Victor Saville
Nacimiento : 1895-09-25, Birmingham, England, UK
Muerte : 1979-05-08
Historia
Victor Saville (25 September 1895, Birmingham, England – 8 May 1979, London) was an English film director, producer and screenwriter. He directed 39 films between 1927 and 1954. He also produced 36 films between 1923 and 1962.
He produced his first film, Woman to Woman, with Michael Balcon in 1923, and on the back of its success produced pictures for the veteran director Maurice Elvey, including the classic British silent Hindle Wakes (1927). His first picture as director was The Arcadians (1927). In 1929 he and Balcon worked together again on a talkie remake of Woman to Woman for Balcon's company, Gainsborough Pictures. This time Saville directed it.
From 1931, as Gainsborough Pictures and the Gaumont British Picture Corporation joined forces, Saville produced a string of comedies, musicals and dramas for Gainsborough and Gaumont-British, including the popular Jessie Matthews pictures. In 1937, he left to set up his own production company, Victor Saville Productions, and made three pictures for Alexander Korda's London Films at Denham studios.
As an independent producer he had purchased the film rights to A. J. Cronin's novel The Citadel. He was persuaded to sell them to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in return for the chance to produce the film and another big-budget adaptation, Goodbye Mr Chips (1939). Both films starred Robert Donat and were a great success in the USA as well as in Britain, providing Saville with a passport to Hollywood.
When the war broke out in 1939, Saville was in America and was advised to remain there. He produced pictures in support of the war effort, such as The Mortal Storm and Forever and a Day (1943) (in which he worked for the last time with his former star Jessie Matthews), and in 1945 Tonight and Every Night, based on the history of the Windmill Theatre in London.
After the war Saville continued directing films for MGM but eventually returned to Britain. Saville acquired production rights for Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer mysteries and produced a few features, though Spillane thought he was interested in doing so only to acquire the money to produce The Silver Chalice. He produced two final films in the 1960s, The Greengage Summer (1961), adapted from the novel of the same name, and Mix Me a Person (1962).
Director
Producer
En el verano, la señora Gray viaja a Francia con sus hijos, deseosa de enseñarles los campos de batalla y los cementerios de guerra, a fin de formarlos en historia. Pero la madre enferma al llegar, y tres entusiastas chicas y un hermanito varón, se verán abocados a pasar solos algunos días en el chateau-hotel de Mademoiselle Zizi (Danielle Darrieux), una mujer enamorada cuyo pretendiente, Eliot (Kenneth More), va a sentirse muy interesado por los chicos y en especial por Joss (Suzannah York), una linda rubia de 16 años con ansias de vivir.
Executive Producer
El detective Mike Hammer recoge en la carretera, en plena noche, a una muchacha que huye de un peligro mortal. Poco después son interceptados por los acosadores, unos despiadados matones que, tras torturar y matar a la muchacha y pegar una paliza al duro detective, les arrojan por un precipicio. Hammer logra salir indemne, y se dedicará a investigar este misterioso caso.
Producer
Antioquía fue la cuna de los grandes orfebres de la plata. Un padre vende a su primogénito a un hombre rico, para que éste pueda desarrollar las grandes dotes como escultor que su hijo posee. Posteriormente, será vendido como esclavo, hasta que una mujer le haga un encargo: esculpir las efigies de los Apóstoles en el cáliz sagrado.
Director
Antioquía fue la cuna de los grandes orfebres de la plata. Un padre vende a su primogénito a un hombre rico, para que éste pueda desarrollar las grandes dotes como escultor que su hijo posee. Posteriormente, será vendido como esclavo, hasta que una mujer le haga un encargo: esculpir las efigies de los Apóstoles en el cáliz sagrado.
Director
An amnesiac finally learns his true identity...as a murder suspect. A mystery thriller based on the novel by Mickey Spillane.
Executive Producer
Pilot episode of an unreleased television series. Blake Edwards filmed and sent this first television attempt to film Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer in 1954, but the "pilot" went unsold and was archived because it was too naturalistic and violent for the small screen at the time. It was accidentally discovered, restored and posted on the Internet. Brian Keith stars as Mike Hammer.
Producer
Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer in his first film adventure. Originally screened in 3D.
Director
A compulsive gambler stumbles towards losing everything when Merle Oberon decides to save him from himself.
Director
Bulldog Drummond leaves retirement to help a Scotland Yard Sergeant catch thieves armed with radar.
