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A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Movie Industry Slang

NPR | By Susan Stamberg
Published March 1, 2006 at 9:42 AM EST

Who's Alan Smithee and why is he the director of so many movies? When is a martini not a martini? Who is the best boy anyway?

Camera operator and film industry veteran Dave Knox talks to Susan Stamberg about these terms and other movie industry mysteries as a run-up to the 78th Academy Awards ceremony on March 5. Knox is the author of an insider's guide to film slang, Strike the Baby and Kill the Blonde.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Susan Stamberg
Susan Stamberg was one of NPR's "founding mothers" (she also coined the phrase). She joined the network at the time of its inception in 1971, and her career at NPR spanned more than five decades.