The Greatest British film makers - please add your choice...

[DB7]

As Steve says a lot of Ealing's philosophy was down to Balcon and who he employed, likewise the Carreras family had a strong influence on Hammers direction.

[The_Late_Peter_Cook]

I'd add Tony Richardson to the list. LOOK BACK IN ANGER, THE ENTERTAINER, A TASTE OF HONEY etc make for an impressive cv. If you add his involvment with Woodfall (producing the likes of SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING) it becomes obvious that he is a major figure.

[smudge]

the Carreras family had a strong influence on Hammers direction

Sir James Carreras was a unique figure,but just a 'super salesman' in the end. The REAL filmmakers at Hammer were TONY HINDS and MICHAEL CARRERAS.

Hinds is still going strong, long since retired, but doesn't speak of his Hammer days much except to old Hammer pals. Michael has long since gone, but never got the recognition as a filmmaker he may have deserved.

Early Hammer turned out some cracking films, and whilst not in the echelons of Hitchcock et al, deserve some recognition for their 'house style'. It must have been good because, as they say, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery...

Let's not forget here the contributions of Terence Fisher, Jack Asher and Bernard Robinson.

SMUDGE

[Wetherby Pond]

I don't really believe in the "greatest director" game - how can you sensibly compare such wildly dissimilar talents as Michael Powell, David Lean and Ken Loach? - but I do think that Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat must take some sort of medal for being the most consistently underrated.

Their misfortune was that their best work was made in the 1940s, which just happened to be the decade when many other British directors were also turning out their best work, so the likes of The Third Man, Brief Encounter, The Red Shoes and the great Ealing comedies grab the lion's share of the glory while the often equally impressive likes of Millions Like Us, Two Thousand Women, Waterloo Road, The Rake's Progress, I See A Dark Stranger, Green For Danger, Captain Boycott and London Belongs To Me get sidelined - for no particularly good or obvious reason.

Today, they're more famous for writing the screenplay of Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes than anything else, and hardly any of their work as directors is available on DVD. But every time I catch one of their films I'm reminded of what superb craftsmen they were - and it may be this very fluency that worked against their critical reputations: they make everything look too easy.

On the subject of the studio's creative input, I agree with Ceritalbot that there's a very strong case to be made for organisations like Rank, Ealing, Gainsborough, Hammer et al being as important as any of their films' individual personnel. Gainsborough is a particularly interesting case here, as its 1940s costume melodramas are incredibly consistent cinematically, visually and thematically - the same ideas, themes and motifs occur again and again. Remove the director credits, and you could easily convince an auteurist critic that they were the work of the same man - but in reality half a dozen different directors were involved, of which only Anthony Asquith (Fanny By Gaslight) had any serious reputation in that department.

(Talking of which, Asquith is also frequently underrated. His silent films are a revelation, Cottage on Dartmoor in particular being arguably ahead of anything even Hitchcock was doing at the time, and even his much-maligned collaborations with Terrence Rattigan are more interesting than their reputation might suggest)

[DB7]

Originally posted by Wetherby Pond@Mar 11 2005, 03:37 PM Their misfortune was that their best work was made in the 1940s, which just happened to be the decade when many other British directors were also turning out their best work, so the likes of The Third Man, Brief Encounter, The Red Shoes and the great Ealing comedies grab the lion's share of the glory while the often equally impressive likes of Millions Like Us, Two Thousand Women, Waterloo Road, The Rake's Progress, I See A Dark Stranger, Green For Danger, Captain Boycott and London Belongs To Me get sidelined - for no particularly good or obvious reason.

I wouldn't call them underrated, more that they are remembered as screenwriters rather than directors. It's a tragedy I See a Dark Stranger isn't broadcast terrestrially as frequently as their other films as I'm sure it would be as popular as the duo's many comedy-thrillers. Like The Green Man it has some great moments of black humour notably the wheelchair and funeral proccesion scenes.

[Wetherby Pond]

Originally posted by DB7@Mar 11 2005, 05:35 PM I wouldn't call them underrated, more that they are remembered as screenwriters rather than directors. It's a tragedy I See a Dark Stranger isn't broadcast terrestrially as frequently as their other films as I'm sure it would be as popular as the duo's many comedy-thrillers. Like The Green Man it has some great moments of black humour notably the wheelchair and funeral proccesion scenes.

I'd be surprised if anyone was planning to show it in the current political climate, what with the scene in which Deborah Kerr marches into the Dublin museum and announces that her lifelong ambition is to join the IRA!

