
Codename Intelligentsia
The Life and Times of the Honourable Ivor Montagu, Filmmaker, Communist, Spy
Russell Campbell(Author)
The History Press Ltd
Will be published approx. on 1. May 2018
Book
Hardback
448 pages
978-0-7509-8705-9 (ISBN)
Description
He was the son of a hereditary peer, one of the wealthiest men in Britain. His childhood was privileged; at Cambridge, he flourished. At the age of 21, he founded The Film Society, and became a pioneering standard-bearer for film as art. He was a collaborator of Alfred Hitchcock, rescuing The Lodger and later producing his ground-breaking British thrillers The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, Secret Agent and Sabotage. He directed comedies from stories by H.G. Wells, worked in Hollywood with Eisenstein, and made documentaries in Spain during the Civil War. He lobbied for Trotsky to be granted asylum in the UK, and became a leading propagandist for the anti-fascist and Communist cause. Under the nose of MI5, who kept him under constant surveillance, he became a secret agent of the Comintern and a Soviet spy. He was a man of high intelligence and moral concern, yet he was blind to the atrocities of the Stalin regime. This is the remarkable story of Ivor Montagu, and of the burgeoning cinematic culture and left-wing politics of Britain between the wars. It is a story of restless energy, generosity of spirit, creative achievement and intellectual corruption.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Stroud
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
16 Plates, black and white; 32 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 41 mm
Weight
880 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7509-8705-9 (9780750987059)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Russell Campbell
Codename Intelligentsia
The Life and Times of the Honourable Ivor Montagu, Filmmaker, Communist, Spy
E-Book
05/2018
The History Press Ltd
€6.99
Available for download
Person
RUSSELL CAMPBELL is currently Adjunct Associate Professor of Film at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is the author of Observations: Studies in New Zealand Documentary (Victoria University Press), Marked Women: Prostitutes and Prostitution in the Cinema (University of Wisconsin Press, CHOICE Award for Outstanding Academic Title), and Cinema Strikes Back: Radical Filmmaking in the United States 1930-1942 (UMI Research Press). As a documentary filmmaker his work includes Sedition: The Suppression of Dissent in World War II New Zealand (Media Peace Award). Codename Intelligentsia is the product of a long-standing interest in the intersection of film and politics, and in the history of the Communist movement.