Tony Garnett
Birth : 1936-04-03, Erdington, Birmingham, England, UK
Death : 2020-01-12
History
Tony Garnett is a British film and television producer, director and former actor. He is best known for his thirteen-year association with director Ken Loach, which started with The Wednesday Play and the groundbreaking Cathy Come Home amongst others, and continued into Play For Today and big screen features such as Kes. His other TV productions have included the controversial Law and Order and The Spongers and, with his company World Productions, Between the Lines, Ballykissangel, Cops, Cardiac Arrest and This Life. As a director, he helmed the films Prostitute and Handgun, and produced Hollywood movies such as Earth Girls are Easy and Sesame Street's Follow That Bird, and British cult LGBT classic Beautiful Thing. In 2016, he released his memoir, The Day the Music Died.
Self
Comedian, actor and ex-English teacher Greg Davies is a lifelong fan of Barry Hines's classic novel A Kestrel for a Knave, the story of Billy Casper training a kestrel as an escape from his troubled home and school life. In this documentary, Greg goes in search of the book's enduring appeal, travelling to Barnsley, where the book was set and where Ken Loach's famous adaptation, Kes, was filmed.
Interviewee
This unique interactive film puts you on set with Ken Loach in production on his latest film, I, Daniel Blake. Throwing us into life on location and during pre-production, it enables you to change the course of your viewing experience by selecting inserts in which Loach and some of his key collaborators – past and present – give fascinating insights into his creative practices. (The version released on the Criterion Collection edition is only 38 minutes and doesn't include the interactive parts with interviews and illustrative scenes from previous Loach films.)
Himself
A surprisingly candid behind-the-scenes account of the career of Ken Loach, one of Britain’s most celebrated and controversial filmmakers, as he prepares to release his final major film I, Daniel Blake.
Himself
A documentary on the making of Kes, produced by the Criterion Collection.
A documentary on the films of Ken Loach. Interviews with cast and crew who worked with Loach over the years. It describe his approach to allowing actors a wide range of freedom.
Producer
Based on true events, an American submarine collides into a Soviet sub of the coast of America and an ensuing standoff occurs that could lead to total annihilation.
Producer
Set during a long, hot summer on the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, three teenagers edge towards adulthood.
Executive Producer
Private investigator Nick Sharman accepts a case which at first seems intriguing, but ends up causing him bitter regret.
Producer
Assigned to oversee the development of the atomic bomb, Gen. Leslie Groves is a stern military man determined to have the project go according to plan. He selects J. Robert Oppenheimer as the key scientist on the top-secret operation, but the two men clash fiercely on a number of issues. Despite their frequent conflicts, Groves and Oppenheimer ultimately push ahead with two bomb designs — the bigger "Fat Man" and the more streamlined "Little Boy."
Producer
In this musical comedy, Valerie is dealing with her philandering fiancé, Ted, when she finds that a trio of aliens have crashed their spaceship into her swimming pool. Once the furry beings are shaved at her girlfriend's salon, the women discover three handsome men underneath. After absorbing the native culture via television, the spacemen are ready to hit the dating scene in 1980s Los Angeles.
Producer
Big Bird is sent to live far from Sesame Street by a pesky social worker. Unhappy, Big Bird runs away from his foster home, prompting the rest of the Sesame Street gang to go on a cross-country journey to find him.
Producer
Shortly after moving to Dallas, a young woman is raped at gunpoint. Her intense anger drives her to seek revenge, and she becomes a hunter on a vengeance mission.
Writer
Shortly after moving to Dallas, a young woman is raped at gunpoint. Her intense anger drives her to seek revenge, and she becomes a hunter on a vengeance mission.
Director
Shortly after moving to Dallas, a young woman is raped at gunpoint. Her intense anger drives her to seek revenge, and she becomes a hunter on a vengeance mission.
Producer
A couple of old friends drown their sorrows together while reveling in the naivety of a young newly-wed.
Producer
A window cleaner fancies a sausage roll, but all is not well in the sausage roll factory.
Producer
A boy goes to see his probation officer.
Producer
A man relentlessly bombards another man with small talk, while the other man tries to fend for himself while using crutches.
Producer
A slow-witted couple decide to start a family.
Producer
The tale of two women: Sandra, an ambitious but naive Birmingham working girl who moves to London with the hope of securing wealthier patrons, and Louise, her social worker friend, who is fighting to change the antiquated and hypocritical prostitution laws. As both strive to achieve their goals, a cold dose of reality dashes their hopes, and the built-in biases against women in society are unmasked.
Writer
The tale of two women: Sandra, an ambitious but naive Birmingham working girl who moves to London with the hope of securing wealthier patrons, and Louise, her social worker friend, who is fighting to change the antiquated and hypocritical prostitution laws. As both strive to achieve their goals, a cold dose of reality dashes their hopes, and the built-in biases against women in society are unmasked.
Director
The tale of two women: Sandra, an ambitious but naive Birmingham working girl who moves to London with the hope of securing wealthier patrons, and Louise, her social worker friend, who is fighting to change the antiquated and hypocritical prostitution laws. As both strive to achieve their goals, a cold dose of reality dashes their hopes, and the built-in biases against women in society are unmasked.
