Stanley Long
Stanley Long | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Stanley Alfred Long 26 November 1933 London,England |
| Died | 10 September 2012 (aged 78)[1] Buckinghamshire,England |
| Occupation(s) | Film director,film producer,writer |
| Children | one daughter and two grandchildren |
| Parent(s) | Eleanor and Alfred Long |
Stanley A. Long(26 November 1933 – 10 September 2012) was an Englishexploitation cinemaandsexploitationfilmmaker. He was also a driving force behind theVistaScreenstereoscopic(3D) photographic company. He was a writer,cinematographer,editor, and eventually, producer/director of low-budget exploitation movies. [2][3][4][5]
Career
[edit] |
Long began his career as a photographer with the RAF, and helped found the stereoscopic souvenir/collectible outfitVistaScreenwith the Spring Brothers in 1956.[6]Selling out toWeetabixin 1961, Long considered other outlets for his talents.
He produced striptease shorts or "glamour home movies", as they were sometimes known, for the 8 mm market, under the banner of Stag Film Productions.
Beginning in the late fifties, Long's feature film career would span the entire history of the British sex film, and as such exemplifies its differing trends and attitudes.
Long was the cameraman on several British horror movies of the 1960s, includingThe Blood Beast Terror,Repulsion(uncredited) andThe Sorcerers.For the latter he was strapped to the top of a car to film one sequence.
In 1963,Harry Clifton (producer)re-financed Long's Circlorama cinema (which used theCircular Kinopanoramaprocess based on the idea ofCinéorama) near Piccadilly Circus in London, requesting that the filmmakers make a film with somehobgoblinsin it, but the ensuing film, "Circlorama Cavalcade", instead featured circus lions, Formula 2 cars, ice skaters, trains at Clapham Junction andThe Swinging Blue Jeans.[7]
His work ranges from coy nudist films (Nudist Memories,1959) to moralizing documentary (The Wife Swappers,1970) to a more relaxed attitude to permissive material (Naughty!,1971,On the Game,1974), to out-and-out comedies at the end of the 1970s.
He made severalsex comedymovies in the 1970s, the most successful beingAdventures of a Taxi Driver(1976),Adventures of a Private Eye(1977) andAdventures of a Plumber's Mate(1978); these starred a host of talented comedy performers includingBarry Evans,Diana Dors,Irene Handl,Harry H. Corbett,Liz FraserandFred Emney.
LikeNorman J. Warren,Long also made horror films. He made theanthology movieScreamtimein 1983 and was due to film a Jo Gannon script entitledPlasmid,about albino mutants living in London’s Underground. While the film was never made, confusingly a tie-in novel ofPlasmidwas released.[8]
Long retired from film directing in the early 1980s; however, he briefly returned to directThe Other Side of the Screenin 2006, a one-off documentary about various aspects of filmmaking. This was hosted byPaul Martin,star ofFlog It!.
As an entrepreneur, he was the creator of Salon Productions[9][10]and, later, Alpha Film Distribution.[11]
The "Adventures of" comedies were released to DVD on 2 June 2008. The following year several of his other sex films,On the Game,Sex and the Other WomanandThis That and the Otherwere also released on DVD for the very first time.
Long was interviewed for the BBC'sBalderdash and Piffleprogramme (broadcast 25 May 2007), and the British horror and comedy episodes of theBritish Films Foreverseries ( "Magic, Murder and Monsters" broadcast 25 August 2007, "Sauce, Satire and Sillyness" broadcast 9 September 2007).
Simon Sheridan’s biography of Long -X-Rated - Adventures of an Exploitation Filmmaker- was published in July 2008.
Death
[edit]Stanley Long died in Buckinghamshire on 10 September 2012, at the age of 78, of natural causes.[1]
Select credits
[edit]- West End Jungle(1961)
- Nudist Memories(1961)
- Nudes of the World(1961)
- Take Off Your Clothes and Live!(1963)
- London in the Raw(1964)
- Primitive London(1965)
- Secrets of a Windmill Girl(1966)
- This, That and the Other(1969)
- Groupie Girl(1970)
- The Wife Swappers(1970)
- Naughty!(1971)
- Bread(1971)
- Sex and the Other Woman(1972)
- On the Game(1974)
- Eskimo Nell(1975)
- It Could Happen to You(1975)
- Adventures of a Taxi Driver(1976)
- Adventures of a Private Eye(1977)
- Adventures of a Plumber's Mate(1978)
- Screamtime(1983)
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ab"BBC News - Stanley Long 'King of Sexploitation' dies".Bbc.co.uk. 1 January 1970.Retrieved13 September2012.
- ^New York Times
- ^X-Rated - Adventures of an Exploitation Filmmakerby Simon Sheridan (Reynolds & Hearn books) (2008)ISBN1-905287-78-X
- ^Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinemaby Simon Sheridan (fourth edition) (Titan Books) (2011)
- ^Sheridan, Simon (16 September 2012)."Stanley Long: Film director who was described by 'The Sun' as 'The King of Sexploitation'".The Independent.
- ^Ference, Ian (18 December 2020)."The Irving Theatre: VistaScreen's rarest set shows London's first strip joint".Brooklyn Stereography.Retrieved10 October2022.
- ^The true history of Circlorama 1962-65Stanley Long,2006, at "in70mm". Retrieved 27 May 2020
- ^Review ofPlasmidtie-in novel
- ^"X-rated comedies".films.TV Cream. Archived fromthe originalon 13 February 2007.Retrieved30 July2024.
Long's Salon Productions
- ^"SALON PRODUCTIONS".T. V. Cream.27 July 2009.Retrieved30 July2024.
- ^"Biography".Michael Armstrong.Archived fromthe originalon 3 April 2017.Retrieved30 July2024.
External links
[edit]- Stanley Long's official website
- "Stanley A Long".The British Entertainment History Project.(oral history)
- Stanley LongatIMDb
Images
Video
