Sredni Vashtar (1981)

"Sredni Vashar" is a half hour film I made back in 1980, based on Saki's short story. I‘d known David and Patsy Puttnam’s son Sacha since he was four, and while at boarding school he wrote me to say he’d just read Saki’s short stories, among them "Sredni Vashtar" and did I know it.
At that time I was working off my overdraft by writing the third Omen movie, "The Final Conflict", for Twentieth Fox. The inimitable producer Harvey Bernhard had made me the Associate Producer, a more-or-less meaningless title, but in exchange for a token salary it ensured that he’d have me around for freebie rewrites as and when needed.
Driving out to Elstree studios a few days after getting Sacha’s letter, Harvey asked if I’d consider writing a script for a short movie to accompany "The Final Conflict" release in the UK. “Not unless I can direct it,” said I. Harvey asked if I had any ideas, and without giving it much thought I pitched Saki’s story of "Sredni Vashtar".
Fox agreed to finance it, but Harvey attached a couple of strings, one being that I had to write another movie for him first before embarking on mine. Harvey’s film took so long to write that I only had 48 hours in which to write the script, most of which was new as Saki's original is only a few pages long. Both Harvey and Fox read it within a few hours (incredible!) and gave me the thumbs up.
Sacha was my obvious choice to play Conradin and needed no persuading, but Mrs de Ropp was somewhat harder as I wanted my mother, a theatre actress of some note. She hated the idea of portraying such a straight-laced, sour-faced character, but in the end agreed to humour me when I threatened to ask Maggie Smith.
We found a house in south London that was exactly right - it even had a potting shed at the end of the garden. Our tiny budget allowed for just five days of filming, so I had to story-board every shot in advance. Both cast and crew were a dream team, with only the ferret playing the occasional prima dona.
The editing was done in a week, our only headache being the music. I wanted to use Carl Orff’s "Carmina Burana", which at that time had never been used in a movie. This was because Orff himself insisted on prior film approval and had never thus far given it. We therefore had to ship him a copy of the rough cut to get his blessing which, after some humming and herring, he gave.
Making our little movie was a breeze, which would never come quite as easily again until "The Cement Garden", twelve years later. The fact that it also won the BAFTA award for Best Short as well as an Oscar nomination was icing on the cake...
My eternal thanks to Sacha, my mum, Patsy, Bee and everyone else who make this inconsequential little soufflé one of the happiest, albeit fleeting experiences of my life.
TECHNICAL NOTE: We framed and shot the film for wide screen, but for some reason the powers-that-were insisted it be printed and projected at 4:3. Thanks to Filmora 9, I've letter-boxed the blu-ray digital transfer I had made in 2009 from the sole surviving 35mm print to 16:9, which approximates our original framing ...