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Frank Warner #1
The Director's Cut
Russell Wood, big shot movie director and married with kids, has a secret habit of watching his pornographic rushes late into the night on his own. Richard Holland, his non-professional chauffeur, makes avant-garde shorts and features when he can scrape together enough money and pull in enough favours, and the only security in their colleague, Frank Warner's life is his day job at a Soho-based film magazine. On the edge of his sanity, Christopher Young is obsessed with discovering the spectral energies of abandoned cinemas...
During the demolition work on the site of a former cinema just north of Soho, the body of a man is discovered wrapped in the celluloid used to kill him. The grisly discovery throws together the four former friends who are haunted by the film project they once worked on and draws them into a deepening mystery of murder and deceit on the tracks of the London Underground. Adultery, sexual obsession, festering guilt and growing mistrust are mapped out in a labyrinth narrative that is at once a thriller and an emotional odyssey.
During the demolition work on the site of a former cinema just north of Soho, the body of a man is discovered wrapped in the celluloid used to kill him. The grisly discovery throws together the four former friends who are haunted by the film project they once worked on and draws them into a deepening mystery of murder and deceit on the tracks of the London Underground. Adultery, sexual obsession, festering guilt and growing mistrust are mapped out in a labyrinth narrative that is at once a thriller and an emotional odyssey.
- GenresFiction
320 pages, Paperback
First published August 3, 2000
55 people want to read
About the author
Nicholas Royle
70 books56 followersNicholas Royle is an English writer. He is the author of seven novels, two novellas and a short story collection. He has edited sixteen anthologies of short stories. A senior lecturer in creative writing at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University, he also runs Nightjar Press, publishing original short stories as signed, limited-edition chapbooks. He works as a fiction reviewer for The Independent and the Warwick Review and as an editor for Salt Publishing.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 17, 2013
This is all about film – film as an art form, about people who watch films, write about them, long to make them, and about people who are filled with nostalgia for proper old cinemas and who can’t bear to watch their demise. Personally I’m not into films at all and I perhaps should have hated this book as a consequence, yet it was that central theme that gave it an exotic flavour for me. Like reading a novel set on a Pacific island I will never visit. I knew within a couple of chapters that this was going to be a great read and you don’t need to be into film to enjoy it.
What helps the whole thing along is a sly sense of humour in the authorial voice - the paragraph about the Soho House was a case in point. Another interesting feature of the early chapters is secretiveness – it’s not always clear what’s going on or how the characters relate to one another. Once it was clear that this was a deliberate ploy rather than my own failure to get to grips with the story I just sat back and enjoyed the ride. The writing is faultless, and the section that dealt with the making of the underground film shot by four of the characters is edge of the seat stuff.
I did feel that the story lost its way a bit towards the end – the humour disappeared and the final showdown, such as it was, seemed to go on interminably. It was a bit disappointing. But I did fall for what I am assuming was a deliberate red herring – convincing me that the wrong person was the villain. Assuming it was deliberate, it was ingenious.
What helps the whole thing along is a sly sense of humour in the authorial voice - the paragraph about the Soho House was a case in point. Another interesting feature of the early chapters is secretiveness – it’s not always clear what’s going on or how the characters relate to one another. Once it was clear that this was a deliberate ploy rather than my own failure to get to grips with the story I just sat back and enjoyed the ride. The writing is faultless, and the section that dealt with the making of the underground film shot by four of the characters is edge of the seat stuff.
I did feel that the story lost its way a bit towards the end – the humour disappeared and the final showdown, such as it was, seemed to go on interminably. It was a bit disappointing. But I did fall for what I am assuming was a deliberate red herring – convincing me that the wrong person was the villain. Assuming it was deliberate, it was ingenious.
May 20, 2021
When a body wrapped in coils of celluloid is discovered on a demolition site, a murder inquiry is promptly launched, setting in motion a chain of events that will have devastating consequences. Fifteen years ago, four aspiring directors made an underground film of a man's suicide.
Now, the discovery of the body sends shockwaves through the lives of the men, forcing them to reconsider what actually went on that fateful night...
The four central characters - Harry, the frustrated arthouse director, Frank, who gave up filmmaking to become a critic, Richard, the only one who managed to achieve a modicum of success, and Angelo, a lowly film dispatch clerk who hears voices in static and is embarked on his own obsessive search - begin to see their lives spiralling out of control, unravelling like those spools of celluloid.
