28:6:42:12

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/msmithee.htm

What's the origin of the movie director's pseudonym Alan Smithee?

13-Feb-2007

Dear Straight Dope:

I've read that directors who don't want credit for working on a film will list "Alan Smithee" in the credits, presumably to avoid having their name attached to some awful flick. Where did this come from? Was/is there a real Alan Smithee? -Dave Lemasa

Guest contributor Jim Beaver replies:

Alan Smithee (along with several variant spellings) was an official pseudonym of the Directors Guild of America, for use by members who believed (and succeeded in persuading the Guild) that their work on a particular film had been so damaged or altered by others that it no longer resembled the director's vision. Permission to use the pseudonym was not granted casually, and was not intended simply to disown poor work. The practice began in 1968 when Robert Totten and his replacement Don Siegel both believed their work on the film Death of a Gunfighter had been so distorted by those controlling the film that neither wanted credit for the result. The Directors Guild agreed and decided to create a standard pseudonym. Naturally, such a pseudonym needed to be unique so that it would never be confused with the name of an actual director. The name Smithee was chosen, the thinking being that no one actually named Smithee was likely to surface. In 1999, a film called An Alan Smithee Film: Burn, Hollywood, Burn was released, telling the fictional story of a director who wanted to remove his name from the credits of his film, but couldn't because his name actually was Alan Smithee. (Coincidentally, director Arthur Hiller removed his name from the credits of Alan Smithee and thus it actually is Alan Smithee film.) The Directors Guild determined that the name had gotten too familiar to the public as a result of this movie, and ceased using it as an official pseudonym. Now pseudonyms are determined on a case-by-case basis, and different names applied to the films in question.

-Guest contributor Jim Beaver
Straight Dope Science Advisory Board

[Comment on this answer.]

Staff Reports are researched and written by members of the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board, Cecil's online auxiliary. Although the SDSAB does its best, these articles are edited by Ed Zotti, not Cecil, so accuracy-wise you'd better keep your fingers crossed.

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cidade de deus (brazillian movie)
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lost highway
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american history x
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mean creek
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