Lindsay Shonteff
Encyclopedia
Lindsay Craig Shonteff was a Canadian born film director
, film producer
and screenwriter
who achieved fame for low budget films produced in England.
, Ontario
and made his directing, producing, editing and screenwriting debut in 1961 with a Canadian made Western
The Hired Gun/The Last Gunfighter. After the film's release, Shonteff went to England following his friend Sidney J. Furie
. Shonteff's English debut was Devil Doll
(1964) that Furie was originally scheduled to direct. Furie was offered a more prestigious film so recommended his fellow Canadian Shonteff. Richard Gordon
said Furie advised Shonteff throughout the making of the film. Shonteff had to re-edit the horror tale of a ventriloquest's dummy to avoid an X rating from the British Board of Film Censors.
This film led to interest from Columbia Pictures
for a contract but Shonteff argued over the matter and the contract did not come through.
Shonteff then filmed the "African horror adventure" Curse of Simba/Curse of the Voodoo for Richard Gordon again starring Bryant Haliday
with outdoor sequences filmed in Regents Park in London
.
In 1965 Shonteff co-wrote and directed a James Bond
type film for producer S.J.H. "James" Ward Licensed to Kill
with Tom Adams
as agent Charles Vine. The film was picked up for American and international release by Joseph E. Levine
; re-edited and retitled The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World with a new title song written by Sammy Cahn
and James Van Heusen
and performed by Sammy Davis Jr. The American publicity campaign for the James Bond
exploitation film
echoed the 'Number 2, but tries harder' advertising of the Avis Rent a Car System
prevalent at the time. Reportedly Shonteff was offered a contract by 20th Century Fox
but disagreed on conditions. Adams reprised Charles Vine in two more films without his Mauser C96
or Shonteff though Shonteff collaborated again with producer James Ward in Run With the Wind with Francesca Annis
in 1966.
Shonteff directed Harry Alan Towers
's The Million Eyes of Sumaru with Shirley Eaton
and George Nader
based on a story by Sax Rohmer
the following year.
In 1970 Shonteff directed the cult film Permissive
which explored the ruthless world of the 'groupie'
.
With the publicity battle between the rival James Bond
s of Albert R. Broccoli
's The Spy Who Loved Me
and Kevin McClory
's projected James Bond of the Secret Service in 1976, Shonteff returned to the secret agent
fold with his superspy now calling himself Charles Bind in Number One Of The Secret Service (with Nicky Henson
) that was originally titled 008 of the Secret Service, Licenced to Love and Kill (with Gareth Hunt
) (1979) and Michael Howe in Number One Gun (1990). Shonteff also directed Len Deighton
's Spy Story in 1976 and filmed How Sleep the Brave
, a Vietnam war
filmed in England in 1981.
Shonteff died on the last day of production of his final film Angels, Devils, and Men.
When Lindsay Shonteff died, he was married to his wife of over 44 years Christina Shonteff.
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, film producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
who achieved fame for low budget films produced in England.
Biography
Lindsay Shonteff was born in TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
and made his directing, producing, editing and screenwriting debut in 1961 with a Canadian made Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
The Hired Gun/The Last Gunfighter. After the film's release, Shonteff went to England following his friend Sidney J. Furie
Sidney J. Furie
Sidney J. Furie is a Canadian film director. Furie is perhaps best known for directing American Soldiers, The IPCRESS File, The Entity, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Lady Sings the Blues, The Boys, Gable and Lombard, Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York and the Iron Eagle films.Also...
. Shonteff's English debut was Devil Doll
Devil Doll (film)
Devil Doll is a horror film about an evil ventriloquist, "The Great Vorelli", and his dummy Hugo. Decades after its initial release, it was featured on a 1997 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.-Plot:...
(1964) that Furie was originally scheduled to direct. Furie was offered a more prestigious film so recommended his fellow Canadian Shonteff. Richard Gordon
Richard Gordon (film producer)
Richard Gordon was a British-born producer and financier of horror films.-Career:As a youth, Gordon displayed a love of films from an early age. While he was in school, he wrote articles on the subject, edited fan club magazines, and organized a film society...
said Furie advised Shonteff throughout the making of the film. Shonteff had to re-edit the horror tale of a ventriloquest's dummy to avoid an X rating from the British Board of Film Censors.
This film led to interest from Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
for a contract but Shonteff argued over the matter and the contract did not come through.
Shonteff then filmed the "African horror adventure" Curse of Simba/Curse of the Voodoo for Richard Gordon again starring Bryant Haliday
Bryant Haliday
Bryant Haliday was an American actor, as well as producer, of film and stage, who was instrumental in providing a showcase for international film titles in the United States by co-founding Janus Films with his partner Cyrus Harvey Jr.-Early Life and Stage Career:After entering Harvard to study...
with outdoor sequences filmed in Regents Park in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
In 1965 Shonteff co-wrote and directed a James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
type film for producer S.J.H. "James" Ward Licensed to Kill
Licensed to Kill (1965 film)
Licensed to Kill is a 1965 superspy imitation James Bond film starring Tom Adams as British secret agent Charles Vine. It was directed and co-written by Lindsay Shonteff. Producer Joseph E...
with Tom Adams
Tom Adams (actor)
Tom Adams is an English actor with roles in horror and mystery films, and several TV shows.He starred as Charles Vine in Licensed to Kill and the sequels Where the Bullets Fly and Somebody's Stolen Our Russian Spy .His television credits include General...
as agent Charles Vine. The film was picked up for American and international release by Joseph E. Levine
Joseph E. Levine
Joseph E. Levine was an American film producer.He was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His Embassy Pictures Corporation was an independent studio and distributor responsible for such films as Hercules , The Carpetbaggers, Harlow, The Graduate, A Bridge Too Far and The Lion in Winter.Levine is famous...
