Search Results for: Alan Lawson

Reginald Beck (5 February 1902 – 12 July 1992) was a British film editor with forty-nine credits from 1932 to 1985. He is noted primarily for films done with Lawrence Olivier in the 1940s and with Joseph Losey in the 1960s and 1970s.Beck helped to shape films as diverse as Olivier's "Henry V" (1944) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "Despair" (1978). He worked with American expatriate director Joseph Losey on 12 of his British films, including "Accident" (1967) and "The Go-Between" (1971).

Oswald ('Ossie') Morris (1915-2014 ), cinematographer, OBE, BSC, was born on 22 November in Middlesex. One of the most significant cameramen of the post-war era, Ossie began his career working as a projectionist during his school holidays. In 1932, he left school to become an apprentice in the film industry, with his first job as a clapperboy on After Dark(1932) at Associated Sound Film Industries, Wembley. During WWII, Morris served as a bomber pilot for the Royal Air Force, and returned to the film industry when the war ended. After some experience as an operator at Pinewood in 1946, he was given his first film to light in 1950.His career took off properly in 1952 when he was asked to take over the photography of the film Moulin Rouge, which was to become a milestone in Technicolour photography. He continued to develop new trends in colour cinematography in Moby Dick (1956). He was also equally at home in black and white, working with Vittorio De Sica on Selznick's Stazione Termini (1953). His first feature film as photographer was Look Back in Anger (1959), with well-known classics such as The Guns of Navarone (1961), Lolita (1961),  The Hill (1965), Oliver! (1968) (nominated for an Oscar in 1968) and Goodbye Mr Chips (1969) following in quick succession. Pumpkin Eater (1964) won a BAFTA for Best Black and White Cinematography in 1964. He then won an Oscar in 1971 for Fiddler on the Roof (1971), which was shot through a brown silk stocking in order to portray the colours of the Yugoslavian landscape on screen. Other 1970s films include Sleuth (1972), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Man who would be King (1975) and The Wiz (1978) (nominated for an Oscar in 1978), a re-make of The Wizard of Oz. Prior to his retirement in 1982, Morris photographed The Great Muppet Caper (1981) and The Dark Crystal (1982) with Jim Henson. In 1997 he was awarded an OBE, and was a Recipient of a Fenton Medal, Royal Photographic Society in 2001.

Sidney Henry Cole was born in Kennington, London in 1908. His film career began at Stoll Studios in the early 1930s as a reader in the scenario department. However, he soon found his way to the studio floor and into the editing suite where he became an assistant to Thorold Dickinson. When Dickinson went to Ealing Studios to edit the Gloria Swanson film Perfect Understanding (d. Cyril Gardner, 1933), Colejoined him as his second assistant.Cole returned to Ealing in 1941 to edit Went The Day Well? (d. Alberto Cavalcanti, 1942) and stayed for eleven years. He was involved with the management of films, becoming first supervising editor and then producer. He produced the compilation film Dead of Night (d. Cavalcanti/Charles Crichton/Basil Dearden/Robert Hamer, 1945), Scott of the Antarctic (d. Charles Frend, 1948), the masterly Ealing comedy The Man in The White Suit (d. Alexander Mackendrick, 1951) and co-directed Train of Events (1949) with Charles Crichton and Basil Dearden.In the early 1950s, Cole briefly worked  BIP before embarking on television production for the new commercial television stations. He produced the long-running television series The Adventures of Robin Hood (ATV, 1955-59), The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (ATV, 1956-57), The Buccaneers (ITV, 1956-57) and The Adventures of Black Beauty (LWT, 1972-74).Throughout his career, Sidney Cole was involved in politics inside and outside the industry. At the time of the McCarthy anti-Communist hearings, he employed blacklisted American writers such as Ring Lardner Jr, Waldo Salt, Ian McLellan Hunter, Adrian Scott,Robert Lees and others under pseudonyms to write episodes of Robin Hood. With Peter Proud, he set up the ACTT, which later became BECTU (Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph Technicians Union), periodically serving as its Vice President and President.While working for the major studios he also made left-wing documentary films about the Spanish Civil War Behind The Spanish Lines (co-d. Thorold Dickinson, 1938), Spanish ABC (co-d. Dickinson, 1938) and about working class life such as Our Film (d. Harold French, 1942), One In Five (d. Michael Paul, 1972) and People\'s March for Jobs (1981) for ACT Films, the production arm of ACTT. He preferred the term \'realist\' to \'documentary\' because this is what he felt they were: films about real life.Ann Ogidi

