International Cannes Film Festival officianado David Blake is back in Cannes 78th Edition – off the plane from New Zealand and a screening of Sam Miller’s documentary Our Man in Cannes – The David Blake Story.
Woodend, New Zealand based director and producer Sam Miller and his contingent have also been busy on their slate of films including the 1901 set period pieces Five Kingdoms (I & II).
In regards to the new documentary, Miller says “documentary is keeping us grounded in the history and tradition of film for cinema”. The production & distribution company has made the choice of only releasing their films exclusively only for cinema, as he says “actual real Cinema is a social event that holds a society together; we are only releasing into cinemas to help community; not to foster the epidemic of loneliness and Doom Scrolling”.
The colourful David Blake film which is an in depth expose that follows Blake, in a behind-the-scenes examination of the Cannes Film Festival – it’s history and the many funny/interesting stories that David has witnessed in over 54 years of being at the market edge of the cinema industry.
David Blake who has attended 42 Festival du Cannes since 1968 and the Marxist Riots on the French Rivier has been a familiar and celebrated face on the croisette for many fests.
After a sojourn in New York and Los Angeles for a number of years with British Lion Films out of Shepperton Studios, Blake has been credited for bringing Godzilla to New York as a sales agent, and hobnobbing with the greats, from Alfred Hitchcock who was famously resisted by Tippi Hendren to getting Jim Belushi and Godzilla on Saturday Night Live, Hugh Hefner at the Mansion, Joan Collins on The Bitch and many more. Infamously David went out with Playboy Centrefold Misty Rowe who played Marylin Munroe in Good Night Sweet Marylin and as he says; “…Playboy wrote an article about us in 1976 and stated that I was a millionaire, but I wasn’t; forever after everyone thought I was rich!”
The film is narrated by Davey Round (Five Kingdoms) as well as playing Jean Cocteau, The Wizard of New Zealand (The Wizard and the Commodore) as Napoleon & Wing Commander Robert Tait (Five Kingdoms) as Eddie Lear, plus many other Kiwi actors and actresses starring in the dramatisation of Blake’s life.
A must see for any serious Cinephile, or fan of the Cannes Film Festival, the documentary covers Sir Henry Peter Brougham and the origins of Cannes, Hotel du Cap, La Colombe d’Or, Hollywood, The London Scene, Studio 54, Woodstock, the Playboy Mansion & Backgammon with a Hollywood Centre Fold – this documentary shows it all.
Miller says, “Cinemas that want to screen Our Man in Cannes – The David Blake Story and our slate are welcome to contact us for exclusive cinema-only release”
Warning: Expect 1980’s nudity, huge cellphones and adult themes.
