responsible for creating the "double-taking pigeon", an editing trick that makes it appear as if a bird in St Mark's Square in Venice cannot believe its eyes when Bond's (Roger Moore) gondola transforms into a hovercraft. In addition, all of Glen's Bond feature a character who dies by falling from a height, in a sequence commonly accompanied by the same "male scream" sound effect.

Glen often re-used actors in his films. In his autobiography, he states that he wanted to cast Timothy Dalton in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery but that Dalton left the project before shooting commenced; Glen wonders whether – following an argument at the end of shooting on Licence to Kill – Dalton did not wish to appear in any more of his films. Several other cast members from the Glen Bond films appear in Christopher Columbus: the Discovery; among them are Robert Davi, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Gothard and Nigel Terry.

Filmography

References

External links

• John Glen at the Internet Movie Database
• John Glen Biography on the "007 James" website (Retrieved 27 August 2012)
• John Glen Biography on the "MI6 The Home of James Bond 007" website (Retrieved 27 August 2012)