Dallas Bower gained  early employment in 1929 as the sound technician on Alfred Hitchcock's first sound movie Blackmail .In 1936  he was appointed as one of the first two senior producers to the BBC Television Service . He made the BBC television demonstration film - a symposium of the first six month's programmes for morning transmission. He  produced the broadcasts of a wide range of  plays, ballets and operas for the BBC before TV trials were terminated with the advent of WW2. During the Second World War, he was commissioned into the Royal Corps of Signals, and was selected to become the executive producer, Films Division at the Ministry of Information from 1940-42. He then  joined BBC Radio where he produced a radio version of the Russian film Alexander Nevsky, starring Laurence Olivier and with music by William Walton .The same group later made the film Henry V, with Bower as executive producer. He rewrote  the  script he and Olivier had broadcast before the war. Returning to British films after the war, Bower made a colour film of Alice in Wonderland in 1949 (restored 50 years later by the US Museum of Modern Art.) He later produced eighty of the first British TV commercials. The original recordings on Hard drive 7 are not the complete interviews recorded with Dallas Bower. We  discovered  on the 17th March 2022 that an addition side 4 of material existed on the original cassette tapes. The reason for the material being missed was because the interview on side 4 of the cassette only starts several minutes in.   

BIOGRAPHY: Among the most celebrated of all cinematographers, Freddie Young entered the film industry in late 1917 at Gaumont Studios in Shepherds Bush. Working initially as a laboratory assistant, he was soon promoted to the camera department and earned his first credit as lighting cameraman in 1928. The following year he was placed under contract at British and Dominions by Herbert Wilcox, shooting numerous films for him before WWII. After the war he was contracted by MGM-British, for whom he had previously shot Goodbye Mr Chips (1939). From this point onward, Young worked almost exclusively on big international movies, notably his trio of films for David Lean: Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965) and Ryan’s Daughter (1970). He won Oscars for all three and built a formidable reputation in the industry. Additional credits include You Only Live Twice (1967), Battle of Britain (1969) and Nicholas and Alexandra (1971. SUMMARY: In this detailed and extensive interview, Freddie Young discusses his seven decades in the British film industry. Highlights include accounts of his early career with Herbert Wilcox, where he was involved in photographing the first British sound film (not Blackmail, he claims, but White Cargo), his impressions of the Hollywood studio system in the late 1930s, and his experiences working with Michael Powell. Throughout, Young speak frankly about working with a variety of British and American directors, who he categorises as those who were prepared to look through the camera’s viewfinder, and those who were content to leave it to him. The latter approach seems to be exemplified by George Cukor, who Young claims was only interested in speaking to actors, while the former is exemplified by David Lean, who Young holds in immensely high regard. The interview also contains a great deal of valuable technical information.  

 Film laboratories. He started as a clerk with the AA. Self taught laboratory techniques. Worked at Twickenham and Denham studios where he retired. Worked for Gaumont British at Shepherds Bush. Associated with David Lean in his early years and Alfred Hitchcock.As a boy before the First World War Bill was already a film enthusiast, who built his own home projector and was always scrounging random strips of film. One day in Wandsworth he met a cinema manager willing to sell him odd feet for a few bob. In later years he realised he had been buying stolen goods, film which should have been returned to the renters but had been withheld by the manager so as to make a bit of money on the side - a common problem at the time.Bill’s first job in the industry was as an office boy for Provincial Cinematograph Theatres (PCT),  But he wasn’t cut out for an office, and quickly moved on to the Worton Hall studio at Isleworth, set up by George Berthold Samuelson, father of Sir Sydney Samuelson (ahere he washed out the lab’s chemical tanks.His next move was to the London Film Company’s lab at Twickenham, to work as a printer. One of his first jobs was to print rushes for D.W. Griffith’s Hearts of the World. mid-1917 After a short period of Army service, Bill went into the dark-room at the Gaumont-British film lab in Shepherd’s Bush. His job was at the ‘front end’, making the negative and producing the first print; bulk printing was done separately in the ‘works laboratory’. This was where his career really got started,  Its international links meant that Bill was handling negatives from different countries, and he realised that American negs were far better than British ones, with subtler contrasts and textures. He started experimenting with film grading, working by trial and error, adjusting the chemical mix and developing time to try to replicate this higher quality. And as he did so, he started attracting the attention of the camera department: he describes being in awe of the American cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, quite unaware that Musuraca was equally impressed by him, and used his negative as a model for others to aspire to.. Although Bill was very much on the technical side, he observed these commercial rivalries such asHumphries Bill worked at Shepherd’s Bush until about 1950, J Arthur Rank . in 1941 iacquired Gaumont-British and Gainsborough. In the late 1940s Rank decided to concentrate its film processing in a new, state-of-the-art lab at Denham. Shepherd’s Bush was surplus to requirements and Bill was invited to move to Denham or take redundancy. He chose to move.   His reputation as a master of the art of grading was secure – but it must have hurt to leave the place where that reputation had been won. And initially, he wasn’t too impressed by some of his new colleagues“At Denham I was able to produce the best colour pictures that this country ever saw. When I did Oh What a Lovely War, 1968, we showed it at the Plaza, I sat with Dickie Attenborough, it was a Paramount picture. The Paramount executive came to me and he said, 'Bill, this is the best colour print I've ever seen.'”.Bill retired in 1970, at the age of 71.

