Arthur Crabtree
Birth : 1900-10-29, Shipley, Yorkshire, England, UK
Death : 1975-03-15
History
Arthur Crabtree (29 October 1900, Shipley, Yorkshire, England – 15 March 1975, Worthing, Sussex, England) was a British cinematographer and film director.
Crabtree earliest credits as a cinematographer working on such films as the Will Hay comedies Oh, Mr. Porter! and Good Morning, Boys (both 1937) and Hey! Hey! USA! (1938), the Arthur Askey vehicle Charley's (Big-Hearted) Aunt (1940), and The Man in Grey (1943) and Fanny by Gaslight (1944) for Gainsborough Pictures.
Crabtree continued his association with Gainsborough as he started his directorial career, beginning with the melodramatic fantasies Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945), starring Phyllis Calvert and Stewart Granger and Caravan (1946). His last two films were Fiend Without a Face (1958) and Horrors of the Black Museum (1959), a science fiction and horror, respectively, both of which have become cult favourites, although the former enjoys a better critical reputation. He also directed episodes of television series such as The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (both 1956).
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Director
A writer of murder mysteries finds himself caught up in a string of murders in London.
Director
A private detective, desperate for money to pay for an operation on his small son, bargains with a protection gangster chief to have himself killed and gets his girl to collect the insurance money.
Director
An American airbase in Canada provokes resentment from the nearby residents after fallout from nuclear experiments at the base are blamed for a recent spate of disappearances. A captain from the airbase is assigned to investigate, and begins to suspect that an elderly British scientist who lives near the base and conducts research in the field of mind over matter knows more than he is letting on..
Director
A doctor receives an early morning callout and is kidnapped. American detective Nick Logan assists Scotland Yard in tracking down the perpetrator.
Director
The story leading up to the wedding of Lilli Marlene.
Director
During a holiday to the beach Jenny meets Alan and agrees to spend the week with him. Wanting to keep this a secret from her parents Jenny gets help from her friend Mary to pretend her whereabouts but disaster strikes during a boating accident. It is soon discovered Jenny was not with Mary. When the parents find out the truth they pressure the couple to get married, but Jenny thinks otherwise.
Director
Lilli Marlene, a French girl working as a bar maid in her uncle's café in Benghazi, Libya, turns out to be the girl that the popular German wartime song Lili Marleen had been written for before the war, so both the British and the Germans try to use her for propaganda purposes - especially as it turns out that she can sing as well. When the Germans kidnap her in Cairo and she starts appearing in radio broadcasts from Berlin, her British soldier friends think that she's joined the enemy. They couldn't be more wrong, because after the war it turns out that her songs over the radio contained secret messages to London from British agents in Berlin.
Director
Elderly crook Harry Denton, when challenged to prove he is "not past it," decides to kidnap Sheila Farlane, the 16 year old daughter of a famous actor. When Harry loses his nerve, Sheila won't let him give up.
Director
Somerset Maugham introduces four of his tales in this anthology film: "The Facts of Life," "The Alien Corn," "The Kite," and "The Colonel's Lady."
Director
The favourite for the big race is nobbled and suspicion falls on the owner. His secret admirer proves it wasn't him.
Director
When a man discovers his wife is having an affair, he commits the perfect crime.
Director
During the last half of the 19th century writer Richard Darrell saves Don Carlos from two robbers, and is entrusted by Don Carlos to take a valuable necklace to Spain. Richard leaves his fiancé, Oriana, and starts the trip. He meets Wycroft, a henchman for Sir Francis Castteldow, an aristocrat out to steal Oriana from Richard. The latter is assaulted, robbed and nearly killed and, as a result, loses his memory. He marries a gypsy girl, Rosal, while Oriana, thinking him dead marries the dastardly Sir Francis. Everybody will meet again. Complications will arise.
Director
A story about three sisters and their very different marriages.
Director of Photography
During WW2 a former railway employee who had been drafted, goes AWOL to hunt down the spiv and draft dodger who is having an affair with his wife.
Director
In the early part of this century, Maddelena a teenage Italian girl, is attacked whilst walking in the woods. The attack leaves her mentally scarred and our story flashes forward to the 1940s where Maddelena is still troubled. She disappears one day and her daughter vows to find her.
