Thorold Dickinson worked on silent films with George
Pearson in England and Europe. At Ealing in the mid-1930s, graduating
from editor, Sing
as we Go (1934), to director The High Command (1937). Spanish Civil
War films, then features in England including Gaslight
(1940). During World War II, Dickinson directed or supervised seventeen
military training films, including the cautionary effort Next
of Kin (1942), which was exhibited theatrically to civilian audiences
in both England and the U.S.
After the war he continued to direct such first-rate productions as
The Queen of Spades
(1949) an adaptation of a Pushkin story that bore evidence of Dickinson's
fascination with the techniques of the Soviet cinema; Secret
People (1952), a spy drama that served as the basis for a "how
movies are made" volume by Lindsay
Anderson, and Hill 24 Doesn't Answer (1955), the first Israeli film
to gain a widespread international release.
From 1956 to 1960, Dickinson was chief of film services for the United
Nations Department of Public Information. During this period he supervised
several UN documentaries, including the controversial Suez Crisis piece
Blue Vanguard (1957). He also assumed the presidency of the International
Federation of Film Societies, a post he held until 1966. In the early
1960s, he accepted a teaching post at the Slade School of London University,
thereby becoming Britain's first Professor of Film. Thorold Dickinson
retired in 1971.
