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Alan Smithee
Biography
When I refused to take directing credit for the film [Death of a Gunfighter], as did Bob Totten, the Directors' Guild made up a pseudonym for Totten and myself, 'Allen Smithee'. As the picture was well received, I told my young friends who wanted to be directors to change their name to Smithee and take credit for direction of the picture. I don't know if any...
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When I refused to take directing credit for the film [Death of a Gunfighter], as did Bob Totten, the Directors' Guild made up a pseudonym for Totten and myself, 'Allen Smithee'. As the picture was well received, I told my young friends who wanted to be directors to change their name to Smithee and take credit for direction of the picture. I don't know if anyone did this. I still think under certain circumstances, they might have cracked the 'magic barrier' and become directors. - Don Siegel, "A Siegel Film", London: Faber and Faber, 1993 (320, 321).
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Alan Smithee
'Alan Smithee' is a common pseudonym for directors whose film was clearly taken away from her/him and recut heavily against her/his wishes in ways that completely altered the film.The Directors Guild contract generally does not permit a director to remove her/his name from films. The Directors Guild has been striving for decades to establish the director as the "author" of a film, and part of getting the credit for the successes is taking the blame for the failures. The only exceptions they make are cases in which a film was clearly taken away from a director and recut heavily against her/his wishes in ways that completely altered the film. Directors are required to appeal to the Guild in such cases. If the appeal is successful, their name is replaced by Alan Smithee. So if you notice a film directed by Alan Smithee, it is certain it is not what its director intended, and likely that it is not any good.
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