John Dighton

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John Dighton (1909 – 1989) was a successful British playwright and screenwriter.

Dighton wrote for the stage until 1936, when he made the transition to films. His 1940s output included comedian Will Hay's last starring features, and several George Formby films as well as the 1947 adaptation of Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, and the 1943 war movie Undercover starring John Clements and Michael Wilding.

Most gainfully employed by Ealing Studios, he collaborated on the screenplays of such celebrated comedies as Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Man in the White Suit (1952), sharing an Academy Award nomination for the latter. He earned a second nomination for the American-financed Roman Holiday (1953).

Two of his more popular stage plays, The Happiest Days of Your Life and Who Goes There! (known as The Passionate Sentry in the USA), were successfully adapted for the screen by Dighton himself, the former in collaboration with Frank Launder.

His final screen credit was his adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple, penned in collaboration with Roland Kibbee.

Selected films as screenwriter

• Hail and Farewell (1936)
• Sailors Three (1940)
• Let George Do It (1940)
• Saloon Bar (1940)
• The Ghost of St. Michael's (1941)
• Turned Out Nice Again (1941)
• The Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942)
• Went the Day Well? (1942)
• The Goose Steps Out (1942)
• The Foreman Went to France (1942)
• The Next of Kin (1942)
• Undercover (film) (1943)
• My Learned Friend (1943)
• Champagne Charlie (1944)
• Nicholas Nickleby (1947)
• Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948)
• Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
• The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950) (based on his play)
• The Man in the White Suit (1951)
• Who Goes There? (1952) (based on his play The Passionate Sentry)
• Brandy for the Parson (1952)
• Folly to Be Wise (1953)
• Roman Holiday (1953)
• The Swan (1956)
• The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957)
• Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1959)
• The Devil's Disciple (1959)