Producer
In this fascinating adventure of the England of the 1750s, the huge Frenchman Black Jack (Jean Franval) miraculously survives a hanging by the British authorities in Yorkshire and escapes from the grim jaws of "justice." He takes to the countryside in the company of Tolly, a teenaged boy who is able to translate Black Jack's odd speech into something comprehensible. They join up with Belle, an aristocratic teenager who has escaped from the madhouse her family imprisoned her in when she grew troublesome. Together, the three join a carnival. However, as it becomes clear that the girl is far from crazy, love between Tolly and Belle grows. This story, set in the mid-18th century, is based on a novel by Leon Garfield.
Producer
Four-part drama serial about the British juicidal system, dealing with an investigation presented from the perspectives of the police force, the criminal, the solicitor and the prison system.
Producer
In the days leading up the Queen's Silver Jubilee, Pauline, a recently separated single mother, receives a visit from a bailiff and is given 15 days to address her overdue rent payments. Meanwhile, the local council is under pressure to cut expenditure, and their decisions result in Pauline's mentally handicapped daughter Paula being transferred from a care home for special needs children to an old people's home, where she is all alone.
Producer
A month after the royal visit, the workers at Milton Colliery are brought crashing back down to earth by an underground explosion.
Producer
The workers of Milton Colliery prepare for a royal visit from Prince Charles.
Producer
An improvised character piece, overseen by Les Blair and Tony Garnett set in the everyday life of a group of polytechnic students.
Producer
A quiet and put-upon house cleaner breaks her silence.
Young Socialists from Glasgow, Liverpool and Swansea march to London and discuss their economic struggles en route. Supporting them are Ken Loach, Corin Redgrave, Arnold Wesker and other leading cultural figures of the left of British politics. The march is intercut with scenes dramatising parallel injustices in the English Civil War era and earlier - featuring Frances de la Tour in queenly mode as Elizabeth I. The film's unconventional structure also features frequent extracts of the rousing pop concert, with the band Slade, which culminated the epic march.
Producer
A young woman, Janice, is living with her restrictive and conservative parents, who lead a dull working-class life and consider their daughter to be “misbehaving” whenever she’s trying to find her own way in life.
Producer
Ken Loach's first production for ITV, shown under the 'Sunday Night Theatre' strand (originally broadcast 18th July 1971). After a Lifetime is something of a neglected, social realist masterpiece that focuses on two brothers, brought together by the death of their father, reflecting on his life of militancy and political activism. At the time critic Nancy Banks Smith called it ‘brilliantly funny, and moving with a sort of subterranean rage’. Smith himself plays the older brother with a brilliant, raw emotion.
Producer
A psychedelic documentary of the body electric, with music by Pink Floyd. The film was directed and produced by Roy Battersby. The film's narrators, Frank Finlay and Vanessa Redgrave, provide commentary that combines the knowledge of human biologists and anatomical experts. The film's soundtrack, Music from the Body, was composed by Ron Geesin and Roger Waters.
Producer
Ken Loach's production for Save The Children, withheld from public view until 2011.
Producer
A young, English working-class boy finds a kestrel and decides to train it.
Screenplay
A young, English working-class boy finds a kestrel and decides to train it.
Producer
After a prolonged industrial dispute in the Liverpool Docks, the striking workers reject management demands of a return to work and decide instead to occupy the docks and run the operation themselves.
Producer
The obsessive supporters of Everton FC forsake wives, families and God to follow their beloved team. Meanwhile, the club and its players try to live up to their expectations.
Producer
A reluctant teenager accompanies his family on a day out to a local beauty spot.
Producer
Kate, a young girl under psychiatric examination, suffers from a lack of confidence, self-esteem and self-control – telling of the “bad Kate” who commits immoral acts. Could the hypocrisy, selfishness and weakness of those around her have led to this state of mind or can Kate simply be diagnosed and dismissed as a schizophrenic?
Producer
The Lump is an uncompromising exploration of exploitation and resistance within the building trade.
Producer
A British woman faces a downward social climb thanks to her country's rigid and problem-ridden welfare system.
Story Editor
Semi-autobiographical TV play by Dennis Potter, from the BBC's 'Wednesday Play' series. It deals with the experiences of Nigel Barton, a young man from a poor mining community who wins a scholarship to Oxford University. The villagers accuse him of snobbery, while the rich University students treat him like a peasant. Uncertain of which sphere he should be moving in, Nigel tries to reconcile himself with his proud but stubborn father, and also succeed at University, despite its pretentions which apall him.
A pair of hoodlums steal a car in which there is a note - a ransom letter - directed to a wealthy man whose daughter has just been kidnapped. The two gangsters stole the abductor's car and when they find the note, they decide to take advantage of the situation and collect the money.
Brennan
In a late night chemist a shot bank robber has been taken for treatment, and to rendezvous with the gang leader.
James Alan "Ginger" Thompson
A night watchman at a garage is found murdered, and four teddy boys are put on trial for the crime. Witnesses and suspects give differing accounts of the lead-up to the crime, and the truth emerges.
