A 1967 film interview showing a passionate Sean Connery talking politics has been unearthed and is to be shown for the first time as part of a new documentary collection from the British Film Institute (BFI).
The previously unseen footage shows the 37 year old Bond star attacking management processes and sharing thoughts on class struggle and “greedy” bosses in Scotland.
“I’d never considered myself a particularly political animal at all,” he tells Bernard Braden at the start of the interview. “But suddenly when I went up to Scotland to look at this Fairfield experiment it awakened all sorts of dislikes and likes that had obviously been kind of dormant in me – particularly against management.
“I have never found a particularly sympathetic or really good functioning management … They’re too greedy and don’t put enough of what they take out back in. That’s what I found in the shipyard.”
After this interview Connery made a documentary about Glasgow’s Fairfield shipyard, The Bowler And The Bunnett, and it is the only time he has sat in the director’s chair.
The documentary, to be shown on the closing day of the Glasgow Film Festival, shows Connery investigate the work of Tory industrialist Sir Iain Stuart who tried to alter the way Fairfield’s was run.
Stuart aimed to build a future for the yard where labour and capital were mutual partners, but it didn’t work and gradually the shipbuilding industry faded.
At the time of its release, The Bowler And The Bunnett was slammed by the Scotsman for “showmanship” and the Herald didn’t even review it but Moscow audiences were more enthusiastic.
Now it has received more praise from Connery’s home shores. Author and film-maker Mark Cousins said: “As a piece of film it’s rather good.
“It has a sort of visual dynamism that Connery is still rightly proud of.”
The documentary and the elusive interview are included in the Tales From The Shipyard season at the Glasgow Film Festival. It is a collection of documentaries of working life in Britain, and begins at the GFT on February 27.
The BFI DVD including the Connery interview is released next month.
