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• List Of Alistair Maclean Movies
• List Of Alistair Maclean Movies

Alistair MacLean was one of the popular Scottish novelists who used to write thrillers and adventure novels. His writing career includes a total of 29 bestselling novels, which helped him to be recognized among the outstanding writers of his time. Many of the popular novels written by MacLean have been adapted into famous movies. Movies based on books by Alistair MacLean. See the popup menu below for movie reviews, sorted chronologically by when each movie was released. (Although 15 of Alistair MacLean's books were eventually made into movies, not all of them are available on home video. Movie reviews are less structured. This is all highly subjective, of course! Though your tastes probably aren't identical to mine, I hope my thoughts will help guide you toward enjoyable reading and viewing. Click to visit Amazon.com for a large selection of Alistair MacLean's Books and Movies.

Alistair Stuart MacLean (Scottish Gaelic: Alasdair MacGill-Eain; 21 April 1922 – 2 February 1987) was a Scottish novelist who wrote popular thrillers and adventure stories. His works include The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra and Where Eagles Dare – all three were made into popular films. He also wrote two novels under the pseudonym Ian Stuart. His books are estimated to have sold over 150 million copies, making him one of the best-selling fiction authors of all time.^[2]

• 1Biography

Biography[edit]

Early life[edit]

Alistair Maclean was descended from Clan Maclean.

MacLean was the son of a Church of Scotland minister^[3] and learned English as a second language after his mother tongue, Scottish Gaelic. He was born in Glasgow but spent much of his childhood and youth in Daviot, ten miles south of Inverness. He was the third of four sons.^[4]

World War Two[edit]

He joined the Royal Navy in 1941, serving in World War II with the ranks of Ordinary Seaman, Able Seaman, and Leading Torpedo Operator. He was first assigned to PS Bournemouth Queen, a converted excursion ship fitted for anti-aircraft guns, on duty off the coasts of England and Scotland.

Beginning in 1943, he served on HMS Royalist, a Dido-class light cruiser. There he saw action in 1943 in the Atlantic theatre, on two Arctic convoys and escorting aircraft carrier groups in operations against Tirpitz and other targets off the Norwegian coast. He took part in Convoy PQ 17 on Royalist.^[4]

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In 1944 he and Royalist served in the Mediterranean theatre, as part of the invasion of southern France and in helping to sink blockade runners off Crete and bombard Milos in the Aegean. During this time MacLean may have been injured in a gunnery practice accident.

In 1945, in the Far East theatre, MacLean and Royalist saw action escorting carrier groups in operations against Japanese targets in Burma, Malaya, and Sumatra. (MacLean's late-in-life claims that he was captured by the Japanese after blowing up bridges and tortured by having his teeth pulled out have been dismissed by both his son and his biographer as drunken ravings.^[5][6]) After the Japanese surrender, Royalist helped evacuate liberated POWs from Changi Prison in Singapore.

Post-war jobs[edit]

MacLean was discharged from the Royal Navy in 1946. He then studied English at the University of Glasgow, working at the post office and as a street sweeper.^[7] He graduated in 1953, and briefly worked as a hospital porter, and then worked as a school teacher at Gallow Flat School in Rutherglen.^[8]

HMS Ulysses[edit]

While a university student, MacLean began writing short stories for extra income, winning a competition in 1954 with the maritime story 'Dileas'. The publishing company Collins asked him for a novel and he responded with HMS Ulysses, based on his own war experiences, as well as credited insight from his brother Ian, a master mariner. The book was written over three months.^[7]

Maclean later described his writing process:

I drew a cross square, lines down representing the characters, lines across representing chapters 1–15. Most of the characters died, in fact only one survived the book, but when I came to the end the graph looked somewhat lopsided, there were too many people dying in the first, fifth and tenth chapters so I had to rewrite it, giving an even dying space throughout. I suppose it sounds cold blooded and calculated, but that's the way I did it.^[9]

The book sold a quarter of a million copies in hardback in England in the first six months of publication. It went on to sell millions more.^[9] Film rights were sold though a movie was never made.^[10] MacLean was able to devote himself to writing.^[11][8]

Later life[edit]

