The recent death of Ronald Neame means that perhaps the most senior and respected British director left is Lewis Gilbert, now ninety and fresh from a round of public appearances, such as on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago, in connection with his long awaited autobiography, All My Flashbacks.
Always one of the more approachable men in British movie making, Gilbert's style is chatty and relaxed, and goes into as much detail about his life behind the cameras as it does into a glittering career which somehow deserved more recognition than a single BAFTA and one Oscar nomination.
Gilbert was at the helm for some of the most famous and best loved films of the last 60 years. He had no signature theme as such but had a knack for reflecting the social mores of the times in ways that few other directors could make into something entertaining. Three of Gilbert's most celebrated films did this: Alfie (60's playboy), Educating Rita (hairdresser goes to university) and Shirley Valentine (bored middle-aged housewife).
Add to this famous war films such as Reach for the Sky, Carve Her Name with Pride and three Bond movies (You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Love Me and Moonraker) and you have one of the most successful careers of any British film maker of modern times.
Gibert writes frankly that not everything he did was successful, his success with Alfie in 1966 being followed by the disastrous Europudding The Adventurers, and he also doesn't disguise the fact that things didn't always run smoothly on set, such as his difficulties in working with Orson Welles. He also reveals the complications of the way that Hollywood worked at a time when it was going through its major upheaval in the 1960's.
However, as a personal account, it's a moving story in places, from the loss of his father to tuberculosis when he was just seven to the battle fought by his second granddaughter to recover from the viral encephalitis which nearly killed her at three months and left her severely disabled for many years.
It's a quite unpretentious piece of work from a man who has plenty to boast about.
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