Thomas Butt is a senior writer at Collider who focuses on classic movies.
The Big Picture If you're a Hollywood director frustrated over your loss of creative control or the in-flight cut of your film, there's only one name to call: Alan Smithee. Every once in a while, you might notice that the director's credit reads "Alan Smithee" or, in some cases, "Allen Smithee." Let the record show that this is not a director, or even a real person, for that matter.
Whenever the name Alan Smithee appears on-screen, it is the ultimate indicator of a director's frustration with a finished product. The alias' debut film was in 1969 for the Richard Widmark Western, Death of a Gunfighter. During filming, the actor was unhappy with the work of director Robert Totten.
Furthermore, once Alan Smithee is substituted for the director's name, the respective director is prohibited from publicly discussing the disowned film. From the guild's perspective, Alan Smithee denotes that Robert Totten or Don Siegel directed Death of a Gunfighter. The DGA promotes directors as autonomous authors of films, but on the flip side, they want to make sure they take ownership of their failures.
What Directors Have Blamed Their Movies on Alan Smithee? Alan Smithee cropped up a handful of times, including for the films Student Bodies, Let's Get Harry, and Solar Crisis. Dennis Hopper's film, Catchfire, was immediately disowned by the director, prompting his credit to be substituted for Alan Smithee. Hopper claimed he had no involvement in post-production, undermining the creative autonomy of a director.
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