Dedications: My four late friends Rory, Stan, Bryan, Jeff - shine on you crazy diamonds, they would have blogged too. Then theres Garry from Brisbane, Franco in Milan, Mike now in S.F. / my '60s-'80s gang: Ned & Joseph in Ireland; in England: Frank, Des, Guy, Clive, Joe & Joe, Ian, Ivan, Nick, David, Les, Stewart, the 3 Michaels / Catriona, Sally, Monica, Jean, Ella, Anne, Candie / and now: Daryl in N.Y., Jerry, John, Colin, Martin and Donal.

Friday 26 February 2010

R.I.P. Ian Cameron

Sad to hear of the passing of Ian Cameron, one of England's best critics and film writers since the '60s, shortly after the death of Robin Wood whose books on Hitchcock and others are still very pertinent and are standard texts on movie criticism.

Ian Cameron set up MOVIE magazine which was a brilliant new look at magazine layout and presentation [a more trendy SIGHT & SOUND?] and covered in depth the new interest in movies and the works of directors like Minnelli, Nick Ray, Preminger and others in the '60s. One could almost say it was an English Cahiers. There were issues devoted to Kazan, Von Sternberg, as well as serious features on Aldrich, Losey and of course Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock and Welles.

There were also those cinema paperbacks, a new concept in the late '60s, and essential for young movie buffs, such as I was, being affordable, well-designed arts paperbacks. Ian co-wrote the Antonioni one with Robin Wood; and he and his wife did that essential title on 'Broads' covering everyone from A - Lola Albright to W: Shelley Winters.

Click to enlarge back cover blurb above, showing the extent of the Cameron movie paperbacks - there was nothing like them back then.

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