Woodfall Film Productions was a British film production company established in the late 1950s. It was established by

Tony Richardson Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson (5 June 1928 – 14 November 1991) was an English theatre and film director and producer whose career spanned five decades. In 1964, he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film ''Tom Jones''. Early ...

, John Osborne and

Harry Saltzman Herschel Saltzman (; – ), known as Harry Saltzman, was a Canadian theatre and film producer. He is best remembered for co-producing the first nine of the ''James Bond'' film series with Albert R. Broccoli. He lived most of his life in Den ...

to make a screen adaptation of Osborne's best known play. The film version of ''

Look Back in Anger ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956) is a realist play written by John Osborne. It focuses on the life and marital struggles of an intelligent and educated but disaffected young man of working-class origin, Jimmy Porter, and his equally competent yet i ...

'', directed by Richardson and produced by Saltzman, was released in 1959. Following its critical success, Woodfall, under the effective control of Richardson, produced several of the most significant British films of the 1960s. These include ''

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning ''Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'' is the first novel by British author Alan Sillitoe and won the Author's Club First Novel Award. It was adapted by Sillitoe into a 1960 film starring Albert Finney, directed by Karel Reisz, and in 1964 was ...

'' (1960), '' A Taste of Honey'' (1961) and '' The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner'' (1962). A later Woodfall film, '' Tom Jones'' (1963), won four Academy Awards in 1964. According to film director

Desmond Davis Desmond Stanley Tracey Davis (24 May 1926 – 3 July 2021) was a British film and television director, best known for his 1981 version of '' Clash of the Titans''. Early life and career Desmond Davis joined the British Army film unit serving a ...

, Woodfall Films brought a new era of realism to British films, strongly influenced by the French ''

nouvelle vague French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconocla ...

''. Woodfall became dormant after Richardson's death in 1991, but in 2014 his surviving family agreed that the films be restored and acquired the

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

s. In 2018, the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery (United Kingdom), National Lot ...

published a box set of eight of the most significant Woodfall films, ''Woodfall - A Revolution in British Cinema'', and ran a series of public showings.

Filmography

*''

'' (1959) *'' The Entertainer'' (1960) *''

'' (1960) *'' A Taste of Honey'' (1961) *'' The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner'' (1962) *'' Tom Jones'' (1963) *'' Girl with Green Eyes'' (1964) *'' One Way Pendulum'' (1964) *'' The Knack ...and How to Get It'' (1965) *'' Mademoiselle'' (1966) *'' The Sailor from Gibraltar'' (1967) *''

The White Bus ''The White Bus'' is a 1967 British short drama film directed by Lindsay Anderson. The screenplay was jointly adapted with Shelagh Delaney from a short story in her collection ''Sweetly Sings the Donkey'' (1963). ''The White Bus'' was also the f ...

'' (1967) *'' Red, White and Zero'' (1967) *'' The Charge of the Light Brigade'' (1968) *'' Inadmissible Evidence'' (1968) *'' Laughter in the Dark'' (1969) *''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

'' (1969) *'' Kes'' (1969) *''

Ned Kelly Edward Kelly (December 1854 – 11 November 1880) was an Australian bushranger, outlaw, gang leader and convicted police-murderer. One of the last bushrangers, he is known for wearing a suit of bulletproof armour during his final shootout wi ...

'' (1970) *'' Dead Cert'' (1974) *''

Joseph Andrews ''The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams'', was the first full-length novel by the English author Henry Fielding to be published and among the early novels in the English language. Appearing in 1742 ...

'' (1977) *''

The Hotel New Hampshire ''The Hotel New Hampshire'' is a 1981 coming of age novel by American writer John Irving, his fifth published novel. Plot This novel is the story of the Berrys, a quirky New Hampshire family composed of a married couple, Win and Mary, and th ...

'' (1984)

References

External links

Woodfall Films websiteWoodfall Film Productions
at

BFI The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery (United Kingdom), National Lot ...

Woodfall Film Productions
at

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

Parliament & the 1960s - 1966 Theatre Censorship Committee - UK Parliament Living Heritage
Film production companies of the United Kingdom {{UK-film-company-stub