Roy Ward Baker
Roy Ward Baker (born Roy Horace Baker; 19 December 1916 – 5 October 2010) was an English film director. His best known film is '' A Night to Remember'' (1958) which won a Golden Globe for Best English-Language Foreign Film in 1959. His later career included many horror films and television shows. Early life and career Born in London where his father was a Billingsgate fish merchant, Baker was educated at a Lycée in Rouen, France, and at the City of London School. Career From 1934 to 1939, Baker worked for Gainsborough Pictures, a British film production company based in the Islington district of London. His first jobs were menial, making tea for crew members, for example, but by 1938 he had risen to the level of assistant director on Alfred Hitchcock's ''The Lady Vanishes'' (1938). He served in the Army during the Second World War, transferring to the Army Kinematograph Unit in 1943 to make better use of his skills as a production manager and director on documentaries. On ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Roman Empire, Romans as ''Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city#National capitals, Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national Government of the United Kingdom, government and Parliament of the United Kingdom, parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the Counties of England, counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkhas, and 28,330 volunteer reserve personnel. The modern British Army traces back to 1707, with antecedents in the English Army and Scots Army that were created during the Restoration in 1660. The term ''British Army'' was adopted in 1707 after the Acts of Union between England and Scotland. Members of the British Army swear allegiance to the monarch as their commander-in-chief, but the Bill of Rights of 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 require parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army. Therefore, Parliament approves the army by passing an Armed Forces Act at least once every five years. The army is administered by the Ministry of Defence and commanded by the Chief of the General Staff. The British ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hollywood, Los Angeles
Hollywood is a neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. Its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the U.S. film industry and the people associated with it. Many notable film studios, such as Columbia Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., and Universal Pictures, are located near or in Hollywood. Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It was consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910. Soon thereafter a prominent film industry emerged, having developed first on the East Coast. Eventually it became the most recognizable in the world. History Initial development H.J. Whitley, a real estate developer, arranged to buy the E.C. Hurd ranch. They agreed on a price and shook hands on the deal. Whitley shared his plans for the new town with General Harrison Gray Otis, publisher of the ''Los Angeles Times'', and Ivar Weid, a prominent businessman in the area. Daeida Wilcox, who donated land to help ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film studio, film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, a division of The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributes and markets the films produced by 20th Century Studios and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (Buena Vista Home Entertainment) distributes the films produced by 20th Century Studios in home media under the 20th Century Studios Home Entertainment banner. For over 80 years – beginning with its founding in 1935 and ending in 2019 (when it became part of Walt Disney Studios), 20th Century Fox was one of the then Major film studio, "Big Six" major American film studios. It was formed in 1935 from the merger of the Fox Film, Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures and was originally known ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Darryl Zanuck
Darryl Francis Zanuck (September 5, 1902December 22, 1979) was an American film producer and studio executive; he earlier contributed stories for films starting in the silent era. He played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors (the length of his career was rivaled only by that of Adolph Zukor). He produced three films that won the Academy Award for Best Picture during his tenure. Early life Zanuck was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, the son of Sarah Louise (née Torpin), who later married Charles Norton, and Frank Harvey Zanuck, who owned and operated a hotel in Wahoo. He had an older brother, Donald (1893–1903), who tragically died in an accident when he was only 9 years old. Zanuck was of partial Swiss descent, and raised a Protestant. At age six, Zanuck and his mother moved to Los Angeles, where the better climate could improve her poor health. At age eight, he found his first movie job as an extra, but his disapproving father recalled him t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Morning Departure
''Morning Departure'' (released as ''Operation Disaster'' in the United StatesIMDb: Operation Disaster – release dates Retrieved 24 November 2012) is a 1950 British naval drama film about life aboard a sunken submarine, directed by Roy Ward Baker, and starring John Mills and . It is based on a stage play of the same name by Kenneth Woollard, which had also been shown as a live TV play by the BBC both in 1946 [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paper Orchid
