Ivor Montagu

The Honourable Ivor Montagu
Ivor Montagu in middle age
Born	Ivor Goldsmid Samuel Montagu 23 April 1904 Kensington,London,England
Died	5 November 1984(1984-11-05)(aged 80) Watford,Hertfordshire,England
Known for	Filmmaker, critic,table tennisplayer, spy
Relatives	Ewen Montagu(brother)
Awards	Lenin Peace Prize International Table Tennis Foundation Hall of Fame

Ivor Goldsmid Samuel Montagu(23 April 1904, in Kensington, London – 5 November 1984, inWatford) was an English filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, film critic, writer,table tennisplayer, andCommunistactivist and spy in the 1930s. He helped to develop a lively intellectualfilm culture in Britainduring theinterwar years,and was also the founder of theInternational Table Tennis Federation.

Life and career

Montagu was born into wealth, as the third son ofGladys(née Goldsmid) andLouis Montagu, 2nd Baron Swaythling,members of aJewishbanking dynasty with a mansion in Kensington. He attendedWestminster SchoolandKing's College, Cambridge,where he contributed toGranta.He became involved inzoologicalresearch.

WithSidney Bernsteinhe established the London Film Society in 1925, the first British film association devoted to showingart filmsandindependent films.Montagu became the first film critic ofThe Observerand theNew Statesman.He did the post-production work onAlfred Hitchcock'sThe Lodgerin 1926 and was hired byGaumont-Britishin the 1930s to work as producer on several of Hitchcock's thrillers. His 1928 silent slapstick movieBluebottles(slang for police) is included in theBritish Film Institute'sHistory of theAvant-Garde–Britain in the Twenties.The story was byH. G. Wells,and the stars of the film wereCharles LaughtonandElsa Lanchester,while the remaining cast were his friends includingNorman Haire(also Montagu's doctor),Sergei Nolbandovand Joe Beckett.

Montagu joined theFabian Societyin his youth, then theBritish Socialist Party,and then theCommunist Party of Great Britain.This brought him into contact with the Russian film makers who were transforming the language of editing and montage in the 1920s. In 1930, he accompanied his friendSergei Eisensteinto New York and Hollywood; later in the decade Montagu made compilation films, includingDefence of Madrid(1936) andPeace and Plenty(1939)about theSpanish Civil War.He directed the documentaryWings Over Everest(1934) withGeoffrey Barkas.As a political figure and for a time a communist, much of his work at the time was on low budget, independent political films. ByWorld War II,however, he made a film for theMinistry of Information.

In 1933, Montagu was a founder member of theAssociation of Cinematograph and Television Technicians,holding positions in the union until the 1960s. He also held post on theWorld Council of Peace.In 1934, he was founder of the Progressive Film Institute.After the war, Montagu worked as a film critic and reviewer.

Montagu had a keen interest in wildlife conservation, and was a council member of theFauna Preservation Societyfor several years. He was friends with the eminent Soviet conservationist and zoologist Prof.Andrei Bannikov.He had contacts in Mongolia, and was a champion for the conservation of the endangeredPrzewalski's horse.

On 10 January 1927, he married Eileen Hellstern (1904–1984), the daughter of Francis Anton Hellstern, a boot maker from Camberwell. Although the couple did not have any children together, Ivor adopted Eileen's young daughter, Rowna Barnett, née Hellstern (1922–1996).

Table tennis

Montagu was a champion table tennis player, representing Britain in matches all over the world. He also helped to establish and finance the firstworld championshipsin London in 1926.

Montagu founded theInternational Table Tennis Federationthat same year, and was president of the group for more than forty years, not retiring until 1967. He helped expelapartheidSouth Africa from the Federation during the 1950s.

He also founded theEnglish Table Tennis Association(ETTA), and served several terms as chairman and president.

Montagu was inducted into the International Table Tennis Foundation Hall of Fame in 1995.

