Sidney Gilliat (15 February 1908 – 31 May 1994) was an English film director, producer and writer.
In the 1930s he worked as a scriptwriter, most notably with Frank Launder on The Lady Vanishes (1938) for Alfred Hitchcock, and Night Train to Munich (1940), directed by Carol Reed. He and Launder made their directorial debut co-directing the home front drama Millions Like Us (1943). From 1945 he also worked as a producer, starting with The Rake's Progress, which he also wrote and directed. He and Launder made over 40 films together, founding their own production company Individual Pictures. While Launder concentrated on directing their comedies, most famously the four St Trinian's School films, Gilliat showed a preference for comedy-thrillers and dramas, including Green for Danger (1946), London Belongs to Me (1948) and State Secret (1950).
He wrote the libretto for Malcolm Williamson's opera Our Man in Havana, based on the novel by Graham Greene. He had also worked on the film.
Early life and career
Gilliat was born in the district of Edgeley in Stockport, Cheshire, and was the son of George Gilliat, the editor of the London Evening Standard from 1928 to 1933. He was brought up in New Malden and educated at London University, studying English and History. He worked for a period as a journalist at the Evening Standard, later saying he was fired after refusing to interview a grieving widow who was too upset to be spoken to.
The film critic of the Evening Standard, Walter Mycroft, went to work at Elstree Studios as a scenario editor, and hired Gilliat to write intertitles for silent films. He was fired after he was overheard criticising a producer's work.
Frank Launder
Gilliat's first movie with Launder was Twelve Good Men (1936). They also collaborated on Seven Sinners (1936).
Without Launder he did Take My Tip (1937) for Hulbert; A Yank at Oxford (1938) for MGM; Strange Boarders (1938); and The Gaunt Stranger (1938) with Sonnie Hale. Gilliat and Launder collaborated on The Lady Vanishes (1938).
Gilliat wrote another for Hay, Ask a Policeman (1939), and was one of several writers on Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939). With Launder he did Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday (1939) and Night Train to Munich (1940), the latter for Carol Reed. For Reed Gilliat wrote on his own a thriller Girl in the News (1940). Gilliat began writing war time shorts such as Mr. Proudfoot Shows a Light (1941).
He and Launder worked on They Came by Night (1940), and Reed's The Young Mr. Pitt (1942). Alone, Gilliat adapted Kipps (1941) for Reed.
Producers/directors
Launder and Gilliat wanted to become producers and directors. Their first effort as co-directors was a short, Partners in Crime (1942). Then they made the feature Millions Like Us (1943) which was a success, launching them as producers and directors.
According to an obituary of Gilliat:
<blockquote>Gilliat and Launder made an unlikely pair, both physically and temperamentally Launder spare, dark and easily excited, Gilliat stockier and with the sort of down-to-earth, practical nature which provided a solid basis for their working partnership. Gilliat, in fact, always deprecated his own comic talents, claiming that it was Launder who wrote all the jokes, though this was a huge overstatement. But certainly they did their best work together. Their speciality was the thriller-comedy. As writers, their scripts were noted for clever plotting and shrewd observation of the foibles of the English character. As directors, Gilliat tended to favour quieter satire, where Launder excelled in broader farce. But it was difficult generally to know where the contribution of one ended and the other began, even though officially they liked to take it in turn to act on each film as scriptwriter and director.</blockquote>
Gilliat helped write Two Thousand Women (1944) which Launder directed. Without Launder, Gilliat wrote and directed Waterloo Road (1945) with John Mills and Stewart Granger. But normally both men would produce and write the script and take turns directing.
Gilliat directed The Rake's Progress (1945) with Rex Harrison; Green for Danger (1946); and London Belongs to Me (1948). Launder directed I See a Dark Stranger (1946), Captain Boycott (1947), The Blue Lagoon (1949) and The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950).
Gilliat directed the thriller State Secret (1950) while Launder did Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951) and Folly to Be Wise (1953). Around this time they announced a film about Dunkirk and a science fiction story but neither was made.
Instead Gilliat directed The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (1953), then Launder did The Belles of St. Trinian's (1954). The film starred George Cole who later said working for the team meant "good scripts but terrible money. If Alastair was in the film it was even worse because he got most of it. But they were wonderful people to work with." Gilliat directed Left Right and Centre (1959), a political satire after which Launder did The Pure Hell of St Trinian's (1960). Gilliat had a big hit with Only Two Can Play (1962), which he directed. He produced Joey Boy (1965), and then both men directed The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery (1966).
They worked on a script, Sex and the British, for two years but had to abandon it when British divorce laws made the concept obsolete.
Another one said "Of all the tireless toilers in the ungrateful vineyards of British cinema comedy (Roy and John Boulting, Ralph and Gerald Thomas, Muriel and Sydney Box), Launder and Gilliat were least in thrall to the insatiable jokiness of the breadwinning professional humorist, and their long collaboration has left us with a memory of unfailing good-humour and an occasional brainy prankishness."