Victor Saville

Birthday: 1895-09-25
Deathday: 1979-05-08
Birthplace: Birmingham, England, UK
Gender: Male

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 (1927). In 1929 he and Balcon worked together again on a talkie remake of Woman to Woman for Balcon's company, Gainsborough Pictures. This time Saville directed it.

From 1931, as Gainsborough Pictures and the Gaumont British Picture Corporation joined forces, 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. He was persuaded to sell them to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 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 in 1939, Saville was in America and was advised to remain there. He produced pictures in support of the war effort, such as The Mortal Storm and Forever and a Day (1943) (in which he worked for the last time with his former star Jessie Matthews), and in 1945 Tonight and Every Night, based on the history of the Windmill Theatre in London.

After the war Saville continued directing films for MGM but eventually returned to Britain. Saville acquired production rights for Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer mysteries and produced a few features, though Spillane thought he was interested in doing so only to acquire the money to produce The Silver Chalice. He produced two final films in the 1960s, The Greengage Summer (1961), adapted from the novel of the same name, and Mix Me a Person (1962).

Credits

Year Title
2004-04-18 Kim Wilde - Best Of - The Singles Collection 1981-1993
1954-12-20 The Silver Chalice
1954-05-26 The Long Wait
1952-09-10 24 Hours of a Woman's Life
1951-07-02 Calling Bulldog Drummond
1950-12-07 Kim
1949-07-28 Conspirator
1947-12-31 If Winter Comes
1947-10-31 Desire Me
1947-01-15 Green Dolphin Street
1946-07-04 The Green Years
1945-01-09 Tonight and Every Night
1943-01-21 Forever and a Day
1940-01-05 The Earl of Chicago
1938-08-01 South Riding
1937-07-02 Dark Journey
1937-02-25 Storm in a Teacup
1936-05-06 It's Love Again
1935-11-07 First a Girl
1935-07-22 Me and Marlborough
1935-02-07 The Dictator
1934-11-30 The Iron Duke
1934-09-03 Evensong
1934-04-01 Evergreen
1933-11-01 Friday the Thirteenth
1933-09-04 I Was a Spy
1933-02-28 The Good Companions
1932-07-26 Love on Wheels
1932-05-01 The Faithful Heart
1931-12-06 Sunshine Susie
1931-10-29 Michael and Mary
1931-10-02 Hindle Wakes
1931-02-23 The Sport of Kings
1930-09-29 A Warm Corner
1930-02-25 The W Plan
1929-11-01 Woman to Woman
1929-11-01 Armistice
1929-07-01 Me and the Boys
1929-06-15 Kitty
1928-08-27 Tesha
1927-10-01 The Arcadians