Recruited by Soviet intelligence

His older brotherEwen Montagu,abarristerin civilian life, became a naval intelligence officer duringWorld War II,privy to the secrets of top-secretUltraand the mastermind of the successful deception that launched theinvasion of Sicily,Operation Mincemeat.He later wrote a best-selling account of that adventure,The Man Who Never Was.

Ivor Montagu himself turned out to be working, albeit briefly, for the other side. A 25 July 1940 cable from Simon Davidovitch Kremer, Secretary to the Soviet Military Attaché in London, identified him as the somewhat reluctant new recruit who was supposed to create an "X Group" of like-minded friends.By the following year, Hitler had invaded Russia and theSoviet Unionbecame an ally of Britain, so that by June 1941, both brothers were technically working for the same side.

Ivor knew of his elder brother's intelligence work, but it seems doubtful his brother knew of his. Counter-espionage agents atMI5,however, even Ewen's bossJohn Masterman,seem to have suspected Ivor in general because of his outspoken Communist politics, his hanging around with "scruffy" Russians and housing a Jewish refugee in his house in the country. By far the greatest suspicions were aroused by Ivor's passionate support of internationalping-pong,which seemed so eccentric to MI5 that they assumed it had to be a cover for something else. They even tapped his phone and opened his mail, creating three volumes on him by early 1942, but found nothing specific, much to Ewen's relief, since he was always worried that his own career in Naval Intelligence would be adversely affected by the activities of his younger brother.

Only after the decryption in the 1960s ofVenonatelegraphs from March 1940 through April 1942 was he purportedly identified as "Ivor Montagu, the well known local communist, journalist and lecturer," code name "Intelligentsia", in communications from the SovietGRU.The Verona decrypts, which were declassified in 1995, are a highly contested and confusing archive of information, with a welter of code-names, which were frequently changed and not explicitly identified with their real names; hence these decrypts were never used in any American or British trials for treason, despite their availability to prosecutors from the late 1940s.

If "Intelligentsia" was, indeed, Ivor Montagu, his work for Soviet intelligence had little of the impact of theCambridge Five,which includedKim Philby,recruited as idealistic anti-Fascists in the 1930s, who continued to work at the height of the Cold War. In 1952, MI5 intercepted a telegram from Ivor Montagu tellingCharlie Chaplinhow sorry he was to miss him in London when the star visited England that year; the British agency had agreed to spy on Chaplin for theFBI,who were looking for ways to keep him out of America at the height ofMcCarthyism.Apart from that, they left Montagu and his ping-pong tournaments alone.

Montagu was awarded the prestigiousLenin Peace Prizein 1959, given by the Soviet government to recipients whose work furthers the cause of socialism, primarily outside of the USSR.

Writing

Montagu wrote many pamphlets and books, such asFilm World(1964),With Eisenstein in Hollywood(1968), andThe Youngest Son(1970). He wrote two books about table tennis:Table Tennis Today(1924) andTable Tennis(1936).

See also

• List of select Jewish table tennis players

Further reading

• Montagu, Ivor (1975) "Old man's mumble: reflections on a semi-centenary"Sight and Sound;autumn 1975, pp. 220–224 & 247 (relates to the Film Society, found 1925)
• Campbell, Russell (2018).Codename Intelligentsia: The Life and Times of the Honourable Ivor Montagu, Filmmaker, Communist, Spy.Stroud: History Press.ISBN978-0750987059.
• Griffin, Nicholas (2014).Ping-Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game That Changed the World.Simon and Schuster.ISBN9781451642773.
• Brown, Geoff and Hogsbjerg, Christian.Apartheid is not a Game: Remembering the Stop the Seventy Tour campaign.London: Redwords, 2020.ISBN9781912926589.

External links

• Ivor MontaguatIMDb
• ObituaryinThe Times
• Ivor Montaguat theBFI'sScreenonline
• Ivor Montaguat theBritish Entertainment History Project
• Guide to The Film Society collections (1925 – 1939)at theBritish Film Institute
• Ivor Montagu: Communist aristocrat, Soviet spy and activist filmmakerby Russell Campbell