Brian Desmond Hurst

Brian Desmond Hurst (12 February 1895 – 26 September 1986) was an Ulster-born film director.

The obituary published in The Times commenced "Mr Brian Desmond Hurst the Irish-born film director who had a long career in the British cinema died in London on 26 September 1986. He was 91. His best known picture was the romantic melodrama Dangerous Moonlight made in 1941 and starring Anton Walbrook as a Polish panist who loses his memory after the Battle of Britain. A big popular success the film featured Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto and launched a cycle of pictures with concerti as their theme music"^[1]

With over 27 movies directed Hurst is Ireland's most prolific movie director in the 20th century.

Hurst was born Hans Hurst in East Belfast into a working class family. His father and brother were iron-workers in the Harland and Wolff shipyard.

First World War and Gallipoli

In August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I Hurst enlisted as a private in the British Army and changed his name from Hans to Brian soon afterwards. He saw service with the 6th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles at the the battle of Chunuk Bair in Gallipoli, the Balkans and the Middle East. At the battle of Chunuk Bair his regiment was slaughtered. "They had set out a few hours before for the Chunuk Bair with twenty officers and over 700 men. Several stragglers and those who had lost their way returned to base in the hours that lay ahead but by the evening of 10 August the Hampshires and the Rifles had been broken in what amounted to a cruel massacre".^[2]

Hurst was interviewed by Punch magazine in 1969 and the article contained Hurst's quote "'I would fight for England against anybody except Ireland' he says, Why for England? 'Because an Englishman is worth twenty foreigners.' Why not against Ireland? 'Because an Irishman is worth fifty Englishmen.'" In the same article when commenting about his experiences of fighting at Gallipoli in a Battalion that was from a mixed religious background, as it had recruiting offices in Belfast and Dublin, the article comments "Catholic-Protestant antagonism vanished in this holocaust".^[3]

Returning from World War I Hurst found life in Belfast constraining and he took a government grant to emigrate to Canada sometime in 1920.

He wanted to follow his artistic ambition and enrolled at the Toronto College of Art. After two years he left and went to France to study art at École des Beaux Arts in Paris.

Hollywood and John Ford

Hurst then moved to Hollywood where he quickly rose from set artwork to movie production. Under the expert guidance of John Ford, sometimes claimed to have been Hurst's cousin,^[4] he learnt the new skills of set management. Hurst even made one screen appearance as an extra in Ford's Hangman's House (1928) where he briefly appears^[5] alongside a college footballer gaining his first break - John Wayne. Hurst's skills, however, were behind the camera where his artist training allowed him to capture faces and expressions with a unique flair. These skills were honed under Ford who remained a lifelong friend. Hurst was with Ford and helped advise Ford when Ford brought Hollywood to Ireland when making The Quiet Man (1952).

Hurst's best-known movies

By 1933 Hurst was then ready to return to the UK and settled in Belgravia from the 1930s to his death in 1986 although often returning to Ulster to visit relatives for 'a spiritual bath'^[6].

Hurst is best-known for his work on The Tenth Man (1936), The Lion Has Wings (1939) ["Hurst's most celebrated film of the 1930s" ^[7], Dangerous Moonlight (1941) and it's most beautiful theme music Warsaw Concerto , the definitive Christmas movie Scrooge (1951), Malta Story (1953) featuring Alec Guinness as an RAF pilot helping to defend Malta, Simba- Mark of the Mau Mau (1955), The Black Tent (1956) and Playboy of the Western World]] (1962).

Hurst's Irish movies

His early Irish work is attracting historic interest with Synge's Riders to the Sea (1935) and the Irish War of Independence love story Ourselves Alone (1936) proving to be historically important. Hurst's Irish Hearts (1934) "is certainly one of the main contenders for the first Irish sound feature film"^[8]

Riders to the Sea was shot in Connemara where Hurst used the actors of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and "the film reflects the disparity between the two, with the actors delivering their lines in a highly technical manner whilst the camera revels in the bleak, natural beauty of the coastline and sky. Hurst's visuals are invariably compared with those of his mentor, John Ford, and the opening shots of Riders... are markedly Fordian in their elementary quality".^[9]

Ourselves Alone was banned in Northern Ireland at the time of its release in 1936 although it has now achieved the recognition it deserved and is shown in museums and other public access points in Northern Ireland. It appears to have been misunderstood. At the time Hurst pointed out the original story had been written by an British army officer and Hurst claimed that the film was 'pro-British'.^[10]

Ministry of Information movies

Hurst directed Ministry of Information films during the Second World War including A Call to Arms (1940), Miss Grant Goes to the Door (1940) and his homeland movie A Letter From Ulster (1942) where Hurst and Terence Young (scriptwritter) and his fellow Ulsterman and Producer William MacQuitty produced a film "promoting a sense of community^[11]" between the people of Northern Ireland and the quarter of a million troops from the USA based in Northern Ireland at the time. Brian McIlroy explained that "Hurst was able to persuade one Catholic and one Protestant soldier to write letters home, explaining their impressions of their stay. From these letters, Terence Young, the scriptwtiter, was able to construct a sequence of activities that revealed the different traditions of Ireland"^[12].

Theirs is the Glory

Hurst's favourite movie was Theirs is the Glory (1946) where he took 200 members of the 1st Airborne back to Arnhem and Oosterbeek to direct and 'remake' their role in the Battle of Arnhem. Every single person in that movie served with the 1st Airborne or was a civilian from Oosterbeck or Arnhem. It was the biggest grossing second world war movie in the UK for over a decade.^[13] The premier was on the first anniversary of the battle in September 1946 and was attended by the Prime Minister. The King commanded a private screening at Balmoral.

In the same way that John Ford had mentored Hurst it seems that Hurst was able to mentor and help many leading lights in the movie business.

Hurst spotted a young Roger Moore in 1945 where he was an extra on the film set of Caesar and Cleopatra in London. He offered him the chance to audition for RADA(Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) with his parent's consent and paid his fees.

The James Bond link continues. The first three scriptwriting roles of Terence Young were on the Hurst directed movies The Night of the Fire (1939), Dangerous Moonlight (1941) and Letter From Ulster (1942). They worked together again on Hungry Hill (1947) and also Theirs is the Glory (1946) (Terence Young had been at Arnhem a year earlier as a tank commander during the war). Young went on, of course, to direct the early Bond movies Dr No, From Russia With Love and Thunderball.

Writings

Hurst worked closely with writer Robin Maugham (1916-1981) on several films. Maugham wrote about Desmond Hurst in two of his autobiographies, Escape From the Shadows (1971) and Search for Nirvana (1979). He was the subject of an acclaimed memoir, The Empress of Ireland, written by Christopher Robbins, in 2004.

References

External links

• Brian Desmond Hurst at the Internet Movie Database

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