Birthday:
09-25-1895
Deathday:
05-08-1979 (83 years)
Birthplace:
Birmingham, England, UK
Biography
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).
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).
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The Mortal Storm
Producer
event1940 star_border 7.2
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The Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. After the Nazis come to power, the family is divided and Martin Breitner, a family friend, is caught up in the turmoil.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Producer
event1941 star_border 6.4
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Dr. Jekyll believes good and evil exist in everyone and creates a potion that allows his evil side, Mr. Hyde, to come to the fore. He faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run amok.
A Woman's Face
Producer
event1941 star_border 6.9
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A female blackmailer with a disfiguring facial scar meets a plastic surgeon who offers her the possibility of looking like a normal woman.
The Long Wait
Director
event1954 star_border 5.8
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Soon after thumbing a ride from a truck driver, Johnny McBride is badly burned and suffers from complete amnesia when the vehicle he’s riding in blows a tire and goes over an embankment in a fiery blaze. McBride later receives a tip from an acquaintance that a photo of him was placed prominently in the window of a photography studio in a town called Lyncastle, so Johnny immediately leaves for the burg in the hopes that something there will jog his memory.
I, the Jury
Producer
event1953 star_border 5.7
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After his best friend and war buddy is mysteriously gunned down, Mike Hammer will stop at nothing to settle the score for the man who sacrificed a limb to save his own life during combat. Along the way, Hammer rides a fine line between gumshoe and a one-man jury, staying two-steps ahead of the law—and trying not to get bumped off in the process.
Tonight and Every Night
Director
event1945 star_border 5.2
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An American girl falls for an RAF pilot while performing at a British music hall.
Forever and a Day
Director
event1943 star_border 7.4
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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.
The Silver Chalice
Director
event1954 star_border 4.5
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A Greek artisan is commissioned to cast the cup of Christ in silver and sculpt around its rim the faces of the disciples and Jesus himself. He travels to Jerusalem and eventually to Rome to complete the task. Meanwhile, a nefarious interloper is trying to convince the crowds that he is the new Messiah by using nothing more than cheap parlor tricks.
Friday the Thirteenth
Director
event1933 star_border 6
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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.
Dark Journey
Producer
event1937 star_border 6.4
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Madeline Goddard, is a British double agent who meets and falls in love with a German spy Baron Karl Von Marwitz during World War I. This tale of espionage blends high adventure and romance making perfect order from wartime chaos and growing in faith from despair.
Conspirator
Director
event1949 star_border 5.9
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A newlywed suspects her husband of being a Communist spy.
Storm in a Teacup
Director
event1937 star_border 7.5
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A local politician in Scotland tries to break the reporter who wrote a negative story about him, and who is also in love with his daughter.
The Green Years
Director
event1946 star_border 6.5
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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.
South Riding
Director
event1938 star_border 6.2
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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.
The Good Companions
Director
event1933 star_border 5.8
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Film musical taken from JB Priestley's novel about three musicians joining together to save a failing concert party, the Dinky Doos.
It's Love Again
Director
event1936 star_border 6.2
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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.
White Cargo
Producer
event1942 star_border 5.8
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In Africa early in World War II, a British rubber plantation executive reminisces about his arrival in the Congo in 1910. He tells the story of a love-hate triangle involving Harry Witzel, an in-country station superintendent who'd seen it all, Langford, a new manager sent from England for a four-year stint, and Tondelayo, a siren of great beauty who desires silk and baubles. Witzel is gruff and seasoned, certain that Langford won't be able to cut it. Langford responds with determination and anger, attracted to Tondelayo because of her beauty, her wiles, and to get at Witzel. Manipulation, jealousy, revenge, and responsibility play out as alliances within the triangle shift.
Green Dolphin Street
Director
event1947 star_border 6.1
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Sophie loved Edmund, but he left town when her parents forced her to marry wealthy Octavius. Years later, Edmund returns with his son, William. Sophie's daughter, Marguerite, and William fall in love. Marguerite's sister, Marianne, also loves William. Timothy, a lowly carpenter, secretly loves Marianne. He kills a man in a fight, and Edmund helps him flee to New Zealand. William deserts inadvertently from the navy, and also flees in disgrace to New Zealand, where he and Timothy start a profitable business. One night, drunk, William writes Octavius, demanding his daughter's hand; but, being drunk, he asks for the wrong sister.
The White Shadow
Producer
event1924 star_border 7.2
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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. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with National Film Preservation Foundation in 2012.
Kim
Director
event1950 star_border 6.2
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During the British Raj, the orphan of a British soldier poses as a Hindu and is torn between his loyalty to a Buddhist mystic and aiding the English secret service.
If Winter Comes
Director
event1947 star_border 6.6
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The small English town of Penny Green is swarming with scandal when textbook author Mark, unhappily married to the shrewish Mabel, cultivates a friendship with Effie, a young pregnant girl. As the townsfolk theorize that Mark is the baby's father, Effie - already troubled because of her impending motherhood - commits suicide, and circulating rumors lead the authorities to think Mark killed her. The innocent writer must fight to clear his name.
Evergreen
Director
event1934 star_border 6.2
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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.
Calling Bulldog Drummond
Director
event1951 star_border 5.8
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Bulldog Drummond leaves retirement to help a Scotland Yard Sergeant catch thieves armed with radar.
First a Girl
Director
event1935 star_border 6.3
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An aspiring singer quits her menial job and is talked into performing as a female impersonator by her friend. Her drag act makes her famous, which causes problems for her when a very determined young man falls in love with her. A remake of the 1933 German film Viktor und Viktoria.