Director
El joven Kim ha crecido en la India de finales del siglo XIX, durante la dominacion británica. Muy joven ingresa en el ejército colonial, donde trabaja como mensajero del coronel. En uno de sus muchos encargos descubre sus verdaderos orígenes y el misterio de su nacimiento. A partir de ahí empezará a luchar por la paz de forma totalmente incansable.
Director
Durante la Guerra Fría un oficial recién casado se enfrenta a una difícil elección a causa de su verdadera ocupación. Es un espía comunista que maneja información militar secreta. Cuando su mujer lo descubre le pide el divorcio, pero todo se complica cuando sus superiores le piden que acabe con ella.
Director
It's 1939 in the small English town of Penny Green and events in Poland are about to change lives. Mark Sabre, a writer of school textbooks, has married Mabel "on the rebound", after his real love Nona marries someone else. Just as war is about to break out, Nona returns home with her husband Tony. Mabel is sure she can hold onto Mark, though. But misunderstood good deeds on Mark's part turn life for him upside down when his relationship with a young girl starts tongues wagging. Soon, wartime casualties take their toll in Penny Green as well as on the front, as the death of fighting men affects lives back home.
Director
Segunda Guerra Mundial (1939-1945). Los soldados Paul y Jean son prisioneros en un campo de concentración alemán. Durante un intento de fuga, Paul recibe un balazo, pero Jean consigue escapar y va a ver a Marise, la mujer de Paul, para comunicarle la muerte de su marido. Jean está enamorado de Marise por todo lo que Paul le ha contado de ella mientras estaban presos.
Director
Melodrama de época en el que dos hermanas están secretamente enamoradas del mismo hombre. Una estúpida confusión hace que William tenga que casarse en contra de su voluntad, con la que él no ama. Esto hará cambiar el destino de todos, causándoles amargas desdichas.
Director
An orphaned young boy is guided by his great-grandfather and strives to go to university to become a doctor. However, the boy's harsh grandfather stands in his way.
Producer
Aunque muestra unas excepcionales dotes para el baile, el joven Tommy no es admitido en una compañía porque, según la directora, su modo de bailar no sigue un método clásico. Sin embargo, Rosalind y Judy, dos bailarinas de la compañía, se ofrecen a enseñarle a bailar con método, con lo cual el muchacho es admitido. Poco tiempo después Tommy y las dos chicas llegan a formar un trío de baile sensacional.
Director
Aunque muestra unas excepcionales dotes para el baile, el joven Tommy no es admitido en una compañía porque, según la directora, su modo de bailar no sigue un método clásico. Sin embargo, Rosalind y Judy, dos bailarinas de la compañía, se ofrecen a enseñarle a bailar con método, con lo cual el muchacho es admitido. Poco tiempo después Tommy y las dos chicas llegan a formar un trío de baile sensacional.
Producer
En 1939, Richard Myles (Fred MacMurray), un profesor estadounidense que enseña en Oxford, y su nueva esposa Frances (Joan Crawford) se encuentran de luna de miel por Europa. Antes de salir de viaje, el servicio secreto británico le encarga a Myles que lleve a cabo una misión en Alemania. Al principio, tanto a Myles como a su esposa les divierte su papel de espías; pero poco a poco las cosas se irán complicando.
Producer
Un notable periodista (Spencer Tracy) quiere publicar un homenaje a un respetado y admirado patriota muerto en un accidente de coche. Hepburn es la viuda del hombre sobre el que Tracy quiere escribir.
Director
In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Leslie Trimble, tries to dissuade him from selling by telling him the 140-year history of the place and the connections between the Trimble and Pomfret families.
Producer
Harry Witzel administra una plantación de caucho perdida en una selva africana. Recibe con poco entusiasmo a su nuevo ayudante, Mr Langford, con la certeza de que éste no soportará la vida en la plantación. A pesar de las advertencias de Witzel, el recién llegado sucumbirá a los encantos de Tondelayo, una hermosa, a la par que mezquina, nativa.
Producer
John Carteret has long been depressed and lonely, because, at his wedding years ago, his bride, Moonyean, was murdered. He accepts into his house Kathleen, the 5 year old orphaned niece of Moonyean, and she quickly grows up to look just like her aunt. Kathleen meets and falls in love with a mysterious stranger from America, Kenneth Wayne. When John hears of this he is furious, and we learn that it was Kenneth's father, Jeremy, who had killed Moonyean years before. John carries his grudge against Jeremy to the new generation, and threatens to ruin his niece's happiness, but he softens in the end.
