The saga continues. This is now the seventh example of John Walsh’s copyright theft that I have posted to date. I dislike having to give such sustained negative analysis of somebody else’s work in order to make a case. I feel the evidence of copyright infringement is so strong that it shouldn’t be necessary. It would be much better if Titan Books and John Walsh now acknowledged what has been long obvious, so that we can settle the issue at last, learn whatever lessons need to be learned, and move on. If I find the needless delay tiresome and enervating, I’m sure everyone else involved must too. But back to the case!
Page 118 of John Walsh book The Third Man: The Official Story of the Film is a copyright infringement of pp.86–8 of my book In Search of the Third Man.
First, Walsh’s copyright-infringing text on his page 118:
Next, the text from In Search of the Third Man that Walsh has stolen, on my pages 86–8:
The theft follows the pattern I have described several times before. Walsh mostly uses his own words, but closely paraphrases my content, describing what I described in exactly the same order, with the exception that he cuts out two paragraphs I wrote after the first paragraph on the Josefstadt Theatre.
So to summarize the order in which he describes things, I’ve broken his account down into fourteen stages below, which mirror the order of my account:
last sequence to be filmed is the Josefstadt Theatre scene (but Walsh omits my comment that the audience reaction shots had been filmed on location in Vienna in the actual Josefstadt Theatre);
Carol Reed does not need to use Benzedrine at Shepperton;
Selznick is responsible for Cotten’s and Valli’s salaries for fifteen and fourteen weeks respectively, after which Korda must cover their salaries;
Cotten’s tax status limits the length of his services;
quote from Selznick reminding Korda of this fact (Walsh gets the exact date for the quote from my endnote 10);
Cotten’s schedule rearranged after delays caused by Orson Welles;
Cotten released on 18 March;
Korda sends in the “broker’s men” Cunynghame and Boxall to hurry up the production;
quote from Guying Hamilton describing Reed’s conversation with Cunynghame and Boxall;
Korda persuades Cotten to forego the overage fee he owes him as a personal favour;
Cotten tells Selznick’s representative Jenia Reissar that he would not have made such a concession if it had been a Hollywood picture (Walsh is able to add the date of Cotten’s conversation with Reissar here, 11 February 1949, because I cite it in my endnote 13);
Reissar makes sure that Korda doesn’t exact a similar concession from Alida Valli;
quote from Reissar’s phone conversation with Selznick executive Daniel O’Shea;
when Valli finishes on 31 March, Korda delays his payment for her services by months, claiming cash-flow difficulties.
Walsh follows my text, point by point, reproducing my points – my book’s selection and arrangement of my original research – mostly in his own words but occasionally drifting into exact repetitions of my phrasing.
He makes three quite telling mistakes that only further suggest his uncritical dependence on what he has stolen:
In describing Guy Hamilton’s account of Carol Reed’s conversation with two Korda executives, he mixes up quoted words with my words. The mistake leads him from closely paraphrasing me into copying me directly word for word, as follows: “... he asked Cunynghame and Boxall with a look of bafflement. When they mentioned a lengthy scene that had yet to be shot, he simply replied with uncomprending innocence...”
When he describes Reissar’s phone conversation with Daniel O’Shea, he wrongly writes that Selznick took part in the phone conversation when he didn’t. I assume this is because he misreads the following note that I provided at the back of the book as a citation for the quoted conversation: Notes for a telephone conversation with Daniel O’Shea, Selznick 741, 2. But “Selznick 741, 2” is actually a reference to box 741, folder 2 in the David Selznick Archive, where I found the information.
Walsh introduces another error when he misunderstands what I meant by Korda paying Valli her “overage in its entirety”. He incorrectly states that Korda paid her “a full fee, including the additional seven weeks, outside of her fourteen-week contract”. But he forgets that it was Selznick who paid the salary for the fourteen weeks specified in her contract. Korda paid only for the extra seven weeks’ overage. The reason why I specified that Korda had paid Valli’s “overage in its entirety” was to make the contrast with Cotten, who had given Korda his overage time for free.
If he had copied only a little more carefully he would not have made these mistakes, but that wouldn’t of course have made him any less liable for copyright infringement.
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