Don Sharp

Donald Sharp (born 19 April 1922, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia) is a British film director.

His most famous films were made for Hammer Studios in the sixties, and included The Kiss of the Vampire (1962) and Rasputin, the Mad Monk (1965). Also in 1965 he directed The Face of Fu Manchu, based on the character created by Sax Rohmer, here played by Christopher Lee. Sharp also directed the first sequel The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966).

Among his other credits are Curse of the Fly, the spy-comedy Our Man in Marrakesh (1966), the fantasy Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon (1967) and the 1978 remake of The Thirty-Nine Steps, starring Robert Powell. He made another foray into spy culture with his feature-length reprise of the gritty Cold War TV drama, Callan (1974).

He also played the character Stephen "Mitch" Mitchell in the 1953 British sci-fi radio series, Journey Into Space.

Sharp also directed the first great British rock 'n' roll movie, The Golden Disc (1958), released a year before the Cliff Richard vehicle Expresso Bongo (1959) and a full two years ahead of Beat Girl (1960). And in Psychomania (1971), Sharp creates a visual fugue by riffing on the great themes of the counter-culture era: bikers, standing stones and ritual magic.

Partial filmography

• Curse of the Fly (1965)
• A Taste of Excitement (1969)
• Dark Places (1973)
• Psychomania (1973)
• Callan (1974)
• Hennessy (1975)
• The Four Feathers (1977)
• The Thirty Nine Steps (1978)
• Bear Island (1979)
• What Waits Below (1984)

External links

• Don Sharp at the Internet Movie Database