Producer
Un prestigioso científico vive obsesionado con la idea de encontrar una fórmula que le permita aislar los impulsos malignos del ser humano. Cuando lo consigue, decide experimentar consigo mismo y se bebe la poción que ha inventado. A partir de ese momento, se convierte en un monstruo de maldad que deambula por las calles durante la noche cometiendo todo tipo de fechorías. Adaptación de la obra homónima de Robert Louis Stevenson.
Producer
Memorable interpretación de Joan Craword en el papel de una mujer acusada de asesinato que se somete a una operación de cirugía estética para cambiar de vida. Remake de un drama sueco protagonizado por Ingrid Bergman.
Producer
Para evitar un matrimonio arreglado con un hombre al que no quiere, Sara Millick huye a Viena con su profesor de música, Carl Linden, a quien ella ama. Carl escribe una opereta y trata de conseguir un productor pero en su camino aparece el Barón Von Tranisch.
Producer
Victor Roth es un profesor universitario que vive tranquilamente con su familia en un pequeño pueblo del sur de los Alpes alemanes. Pero, cuando Hitler llega al poder (1933), los Roth, como todas las familias de origen judío, se ven obligados a separarse. Además Roth ve cómo su carrera se arruina y cómo sus hijos varones apoyan el nacionalsocialismo. En cambio, su hija Freya (Sullavan) y su prometido Martin (Stewart) ven con claridad meridiana que la única salida es huir del país.
Producer
A behind the times Chicago bootlegger goes to England with his lawyer to claim his estate as the Earl of Gorley.
Producer
La historia se desarrolla entre mediados del siglo XIX y la Primera Guerra Mundial (1914-1918). A la escuela de Brookfield llega un joven y tímido profesor que dedica toda su vida a enseñar a varias generaciones de alumnos.
Producer
Andrew Manson, un joven médico que consigue su primer empleo en una población minera de Gales, se entrega al cuidado de trabajadores enfermos y gentes oprimidas. Las circunstancias, sin embargo, acabarán poniendo a pruebo sus principios morales.
Director
Winifred Holtby realised that Local Government is not a dry affair of meetings and memoranda:- but 'the front-line defence thrown up by humanity against its common enemies of sickness, poverty and ignorance.' She built her story around six people working for a typical County Council:- Beneath the lives of the public servants runs the thread of their personal drama. Our story tells how a public life affects the private life; and how a man's personal sufferings make him what he is in public. " Corruption, intrigue and romance in a Yorkshire setting. A country squire whose wife is in a mental hospital becomes attracted to a crusading local schoolmistress.
Producer
A bankrupt officer, accused of cheating at cards, defends his honour with a writ.
Producer
Durante la Primera Guerra Mundial (1914-1918), un espía alemán y una espía británica se conocen y no pueden evitar enamorarse.
Director
Durante la Primera Guerra Mundial (1914-1918), un espía alemán y una espía británica se conocen y no pueden evitar enamorarse.
Producer
El despótico alcalde de un pequeño pueblo británico maltrata a una pobre vendedora ambulante, cuya perrita le ha sido confiscada por no haber pagado las tasas municipales. Un periodista que presencia la escena y la publica en su periódico será llamado a declarar en el juicio como testigo.
Director
El despótico alcalde de un pequeño pueblo británico maltrata a una pobre vendedora ambulante, cuya perrita le ha sido confiscada por no haber pagado las tasas municipales. Un periodista que presencia la escena y la publica en su periódico será llamado a declarar en el juicio como testigo.
Director
Elaine Bradford is a young singer and dancer, looking for her big break. Peter Carlton is a gossip columnist facing a deadline and a blank page. So, Peter invents "Mrs. Smythe-Smythe", a mysterious Englishwoman who spends her days hunting tigers in India, jumping out of airplanes, and generally driving men mad with her beauty. Since no one in London has ever seen Mrs. Smythe-Smythe, Elaine decides to impersonate the lady, in hopes that the publicity will land her the big break she's been looking for.
Director
First a Girl is a 1935 British comedy film directed by Victor Saville and starring Jessie Matthews. First a Girl was adapted from the 1933 German film Viktor und Viktoria written and directed by Reinhold Schünzel.
Director
A woman disguises herself in men's clothes in order to follow her husband to the wars.
Director
The film depicts a dramatic episode in Danish history: the tumultous relationship between King Christian VII of Denmark and his English consort Caroline Matilda in Eighteenth century Copenhagen and the Queen's tragic affair with the royal physician and liberal reformer Johann Friedrich Struensee.