[DB7]

Originally posted by Wetherby Pond@Mar 11 2005, 04:40 PM I'd be surprised if anyone was planning to show it in the current political climate, what with the scene in which Deborah Kerr marches into the Dublin museum and announces that her lifelong ambition is to join the IRA!

Peter Sellers tries something similar in The Naked Truth and get a punch on the nose for his trouble. Other films like Divorcing Jack and Oh Mr Porter use the troubles as a comedy backdrop and it's a welcome change from many of the po-faced films so beloved of CH4 during the 80's.

If any republican-related films need being withheld from the UK's gaze it's the likes of Patriot Games, Blown Away and The Devil's Own.

[The_Late_Peter_Cook]

++I'd be surprised if anyone was planning to show it in the current political climate, what with the scene in which Deborah Kerr marches into the Dublin museum and announces that her lifelong ambition is to join the IRA!++

Well, Channel 4 showed that movie several times in the 'eighties, when the Irish problem was a heck of a lot worse ie constant bombing of mainland Britian, so I'd be suprised if they stopped a showing of it in these more peaceful times.

[Wetherby Pond]

Originally posted by The_Late_Peter_Cook@Mar 11 2005, 06:38 PM I'd be suprised if they stopped a showing of it in these more peaceful times.

I don't for one second think it's been suppressed by official fiat - but by "the current political climate" I was specifically referring to events of the past three months, not to some notional (and, as we now know beyond any doubt, largely fictitious within Ulster's borders) "more peaceful times" post-1998.

What's fascinating about I See A Dark Stranger - and where it differs sharply from the other titles cited - is its own decidedly ambivalent attitude towards Irish republicanism: Bridie Quilty (the Deborah Kerr character) is shown as being naive and silly, but I get the distinct impression Frank Launder was rather fond of her - certainly, she gets treated far more sympathetically than the various bumbling Brits.

And despite its relative box-office failure, Frank Launder was back in Ireland the following year making Captain Boycott, thus making him one of the only film-makers over that whole mid-century period to show a real interest in tackling Irish political and historical issues with something approaching genuine depth and seriousness. I know I See A Dark Stranger is semi-comic, but I suspect that was a cunning ploy that Launder used to get across some surprisingly dark and unpalatable material about Ireland's ambivalent notion of "neutrality" during a war that had only just ended.

[DB7]

The film started out being based on Howard's character. When working on Soldier, Sailor (1944), Launder went to see Michael Pertwee in NI (then working as an intelligence officer) and came away with the beginnings of a story entitled Envoy Extraordinary. The rest of the film took shape on a return visit and Launder shaped an Anglo-Irish allegory around the two leads. Some of the papers of the day weren't best pleased but the film recouped it's money (Individual had been created the previous year) with a successful US run.

[Wetherby Pond]

Thanks for that - I didn't know anything about the film's background. Interestingly enough, it's available on DVD in the US, but not over here (though it was released on VHS in the 1990s, which is how I saw it).

[DB7]

One snippet I forgot, Caldicott and Charters were originally pencilled in to appear but Radford and Wayne withdrew complaining that their roles weren't substantial enough. Shame that.

[COPPERSHOE]

PETER MEDAK
WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM,HE DIRECTED "KRAYS",
LIFE IN DAY OF JOE EGG,
RULING CLASS,
WHERE IS HE NOW,HE WAS MARRIED TO CAROLYN SEYMOUR IN THE 70'S.
PEOPLE SEEM TO DISAPPEAR BUT YOU REMEMBER THEIR FILMS .
THX,
COPPERSHOE
MAR 14TH 9.50AM
PS ARE YOU AWARE YOUR CLOCK IS 1 HOUR FAST ON THIS SITE

[Allen Dace]

Originally posted by COPPERSHOE@Mar 14 2005, 09:49 AM PETER MEDAK WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM,HE DIRECTED "KRAYS", LIFE IN DAY OF JOE EGG, RULING CLASS, WHERE IS HE NOW,HE WAS MARRIED TO CAROLYN SEYMOUR IN THE 70'S. PEOPLE SEEM TO DISAPPEAR BUT YOU REMEMBER THEIR FILMS . THX, COPPERSHOE MAR 14TH 9.50AM PS ARE YOU AWARE YOUR CLOCK IS 1 HOUR FAST ON THIS SITE

He's now directing TV episodes as his page on the internet movie database shows :

Peter Medak

[Hackett]

Well he's very lucky to be still working after "THE KRAYS" 1990. As for "LET HIM HAVE IT" 1991 he should be taken out and shot with a ball of his own shit.