His next novel, The Guns of Navarone (1957), was about an attack on the fictitious island of Navarone (based on Melos). The book was very successful, selling over 400,000 copies in its first six months.^[7] MacLean followed it with South by Java Head (1958), based on Maclean's experiences in the South East Asia seas in World War Two, and The Last Frontier (1959), a thriller about the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. Film rights for Java Head were sold but no movie resulted.^[12] His next novels were Night Without End (1959) and Fear Is the Key (1961). The Last Frontier was turned into a movie, The Secret Ways (1961), which was not very successful while the film version of The Guns of Navarone (1961) was hugely successful.^{[citation needed]}

In the early 1960s, MacLean published two novels under the pseudonym 'Ian Stuart' in order to prove that the popularity of his books was due to their content rather than his name on the cover. These were The Dark Crusader (1961) and The Satan Bug (1962). They sold well, and MacLean made no attempt to change his writing style. He also continued to publish novels under his own name such as The Golden Rendezvous (1962) and Ice Station Zebra (1963).^{[citation needed]}

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'I'm not a novelist,' he once said. 'That's too pretentious a claim. I'm a storyteller, that's all. I'm a professional and a craftsman. I will make that claim for myself.' ^[13] Maclean also claimed he wrote very fast (35 days for a novel) because he disliked writing and the 'sooner he finished the better'. He never re-read a book after it was finished.^[13] His novels were notable for their lack of sex. 'I like girls,' said MacLean. 'I just don't write them well. Everyone knows that men and women make love, laddie – there is no need to show it.'^[13]

MacLean's books eventually sold so well that he moved to Switzerland as a tax exile. From 1963 to 1966, he took a hiatus from writing to run a hotel business in England, purchasing the Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor.^[14][15]

During this time a film was made of The Satan Bug (1965). MacLean returned to writing with When Eight Bells Toll (1966).^[16]

Screenwriting[edit]

Producer Elliot Kastner approached MacLean looking for film scripts which prompted MacLean to write Where Eagles Dare. In July 1966 Kastner and his producing partner Jerry Gershwin had purchased five screenplays from MacLean: Where Eagles Dare, When Eight Bells Toll, and three other unnamed ones.^[17][18] (Kastner made four MacLean movies.) MacLean also wrote a novel for Where Eagles Dare which was published in 1967. The book was a best seller and the 1968 film version was a huge hit.^[19] 'MacLean is a natural storyteller,' said Kastner. 'He is a master of adventure. All his books are conceived in cinematic terms. They hardly need to be adapted for the screen; when you read them, the screen is in front of your mind.'^[20] MacLean wrote a sequel to Guns of Navarone, Force 10 from Navarone (1968). A film version was announced in 1967 but did not result for another decade.^[21]The same year saw the release of an expensive film based on Ice Station Zebra (1968).

Maclean wrote a thriller about narcotics, Puppet on a Chain (1969), and Caravan to Vaccarès (1970). These books all began as screenplays for Kastner.^[22] MacLean then wrote Bear Island (1971), the last of his first person narratives.^{[citation needed]} Kastner produced a film version of When Eight Bells Toll (1971) and Fear Is the Key (1972); another producer made Puppet on a Chain (1971). Neither performed particularly strongly at the box office.^[23] This delayed plans announced in 1972 for MacLean's then-wife Marcelle to produce three films based on his books.^[4] One of these proposed films was The Way to Dusty Death, which was to star Jackie Stewart. It ended up being a 1973 novel and a 1995 film.^[4]

Geoffrey Reeve directed a film of Caravan to Vaccarès (1974). By 1973 MacLean had sold over 24 million novels.^[13] 'I am not a writer,' he said in 1972. 'I am a businessman. My business is writing.'^[4] MacLean had spent a number of years focusing on screenplays but disliked it and decided to return to being predominantly a novel writer. 'Hollywood destroys writers,' he said.^[5] He wrote a biography of James Cook which was published in 1972.^[24] He wrote Breakheart Pass (1974),^[25]Circus (1975),^[26]The Golden Gate (1976),^[27]Seawitch (1977),^[28]Goodbye California (1979) and Athabasca (1980).

Alistair Maclean Amazon

'I read a lot, I travel some,' he said in 1975. 'But mostly what I don't know I invent.'^[29] In 1978 MacLean said he 'just can't understand' why people bought his novels. 'It's not as if I write that well.. I blunder along from one book to the next always hopeful that one day I will write something really good.'^[5] Films were still being made out of his novels including Breakheart Pass (1975) (from Kastner), Golden Rendezvous (1977), Force 10 from Navarone (1978), and Bear Island (1979) but none did very well.