; re-edited and retitled The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World with a new title song written by Sammy Cahn
Sammy Cahn
Sammy Cahn was an American lyricist, songwriter and musician. He is best known for his romantic lyrics to films and Broadway songs, as well as stand-alone songs premiered by recording companies in the Greater Los Angeles Area...
and James Van Heusen
James Van Heusen
Jimmy Van Heusen , was an American composer. He wrote songs mainly for films and television , and won an Emmy and four Academy Awards for Best Original Song.-Life and career:...
and performed by Sammy Davis Jr. The American publicity campaign for the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
exploitation film
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
echoed the 'Number 2, but tries harder' advertising of the Avis Rent a Car System
Avis Rent A Car System
Avis Rent a Car System, LLC is a car rental company headquartered in Parsippany-Troy Hills Township, New Jersey, United States. Avis, Budget Rent a Car and Budget Truck Rental are all units of Avis Budget Group....
prevalent at the time. Reportedly Shonteff was offered a contract by 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
but disagreed on conditions. Adams reprised Charles Vine in two more films without his Mauser C96
Mauser C96
The Mauser C96 is a semi-automatic pistol that was originally produced by German arms manufacturer Mauser from 1896 to 1937...
or Shonteff though Shonteff collaborated again with producer James Ward in Run With the Wind with Francesca Annis
Francesca Annis
Francesca Annis is an English actress, known for her film and television appearances, most recently in the BBC series Wives and Daughters, Cranford, and Deceit.-Early life and education:...
in 1966.
Shonteff directed Harry Alan Towers
Harry Alan Towers
Harry Alan Towers was a British-born radio and film producer and screenwriter, regularly using the pseudonym Peter Welbeck. He produced over a hundred feature films and continued to write and produce well into his eighties...
's The Million Eyes of Sumaru with Shirley Eaton
Shirley Eaton
Shirley Eaton is an English actress.Eaton appeared regularly in British films throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and achieved notability for her performance as Bond Girl Jill Masterson in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger...
and George Nader
George Nader
George Nader was an American film and television actor of Lebanese descent. He appeared in a variety of films from 1950 through 1974, including Phone Call from a Stranger , Congo Crossing , and The Female Animal...
based on a story by Sax Rohmer
Sax Rohmer
Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward , better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr...
the following year.
In 1970 Shonteff directed the cult film Permissive
Permissive (film)
Permissive is a British film released in 1970, directed by Lindsay Shonteff. Written by Jeremy Craig Dryden, it depicts a young girl's progress through the rock music groupie subculture of the time.-Synopsis:...
which explored the ruthless world of the 'groupie'
Groupie
A groupie is a person who seeks emotional and sexual intimacy with a musician or other celebrity. "Groupie" is derived from group in reference to a musical group, but the word is also used in a more general sense, especially in casual conversation....
.
With the publicity battle between the rival James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
s of Albert R. Broccoli
Albert R. Broccoli
Albert Romolo Broccoli, CBE , nicknamed "Cubby", was an American film producer, who made more than 40 motion pictures throughout his career, most of them in the United Kingdom, and often filmed at Pinewood Studios. Co-founder of Danjaq, LLC and EON Productions, Broccoli is most notable as the...
's The Spy Who Loved Me
The Spy Who Loved Me (film)
The Spy Who Loved Me is a spy film, the tenth film in the James Bond series, and the third to star Roger Moore as the fictional secret agent James Bond. It was directed by Lewis Gilbert and the screenplay was written by Christopher Wood and Richard Maibaum...
and Kevin McClory
Kevin McClory
Kevin O'Donovan McClory was an Irish screenwriter, producer, and director. McClory was best known for the 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again, which was the result of a long legal battle between McClory and Ian Fleming over the writing credits and later the film rights to...
's projected James Bond of the Secret Service in 1976, Shonteff returned to the secret agent
Secret Agent
Secret Agent is a British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, and Robert Young...
fold with his superspy now calling himself Charles Bind in Number One Of The Secret Service (with Nicky Henson
Nicky Henson
Nicholas Victor Leslie "Nicky" Henson is an English actor who has portrayed many roles since 1963. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1977. He was born in London.-Early life:...
) that was originally titled 008 of the Secret Service, Licenced to Love and Kill (with Gareth Hunt
Gareth Hunt
Alan Leonard Hunt was an English actor, known as Gareth Hunt, best remembered for playing the footman Frederick Norton in Upstairs, Downstairs and Mike Gambit in The New Avengers.-Early life:...
) (1979) and Michael Howe in Number One Gun (1990). Shonteff also directed Len Deighton
Len Deighton
Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British military historian, cookery writer, and novelist. He is perhaps most famous for his spy novel The IPCRESS File, which was made into a film starring Michael Caine....
's Spy Story in 1976 and filmed How Sleep the Brave
How Sleep the Brave
How Sleep the Brave, Hallo Nele, is a 1981 Vietnam war film shot in England. It stars Lawrence Day, Luis Manuel, Thomas M. Polland and Christopher Muncke, and is produced by Lindsay Shonteff and Elizabeth Laurie, written by Bobby Bauer and Jeremy Lee Francis, and directed by Lindsay...
, a Vietnam war
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
filmed in England in 1981.
Shonteff died on the last day of production of his final film Angels, Devils, and Men.
When Lindsay Shonteff died, he was married to his wife of over 44 years Christina Shonteff.