|
We Serve
''We Serve'' is a British short film about the lives of officers in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). Designed as a recruitment and training film, it was directed by Carol Reed, produced by Sydney Box, and was made by Box's company Verity Films. The involvement of Reed as director enabled Box to secure the services of several leading British actresses for the film, all agreeing to be paid the small sum of £5 per day. The film also featured the then Director of the ATS, Jean Knox. The 30-minute film was commissioned shortly after the British government changed the nature of the ATS from being a voluntary body to becoming a professional service with full military status in April 1941. It was concurrent with a wider recruitment drive to expand the size of the ATS. In its efforts to attract recruits, the film emphasised that femininity could be retained in wartime. See also * ''The Gentle Sex ''The Gentle Sex'' is a 1943 United Kingdom, British black-and-white romantic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carol Reed
Sir Carol Reed (30 December 1906 – 25 April 1976) was an English film director and producer, best known for ''Odd Man Out'' (1947), '' The Fallen Idol'' (1948), ''The Third Man'' (1949), and '' Oliver!'' (1968), for which he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Director. ''Odd Man Out'' was the first recipient of the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. ''The Fallen Idol'' won the second BAFTA Award for Best British Film. The British Film Institute voted ''The Third Man'' the greatest British film of the 20th century. Early life and career Carol Reed was born in Putney, southwest London.Philip Kem"Reed, Carol (1906-1976)" ''Reference Guide to British and Irish Film Director'', reprinted at BFI Screenonline. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography' has Wandsworth, London as Reed's place of birth. He was the son of actor-producer Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and his mistress, Beatrice May Pinney, who later adopted the surname of Reed. He was educated at The King's School, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sydney Box
Frank Sydney Box (29 April 1907 – 25 May 1983) was a British film producer and screenwriter, and brother of British film producer Betty Box. In 1940, he founded the documentary film company Verity Films with Jay Lewis. He produced and co-wrote the screenplay, with his then wife Muriel Box, for ''The Seventh Veil'' (1945), which received the 1946 Oscar for best original screenplay. Sydney and Muriel married in 1935, had a daughter Leonora, the following year and divorced in 1969. Gainsborough Studios The couple were then hired by the Rank Organisation to run Gainsborough Studios. They disapproved of the Gainsborough melodramas which had been the studio's major successes for several years, and switched production to a broader range of more "realistic" films with mixed results. Box made 36 films at Gainsborough, which was merged into the Rank Organization in 1949. In 1951 he founded his own production company London Independent Producers with William MacQuitty. Box ended his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft (22 December 1907 – 14 June 1991), known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years. Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was determined from an early age to become an actress, despite parental opposition. She was working in smaller theatres even before graduating from drama school, and within two years she was starring in the West End. Ashcroft maintained her leading place in British theatre for the next 50 years. Always attracted by the ideals of permanent theatrical ensembles, she did much of her work for the Old Vic in the early 1930s, John Gielgud's companies in the 1930s and 1940s, the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and its successor the Royal Shakespeare Company from the 1950s, and the National Theatre from the 1970s. While well regarded in Shakespeare, Ashcroft was also known for her commitment to modern drama, appearing in plays by Bertolt Brecht, Samuel B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joyce Carey
Joyce Carey, OBE (30 March 1898 – 28 February 1993) was an English actress, best known for her long professional and personal relationship with Noël Coward. Her stage career lasted from 1916 until 1987, and she was performing on television in her 90s. Although never a star, she was a familiar face both on stage and screen. In addition to light comedy, she had a large repertory of Shakespearean roles. Career Joyce Carey was born Joyce Lilian Lawrence, the daughter of actor Gerald Lawrence, a matinée idol who had been a juvenile in Henry Irving's Shakespeare company, and his wife, actress Lilian Braithwaite,''Gaye'', pp 426–427 a major West End star."Obituary", ''The Times'', 3 March 1993, p. 17 Carey was educated at the Florence Etlinger Dramatic School. Carey made her stage debut in 1916, aged 18, as Princess Katherine in an all-female production of ''Henry V''. She joined Sir George Alexander's company at the St James's Theatre playing Jacqueline, a French countess, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penelope Dudley-Ward
Penelope Ann Rachel, Lady Reed (born Penelope Anne Rachel Dudley Ward; 4 August 1914 – 21 January 1982), known as Penelope Dudley-Ward, was an English actress. Born in London, she was the elder daughter of William Dudley Ward and the leading socialite Freda Dudley Ward, her mother being best remembered for being the long-time mistress of the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VIII. She was a leading lady in several British films during the 1930s and 1940s. She retired from the screen following her second marriage. Her first marriage, to Anthony Pelissier, lasted from 29 December 1939, until their divorce in 1944; the couple had one daughter, the actress Tracy Reed. Dudley-Ward married film director Carol Reed on 24 January 1948. They had one son, Max Reed, born 14 September 1948. Dudley-Ward and Reed remained married until he died in 1976. Death Lady Reed died from a brain tumour on 21 January 1982 at the age of 67,Wapshott, p. 334. fourteen months before her moth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Celia Johnson
Dame Celia Elizabeth Johnson, (18 December 1908 – 26 April 1982) was an English actress, whose career included stage, television and film. She is especially known for her roles in the films ''In Which We Serve'' (1942), ''This Happy Breed'' (1944), ''Brief Encounter'' (1945) and '' The Captain's Paradise'' (1953). For ''Brief Encounter'', she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. A six-time BAFTA Award nominee, she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for '' The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie'' (1969). Johnson began her stage acting career in 1928, and subsequently achieved success in West End and Broadway productions. She continued performing in theatre for the rest of her life and much of her later work was in television, including winning the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the BBC ''Play for Today'', ''Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont'' (1973). She suffered a stroke and died soon after at the age of 73. Early life and education Born ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ann Todd
