8. George Mortgages His Mansion To Get Life Of Brian (1979) Off The Ground
With just two days until the Monty Python crew were due to go to Tunisia to start filming the Life of Brian, the backers of the movie suddenly decided to read the script. Bigwigs at EMI objected to the 'blasphemous' story and pulled the plug leaving the Pythons (John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Michael Palin) with "20 crosses and 60 nails with minimal secondhand value". They were desperate until George Harrison coolly assured Eric Idle that he'd sort it out. Harrison simply mortgaged his mansion and his office to set up a film company with business partner Denis O'Brien in order to raise the millions needed to get the film shot. Why? "Because I wanted to see it". It went on to be described as "the most expensive cinema ticket in history". And so Handmade Films was born and one of the most controversial movies in cinema history got made and released. George has a small cameo in the film but always being one to look on the bright side of life and see the bigger picture, he knew he was just getting started in the movie business Read on to see what other risky pictures George brought to the big screen.
Dave Lancaster
Despite a fear of using plastic cutlery and drinking overly milky brews, Dave is open to indulging in most other things at least once especially when it comes to movies and music.
10 of his favourite films are: Masaki Kobayashi's Hara-Kiri, Ingmar Bergman's Persona, Martin Brest's Midnight Run, Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill, Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves, Peter Medak's The Ruling Class, H.G. Clouzot's Les Diaboliques, Hector Babenco's Kiss of the Spider Woman, Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse and Sidney Lumet's Network.
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