Alex Vetchinsky ( Alec Hyman Vetchinsky; 9 November 1904 - 4 March 1980) was a
BAFTA nominated British film
art director and
production designer
In film and television, the production designer is the individual responsible for the overall aesthetic of the story. The production design gives the viewers a sense of the time period, the plot location, and character actions and feelings. Wo ...
.
He worked on more than a hundred productions during a career that lasted between 1928 and 1974.
[ Vetchinsky was employed for many years at ]Gainsborough Pictures
Gainsborough Pictures was a British film studio based on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in the former Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, north London. Gainsborough Studios was active between 1924 and 1951. The com ...
. He later worked frequently for Rank
Rank is the relative position, value, worth, complexity, power, importance, authority, level, etc. of a person or object within a ranking, such as:
Level or position in a hierarchical organization
* Academic rank
* Diplomatic rank
* Hierarchy
* ...
, including on several Carry On films
The ''Carry On'' series of 31 British comedy films were released between 1958 and 1978, produced by Peter Rogers with director Gerald Thomas. The humour of ''Carry On'' was in the British comic tradition of music hall and bawdy seaside postca ...
.
Selected filmography
* '' Balaclava'' (1928)
* '' Symphony in Two Flats'' (1930)
* ''Sunshine Susie
''Sunshine Susie'' is a 1931 British musical comedy film directed by Victor Saville and starring Renate Müller, Jack Hulbert, and Owen Nares. The film was shot at Islington Studios with sets designed by Alex Vetchinsky. It was based on a ...
'' (1931)
* '' The Faithful Heart'' (1932)
* ''The Lucky Number
''The Lucky Number'' is a 1933 British sports comedy film directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Clifford Mollison, Gordon Harker, Joan Wyndham and Frank Pettingell. The screenplay concerns a professional footballer who attempts to recover a ...
'' (1932)
* '' Marry Me'' (1932)
* '' The Man from Toronto'' (1933)
* '' It's a Boy'' (1933)
* ''Soldiers of the King
''Soldiers of the Queen'' is a song written and composed by Leslie Stuart. The song is often sung and published as "Soldiers of the King" depending on the reigning monarch at the time. The tune was originally composed by Stuart as a march celebr ...
'' (1933)
* ''Aunt Sally
Aunt Sally is a traditional English game usually played in pub gardens and fairgrounds, in which players throw sticks or battens at a ball, known as a 'dolly', balanced on top of a stick, traditionally a model of an old woman's head was sometime ...
'' (1934)
* '' Stormy Weather'' (1935)
* '' The Phantom Light'' (1935)
* ''Tudor Rose
The Tudor rose (sometimes called the Union rose) is the traditional floral heraldic emblem of England and takes its name and origins from the House of Tudor, which united the House of Lancaster and the House of York. The Tudor rose consists o ...
'' (1936)
* '' All In'' (1936)
* ''Good Morning, Boys
''Good Morning, Boys!'' is a 1937 British comedy film directed by Marcel Varnel and featuring Will Hay, Graham Moffatt, Martita Hunt, Lilli Palmer and Peter Gawthorne. It was made at the Gainsborough Studios in Islington.
The film marked the fi ...
'' (1937)
* '' Said O'Reilly to McNab'' (1937)
* ''Convict 99
''Convict 99'' is a 1938 British comedy film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring Will Hay, Moore Marriott, Graham Moffatt and Googie Withers.
Plot
Incompetent Dr Benjamin Twist (Will Hay) is dismissed from his job as headmaster at St. Mich ...
'' (1938)
* ''Shipyard Sally
''Shipyard Sally'' is a 1939 British musical comedy film directed by Monty Banks and starring Gracie Fields, Sydney Howard and Norma Varden. The film is notable for the song " Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye", which became a major hit.
Pl ...
'' (1939)
* '' A Girl Must Live'' (1939)
* ''Night Train to Munich
''Night Train to Munich'' is a 1940 British-American thriller film directed by Carol Reed and starring Margaret Lockwood and Rex Harrison. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1939 short story ''Report on a Fugitive'' by Go ...
'' (1940)
* ''Kipps
''Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul'' is a novel by H. G. Wells, first published in 1905. It was reportedly Wells's own favourite among his works, and it has been adapted for stage, cinema and television productions, including the musical '' ...
'' (1941)
* ''Cottage to Let
''Cottage to Let'' is a 1941 British spy thriller film directed by Anthony Asquith starring Leslie Banks, Alastair Sim and John Mills. Filmed during the Second World War and set in Scotland during the war, its plot concerns Nazi spies trying t ...
'' (1941)
* '' The Young Mr. Pitt'' (1942)
* ''Tawny Pipit
The tawny pipit (''Anthus campestris'') is a medium-large passerine bird which breeds in much of the central Palearctic from northwest Africa and Portugal to Central Siberia and on to Inner Mongolia. It is a migrant moving in winter to tropic ...
