Director Richard Lester and Dermot Breen
Dublin Core
Title
Director Richard Lester and Dermot Breen
Subject
Cork Film Festival, Dermot Breen, Richard Lester, The Beatles, Helen Shapiro, Michael Pertwee, Robert Shaw
Description
This is a black and white photo of the American film director Richard Lester presenting a celebration bottle of Domecq’s cream sherry to the festival director Dermot Breen. Lester is pointing at his name which is printed on the label of the bottle.
Born in 1932, Richard (aka Dick) Lester is best known for his work with The Beatles. Lester’s first short film The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959), with Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers, brought him to the attention of The Beatles who chose him to make A Hard Day’s Night in 1964. His earlier film, It’s Trad, Dad (1962), starred the singing sensation Helen Shapiro who came to the Cork Film Festival in 1972. Lester continued to work with the Beatles directing Help in 1965 which was a commercial success. In 1966 he directed the musical comedy film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with a screenplay by Michael Pertwee who came to the Cork Film Festival in the early seventies. Interestingly the cinematography on A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was by Nicolas Roeg who went on to become one of England’s influential film directors with Don’t Look Now (1973), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) starring David Bowie, and The Witches (1990).
Around the time of this photo, which is dated 1975, Lester had finished The Four Musketeers (1974) starring Oliver Reed and Raquel Welsh, and Royal Flash (1975) with Malcolm McDowell and Oliver Reed. In 1976 he directed the British-American romance and adventure film Robin and Marian starring Sean Connery, Audrey Hepburn and the English actor Robert Shaw who also came to the Cork Film Festival in the early seventies. Lester's later films include the commercially successful Superman II (1980) and Superman III (1983). For his final film Lester returned to the Beatles with Get Back (1991) – a concert movie following Paul McCartney on his 1989-1990 World Tour.
In 2010 Lester donated his large archive of film-related materials to the British Film Institute (BFI). The archive consisting of letters, scripts, notes, and photographs is available to the public via their Special Collections. (Mark Brown, ‘Richard Lester archive donated to BFI full of riches,’ The Guardian, 23.08.2020.)
Born in 1932, Richard (aka Dick) Lester is best known for his work with The Beatles. Lester’s first short film The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959), with Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers, brought him to the attention of The Beatles who chose him to make A Hard Day’s Night in 1964. His earlier film, It’s Trad, Dad (1962), starred the singing sensation Helen Shapiro who came to the Cork Film Festival in 1972. Lester continued to work with the Beatles directing Help in 1965 which was a commercial success. In 1966 he directed the musical comedy film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with a screenplay by Michael Pertwee who came to the Cork Film Festival in the early seventies. Interestingly the cinematography on A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was by Nicolas Roeg who went on to become one of England’s influential film directors with Don’t Look Now (1973), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) starring David Bowie, and The Witches (1990).
Around the time of this photo, which is dated 1975, Lester had finished The Four Musketeers (1974) starring Oliver Reed and Raquel Welsh, and Royal Flash (1975) with Malcolm McDowell and Oliver Reed. In 1976 he directed the British-American romance and adventure film Robin and Marian starring Sean Connery, Audrey Hepburn and the English actor Robert Shaw who also came to the Cork Film Festival in the early seventies. Lester's later films include the commercially successful Superman II (1980) and Superman III (1983). For his final film Lester returned to the Beatles with Get Back (1991) – a concert movie following Paul McCartney on his 1989-1990 World Tour.
In 2010 Lester donated his large archive of film-related materials to the British Film Institute (BFI). The archive consisting of letters, scripts, notes, and photographs is available to the public via their Special Collections. (Mark Brown, ‘Richard Lester archive donated to BFI full of riches,’ The Guardian, 23.08.2020.)
Creator
University College Cork, Cork Film Festival
Source
Cork Film Festival Collection
Publisher
University College Cork
Date
1975
Rights
This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Please credit the Cork International Film Festival Archive and provide a link back to the site.
Format
Photo
TIFF
JPEG
TIFF
JPEG
Language
English, eng
Coverage
1975
Cork, Ireland
Cork, Ireland
Still Image Item Type Metadata
Original Format
Photo
Physical Dimensions
212 x 164mm
Collection
Citation
University College Cork, Cork Film Festival, “Director Richard Lester and Dermot Breen,” Cork International Film Festival Archive, accessed January 26, 2025, https://corkfilmfest.ucc.ie/items/show/307.