Sam Spiegel: new doco on Hollywood heavyweight
A CASTLE Hill filmmaker’s documentary on producer Sam Spiegel delves into the mystery man who made history in the Golden Age of Hollywood.
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A CASTLE Hill filmmaker’s documentary on producer Sam Spiegel delves into the mystery man who made history in the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Stephan Wellink’s film, Sam Spiegel: Conquering Hollywood, follows the man who produced a number of notable films, including On the Waterfront, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia.
Spiegel, who died in 1985 aged 84, was the first to win an Academy Award for Best Picture three times and made history as sole producer on all three winning films.
The film includes interviews with screen legends Ben Kingsley, Jeremy Irons and Janet Suzman, along with other cast and crew who worked with Spiegel.
Wellink, who produced the film alongside fellow Australian filmmaker Robert de Young in an Australian-French co-production, said Spiegel was “the pioneer of what is today the independent film movement”.
“I’ve always loved Hollywood history and I’ve always loved the big epic films and my favourite I think is Lawrence of Arabia and Sam Spiegel was the producer on that film,” Wellink said.
The film is the fourth documentary Wellink has worked on.
Although he has “always had a facination in films”, Wellink’s background is in science and technology and he worked at CSIRO and the University of Technology Sydney.
While launching a book he collaborated on called Australia’s Nobel Laureates, released in 2004, he remarked that the book’s subjects would make good documentaries.
He was later approached to help with research on just that - an Australian documentary called The Winners Guide to the Nobel Prize, which was released in 2006.
From there he was hooked and has produced three documentaries and has two more plus a feature film in the works.
“In fairly quick succession over the last two or three years we’ve made a documentary on Jerry Lewis, a documentary on Rod Taylor the great Australian actor (both released in 2016), and now this one on Sam Spiegel,” Wellink said.
The film premiered in France last month and will make its Australian premiere on Sunday, November 4, as part of the Jewish International Film Festival.
“It’s been made by a couple of Aussies about someone whose story has never really been told on film,” Wellink said.
Sam Spiegel: Conquering Hollywood will be screened at Event Cinemas, Bondi Junction, on Tuesday, November 6, at 6.45pm. Wellink will introduce the film and also hold a Q&A afterwards.