Maclean decided to focus on American television. He wrote a 120-page novella called Air Force One is Down which was turned down by NBC (it would be filmed in 2012). Maclean then pitched six new ideas to networks, each with a 25–30 page treatment. The Hostage Tower was approved by CBS and aired in 1980.^[23]

Later novels[edit]

Maclean's later works include River of Death (1981) (filmed in 1989), Partisans (1982), Floodgate (1983), and San Andreas (1984). Often these novels were worked on by ghost writers, with MacLean providing only the outline.^[30] His last novel was Santorini (1986), published after his death.^[31] His estate left behind several outlines. One of them was filmed as Death Train (1993).^[32]

MacLean's later books were not as well received as the earlier publications and, in an attempt to keep his stories in keeping with the time, he sometimes lapsed into unduly improbable plots.^{[citation needed]} He also struggled constantly with alcoholism,^[33] which eventually brought about his death in Munich on 2 February 1987.^[34] He died of a stroke. He is buried a few yards from Richard Burton in Céligny, Switzerland. He was married twice and had two sons by his first wife, as well as an adopted third son. His niece Shona MacLean (also published under S.G. Maclean) is a writer and historical novelist.^[35]

MacLean was awarded a Doctor of Letters by the University of Glasgow in 1983.^{[citation needed]} What is macklemore doing now.

Reception[edit]

Algis Budrys described MacLean's writing style as 'hit 'em with everything but the kitchen sink, then give 'em the sink, and when they raise their heads, drop the plumber on 'em'.^[36]

List of works[edit]

Novels

Source for The New York Times Best Seller list: 'Adult New York Times Best Seller Listings'. Hawes Publications. Retrieved 30 August 2014. Figures are for the Adult Hardcover Fiction lists, 1956 through 1987: highest position reached and total number of weeks on list. A '—' indicates it did not make the list. Note that the Times list consisted of a Top 10 from 1963 through 1976, but a Top 15 or 16 before and after; thus, books during that middle period may have had longer stays relative to the others.

UNACO books by other authors

Golden Girl series by other authors

List Of Alistair Maclean Movies

Films with screenplay contribution

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Other films

Allegedly written by Alistair MacLean

List Of Alistair Maclean Movies

References[edit]

