Between 1967 and 1984, British independent producer Michael Klinger attempted to make a war film initially called Parachute that was renamed A Man and a Half. It was an international production through which as Klinger hoped to establish himself as an important independent producer after he had left the company, Compton-Tekli, through which he has made his earlier films. Although the film was unrealised, its failure is instructive, revealing a great deal about the difficulties Klinger experienced as a British producer during a period of crisis and retrenchment in the UK film industry. His pioneering, if unsuccessful, attempt to co-produce with Eastern European studios sheds light on the little understood history of UK co-productions, especially ones that involved not the obvious western European partners but the state-controlled industries of the Eastern bloc. This account by Professor Andrew Spicer is based on extensive documentation in the Michael Klinger Papers housed at the University of the West of England which enables the production process to be reconstituted in detail.
Spicer, A. (2020). Parting the iron curtain: Michael Klinger’s attempt to make ‘A Man and a Half’. In J. Fenwick, K. Foster, & D. Eldridge (Eds.), Shadow Cinema: The Historical and Production Context of Unmade Films (57-70). (1). Bloomsbury Publishing