'' (1944)
* ''Don't Take It to Heart
''Don't Take It to Heart'' is a 1944 British comedy film directed by Jeffrey Dell and starring Richard Greene, Alfred Drayton, Patricia Medina, Moore Marriott and Richard Bird.
It was shot at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith with sets de ...
'' (1944)
* '' Waterloo Road'' (1945)
* '' The October Man'' (1947)
* ''The Mark of Cain
The curse of Cain and the mark of Cain are phrases that originated in the story of Cain and Abel in the Book of Genesis. In the stories, if someone harmed Cain, the damage would come back sevenfold. Some interpretations view this as a physica ...
'' (1947)
* ''Hungry Hill
Hungry Hill or Knockday ( ga, Cnoc Daod) is the highest of the Caha Mountains on the Beara Peninsula in Munster, Ireland.
Etymology
The first part of the Irish name ''Cnoc Daod'' means "hill". The second part may be a dialectal variant of ...
'' (1947)
* ''Escape
Escape or Escaping may refer to:
Computing
* Escape character, in computing and telecommunication, a character which signifies that what follows takes an alternative interpretation
** Escape sequence, a series of characters used to trigger some so ...
'' (1948)
* ''It's Hard to Be Good
''It's Hard to Be Good'' is a 1948 British comedy film directed by Jeffrey Dell and starring Jimmy Hanley, Anne Crawford and Raymond Huntley. In the film, an ex-army officer finds his altruistic attempts to improve the world are unsuccessful.
...
'' (1948)
* ''Morning Departure
''Morning Departure'' (released as ''Operation Disaster'' in the United States[Highly Dangerous
''Highly Dangerous'' is a 1950 British spy film starring Margaret Lockwood. The screenplay was written by Eric Ambler.
It was released in the US by Lippert Pictures as ''Time Running Out''.
Plot
Frances Gray is as a British entomologist trying t ...]
'' (1950)
* '' Waterfront'' (1950)
* ''Night Without Stars
''Night Without Stars'' is a 1951 British black-and-white dramatic thriller film, starring David Farrar, Nadia Gray and Maurice Teynac. The screenplay was written by Winston Graham based upon his eponymous 1950 novel. The film was directe ...
'' (1951)
* '' Hunted'' (1952)
* '' The Black Knight'' (1954)
* ''Passage Home
''Passage Home'' is a 1955 British drama film directed by Roy Ward Baker.
Plot
Captain "Lucky" Ryland ( Peter Finch) is about to retire. He has a flashback of several years to a voyage on a merchant ship which he was captaining from South Ameri ...
'' (1955)
* ''Value for Money
In economics, economic value is a measure of the benefit provided by a good or service to an economic agent. It is generally measured through units of currency, and the interpretation is therefore "what is the maximum amount of money a specif ...
'' (1955)
* ''A Town Like Alice
''A Town Like Alice'' (United States title: ''The Legacy'') is a romance novel by Nevil Shute, published in 1950 when Shute had newly settled in Australia. Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman, becomes romantically interested in a fellow prisoner ...
'' (1956)
* ''Carry on Sergeant
''Carry On Sergeant'' is a 1958 British comedy film about National Service starring William Hartnell, Bob Monkhouse and Eric Barker; it is the first in the series of ''Carry On'' films, with 31 entries released from 1958 to 1992. The film was ...
'' (1958)
* ''Operation Amsterdam
''Operation Amsterdam'' is a 1959 black and white British action film, directed by Michael McCarthy, and featuring Peter Finch, Eva Bartok and Tony Britton. It is based on a true story as described in the book ''Adventure in Diamonds'', by Da ...
'' (1959)
* '' Rotten to the Core'' (1965) (received BAFTA nomination)
* ''Doctor in Clover
''Doctor in Clover'' is a British comedy film released in 1966, starring Leslie Phillips. The film is based on the novel of the same title by Richard Gordon. It is the sixth of the seven films in the ''Doctor'' series.
The film was released i ...
'' (1966)
* ''The Long Duel
''The Long Duel'' is a 1967 British adventure film directed by Ken Annakin and starring Yul Brynner, Trevor Howard, Charlotte Rampling and Harry Andrews. It is set in British-ruled India of the 1920s but was filmed in Spain.
Plot
Superintende ...
'' (1967)
* '' Carry On... Up the Khyber'' (1968)
* ''Kidnapped
Kidnapped may refer to:
* subject to the crime of kidnapping
Literature
* ''Kidnapped'' (novel), an 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson
* ''Kidnapped'' (comics), a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's novel by Alan Grant and Ca ...
'' (1971)
* ''Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
'' (1974)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vetchinsky, Alex
1904 births
1980 deaths
British film designers
British art directors
Film people from London