This week, we speak to Angela Allen who has worked on the film sets of many celebrated films, including The Third Man, The African Queen and The Dirty Dozen, for nearly six decades, overseeing continuity, supervising scripts and advising directors.

Angela shares with us anecdotes and personal stories from her time on and off the set. This podcast episode is slightly longer than usual, so we’ve included a discussion breakdown:

2.04  How to know if a film will be good.

2.45  Angela on the editing process and working with Carol Reed (The Third Man)

7.30  The current fashion for “overcoverage” and working with John Huston

10.25  Zeffirelli vs Huston and filming Elizabeth Taylor

13.58  The auteur theory from France

15.47  Different directors, same scripts

18.25  “We’d have sixteen pages on the fact that Jennifer Jones’s toilet paper had to be pink”, meeting David O’Selznick

21.10  Working with Korda and Spiegel, “the most intelligent producer but a bit of a crook, too”

26.40  Working with Orson Wells and stories from The Third Man

35.36  Arthur Miller & Marilyn Monroe (The Misfits)

39.55  “Paula Strasberg made her as impossible as she was”

43.23  “Do you feel sorry for [Marilyn]? No I don’t”

44.32  Angela on writing a book

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