Alan Smithee Isn’t Alive and Well, but His Spirit Lives On

Alan Smithee is a close friend of mine and he was very upset about Amy Wallace’s article, especially its contention that he doesn’t exist (“Name of Director Smithee Isn’t What It Used to Be,” Jan. 15). He’s too prideful to personally reply, so I’m speaking up in his defense.

Alan has, as the article pointed out, directed scores of films over the last 30 years, but he’s especially proud of what so many dismiss as the airplane versions of movies. These aren’t crude, edited versions of theatrical releases but reshoots of the entire film, using the same actors, working from a script different from the original. The massive logistical arrangements involved in reshooting an entire film, with the original cast, just so it can be safely viewed on the airplane, generally at a height of 30,000 feet, and the directing of the film itself, all fall to Alan Smithee. Quite a task for someone who doesn’t exist!

Alan is most proud of “Burn Hollywood Burn,” a documentary about his years in the business, produced to look like a mockumentary using the pseudonym Joe Eszterhas, but from the stories he’s told me, I think he had the most fun on “Death of a Gunfighter.” He mentioned recently he had an idea for the airplane version of “Death of a Director,” but he has to wait until the theatrical release is completed.

GARY GORDON

Venice

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“Burn Hollywood Burn” was the ultimate Hollywood in-joke and I guess this is the punchline. The public may not have laughed at it, but I just love the punchline.

As a writer in the age of the director as auteur, I feel a great sense of satisfaction putting the Directors Guild pseudonym under the ground. Who says writers have no power in Hollywood?

JOE ESZTERHAS

Malibu

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Eszterhas was the screenwriter of the 1998 release “An Alan Smithee Film Burn Hollywood Burn.”