18 Nov 2018

Codename Intelligentsia - Russell Campbell on Ivor Montagu

From Standing Room Only, 2:40 pm on 18 November 2018

The early film industry was like no other, and it attracted more than its fair share of, shall we say, 'outsiders'.  America went in for hucksters and con-men.  England preferred eccentrics and aristocrats - and no Englishman was more eccentric than the aristocratic Ivor Montagu, one-time producer for Alfred Hitchcock, and enthusiastic Russian spy.

Russell Campbell, Associate Professor of Film at Victoria University has written Codename Intelligentsia, The life and times of the Honourable Ivor Montagu, Filmmaker, Communist, Spy. It is published by The History Press.  Simon Morris wonders why the story was buried so long.