Frank Launder

Last updated

Frank Launder
Born(1906-01-28)28 January 1906
Died23 February 1997(1997-02-23) (aged 91)
Occupation(s)Film director, producer, writer
Spouse(s) Bernadette O'Farrell (1950–1997; his death)
2 children

Frank Launder (28 January 1906 – 23 February 1997) was a British writer, film director and producer, who made more than 40 films, many of them in collaboration with Sidney Gilliat. [1] [2]

Contents

Early life and career

He was born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England and worked briefly as a clerk before becoming an actor and then a playwright. [3]

He began working as a screenwriter on British films in the 1930s, contributing the original story for the classic Will Hay comedy Oh, Mr Porter! (1937). [4]

Sidney Gilliat

Launder first collaborated with Gilliat in 1936 on the film Seven Sinners . [5] After writing a number of screenplays with Gilliat, including The Lady Vanishes (1938) for Alfred Hitchcock, and Night Train to Munich for Carol Reed; the two men wrote and directed the wartime drama Millions Like Us (1943). [2] [6] [7]

After founding their own production company Individual Pictures, they produced a number of memorable dramas and thrillers including I See a Dark Stranger (1945) and Green for Danger (1946), but were best known for their comedies including The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950) and most famously, the St Trinian's series, based on Ronald Searle's cartoons set in an anarchic girls school. [8] [9]

After The Happiest Years of Our Life Launder focused entirely on comedy. [3]

According to the British Film Institute 'over a hundred films feature either or in the credits, nearly forty feature both' but this large number was not 'at the expense of quality'. [6]

Personal life

He was married secondly to actress Bernadette O'Farrell from 1950 until his death in Monaco. [5] The couple had two children. [10] Launder also had two children from his first marriage. [5]

Selected films

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cecil Parker</span> English actor

Cecil Parker was an English actor with a distinctively husky voice, who usually played supporting roles, often characters with a supercilious demeanour, in his 91 films made between 1928 and 1969.

Sidney Gilliat was an English film director, producer and writer.

<i>The Belles of St. Trinians</i> 1954 British comedy film by Frank Launder

The Belles of St Trinian's is a 1954 British comedy film, directed by Frank Launder, co-written by Launder and Sidney Gilliat, and starring Alastair Sim, Joyce Grenfell, George Cole, Hermione Baddeley. Inspired by British cartoonist Ronald Searle's St Trinian's School comic strips, the film focuses on the lives of the students and teachers of the fictional school, dealing with attempts to shut them down while their headmistress faces issues with financial troubles, which culminates in the students thwarting a scheme involving a racehorse.

<i>Blue Murder at St Trinians</i> 1957 British film

Blue Murder at St Trinian's is a 1957 British comedy film, directed by Frank Launder, co-written by Launder and Sidney Gilliat, and starring Terry-Thomas, George Cole, Joyce Grenfell, Lionel Jeffries and Richard Wattis; the film also includes a brief cameo of Alastair Sim, who reprising his lead role in the 1954 film, The Belles of St. Trinian's. Inspired by the St Trinian's School comic strips by British cartoonist Ronald Searle, the film is the second entry in the St. Trinian's film series, with its plot seeing the students of the fictional school making plans to secure a place on a European tour, all while subsequently aiding a criminal who is secretly seeking to escape the country with stolen jewels.

<i>Oh, Mr Porter!</i> 1937 British film

Oh, Mr Porter! is a 1937 British comedy film starring Will Hay with Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt and directed by Marcel Varnel. While not Hay's commercially most successful, it is probably his best-known film to modern audiences. It is widely acclaimed as the best of Hay's work, and a classic of its genre. The film had its first public showing in November 1937 and went on general release on 3 January 1938. The plot of Oh, Mr Porter was loosely based on the Arnold Ridley play The Ghost Train. The title was taken from Oh! Mr Porter, a music hall song.

Bernard Vorhaus was an American film director of Austrian descent, born in New York City. His father was born in Kraków, then part of Austria-Hungary. Vorhaus spent many decades living in the UK. Eearly in his career, he worked as a screenwriter, and co-produced the film The Singing City. He was blacklisted in Hollywood for his communist sympathies, and returned to England, where he resumed his career. Known, alongside Michael Powell, for his quota quickies, Vorhaus also worked in Europe.