Dorothy Ann Todd (24 January 1907 – 6 May 1993) was an English film, television and stage actress who achieved international fame when she starred in 1945's ''The Seventh Veil''. From 1949 to 1957 she was married to David Lean who directed her in 1949's ''The Passionate Friends'', 1950's ''Madeleine'' and 1952's ''The Sound Barrier''. She was a member of The Old Vic theatre company and in 1957 starred in a Broadway play. In her later years she wrote, produced and directed travel documentaries. Early years Todd was born in Hartford, Cheshire. Although latterly claiming to be born in 1909, 1911 census records show her born in 1907 and christened in March 1907. Her Scottish-born father Thomas was a salesman, and her London-born mother Constance a housewife. She had a younger brother Harold Brooke (who took their mother's maiden name), who became a screenwriter of light comedies. After the family moved to London, Todd was educated at St. Winifrid's School, Eastbourne, Sussex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Googie Withers
Georgette Lizette Withers, CBE, AO (12 March 191715 July 2011), known professionally as Googie Withers, was an English entertainer who was a dancer and actress with a lengthy career spanning some nine decades in theatre, film, and television. She was a well-known actress and star of British films during the Second World War and postwar years. She often starred in British productions, primarily in films with actor and producer John McCallum, whom she married, and together they emigrated in the late 1950s to her husband's native Australia, where they became best known in theatre, although she would play prison governor Faye Boswell in the TV series ''Within These Walls'' during the 1970s and continued to feature in films. Biography Withers was born in Karachi, British India (now Pakistan), to Edgar Withers, a captain in the Royal Navy, and a mother of Dutch French German descent, Lizette Wilhelmina Katarina.Brian McFarlane, ''Assured lady of the screen took no nonsense'', obi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verity Films
Verity Films was a British documentary film production company, founded by Sydney Box and Jay Gardner Lewis in March or May 1940. Background The company's initial purpose was to make short propaganda films for the wartime government.Spicer, 18. Lewis directed Verity's first five films, but fell out with Box over finances and left the company.Spicer, 20–21. Box's former employer Publicity Films helped pay off the £2,000 debt and the company was refloated in 1941.Spicer, 21. With Lewis gone, Box ran the company alone and found quick success. Turnover during 1942 was £75,000, and after paying salaries of £5,000 to Box and others, Verity still made a £2,000 profit. A January 1943 report in ''Kinematograph Weekly'' called Verity "by far the largest documentary film organisation in Great Britain". By 1944, Verity had absorbed several other documentary producers and had eight to ten production units in the field. It advertised itself in a trade publication as "the largest shor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auxiliary Territorial Service
The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS; often pronounced as an acronym) was the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War. It was formed on 9 September 1938, initially as a women's voluntary service, and existed until 1 February 1949, when it was merged into the Women's Royal Army Corps. The ATS had its roots in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), which was formed in 1917 as a voluntary service. During the First World War its members served in a number of jobs including clerks, cooks, telephonists and waitresses. The WAAC was disbanded after four years in 1921. Prior to the Second World War, the government decided to establish a new Corps for women, and an advisory council, which included members of the Territorial Army (TA), a section of the Women's Transport Service (FANY) and the Women's Legion, was set up. The council decided that the ATS would be attached to the Territorial Army, and the women serving would receive two thirds the pay of male sold ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Knox
Jean Marcia Montagu, Baroness Swaythling, CBE (née Leith-Marshall; 14 August 1908 – 13 December 1993), first married name Knox, was Director of the Auxiliary Territorial Service from July 1941 to October 1943. Early life She was born on 14 August 1908 to G. G. Leith-Marshall. Before World War II, she lived in Leicestershire and was a housewife. She had had no other job pre-war. Military service Knox joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service nearly a year before the outbreak of World War II, in October 1938, and undertook kitchen duties. She became a company commander, in the 2nd Herts Company. On 30 May 1941, she was given a commission in the ATS in the rank of second subaltern, equivalent to second lieutenant. In April 1941, she was promoted to senior commandant (equivalent to major) and appointed Inspector of the ATS. In that role, she inspected every ATS command and had a seat on the ATS Council. On 21 July 1941, she was appointed Director, Auxiliary Territorial Service ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Gentle Sex
''The Gentle Sex'' is a 1943 United Kingdom, British black-and-white romantic comedy-drama war film, film director, directed and narrated by Leslie Howard (actor), Leslie Howard. It was film producer, produced by Concanen Productions, Two Cities Films, and Derrick de Marney. ''The Gentle Sex'' was Howard's last film before his death. Synopsis The documentary-drama follows seven women from different backgrounds who meet at an Auxiliary Territorial Service training camp. "Gentle" British girls, they are now doing their bit to help out in World War II: driving lorries and manning ack-ack batteries. Leslie Howard provides slightly sarcastic narration throughout the film. The girls are allowed to socialise at organised dances with local male troops. Music is contemporary (big band swing) and dancing includes the jitterbug. Several of the girls find romance. The narrator points out that "war is never kind to lovers". Cast Best source is aBFI ATS volunteers * Joan Gates as Gwen Hayde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