The Director's Cut is a love story to film. Not just to films themselves, but to the locations where films are shot, to the auters whose visions create cinematic art, and to the places where films are - or once were - shown. Its pages are haunted by people who obsess over film, with details of trivia and cinematic references that act - as the story progresses - as clues to what actually went on that night 15 years previously. Throw in a sinister side plot featuring reclusive director Fraser Munro, and you have all the elements of a brilliantly-written thriller, hypnotic and brooding, which perfectly balances its premise of a literary novel with that of a suspenseful mystery story.
There's a seediness to the London locations, and to the men themselves, that seems incredibly compelling, as we're caught up in their frustrations and obsessions. The pacing is superb.
Like much of Royle's fiction, the prose is highly engaging, suffused with a dreamlike quality which befits the story, and driven by the author's masterfully plotted narrative. I absolutely loved this novel.
I initially read it about 15 years ago, and yet this time I still found hidden layers to the writing, picking up on clues and film references that I had been oblivious to on my first reading. Some of this is because of my increased knowledge of film, some of it is due to a broader experience of devouring more of Royle's writing style. However you won't require either of these things to enjoy this novel. There is much to love. It combines every element that I look for in modern fiction, with the added distinction of the novel working successfully on several different levels. The Director's Cut comes highly recommended.
Now, the discovery of the body sends shockwaves through the lives of the men, forcing them to reconsider what actually went on that fateful night...
The four central characters - Harry, the frustrated arthouse director, Frank, who gave up filmmaking to become a critic, Richard, the only one who managed to achieve a modicum of success, and Angelo, a lowly film dispatch clerk who hears voices in static and is embarked on his own obsessive search - begin to see their lives spiralling out of control, unravelling like those spools of celluloid.
The Director's Cut is a love story to film. Not just to films themselves, but to the locations where films are shot, to the auters whose visions create cinematic art, and to the places where films are - or once were - shown. Its pages are haunted by people who obsess over film, with details of trivia and cinematic references that act - as the story progresses - as clues to what actually went on that night 15 years previously. Throw in a sinister side plot featuring reclusive director Fraser Munro, and you have all the elements of a brilliantly-written thriller, hypnotic and brooding, which perfectly balances its premise of a literary novel with that of a suspenseful mystery story.
There's a seediness to the London locations, and to the men themselves, that seems incredibly compelling, as we're caught up in their frustrations and obsessions. The pacing is superb.
Like much of Royle's fiction, the prose is highly engaging, suffused with a dreamlike quality which befits the story, and driven by the author's masterfully plotted narrative. I absolutely loved this novel.
I initially read it about 15 years ago, and yet this time I still found hidden layers to the writing, picking up on clues and film references that I had been oblivious to on my first reading. Some of this is because of my increased knowledge of film, some of it is due to a broader experience of devouring more of Royle's writing style. However you won't require either of these things to enjoy this novel. There is much to love. It combines every element that I look for in modern fiction, with the added distinction of the novel working successfully on several different levels. The Director's Cut comes highly recommended.
August 9, 2018
The first fifty pages grated and seemed dated (powerbooks were flashed around, mobile phones with vibrating features). The character of Frank was created as a hideous misogynist, yuppy-type beast. But then it improved and while, at times, you are very aware of the author deliberately setting clues and red herrings up and layering them on, the story does keep you guessing and the film references that appear spurious at the beginning do begin to resonate.
The writer knows his film stuff and wears it on his sleeve and any novel that lionises the films of Nic Roeg is alright by me.
The writer knows his film stuff and wears it on his sleeve and any novel that lionises the films of Nic Roeg is alright by me.
September 14, 2019
A well written, bleak but engrossing thriller set for the most part in London's seedy underbelly. Four film fanatics come together to help one of their number commit suicide and to film the event. But was it really suicide or was it murder? Painting a grim picture of seedy sex, obsession and madness this book could definitely become an item in the film noire genre.
April 24, 2025
I think I have owned a copy of this book since it first came out and it was when I was checking if it was available on kindle, and discovered it wasn't, that I decided it was about time to get around to reading it. It was good and I have ordered a second hand copy of the sequel Antwerp.
November 17, 2021
Chato!
October 2, 2013
When i read the cover of the book, i was looking forward to reading it. When i began it was i teresting but then all these characters came in and i didn't get it anymore. I couldn't understand it, because of the very very often switch. So somewhere in the beginning of the book i brought it back. I just didn't like it.
July 28, 2015
The book reads like a script. A thrilling, mind boggling, incredibly intriguing one at that. Yet with that old world feel of a dusty bunch of pages that tell an unforgettable story. Just when you think you know what you do, Royle picks you up and throws you headlong into Hammersmith. Unputdownable this.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews