Lance Comfort (11 August 1908 – 25 August 1966) was an English

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

. He was a prolific maker of B movies from 1945 to 1965.

Early life

Lance Comfort was born in

Harrow, London Harrow () is a large town in Greater London, England, and serves as the principal settlement of the London Borough of Harrow. Lying about north-west of Charing Cross and south of Watford, the entire town including its localities had a populat ...

on 11 August 1908.

Career

In a career spanning over 25 years, he became one of the most prolific film directors in Britain, though he never gained critical attention and remained on the fringes of the film industry, creating mostly B movies. Comfort carried on working almost right up to his death in

Worthing Worthing ( ) is a seaside town and borough in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 113,094 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Br ...

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

, on 25 August 1966.

Critical assessment

The film historians Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane praise Comfort's gifts "in the confident exercise of melodramatic impulses in the interests of illuminating character and relationship, in a decorative visual style to serve these impulses, and in giving their heads to string of dominant actors". They add that all of his films "are persuasive narratives, marked by absence of sentimentality and the whiff of human reality".Steve Chibnall & Brian McFarlane, ''The British 'B' Film'', Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2009, pp. 140–43.

Filmography

*'' Penn of Pennsylvania'' (1941) *'' Hatter's Castle'' (1942) *'' Those Kids from Town'' (1942) *'' Squadron Leader X'' (1943) *''

Escape to Danger ''Escape to Danger'' is a 1943 British thriller film directed by Lance Comfort and Victor Hanbury and starring Eric Portman, Ann Dvorak and Karel Stepanek. Plot During the Second World War a British schoolteacher working in Denmark is caug ...

'' (1943) *'' When We Are Married'' (1943) *'' Old Mother Riley Detective'' (1943) *'' Hotel Reserve'' (1944) *'' Great Day'' (1945) *'' Bedelia'' (1946) *''

Temptation Harbour ''Temptation Harbour'' is a 1947 British black and white crime/drama film, directed by Lance Comfort and starring Robert Newton, Simone Simon and William Hartnell. It was adapted by Rodney Ackland and Frederick Gotfurt from ''Newhaven-Diepp ...

'' (1947) *'' Daughter of Darkness'' (1948) *'' Silent Dust'' (1949) *'' Portrait of Clare'' (1950) *'' Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents'' (1953–1957) *'' The Girl on the Pier'' (1953) *'' Bang! You're Dead'' (1954) *'' Eight O'Clock Walk'' (1954) *'' The Man in the Road'' (1956) *'' Face in the Night'' (1957) *'' Man from Tangier'' (1957) *'' At the Stroke of Nine'' (1957) *'' The Ugly Duckling'' (1959) *'' Make Mine a Million'' (1959) *'' The Breaking Point'' (1961) *''

Rag Doll A rag doll is a doll made from scraps of fabric. They are one of the oldest children's toys in existence. Today, many rag dolls are commercially produced to mimic aspects of the original home-made dolls, such as simple features, soft cloth bodies, ...

'' (1961) *''

Pit of Darkness ''Pit of Darkness'' is a 1961 British thriller second feature ('B') film, directed and written by Lance Comfort and starring William Franklyn and Moira Redmond. It is based on the 1960 novel ''To Dusty Death'' by Hugh McCutcheon.The film is ...

'' (1961) *'' The Painted Smile'' (1961) *'' Touch of Death'' (1961) *'' The Break'' (1962) *'' Tomorrow at Ten'' (1962) *'' Blind Corner'' (1963) *'' Live It Up!'' (also known as ''Sing and Swing'' in the U.S.) (1963) *'' Be My Guest'' (1965) *''

Devils of Darkness ''Devils of Darkness'' is a 1965 British horror film directed by Lance Comfort and starring William Sylvester, Hubert Noël and Carole Gray. It was written by Lyn Fairhurst. It was the last feature film directed by Comfort. Plot Count Sini ...

'' (1965)

References

External links

* *
lovefilm.com – a selected filmography

Archive: Book Reviews, May 2001
English film directors People from Harrow, London 1908 births 1966 deaths {{UK-film-director-stub