Victor Saville

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 in 1927. In 1929 he and Michael Balcon worked together again on a talkie remake of Woman to Woman for Balcon's company, Gainsborough Pictures, this time directed by Saville himself.

From 1931, as Gainsborough Pictures and the Gaumont British Picture Corporation joined forces, Victor 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, and was persuaded to sell them to MGM 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 he was in America and was advised to remain there, producing pictures in support of the war effort such as The Mortal Storm and Forever and a Day (in which he worked for the last time with his former star Jessie Matthews), and in 1945 Tonight and Every Night, based on the Windmill Theatre in London.

After the war he continued directing films for MGM but eventually returned to Britain. He produced two final films in the 1960s, The Greengage Summer (1961) and Mix Me a Person (1962).

Selected filmography

• Michael and Mary (1931 - directed)
• The Good Companions (1933 - directed)
• Evergreen (1934 - directed)
• First a Girl (1935 - directed)
• Dark Journey (1937 - directed)
• Storm in a Teacup (1937 - directed)
• The Citadel (1938 - produced)
• Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939 - produced)
• Bitter Sweet (1940 - produced)
• A Woman's Face (1941 - produced)
• Above Suspicion (1943 - produced)
• Forever and a Day (1943 - directed)
• Tonight and Every Night (1945 - directed)
• The Green Years (1946 - directed)
• Green Dolphin Street (1947 - directed)
• Kim (1950 - directed)
• I, the Jury (1953 - produced)
• The Long Wait (1954 - directed)
• The Silver Chalice (1954 - directed)

References

• BFI screenonline biography "Saville, Victor" Retrieved on 2 February 2009
• Lloyd & Robinson (1983). Movies of the Thirties. Orbis Publishing, London. ISBN 0-85613-523-2.

External links

• Victor Saville at the Internet Movie Database
• Victor Saville at Allmovie