Director of Photography
Returning to 1870's London after finishing at boarding school, Fanny winesses the death of her father in a fight with Lord Manderstoke. She then finds that her family has for many years been running a bordello next door to their home. When her mother dies shortly after, she next discovers that her real father is in fact a well-respected politician. Meeting him and then falling in love with his young advisor Harry Somerford leads to a life of ups and downs and conflict between the classes. Periodically the scoundrel of a Lord crosses her path, always to tragic effect.
Director of Photography
Three generations of a family gather together to celebrate a golden wedding anniversary, while the family secretary has the unenviable task of smoothing out all the deep-set hostilities and jealousies.
Director of Photography
After marrying a dour and disinterested lord for status, a young woman falls in love with a stage actor while her best friend from boarding school enters an affair with her husband.
Cinematography
A simple handyman, who also is an amateur artist, gets into trouble when the head and shoulders portraits of some prominent local females are sold without his knowledge to an advertising agency and are published with nude bodies added to them.
Cinematography
To help out his exact double, George Formby (in a dual role) takes the place of a noted South American tenor. This way he can help the opera star fulfill contract obligations and also win the heart of the man's lovely press agent, Linden Travers.
Director of Photography
Third and final film in the 'Inspector Hornleigh’ series of comedy-thrillers. Inspector Hornleigh (Gordon Harker), disappointed at not being handed an important spy case, is assigned by Scotland Yard to an army barracks to investigate the mundane thefts of supplies from the stores. This accidentally leads Hornleigh and Sergeant Bingham (Alastair Sim) to a nest of fifth columnists when his dim-witted assistant carelessly talks to a girl in the cafeteria – and that night, news of Hornleigh and Bingham’s arrival is embarrassingly transmitted back to Germany.
Cinematography
A British merchant ship is torpedoed by a German U-Boat and takes shelter in a neutral port. The Captain then strikes back at the German enemy.
Cinematography
Charley's (Big-Hearted) Aunt is a 1940 British comedy film directed by Walter Forde starring Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch as Oxford 'scholars'. The film is one of many to be made based on the farce Charley's Aunt. Taking inspiration from a well-known Victorian play, a modern-day prankster poses as a wealthy woman in a ploy to prevent him and his friends from being expelled from college.
Camera Operator
Made in 1940, this stirringly patriotic film cleverly combined new scenes with genuine newsreel footage. A newsreel journalist is on hand when the Giant German battleship Graf Spee flees into Montevideo Harbour after a punishing encounter with the British warships Exeter and Ajax. As events unfold in a very unexpected way, he is there with his camera to capture the dramatic end to the encounter.
Cinematography
A disgraced school master, Benjamin Twist, is mistaken for a tough prison governor and assigned the charge of a prison for particularly hardened criminals. Believing he is being sent to a school rather than a prison, he celebrates accordingly only to find that his drunkenness accidently lands him on the wrong side of the prison bars. The Governorship is eventually restored to him, and he sets about popularising himself amongst the convicts by turning a blind eye to their shady dealings.
Director of Photography
Alf discovers that one of the buttons on his pyjamas is made from the metal of Aladdin's lamp and that when he cleans it a genie appears.
Director of Photography
A 1930s British summer Bank Holiday starts at midday on Saturday with a rush for the trains to the seaside. Doreen and Milly are off to a beauty contest, Geoffrey and Catherine are having an illicit weekend in the Grand Hotel and May and the kids are set for a more straightforward holiday of sea, sand, and pub. Meanwhile, the manager and performers on the pier are praying for rain.
Director of Photography
Archie Slott inherits a successful racing stable from his dissolute uncle, but his sanctimonious aunt tries to convince him to sell it off. In an attempt to avoid doing so, he accidentally buys a failing all-in wrestling stadium as well. Now Archie is faced with the tasks of ensuring success for his stable's Derby entry, paying the salaries of his newly-acquired wrestlers, and avoiding a plot to convert the stables into a holiday home.
Director of Photography
A British musical film directed by Lupino Lane
Director of Photography
Impoverished aristocrat's daughter Tommy Tucker is in love with radio announcer Bill Coverdale, but he is engaged to her more glamorous sister Angela, who he does not love. Seeking escape from this hopeless situation, and her life of genteel poverty, Tommy flees abroad to Biarritz to become a nightclub singer.