Woman to Woman
Director
event1929 star_border 5.1
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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.
24 Hours of a Woman's Life
Director
event1952 star_border 4.7
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A compulsive gambler stumbles towards losing everything when Merle Oberon decides to save him from himself.
The Greengage Summer
Producer
event1961 star_border 6.2
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Sensitive story of a British girl's awakening from childhood into life and love on vacation in France.
I Was a Spy
Director
event1933 star_border 5.5
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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.
The Dictator
Director
event1935 star_border 6
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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.
Kitty
Producer
event1929 star_border 4
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Alex St. George, a young RFC pilot, is anxious about fighting in the First World War. He is comforted by sensitive shop assistant Kitty, and the two fall in love, marrying before Alex is sent to the front. But his snobbish mother disapproves of the match, and when Alex returns home paralysed and in a cataleptic state, Mrs. St. George plots to keep him from his wife until she can arrange an annulment. But the determined Kitty has plans of her own....
Me and Marlborough
Director
event1935 star_border 4.5
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A woman disguises herself in men's clothes in order to follow her husband to the wars.
Desire Me
Director
event1947 star_border 5.7
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A war widow falls in love with the man who informed her of her husband's death.
A Warm Corner
Director
event1930 star_border 4.5
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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!
Evensong
Director
event1934
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Loosely based on the story of the singer Nellie Melba...
The Faithful Heart
Director
event1932 star_border 5.5
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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.
Armistice
Director
event1929
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Take your seat for an Armistice concert by military bands playing a medley of songs commonly sung during WWI.
Me and the Boys
Director
event1929
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A film featuring some of best jazz musicians from the early twenties.
Action for Slander
Producer
event1937
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A bankrupt officer, accused of cheating at cards, defends his honour with a writ.
Keeper of the Flame
Producer
event1943 star_border 6.6
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Famed reporter Stephen O'Malley travels to a small town to investigate the death of a national hero.
The Iron Duke
Director
event1934
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The life and times of the Duke of Wellington
Hindle Wakes
Director
event1931
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A Lancashire mill girl has an illicit adventure with the owner's son while on holiday. Based on the once notorious Houghton play.
The W Plan
Writer
event1930 star_border 7
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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.
Woman to Woman
Producer
event1923 star_border 6.5
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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.
Kiss Me Deadly
Executive Producer
event1955 star_border 7.2
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One evening, Hammer gives a ride to Christina, an attractive hitchhiker on a lonely country road, who has escaped from the nearby lunatic asylum. Thugs waylay them and force his car to crash. When Hammer returns to semi-consciousness, he hears Christina being tortured until she dies. Hammer, both for vengeance and in hopes that "something big" is behind it all, decides to pursue the case.
The Earl of Chicago
Director
event1940 star_border 5.6
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A behind the times Chicago bootlegger goes to England with his lawyer to claim his estate as the Earl of Gorley.
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Producer
event1939 star_border 7.3
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A shy British teacher looks back nostalgically at his long career, taking note of the people who touched his life.
Hindle Wakes
Producer
event1927 star_border 7.1
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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.
Sunshine Susie
Director
event1931 star_border 6.3
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Sunshine Susie was a remake of the German film Die Privatsekretärin, 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.
The Citadel
Producer
event1938 star_border 6.3
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Andrew Manson, a young, idealistic, newly qualified Scottish doctor arrives in Wales takes his first job in a mining town, and begins to wonder at the persistent cough many of the miners have. When his attempts to prove its cause are thwarted, he moves to London. His new practice does badly. But when a friend shows him how to make a lucrative practice from rich hypochondriacs, it will take a great shock to show him what the truth of being a doctor really is.
Love on Wheels
Director
event1932
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A department store assistant becomes publicity conscious.
Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer!
Executive Producer
event1954
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In this half-hour unsold pilot, private eye Mike Hammer embarks on a righteous quest for vengeance over the death of his newsboy pal in a mob hit.
Tesha
Adaptation
event1928
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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.
Michael and Mary
Director
event1931
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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....
The Sport of Kings
Director
event1931
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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.
Smilin' Through
Producer
event1941 star_border 6
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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.
Bitter Sweet
Producer
event1940 star_border 5.8
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A woman runs away with her music teacher in order to escape an arranged marriage, but they struggle to make ends meet.
A Sister to Assist 'Er
Producer
event1927
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'Poor woman poses as rich twin to fool mean landlady.' (British Film Catalogue)
The Arcadians
Director
event1927
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'Club-owner crashes plane in Arcady, land of truth and beauty.' (British Film Catalogue)
A Woman in Pawn
Producer
event1927
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'Ruined stockbroker blamed for killing crooking financier who lured his wife.' (British Film Catalogue)
The Glad Eye
Producer
event1927
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'The story concerns the misadventures of two flighty husbands in Paris on the spree. They find an excuse for their absence from home by pretending that they are accompanying a famous airman on a flight, but the latter does not proceed according to plan, and they have a hard time countering the suspicious questionings and moves of the sophisticated wife.' (BFI)
Above Suspicion
Producer
event1943 star_border 6.5
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Two newlyweds spy on the Nazis for the British Secret Service during their honeymoon in Europe.
Mix Me a Person
Producer
event1962 star_border 6.2
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Eighteen-year-old Harry Jukes is literally holding a smoking gun in his hand. His lawyer thinks he did it, but his psychiatrist disagrees -- and sets out to prove she is right.
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