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

[lambchopnixon]

Half of my Top 10 British films are Powell/Pressburger. To me they are well ahead of the pack. Who'se in the pack?!

[Steve Crook]

Is there anyone else in that same pack? :)

And why are only half your top ten films by them? I think that about twenty in my top ten would be by them

[Russ]

Surely David Lean is well ahead of the pack

[locust]

Sir Alfred Hitchcock if you don't mind. The Lady Vanishes, The Thirty-Nine Steps, Stage Fright, Frenzy etc.

[Gibbie]

David Lean.

[deckard]

Yep! Powell and Pressbuger,David Lean and Alfred Hitchcock,I can't really choose between them as my favourites.Unfortunately,just to make matters worse,I just have to include Carol Reed. :)

[Hackett]

The great Lance Comfort. Almost three films a year through the 40's and 50's. Directing producing, writting B features and early TV. His whole output possibly cost less than a single David Lean prodution, but without people like Comfort where else could actors and technicians cut thier teeth.

[Russ]

Favourites of mine ..
Robert Hamer
Dead of Night (Mirror sequence) 1945
Ping String & Sealing Wax 1945
It Always rains on a Sunday 1947
Kind Hearts & Coronets 1949
Father Brown 1954
School for Scoundrels 1960

Basil Dearden
The Bells go Down 1943
My Learned Friend 1943
The Halfway House 1944
The Captive Heart 1946
The Blue Lamp 1950
Pool of London 1951
The Smallest Show on Earth 1957
The League of Gentlemen 1960
Victim 1961
The Man who Haunted Himself 1970

Charles Frend
The Foreman went to France 1942
San Demetrio London 1943
Scott of the Antarctic 1948
The Magnet 1949
The Cruel Sea 1953
The Long Arm 1956
Barnacle Bill 1958

Three supreme directors and as with other great directors had a hand in the screenwriting on occasion.

I would find it qute easy to pick a top 20 British films from just these three names.

So come on everyone else, what are your thoughts ?

[deckard]

Wow! what a can of worms to open!This debate could go on for months.The Directors you mentioned Russ are all excellent and what a list of films,I'd be happy to sit a watch any of them.Over the years I've avoided thinking about my very favourite films and directors because I love so many,but,I suppose I have to make a decision sometime so here goes...... the best I can do is narrow it down to four--
Powell and Pressburger:"A Matter of Life and Death"
Carol Reed:"The Third Man"
David Lean:"Brief Encounter" and
Alfred Hitchcock"The Thirty Nine Steps"
and not in any particular order!As I say there are loads of other films I truly adore,but these just about win the day!(I think!) wink

[The_Late_Peter_Cook]

Well, apart from the obvious three (Hitchcock, Powell, Lean) I'd chose:

Robert Hamer - Dead Of Night,It Always Rains On Sunday, Kind Hearts & Coronets etc

Roy Ward Baker - The October Man, A Night To Remember, Quatermass & The Pit etc

Alexander Mackendrick - Whisky Galore, The Maggie, The Ladykillers etc

Val Guest - Hell Is A City, The Day The Earth Caught Fire, Jigsaw etc

Lewis Gilbert - Sink The Bismark!, Alfie, You Only Live Twice etc

[DB7]

I'd have to make a case for the Boultings; Thunder Rock, Seven Days to Noon, Heavens Above, I'm All Right Jack, Brighton Rock, Private's Progress etc.

Obviously not as grandiose as some filmakers but they had a keen obsevational eye for British idiosyncrasies and institutions, and sandwiched between their two best thrillers were a series of biting satires.

[cosmic]

I have to agree with what people have said so far - Hitchcock is perhaps my favourite director!
I'd like to make a case for the actors though, they are after all an essential part of filmmaking, Dickie Attenborough, David Niven, Cary Grant...... any others?
Also no one has mentioned the Ealing studios, studios make films!

[Steve Crook]

Are actors any more important than any other element? I'd think they were all equally important. That's why films are so interesting, they're a very collaborative art form.

Do studios make films or allow films to be made?
Are you maybe mixing the idea of studios with producers?

Steve

[cosmic]

actors are as important as any other element in filmmaking, without them there would be a no film, but we are getting into a debate about multiple authorship there which is not what the thread is about.

no I dont think I am confusing producers with studios. there are some studios which are well known for one type of film, such as Hammer and to a lesser extent Ealing - a studio is part of the filmmaking process in allowing the film to be made in the first place, and so I feel has a right to be considered great ot not.

[Steve Crook]

cosmic: actors are as important as any other element in filmmaking, without them there would be a no film, but we are getting into a debate about multiple authorship there which is not what the thread is about.

But surely it is about film makers - people who make films.

no I dont think I am confusing producers with studios. there are some studios which are well known for one type of film, such as Hammer and to a lesser extent Ealing - a studio is part of the filmmaking process in allowing the film to be made in the first place, and so I feel has a right to be considered great ot not.

Was there a "Hammer Studio"? I thought they were mainly made at Shepperton or Bray studios.

Steve