<i>The Happiest Days of Your Life</i> (film) 1950 film by Frank Launder

The Happiest Days of Your Life is a 1950 British comedy film directed by Frank Launder, based on the 1947 play of the same name by John Dighton. The two men also wrote the screenplay. It is one of a stable of classic British film comedies produced by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat for British Lion Film Corporation. The film was made on location in Liss and at Riverside Studios, London. In several respects, including some common casting, it was a precursor of the St. Trinian's films of the 1950s and 1960s.

Marcel Varnel was a French film director, notably however for his career in the United States and England as a director of plays and films.

Charles Herbert Frend was an English film director and editor, best known for his films produced at Ealing Studios. He began directing in the early 1940s and is known for such films as Scott of the Antarctic (1948) and The Cruel Sea (1953).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Paddy Carstairs</span> British artist

John Paddy Carstairs was a British film director (1933–62) and television director (1962–64), usually of light-hearted subject matter. He was also a comic novelist and painter.

Arthur Crabtree was a British cinematographer and film director. He directed films with comedians such as Will Hay, the Crazy Gang and Arthur Askey and several of the Gainsborough Melodramas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Calthrop</span> English actor (1888–1940)

Donald Esme Clayton Calthrop was an English stage and film actor.

Edward Black was a British film producer, best known for being head of production at Gainsborough Studios in the late 1930s and early 1940s, during which time he oversaw production of the Gainsborough melodramas. He also produced such classic films as The Lady Vanishes (1938). Black has been called "one of the unsung heroes of the British film industry" and "one of the greatest figures in British film history, the maker of stars like Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, John Mills and Stewart Granger. He was also one of the very few producers whose films, over a considerable period, made money." In 1946 Mason called Black "the one good production executive" that J. Arthur Rank had. Frank Launder called Black "a great showman and yet he had a great feeling for scripts and spent more time on them than anyone I have ever known. His experimental films used to come off as successful as his others."

Walter Forde was a British actor, screenwriter and director. Born in Lambeth, south London in 1898, he directed over fifty films between 1919 from the silent era through to 1949 in the sound era. He died in Los Angeles, California in 1984.

Gordon Wong Wellesley was an Australian-born screenwriter and writer of Chinese descent. Born in Sydney in 1894 He wrote over thirty screenplays in the United States and Britain, often collaborating with the director Carol Reed. He began his career in Hollywood in the early 1930s and worked in Britain beginning about 1935. He was married to the scriptwriter Katherine Strueby. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story at the 1942 Oscars for Night Train to Munich, which was based on his novel, Report on a Fugitive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernadette O'Farrell</span> Irish actress

Bernadette O'Farrell was an Irish actress. She was born in Birr, County Offaly, Irish Free State. She was married to the film writer, director and producer Frank Launder from 1950 until his death in 1997. They had two daughters together.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stuart Legg</span>

Stuart Legg was a pioneering documentary filmmaker. At the 14th Academy Awards in 1941, Legg's National Film Board of Canada film Churchill's Island became the first-ever documentary to win an Oscar.

Jerome Jackson (1898–1940) was an American film producer and script writer.

Walter Charles Mycroft was a British journalist, screenwriter, film producer and director. In the 1920s he was film critic of the London Evening Standard, and a founder of the London Film Society, before joining the film industry.

Bryan Langley was a British cinematographer. Langley worked for a number of years with the British International Pictures organisation, but later worked at other studios including Gainsborough Pictures and Ealing. He was the son of opera singer and actor Herbert Langley.

References

  1. "BFI Screenonline: Launder, Frank (1906-1997) Biography". www.screenonline.org.uk. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  2. 1 2 "Frank Launder". Archived from the original on 24 October 2017.
  3. 1 2 "Obituary: Frank Launder". The Independent . 24 February 1997. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
  4. "BFI Screenonline: Oh, Mr Porter! (1937)". www.screenonline.org.uk.
  5. 1 2 3 "Frank Launder obituary". The Times . No. 65821. 24 February 1997.
  6. 1 2 "BFI Screenonline: Launder and Gilliat". www.screenonline.org.uk. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  7. "BFI Screenonline: Millions Like Us (1943)". www.screenonline.org.uk.
  8. "Individual Pictures". Archived from the original on 9 February 2018.
  9. "BFI Screenonline: Launder and Gilliat". www.screenonline.org.uk.
  10. "Robin Hood's courageous sweetheart".