Jacobs was born in London. He entered the British film industry in the 1940s, working in publicity and distribution. He wrote and directed for British TV and helped found the
Free Cinema Group which was instrumental in the careers of filmmakers such as
Tony Richardson,
Lindsay Anderson and
Karel Reisz. In the 1960s, he was an assistant to producer David Deutsch on the film
Catch Us If You Can (1965) directed by
John Boorman and costume designed by Jacobs' wife,
Sally. Boorman later wrote about Jacobs: [He was] my real ally, the one whose opinion I came to depend on for making changes to the script... He looked not unlike
Marty Feldman, the same square Jewish face. He had been a pro cyclist, competed in the
Tour de France, and had smashed one side of his face in a bad fall. It had been rebuilt and a glass eye fitted, so that he had a similar disconcerting way of looking yet not looking at you, as Marty had. He was steeped in film and became my passionate advocate and counsellor. Boorman says that one day
Dave Clark, the star of the film, said "something insulting" to Sally ("he hated the clothes she made him wear") and Jacobs "flew into a rage. It was a terrifying sight. He frothed at the mouth. He smashed his fist into Dave's face." They wrote a draft in three weeks. According to one writer,
Point Blank was "a major achievement, a reworking of a classic gangster text into an explosive reverie on American alienation and madness." Jacobs stayed in Hollywood for the rest of his career. Boorman: Alex found his spiritual home in Hollywood. He was a movie buff. He could pitch ideas. There was no one better at meetings. He was, as they say in Hollywood, 'great in a room'. He eventually became a rewrite man, a script doctor. When they had a project with intractable problems, they would send for Alex. He would demolish the script, reduce it to rubble, then when everyone was in despair, he would rebuild it into a potential masterpiece. I used to marvel at his profligacy. 'There's the germ of a great idea here,' he would say, slapping the script or twisting it in his hands, as though squeezing out that little pip of importance from the hundred or so pages of dross. Or, 'the audience is way ahead of you. The script is just the first third of the movie.' He bamboozled. He bludgeoned. He knew how to cut through to the quick, to what was essential, as he did on
Point Blank. Sitting down and writing it, justifying what he had improvised at the meeting was another matter. He was at his best pacing a room. A typewriter did not inspire him. He had the temperament of a producer rather than a writer. Jacobs' obituary described "a quintessential Alexander Jacobs image" from the film
Sitting Target: The first scene... takes us into a dank prison cell. We hear menacing grunts and stare in amazement at a grimacing, brutally determined convict "spread eagled across the ceiling like some huge dark spider" as he struggles through this bizarre isometric exercise. It's a spectacularly dynamic image that sums up the character and charges the movie with instant power. Jacobs also worked as a script doctor. According to his obituary: Too many were perfectly willing to let Alex serve merely as an adaptor, a rescuer of troubled projects, a brain to be picked. They knew how unerringly he could respond with a torrent of stimulating ideas. During meetings, even the stodgiest of executives would find themselves fascinated by his imagination and volatility. But Alex also scared them. He cared about his work with an intensity they considered uncool. He wasn't some unmanageable kid who would let himself be led by the nose in return for the chance to make a movie. He knew world cinema too well for that. Indeed, he was a constant magnet for people who, weary of the usual obsessive gossip about what's going through the roof and what's bombing this week, wanted good, lively talk about film itself. Alex was that rarity, an established screenwriter who constantly helped the unknown and the inexperienced. Jacobs died at Cedars Sinai Medical Centre in 1979 aged 51. ==Select credits==