''Paper Orchid'' is a 1949 British crime film directed by Roy Ward Baker, with a script written by Val Guest. It featured Hugh Williams, Hy Hazell and Garry Marsh, and was based on the 1948 Paper Orchid (novel), novel of the same title by Arthur La Bern. It featured an early film appearance by Sid James, who later found success through the Carry On films, Carry On series. It was shot at the Walton Studios just outside London. The film's sets were designed by the art director Bernard Robinson (production designer), Bernard Robinson. Plot Despite feeling that women are unsuited to journalism, Fleet Street newspaper editor Frank McSweeney hires Stella Mason as a reporter at the ''Daily National''. Stella starts a hugely popular gossip column, gaining the nickname 'Paper Orchid'. When her husband dies, Lady Croup becomes the new proprietor of the ''Daily National''. She fires Frank and another journalist, 'Johnny' Johnson - both of whom join rival newspaper the ''World Record''. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Weaker Sex
''The Weaker Sex'' is a 1948 British drama film directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Ursula Jeans, Cecil Parker and Joan Hopkins. It was one of the most popular films at the British box office in 1948. The film's subject was what ''The New York Times'' described as the "heroics of that valiant legion of women who stood, but did not wait, through the long war years and the now dreary post war years." Plot Set near Portsmouth, one of the main bases for the D-Day invasion fleet, the film portrays life on the British home front during World War II. During the run up to D-Day (1944), widowed Martha Dacre (Ursula Jeans) tries to keep house and home together for her two daughters and two servicemen billeted on her. Although her two daughters serve as Wrens, and her son is away in the Navy, she has chosen to stay at home as a housewife (although she also participates in fire-watching and works in a canteen). When she learns that her son's ship was damaged during the landings, sh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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A Night To Remember (book)
''A Night to Remember'' is a 1955 non-fiction book by Walter Lord that depicts the sinking of the RMS ''Titanic'' on 15 April 1912. The book was hugely successful, and is still considered a definitive resource about the ''Titanic''. Lord interviewed 63 survivors of the disaster as well as drawing on books, memoirs, and articles that they had written. In 1986, Lord authored his follow-up book, ''The Night Lives On'', following renewed interest in the story after the wreck of the ''Titanic'' was discovered by Robert Ballard. The film based on the book and with advice from Lord, was released in 1958. Lord also served as a consultant to Canadian film director James Cameron while he was making his film '' Titanic'' in 1997. Publication history Lord traveled on the RMS ''Olympic'', ''Titanic''s sister ship, when he was a boy and the experience gave him a lifelong fascination with the lost liner. As he later put it, he spent his time on the ''Olympic'' "prowling around" and try ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Walter Lord
John Walter Lord Jr. (October 8, 1917 – May 19, 2002) was an American author, lawyer, copywriter and popular historian best known for his 1955 account of the sinking of the RMS ''Titanic'', '' A Night to Remember''. Biography Early life Lord was born in Baltimore, Maryland to John Walter Lord Sr. and Henrietta MacTier (Hoffman) Lord on October 8, 1917. His father, who was a lawyer, died when Lord was just three years old. Lord's grandfather, Richard Curzon Hoffman, was president of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company ("Old Bay Line") steamship firm in the 1890s. In July 1925, at the age of 7, Lord traveled across the Atlantic Ocean with his mother and sister, from New York to Cherbourg and Southampton, on the RMS ''Olympic'', the ''Titanic''s sister ship. Like many other boys who attended high school at Baltimore's Gilman School, he spent his summers at Hyde Bay Camp for Boys at Hyde Bay in Cooperstown, New York, where he was awarded the honorary title of "The Commodore ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The October Man
''The October Man'' is a 1947 mystery film/film noir starring John Mills and Joan Greenwood, written by novelist Eric Ambler, who also produced. A man is suspected of murder, and the lingering effects of a brain injury he sustained in an earlier accident, as well as an intensive police investigation, make him begin to doubt whether he is innocent. Plot When a bus crashes due to faulty steering, passenger Jim Ackland (John Mills) sustains a serious brain injury and a young girl under his care is killed. Guilt-ridden, he attempts suicide twice during his recovery. He starts a new job as an industrial chemist and gets a room in a hotel. When he reluctantly accepts an invitation for a night out, he meets Jenny Carden ( Joan Greenwood), the sister of his colleague Harry ( Patrick Holt). They begin seeing each other quite regularly. Things reach the point that he confesses he wants to marry her, but he tells her that he wants to be sure he has fully recovered first. Molly Newman (Ka ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eric Ambler
Eric Clifford Ambler OBE (28 June 1909 – 22 October 1998) was an English author of thrillers, in particular spy novels, who introduced a new realism to the genre. Also working as a screenwriter, Ambler used the pseudonym Eliot Reed for books cowritten with Charles Rodda. Life Ambler was born in Charlton, South-East London, into a family of entertainers who ran a puppet show, with which he helped in his early years. Both parents also worked as music hall artists. He later studied engineering at the Northampton Polytechnic Institute in Islington (now City, University of London) and served a traineeship with an engineering company. However, his upbringing as an entertainer proved dominant and he soon moved to writing plays and other works. By the early 1930s, he was a copywriter at an advertising agency in London. After resigning, he moved to Paris, where he met and in 1939 married Louise Crombie, an American fashion correspondent. Ambler was then politically a staunch antif ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |