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Memoirs of a

FILM DISTRIBUTOR

by Peter Broome
Part Six - The View From The Top

In 1985 Rupert Murdoch acquired
his first half of Twentieth Century Fox.
I was taking a few days off, staying in
the apartment of a friend at Nelson
Bay. He was head of KLM Airlines in
Australia and deliberately had no
phone. Each morning I strolled out to
the local public phone to check with the
office. That memorable morning I
heard the not unexpected news about
Rupert, but had also received USA calls
from nearly everyone at Fox, and spent
the rest of the morning phoning back.
Everyone wanted to know - who was
this Murdoch, what was he like?
I returned to work to receive the
first of many lunch invitations in the
News Ltd. boardroom from Rupert’s
trusted lieutenant Ken Cowley. The
Peter and Mary take in the atmosphere from the balcony of their suite at the
hardened newspaper men around the
Carlton Hotel, Cannes.
table all had stars in their eyes about
their boss who was now in the movie
business, and they never seemed to tire
of my stories about the industry.
Soon after buying all of Fox a few
months later Rupert, who I had known
for twenty-five years from his Adelaide
days, phoned me to explain that he
wanted a toehold in China and the best
answer was for movies on the national
CCTV network. He said I should work
with Clarence Chang who I had known
for years to accomplish this. Clarence
and I went to Beijing to commence
work.
I became a world authority on what
was and was not acceptable in this
communist society. Final selection
involved bringing ten TV people to
Hong Kong for more than a week,
screening on a 16mm. projector in a
hotel suite.
Peter visits his old Boss Bob Morin at his villa in Tuscany.
Interestingly, the first selection of
52 films included ten Shirley Temples, Clarence, my wife and I went to evening. The voice track was dubbed
which was the last American product Beijing for the first film on the last into Mandarin but the songs remained
screened theatrically in China pre- Sunday of November 1987 for great in English. We doubled the all-time
revolution. Most ‘classics’ were OK, celebrations and much partying. Rupert worldwide audience for the film in one
but not westerns since they tended to and Shirley Temple were supposed to night! The next day the US
‘demean indigeneous people’. attend, but American Thanksgiving Ambassador informed me that the
precluded them being with us. exposure of the Chinese people to
Everyone in the city knew that The western culture was the most important
Sound of Music was to play on Sunday event of his incumbency.

20 2007 CINEMARECORD