Alan Smithee

Submitted by cosborne on Mon, 09/01/2008 - 01:19
in

 

Alan Smithee is a pseudonym used by film directors since 1968 who do not want to be associated with a film. The film may have been taken away from the director and altered against his or her wish.
 

Alternate Spellings

 
Adam Smithee
Alan Smithee
Alan Smythee
Allen Smithy
 

History

 
The first known movie to use the pseudonym Alan Smithee was Death of a Gunfighter (1969). The name Alan Smithee is also an anagram of “The alias men”. This is not the reason for the use of the name, given that the original choice of Al Smith had already been registered with the Directors Guild of America (DGA). 
 
During the filming of Death of a Gunfighter, Richard Widmark was unhappy with director Robert Totten and arranged for him to be replaced by Don Siegel. When the film was complete, neither director wanted to be credited for the film. Originally the credit was going to go to “Al Smith”, but the DGA reported that there was a director with that name, thus credit was given to Allen Smithee.
 

 

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Comments

The dominant spelling is

Alex Vance's picture
Submitted by Alex Vance on Wed, 01/28/2009 - 02:55.

The dominant spelling is 'Alan Smithee'; the 'Smithy' spelling is a rare alternative :)

Interesting

Michelle Vint's picture
Submitted by Michelle Vint on Fri, 03/20/2009 - 16:30.

Thanks for providing the history on this term...interesting little bit of trivia!