Industry | production |
---|---|
Founded | 1932 |
Founder | Alexander Korda |
Headquarters | Buckinghamshire |
London Films Productions is a British film and television production company founded in 1932 by Alexander Korda and from 1936 based at Denham Film Studios in Buckinghamshire, near London. The company's productions included The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Things to Come (1936), Rembrandt (1936), and The Four Feathers (1939). The facility at Denham was taken over in 1939 by Rank and merged with Pinewood to form D & P Studios. The outbreak of war necessitated that The Thief of Bagdad (1940) be completed in California, although Korda's handful of American-made films still displayed Big Ben as their opening corporate logo. [1]
After a restructuring of Korda's UK operations in the late 1940s, London Films were made at Shepperton. One of these was The Third Man (1949). The company's film The Sound Barrier (1952) won the Academy Award for Best Sound. [2] [1]
More than 40 years after Korda died in January 1956, the company returned to active film-making in 1997 with Morgan Mason as the chief executive. [3]
Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-British film director, producer and screenwriter, who founded his own film production studios and film distribution company.
Denham Film Studios was a British film production studio operating from 1936 to 1952, founded by Alexander Korda.
Lajos Bíró was a Hungarian novelist, playwright, and screenwriter who wrote many films from the early 1920s through the late 1940s.
Francis Loftus Sullivan was an English film and stage actor.
Milton R. Krasner, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer who won an Academy Award for Three Coins in the Fountain (1954).
Russell Metty, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer who won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Color, for the 1960 film Spartacus.
Henry Wale, known professionally as Henry Oscar, was an English stage and film actor. He changed his name and began acting in 1911, having studied under Elsie Fogerty at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then based in the Royal Albert Hall, London. He appeared in a wide range of films, including The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), Fire Over England (1937), The Four Feathers (1939), Hatter's Castle (1942), Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948), Beau Brummell (1954), The Little Hut (1957), Beyond This Place (1959), Oscar Wilde (1960), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Long Ships (1963) and Murder Ahoy! (1964).
Lewis D. Collins was an American film director and occasional screenwriter. In his career spanning over 30 years, he churned out dozens of Westerns.
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William Hornbeck was an American film editor and film industry executive. In a 1977 poll of film editors, he had been called "the best film editor the industry has produced." He was nominated four times for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing, and won the award for A Place in the Sun (1951). Other important credits include It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Giant (1956), and I Want to Live! (1958). He edited films from notable directors including Zoltan Korda, Frank Capra, and George Stevens. Universal Pictures almost brought him on board to completely re-edit George Lucas' American Graffiti.
Arthur Hambling was a British actor, on stage from 1912, and best known for appearances in the films Henry V (1944) and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951). In 1939 he appeared in the West End in N.C. Hunter's comedy Grouse in June.
Vincent Korda was a Hungarian-born art director, later settling in Britain. Born in Túrkeve in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he was the younger brother of Alexander and Zoltan Korda. He was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning once. He died in London, England. He is the father of writer and editor Michael Korda, and the grandfather of Chris Korda.
Wilfred William Dennis Shine was a British theatre, film and television actor. Shine was born into a family of theatre actors; among others, Shine's father, mother, grandmother, two uncles and an aunt had worked in theatre. His father Wilfred Shine was a theatre actor who also appeared in films during the 1920s and the 1930s. Bill Shine made his film debut in 1929, since which he appeared in over 160 films and television series. Towards the end of his career, he was best known for playing Inventor Black on children's television series Super Gran. In series two, episode four, of Mrs Thursday, 'The Duke and I', (1967), he played the Duke of Midlothian.
Barry K. Barnes was an English film and stage actor. The son of Horatio Nelson Barnes and Anne Mackintosh Barnes, he was born and died in London. He appeared in sixteen films between 1936 and 1947. He played Sir Percy Blakeney in the 1937 film The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel. His film career was cut short in 1947 due to an undiagnosable illness contracted during the war. He was married to actress Diana Churchill, and worked with his wife on stage during the 1940s and 1950s, taking West End revivals of The Admirable Crichton and On Approval on profitable tours.
Allan John Jeayes was an English stage and film actor.
John Turnbull was a British stage and film actor. He was married to Eve Marchew and Beatrice Alice Scott (actress).
Walter Percy Day O.B.E. (1878–1965) was a British painter best remembered for his work as a matte artist and special effects technician in the film industry. Professional names include W. Percy Day; Percy Day; "Pop" or "Poppa" Day, owing to his collaboration with sons Arthur George Day (1909–1952) draughtsman, Thomas Sydney Day (1912–1985), stills photographer and cameraman, and stepson, Peter Ellenshaw, who also worked in this field.
Harry C. Neumann of Chicago, Illinois, was a Hollywood cinematographer whose career spanned over forty years, including work on some 350 productions in a wide variety of genres, with much of his work being in Westerns, and gangster films.
Duncan Sutherland was a Scottish-born art director, based in England where he designed the sets for over eighty films and television series between the early 1930s and mid-1960s. Sutherland spent much of the 1940s employed by Ealing Studios where he worked on films such as It Always Rains on Sunday and The Loves of Joanna Godden.
Paul Palmentola (1888–1966) was an Italian-born American art director. He designed the film sets for more than two hundred productions during his career, much of his work during the 1930s and 1940s at low-budget studios such as Mayfair Pictures, Monogram and PRC. He was later employed by Columbia Pictures in the early 1950s, working on their adventure films and with Sam Katzman's unit.