Career in film industry: 1926 to (circa) 1962. Credits include: Christmas Under Fire (1941) First Of the Few (1943) Chance Of a Lifetime (1950) The White Sheik (1952) The Kidnappers (1953) The One That Got Away (1957).Biography: Born in 1902, had a fragmented education in various grammar schools, lived in Twickenham. Apprentice in engineering at George Kent from Luton. Then did a photography course at St Albans. Went to Twickenham Studios in 1926 and spoke with the Still Man Eric Grey and got a job as still camera assistant. Started on £2. 10d. This was a good living wage. The company moved to Elstree BRP Studios and he became HOD of still department. Moved to Clapham studios, then to ASFI, Associated Sound Film Industries at Wembley studios where he became a camera operator from 1928-1933 making quota quickies for Paramount. He worked as second unit lighting cameraman (cinematographer) and went freelance doing Second Unit work across the studios until 1939. Then worked with The Crown Film Unit during after the war at Pinewood. He was active in the ACT from the early days of Captain Cope who he would smuggle into Wembley Studios. Says there was opposition from management to trade union recruitment. Summary: Eric Cross had a very interesting career.  There is  some interesting information on various camera and sound technology in the early period of the Studio System and some information on some small production companies at studios like Twickenham and Wembley in the 1930s. [Will Atkinson].

BBC Current Affairs Producer, 1960 - 1971; Director British Film Institute 1979-1989; Board Member Channel 4 1980-1984. Numerous publications, including several on broadcasting.

Born Bernard Abrahams   BEHP 0455 S Brad Ashton SynopsisAlthough this interview flits about it is full of material about the history of comedy writing for radio and television.SIDE 1Born 1931, as Bernard Abrahams, he explains why he changed his name - Home in Stepney, a real Cockney, his mother and father came from Poland as babies. Brad educated Grocers Grammar School, left at 14 because he spent too much time in the local library reading about ”show business”. 0n leaving school he told his father he wanted to be a writer; his father told him he had to learn a trade first and he became a tailor  for seven years - spent his spare time visiting Variety Shows. Did National Service in the RAF, sent on a course at Nottingham University on plays and stage craft. Appeared first as a comedian at the Nuffield Centre, seen by Denis Norden and when he asked him what he thought he was told he had wonderful material but was no comedian. Through that contact he wrote scripts for the Bernard Braden Show. He goes on to talk about comedy scriptwriters and how Associated London Scripts worked. He talks about the radio scripts for Life With the Lyons and he talks about Frankie Howerd, Arthur Askey, Morcambe and Wise and Mike and Bernie Winters and finishes Side 1 with a wonderful anecdote about Groucho Marx. SIDE 2.He continues to talks about writing and his interest in American Shows. He talks of the difficulties of live transmission and then when AMPEX came in because of the expense, the shows were transmitted  "warts & all". There is a very interesting story about a TV show with the American Actor Harry Green who died in the commercial break at the end of part 2 and how Warren Mitchell saved the day. He talks about the behind the scenes dramas with Tommy Cooper.SIDE 3He continues to talk about his continuing career with talking about Comedy on Cruises or his involvement with both Dutch and German TV as a script consultant.