Irving Allen started his film career in 1929 as an editor. He turned to directing in the 1940s, and two shorts he directed, Forty Boys and a Song (1941) and Climbing the Matterhorn (1947), won Academy Awards. His feature film output, however, was not particularly successful, and in the 1950s he and producer Albert R. Broccoli formed Warwick Films ...
December 17, 1987, Encino, California, United States
Place Of Birth
Austria-Hungary (now Poland)
Profession
Producer, Director, Cinematographer
Awards
Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Two-reel
Star Sign
Sagittarius
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Fact
1
His partnership with Albert R. Broccoli was strained by their disagreement bringing to the screen the "James Bond" series. Broccoli was interested, Allen was not. The pair met with Bond author Ian Fleming in 1957, but Allen proclaimed (according to various accounts, including documentaries on Bond movie DVDs) that Fleming's novels weren't "good enough for television." Some years later Allen, with egg on his face, cast about for his own spy series. He acquired the rights to Donald Hamilton's "Matt Helm" series. Allen's Helm series had one major effect on Broccoli's Bond movies (produced at the time in partnership with Harry Saltzman). To get Dean Martin on board as Matt Helm, Allen had to make the actor a partner in the enterprise. Martin ended up making more money on The Silencers (1966) than Sean Connery made on Thunderball (1965), a fact that did not go unnoticed by Connery.
$850,000