Notes

1. ^Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
2. ^Head, Dominic (26 January 2006). The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge University Press. p. 431. ISBN9780521831796.
3. ^'Rev. Alistair MacLean'. Family Search. Archived from the original on 28 July 2014. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
4. ^ ^abcdeWar Is Hell, but It Pays Off for MacLean: War Pays Off for MacLean War Pays Off for MacLean War is Hell, but It Pays Off for Alistair Johnstone, Jain. Los Angeles Times 17 Dec 1972: p1.
5. ^ ^abcMystery of success: Alistair MacLean wants to be greatDangaard, Colin. Chicago Tribune 11 Sep 1978: b1.
6. ^Webster, Alistair MacLean: A Life, p. 191.
7. ^ ^abcAlistair Maclean dies aged 64The Irish Times3 Feb 1987: 4.
8. ^ ^ab'Novelist Alistair MacLean Dies at 64'. AP News. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
9. ^ ^abWar Is Hell, but It Pays Off for MacLean: War Pays Off for MacLean War Pays Off for MacLean War is Hell, but It Pays Off for Alistair, Johnstone, Jain. Los Angeles Times 17 Dec 1972: p1.
10. ^Wales, Roland (3 March 2017). 'Movie Countdown: 52 – 46'. From Journey's End to The Dam Busters: The Life of R.C. Sherriff, Playwright of the Trenches. Pen and Sword Books / WordPress. ISBN1-47386-069-5. Retrieved 5 February 2018.
11. ^'Alistair MacLean: An enduring writer of thrillers'. The Week. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
12. ^New Guinness Film to Cost $4 MillionThe Washington Post, Times Herald 20 Jan 1960: B10.
13. ^ ^abcdBest-Selling Author Alistair MacLean Dies: [FINAL Edition]The Washington Post 3 Feb 1987: b04.
14. ^Johnstone, Iain (10 May 1978). 'The Man with the Golden Typewriter'. The Australian Women's Weekly. p. 65. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
15. ^'His 22 Best-Selling Thrillers Have Brought Alistair MacLean Fame, Fortune and a Lonely Life'. People. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
16. ^Cromie, Alice (25 September 1966). 'Crime on My Hands'. Chicago Tribune (1963-Current file). Chicago. p. n4.Italic or bold markup not allowed in: newspaper= (help)
17. ^Gene Kelly to Do 'Married'Martin, Betty. Los Angeles Times 30 July 1966: 18.
18. ^Aba, Marika (21 July 1968) 'The Burtons.. 'Just Another Working Couple'. Los Angeles Times (1923–Current File) [Los Angeles, Calif]. c18.
19. ^'Where Eagles Dare'. TCM.
20. ^ALISTAIR MacLEAN DIES; BOOKS SOLD IN MILLIONS: [Obituary]McDOWELL, EDWIN. New York Times 3 Feb 1987: B.7.
21. ^Second 'Navarone' Film SetMartin, Betty. Los Angeles Times 13 Apr 1967: d19.
22. ^The Man who Knows where the Action is.Alistair MacLean and Godfrey Smith. The Sunday Times (London, England), Sunday, January 18, 1970; pg. 37[S]; Issue 7651. (1523 words)
23. ^ ^abAlistair MacLean's Eiffel Tower Drama By DAVID LEWIN. New York Times 11 May 1980: D37.
24. ^THE BOOK REPORT: Capt. Cook's Great Voyages Told in Sketches With TextKirsch, Robert. Los Angeles Times 28 Sep 1972: e7.
25. ^BREAKHEART PASS by Alistair MacLean. Kirkus Reviews.
26. ^CIRCUS by Alistair MacLean. Kirkus Reviews.
27. ^THE GOLDEN GATE by Alistair MacLean. Kirkus Reviews.
28. ^SEAWITCH by Alistair MacLean. Kirkus Reviews.
29. ^CRITIC AT LARGE: The Scot's Got Lots of PlotsChamplin, Charles. Los Angeles Times 27 Feb 1975: f1.
30. ^Haunted by ghost writersHamilton, Ian. The Observer (1901–2003); London (UK) [London (UK)]19 Mar 1995: 88.
31. ^The Final Adventure of Alistair MacLean: SANTORINI By Alistair MacLean Doubleday. 245 pp. $16.95By Heywood Hale Broun. The Washington Post 12 Apr 1987: BW7.
32. ^The New Adventures of Pierce Brosnan: ACTOR IS BACK ON TRACK WITH USA NETWORK'S 'DEATH TRAIN'SUSAN KING TIMES STAFF WRITER. Los Angeles Times 11 Apr 1993: J15.
33. ^Norman, Barry (2003). And Why Not?: Memoirs of a Film Lover. NY: Simon and Schuster. pp. 211–14. ISBN978-0684020884. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
34. ^McDOWELL, EDWIN. 'ALISTAIR MacLEAN DIES; BOOKS SOLD IN MILLIONS.' New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast) ed.Feb 03 1987.
35. ^https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/books/scots-crime-writer-shona-maclean-killed-off-to-appeal-to-men-1-2248772
36. ^Budrys, Algis (April 1966). 'Galaxy Bookshelf'. Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 67–75.
37. ^'PAPERBACK BEST SELLERS; MASS MARKET.' New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast) ed.Apr 25 1982.

Bibliography

• Petri Liukkonen. 'Alistair MacLean'. Books and Writers
• J. Kingston Pierce (1 October 2013). 'Fit to Thrill: Alistair MacLean Deserves to Be Read Again'. Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 24 August 2014.
• Edwin McDowell (3 February 1987). 'Alastair MacLean Dies; Books Sold In Millions'. The New York Times. Retrieved 24 August 2014.
• 'Bestselling British Author Alistair MacLean Dead At 64'. Ocala Star-Banner. 3 February 1987. Retrieved 24 August 2014.
• Lee, Robert A. Alistair MacLean: The Key is Fear. Borgo Press, 1976. ISBN0-89370-203-X.
• Webster, Jack. Alistair MacLean: A Life. Chapmans Publishers, 1991. ISBN1-85592-519-2. (Alternative title: Alistair MacLean: A Biography of a Master Storyteller.)
• 'Maclean, Alistair.' Chambers Biographical Dictionary. Liam Rodger and Joan Bakewell. London: Chambers Harrap, 2011.

External links[edit]

• Alistair MacLean on IMDb
• Harper dares with Alistair MacLean reissue, 2009.09.11

See also[edit]