Director
The life and times of the Duke of Wellington
Director
Loosely based on the story of the singer Nellie Melba...
Director
Harriet Green, a beloved and radiant music hall star of the Edwardian era mysteriously disappears on the eve of her wedding. Years later she reappears on the stage as young looking and beautiful as ever.
Director
It is pouring with rain at one minute to midnight on Friday the thirteenth, and the driver of a London bus is peering through his blurred windscreen as his vehicle sails down an empty road. Suddenly, lightning strikes, and a vast crane above topples into the path of the oncoming bus... Then Big Ben begins to wind backwards. Time recedes. And we discover the lives of all the passengers and the events that brought them to that late-night bus journey, from the con-man with a hundred-pound cheque to the businessman's distraught and elderly wife. Time flows on, inevitably, to the crash -- and past it, as some live and some die.
Director
During World War I, a young nurse in a hospital in German-occupied Belgium is secretly feeding military information to the British. Complicating matters is the guilt she feels when she has to treat the German casualties inflicted as a result of the information she's passed on, and the fact that the local German commandant is falling in love with her.
Director
Film musical taken from JB Priestley's novel about three musicians joining together to save a failing concert party, the Dinky Doos.
Screenplay
A department store assistant becomes publicity conscious.
Director
A department store assistant becomes publicity conscious.
Adaptation
Herbert Marshall and Edna Best, husband and wife in 1933, star in the British drama Faithful Hearts. Best plays the daughter of Marshall, who years earlier had run out on his family. When Edna re-enters Marshall's life, it causes him to reassess his values-and to end his engagement to his judgmental fiancee. When Faithful Hearts was released in the US, all the voices were redubbed by American actors; even Herbert Marshall, a fixture in Hollywood films since the dawn of the talkie era, was submitted to this electronic augmentation. Original titled The Faithful Heart (Americans must have more of everything!), the film was based on a play by Monckton Hoffe.
Director
Herbert Marshall and Edna Best, husband and wife in 1933, star in the British drama Faithful Hearts. Best plays the daughter of Marshall, who years earlier had run out on his family. When Edna re-enters Marshall's life, it causes him to reassess his values-and to end his engagement to his judgmental fiancee. When Faithful Hearts was released in the US, all the voices were redubbed by American actors; even Herbert Marshall, a fixture in Hollywood films since the dawn of the talkie era, was submitted to this electronic augmentation. Original titled The Faithful Heart (Americans must have more of everything!), the film was based on a play by Monckton Hoffe.
Director
Sunshine Susie was a remake of the German film The Private Secretary, and retained many of the originals general characteristics. Renete Muller who starred in the original, was again cast as the country girl seeking fame and fortune in the big city. She takes a secretarial job at a bank, and sets about catching the heart of her boss, Herr Hasel (Jack Hulbert).
Director
A young bride is deserted by her husband but finds happiness with another man. They contract a bigamous marriage for the sake of their child....
Writer
A Lancashire mill girl has an illicit adventure with the owner's son while on holiday. Based on the once notorious Houghton play.
Director
A Lancashire mill girl has an illicit adventure with the owner's son while on holiday. Based on the once notorious Houghton play.
Producer
Algernon Sprigg, a horse-racing fanatic, is convinced that everyone is a gambler at heart. To prove his theory, he bets a friend that he can convert Amos Purdie, the puritanical head of an anti-betting association, into a punter within a week.
Director
Algernon Sprigg, a horse-racing fanatic, is convinced that everyone is a gambler at heart. To prove his theory, he bets a friend that he can convert Amos Purdie, the puritanical head of an anti-betting association, into a punter within a week.
Writer
This early Gainsborough film is truly a lost treasure and easily one of the most daring and risque films ever made. At least half a dozen different tales seem to be going on at once all finally meeting in the end. The story starts in the Lido hotel where our "Pickles" remarks upon the fact that everyone in the register is called Smith. Hes trying to chat up Mimi so shell split up with her boyfriend as her boyfriends uncle has other plans for his nephew - alas what no one knows is that he and Mimi have already been married for a few months on the sly!
Adaptation
This early Gainsborough film is truly a lost treasure and easily one of the most daring and risque films ever made. At least half a dozen different tales seem to be going on at once all finally meeting in the end. The story starts in the Lido hotel where our "Pickles" remarks upon the fact that everyone in the register is called Smith. Hes trying to chat up Mimi so shell split up with her boyfriend as her boyfriends uncle has other plans for his nephew - alas what no one knows is that he and Mimi have already been married for a few months on the sly!
