How Alex made my career

In his book National Heroes about the British film industry in the 1970s, Alexander Walker remarked that "there is nothing like death to create the sense of a definable era out of generational confusion". Now that Alex is no longer with us, it is entirely possible to see him as belonging to an extremely definable era, and one which is rapidly passing.

For Alex could write with style and authority, not just about the films but also about the structure and economics of the industry. Such a thing is rare today. He cared. That did not always make him easy, and it certainly made him enemies.

The economy and eloquence of his prose style were sometimes betrayed by a rush to judgment. In written evidence to the Commons Select Committee, currently investigating the film industry, he went so far as to describe the film industry as "systemically dishonest".

As an ethical judgment that was characteristically extreme, but it did little justice to his understanding of the history, culture and economics of the medium that he was so passionate about across almost seven decades.

The truth is that, for more than 20 years, Alex was Britain's most influential film critic. From the mid-1960s, his weekly reviews in the Evening Standard spelt life or death to the commercial prospects of any relatively mainstream movie. Alex worked, for the majority of his career, in the era before multiplexes when, with very few exceptions, films were "platformed" at one of a small number of West End cinemas.

A favourable review from Alex would all but guarantee three or four weeks of good business which would, in turn, generate the type of word of mouth that drove nationwide bookings and box-office success. The whole system was, as it were, geared to Alex's instinct for popular, well-crafted cinema.

I first met Alex in 1971 when he agreed to look at an unfinished version of That'll be the Day, my third film as a producer. My partner, Sandy Lieberson and I sat behind him through the screening, twitching every time Alex reached for his notebook.

As it turned out, he was immensely generous in his appraisal of what turned out to be an unexpected hit. And I had a career! He similarly engaged with its sequel, Stardust, which he accurately observed, depicted "a world gone mad, hypnotised by these exploitative pop idols, treating them with a reverence reserved for Heads of State, rewarding them with the income of the Rockefellers''.

He was an early and enthusiastic supporter of Bugsy Malone and The Duellists which launched the directorial careers of Alan Parker and Ridley Scott, respectively.

He was also famed for engaging with the complex politics of the industry. Throughout the Fifties and Sixties, British cinema was dominated by cinema chains controlled by Rank and ABPC, later EMI.