`Casino Royale` (1967 spoof) director Val Guest dies aged 94

Writer, director, actor and producer Val Guest died Wednesday, May 10 at age 94 in Palm Springs, California, following a long bout with cancer. Born Valmond Guest on December 11, 1911 in London, the filmmaker had an extensive and varied career, which included a lengthy collaborative relationship with the celebrated British genre producer Hammer Films. He leaves behind his wife of 53 years, actress Yolande Donlan - reports Fangoria.

Guest co-directed the 1967 James Bond spoof film "Casino Royale".

Having begun his career in show business in the 1930s as a stage actor, Guest honed his writing skills while serving as the head of The Hollywood Reporter’s London bureau before moving on to Gainsborough Studios, where he worked extensively as a screenwriter (also dabbling in film and song composition; several of his works appeared in scores for the studio’s productions). Guest is best-known to genre fans for his work under the Hammer banner, which includes the 1955 alien-mutation film THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (a.k.a. THE CREEPING UNKNOWN and its 1957 sequel QUATERMASS 2 (a.k.a. ENEMY FROM SPACE), as well as 1957’s THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN OF THE HIMALAYAS (starring Peter Cushing), 1958’s THE CAMP ON BLOOD ISLAND and the 1970 stop-motion epic WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH, a follow-up to Hammer’s 1966 hit ONE MILLION YEARS B.C.

Considered by many to be Guest’s greatest work, however, is the 1961 sci-fi cult classic THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE, a British Lion/Pax Films production which revolves around the aftereffects of a nuclear test which knocks the Earth off its axis, sending it hurtling toward the sun. A Cold War cautionary tale, the film favors story over special FX, choosing the ground-level perspective of a London everyman (played by Edward Judd), and the result is a film which remains as effective today as it was during its initial release. Working in various genres of film and TV well into the 1980s, Guest amassed such directorial credits as episodes of the similarly themed series SPACE: 1999 (in which the moon is sent hurtling into deep space following an explosion), as well as the “Child’s Play,” “In Possession” and “Mark of the Devil” episodes of Hammer Studios’ 1986 television series HAMMER HOUSE OF MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE. He was one of the five (!) directors on CASINO ROYALE, the 1967 James Bond pastiche very loosely based on Ian Fleming’s novel, currently being given a more serious screen treatment with new 007 Daniel Craig.

Dennis Bartok, writer/producer and longtime friend of the director, eulogizes Guest’s life and career: “Even though Val was 94 years old, his death came as a shock; he always seemed nearly indestructible. Certainly his films are. Val left behind one of the richest legacies of any filmmaker of his generation, or generations, really. Talking to him was like a marvelous, irreplaceable history lesson in British cinema. He started out alongside Hitchcock in the early days—the very early days!—wrote scripts for the much-loved comedian Will Hay in the 1930s, and gave Peter Sellers one of his first breaks in the movies [1958’s UP THE CREEK]. Val knew everyone, and certainly his name was a household word in England. The words ‘A Val Guest Production’ carried a certain excitement, and promised movies that were tough, taut, intelligent and never talked down to the audience.”

Bartok recalls of Guest, “Early in his career, Val was infamous for smoking big, Hollywood-style cigars from sunup to sundown, and in later years was unmistakable in his ever-present hat and ascot tie from Wimbledon. He was a devoted husband to his wife Yolande, a great London stage star who appeared in many of Val’s finest films. Barely a sentence came out of Val’s mouth where he didn’t mention ‘Yo’; they were as inseparable as two people could be.” Bartok, who previously served as program director for LA’s American Cinematheque, recalls a DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE screening he organized several years ago: “Joe Dante loaned us a beautiful 35mm print, and at the end of the movie there was a moment of stunned silence, and then the entire audience rose and gave Val a standing ovation. As Joe eloquently said, ‘It was one of the most moving movie experiences of my life.’

“Val co-wrote [DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE] with Wolf Mankowitz,” Bartok notes, “and the subject is a ‘small one’: the end of the world. But with characteristic intelligence and audacity, Val carries it off brilliantly, reflecting the world’s imminent destruction through the alcoholic bitterness and slow redemption of a burned-out British reporter. There’s not an ounce of fat in the film: The dialogue is savage and dead-on in the best Billy Wilder tradition. Val was a newspaperman early in his career, and he brings an astonishing level of veracity and honesty to this story of journalists trying to keep faith with the public and themselves as everything around goes to hell. What’s so memorable about the film, and the characters, is that nothing they do or say will have any real impact on the fate of the world. They’re just trying to do their jobs, the best way they know how, no matter what the circumstances.”

Guest’s outlook during his final days apparently mirrored the tenacity displayed by his scripted characters in EARTH. According to Bartok, the director remained “right until the end his usual cheeky, irrepressible self. We visited him at the hospice on Wednesday, and despite the pain and medications, he was still smiling and joking. He said how lucky he felt to be married to Yolande for all these years, and I added, ‘Well, she was pretty lucky to be married to you too, Val.’ He exclaimed, ‘I want it in writing!’ Val was a class act, all the way. A remarkable man. We’ll miss you, Val.”

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