Director
This early Gainsborough film is truly a lost treasure and easily one of the most daring and risque films ever made. At least half a dozen different tales seem to be going on at once all finally meeting in the end. The story starts in the Lido hotel where our "Pickles" remarks upon the fact that everyone in the register is called Smith. Hes trying to chat up Mimi so shell split up with her boyfriend as her boyfriends uncle has other plans for his nephew - alas what no one knows is that he and Mimi have already been married for a few months on the sly!
Producer
A tense WWI spy thriller in which Colonel Duncan Grant (British star Brian Aherne, in his first talking role), parachutes into Germany to gather intelligence on the enemy’s secret ‘W Plan’ and to assist Allied POWs in digging escape tunnels.
Writer
A tense WWI spy thriller in which Colonel Duncan Grant (British star Brian Aherne, in his first talking role), parachutes into Germany to gather intelligence on the enemy’s secret ‘W Plan’ and to assist Allied POWs in digging escape tunnels.
Director
A tense WWI spy thriller in which Colonel Duncan Grant (British star Brian Aherne, in his first talking role), parachutes into Germany to gather intelligence on the enemy’s secret ‘W Plan’ and to assist Allied POWs in digging escape tunnels.
Director
'Songs of the 1914-18 war.' (British Film Catalogue)
Writer
While on leave in WW I France an English officer and French cabaret star fall in love with one another and plan to marry. However, he is recalled to the front, wounded and has memory loss.
Director
While on leave in WW I France an English officer and French cabaret star fall in love with one another and plan to marry. However, he is recalled to the front, wounded and has memory loss.
Director
A film featuring some of best jazz musicians from the early twenties.
Director
A shopgirl loves a paralysed amnesiac and kidnaps him from his interfering mother.
Producer
The luminous Maria Corda stars as the eponymous Tesha, a celebrated Russian dancer who marries an Englishman (Thomas). The couple long for a child but after five years of happy marriage, remain childless. On a trip to Southampton Tesha succumbs to a brief fling with a stranger (Cavanagh), unleashing a barrage of unforeseen consequences and emotional turmoil. The superb cinematography is by the great German cinematographer Werner Brandes who worked on dozens of prestige British productions in the 1920s. Originally shot silent, sound was added in 1929.
Writer
The luminous Maria Corda stars as the eponymous Tesha, a celebrated Russian dancer who marries an Englishman (Thomas). The couple long for a child but after five years of happy marriage, remain childless. On a trip to Southampton Tesha succumbs to a brief fling with a stranger (Cavanagh), unleashing a barrage of unforeseen consequences and emotional turmoil. The superb cinematography is by the great German cinematographer Werner Brandes who worked on dozens of prestige British productions in the 1920s. Originally shot silent, sound was added in 1929.
Director
The luminous Maria Corda stars as the eponymous Tesha, a celebrated Russian dancer who marries an Englishman (Thomas). The couple long for a child but after five years of happy marriage, remain childless. On a trip to Southampton Tesha succumbs to a brief fling with a stranger (Cavanagh), unleashing a barrage of unforeseen consequences and emotional turmoil. The superb cinematography is by the great German cinematographer Werner Brandes who worked on dozens of prestige British productions in the 1920s. Originally shot silent, sound was added in 1929.
Producer
A young working-class girl causes a stir when she sneaks off for a romantic getaway with the wealthy heir of the mill where she works.
Writer
A young working-class girl causes a stir when she sneaks off for a romantic getaway with the wealthy heir of the mill where she works.
Producer
The White Shadow is a British drama film directed by Graham Cutts based on the novel "Children of Chance" by Michael Morton. Alfred Hitchcock worked on it as assistant director and also handled the writing, editing, and art direction. The film was long thought to be lost. In August 2011, it was announced that the first three reels of the six-reel picture had been found in a garden shed and donated to the NFPF. The film cans were mislabled Two Sisters and Unidentified American Film and only later identified. The film was restored by Park Road Studios and is now in the New Zealand Film Archive.
Producer
David Compton leaves his expecting French girl-friend Louise Boucher, a dancer at the Moulin Rouge, for the war where he looses his memory. Building a new life from scratch after the war, he gets married in London. Louise, now a mother, thinks him dead. She becomes a famous dancer under the name Deloryse but falls gravely ill. One night, as David is in the audience of her show, he recovers his memory. When she learns that David is married to another woman, Louise turns her son in the care of David's new wife and accepting a dancing job at a party, she dies there of exhaustion and sorrow.
