Anthony Hinds

Anthony Frank Hinds
Born(1922-09-19)19 September 1922
Ruislip, Middlesex, England
Died30 September 2013(2013-09-30) (aged 91)
Chadlington, Oxfordshire, England
OccupationsScreenwriter, film producer
Years active1946–1984
Spouse
Jean Knowles
​
(m. 1956)​
Children2
FatherWilliam Hinds

Anthony Frank Hinds (19 September 1922 – 30 September 2013[1]), also known as Tony Hinds and John Elder, was an English screenwriter and producer.[2][3]

Early life

The son of the founder of Hammer Film Productions, William Hinds, Anthony Hinds was born in Ruislip, Middlesex[4][5] and educated at St Paul's School.[1] He briefly joined his father's business before his war service as a pilot in the RAF during World War II.[1]

Career

In 1946 Hinds returned to Hammer and initially produced a great many modest thrillers. One of these was The Dark Road (1947), one of the quota quickies, which featured a jewellery shop called 'Hinds', a reference to his father's original business. This business had been divided in the 1920s between William and his brother Frank Hinds. Frank's part is now the F. Hinds national jewellery chain.[6]

In the summer of 1953 Hinds was enthralled by the BBC's The Quatermass Experiment, a six-part science fiction thriller written by Nigel Kneale. Hinds was so impressed by what he saw that he suggested Hammer buy the big screen rights.[4] They approached the BBC and snapped up the rights. After requesting the new 'X' certificate from the British Board of Film Censors,[1] The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) was a box-office success and was the first of the three Quatermass cinema films based on the television serials.[4]

Hinds came up with the idea of hiring country houses and shooting films in the rooms and grounds of the locations, which saved the cost of kitting out a full studio.[1] The company acquired Down Place, renaming it Bray Studios, and was based there until 1966. Under the pseudonym John Elder he was a prolific screenwriter and from the mid-1960s he concentrated on this activity, though he produced the TV series Journey to the Unknown for LWT (1968–69) and The Lost Continent (1968) (the latter uncredited).[7] His last screenwriting credit was 1984's The Masks of Death.[4]

The horror script The Unquenchable Thirst of Dracula, which he wrote in the 1970s for Hammer,[8] was never filmed. In October 2015 it was presented as a live stage reading by the Mayhem Film Festival at the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham, featuring the actor and film historian Jonathan Rigby as narrator.[9] In October 2017 a studio production of the script was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, with narration by Michael Sheen.[10]

Personal life and death

In 1956, Hinds married Jean Knowles, and they had two daughters.[4] He died from complications of Parkinson's disease at his home in Chadlington, Oxfordshire, on 30 September 2013.[4]

Selected filmography

Year Title Producer Writer
(as "John Elder") 		Notes
1948 Who Killed Van Loon Yes No
1949 Dick Barton Strikes Back Yes No
1950 The Man in Black Yes No
1950 Someone at the Door Yes No
1950 Room to Let Yes No
1950 What the Butler Saw Yes No
1950 The Lady Craved Excitement Yes No
1951 The Rossiter Case Yes No
1951 To Have and to Hold Yes No
1951 The Dark Light Yes No
1951 A Case for PC 49 Yes No
1951 Black Widow Yes No
1952 The Last Page aka Man Bait Yes No
1952 Death of an Angel Yes No
1952 Wings of Danger aka Dead On Course Yes No
1952 Stolen Face Yes No
1952 Lady in the Fog aka Scotland Yard Inspector Yes No
1952 The Gambler and the Lady Yes No
1953 The Flanagan Boy aka Bad Blonde Yes No
1953 The Saint's Return aka The Saint's Girl Friday Yes No
1953 36 Hours aka Terror Street Yes No
1954 The House Across the Lake aka Heat Wave Yes No
1954 Five Days aka Paid to Kill Yes No
1955 The Glass Cage aka The Glass Tomb Yes No
1955 The Quatermass Xperiment aka The Creeping Unknown Yes No First horror film for Hammer Film Productions
1956 Women Without Men aka Blonde Bait Yes No
1956 X the Unknown Yes No
1957 The Curse of Frankenstein Yes No
1956 Quatermass 2 aka Enemy From Space Yes No
1957 The Camp on Blood Island Yes No
1958 Dracula aka The Horror of Dracula Yes No
1958 The Revenge of Frankenstein Yes No
1959 The Hound of the Baskervilles Yes No
1959 The Stranglers of Bombay Yes No
1960 Never Take Sweets from a Stranger Yes No
1961 The Curse of the Werewolf Yes Yes Based on The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore
1962 The Phantom of the Opera Yes Yes Based on The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
1962 The Damned aka These Are The Damned Yes No
1962 Captain Clegg aka Night Creatures No Yes Loosely based on the character Doctor Syn created by Russell Thorndike
1963 Paranoiac Yes No
1963 Maniac Yes No
1963 Kiss of the Vampire Yes Yes
1963 The Old Dark House Yes No
1964 The Evil of Frankenstein Yes Yes First writing credit in the Frankenstein series; based on characters created by Mary Shelley
1965 Fanatic aka Die! Die! My Darling! Yes No
1965 Dracula: Prince of Darkness No Yes First writing credit in the Dracula series; based on characters created by Bram Stoker
1966 The Reptile No Yes
1966 Rasputin the Mad Monk No Yes
1967 The Mummy's Shroud No Yes Credits attribute screenplay to John Gilling "from an original story by John Elder." First credit in Hammer's Mummy series
1967 Frankenstein Created Woman No Yes
1968 Dracula Has Risen from the Grave No Yes
1968-1969 Journey to the Unknown Yes No Television Anthology series
1970 Taste the Blood of Dracula No Yes
1970 Scars of Dracula No Yes
1970 Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell No Yes
1975 Legend of the Werewolf No Yes Uncredited remake of Hind's own The Curse of the Werewolf script from 1961; first screenplay not produced by Hammer Film Productions.
1975 The Ghoul No Yes
1980 Visitor from the Grave No Yes Episode of Hammer House of Horror; final produced screenplay
1984 Sherlock Holmes and The Masks of Death No Yes TV movie, screenplay credited to N.J. Crisp, "story by John Elder." Based on characters created by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Obituary: Anthony Hinds, telegraph.co.uk, 3 October 2013
  2. ^ "The New York Times". Movies & TV Dept. Baseline & All Movie Guide. 2013. Archived from the original on 8 October 2013.
  3. ^ "R.I.P. Anthony Hinds 1922–2013". Starburstmagazine.com. 29 September 2013. Retrieved 3 October 2013.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Hutchings, Peter (2017). "Hinds, Anthony Frank (1922–2013), film producer and screenwriter". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/107925. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  5. ^ "Search Results for England & Wales Births 1837-2006".
  6. ^ "Our History on F. Hinds website". 7 October 2013. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
  7. ^ "Anthony Hinds". BFI. Archived from the original on 5 August 2012.
  8. ^ "Amazing: Unproduced Hammer Script to Be Performed at Mayhem in the UK!". BFI. 15 August 2015.
  9. ^ Mack, Andrew (14 August 2015). "Mayhem 2015: Jonathan Rigby To Narrate Long-Lost Dracula Script From Hammer Archive". Twitchfilm.
  10. ^ "BBC Radio 4 - Drama, Unmade Movies, Hammer Horror's The Unquenchable Thirst of Dracula".
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Hinds