Alan Bridges

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Alan James Stuart Bridges (born September 28, 1927 in Liverpool , England - † December 7, 2013 ) was a British director , actor and producer . He made a name for himself above all by staging numerous television plays for the BBC in the early 1960s . For the feature film Message for Lady Franklin (1973) he was honored with the main prize at the Cannes Film Festival .

Life

Work as an actor and first television work

Alan Bridges was born in Liverpool in 1927, where he grew up as an only child and the son of a World War II veteran. As an "entertainment officer" he served in the army and designed, among other things, films and plays for soldiers. Bridges then attended the University of Oxford for a short time before completing an apprenticeship as an actor at the renowned Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London . He successfully completed this in September 1946 by winning the Emile Littler Prize . In the 1950s Bridges was a member of the Birmingham Repertory Theater Company and with supporting roles in the Shakespeare plays Henry VI. (1952), Pericles, Prince of Tire (1954) and Richard II (1955). He was particularly praised by critics for his part in Talbot in another production by Heinrich VI in 1953 . one with whom he appeared in both Birmingham and London's Old Vic Theater .

In the late 1950s, Bridges began producing plays such as Cyril Campion's The Widower with Daniel Massey (1957) and Vita Sackville-West's novel The Edwardians (1959). In the early 1960s he was also able to comply with the wish to direct himself after his wife Ann Castle had made a decent salary as an actress. Bridges went to television and made a name for himself primarily as a producer and director of numerous BBC television games. Entertainment programs such as the thrillers Dial M for murder , Something to Hide (both 1962) and Act of Murder (1965) for which the British Times praised him as "one of the best young directors" directed , alternated with television adaptations of meaningful literary material such as August Strindberg's Fräulein Julie ( Miss Julie , 1965) and Dostoyevsky's The Idiot ( The Idiot , 1966). Nevertheless, Bridges remained loyal to the theater during this time. At the beginning of the 1967/68 theater season he took over the direction of the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Ibsen's drama Ghosts with Peggy Ashcroft in the leading role of Helene Alving.

Success with "The Lie" and "Message for Lady Franklin"

Bridges made his breakthrough as a television director in 1970 with the BBC production The Lie , for which the well-known Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman wrote the film script. The drama starring Frank Finlay , Gemma Jones , Joss Ackland and Mark Dignam , which was broadcast as part of the series Play for Today , won the British television award BAFTA a year later . After the television movie Shelley (1972) with Jenny Agutter in the title role of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley , Bridges was not denied success in the cinema. 1973 followed a message for Lady Franklin , the film adaptation of a novel by LP Hartley . The drama takes place in England in the 1920s and focuses on a young widowed aristocrat (played by Sarah Miles ) who defies the advances of her rental car driver ( Robert Shaw ) and retreats into the security of her class.

Bridges' film debut was featured in the competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973 and won the main prize ex aequo with Jerry Schatzberg's Asphalt Blossoms . The critics in Cannes almost unanimously took this as the wrong decision of the jury chaired by the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman . The French L'Express found the message for Lady Franklin to be "banal and mediocre" , the British Times found the selection too conservative and Bridges' study of the class antagonisms in England at the turn of the century "by no means suitable for a Grand Prix" . The directorial work, on the other hand, received positive criticism from the Federal German film service , which in its contemporary criticism praised the work as a “subtly staged psychological study” and as “excellently played and full of inner tension” . A year later, the costume film was awarded three British Film Awards.

End of the film career

After winning in Cannes, Bridges did not succeed in establishing himself among the ranks of leading British film directors with the following feature film productions. The television film Fleeting Encounters (1974), the remake of a play by Noël Coward , was regarded as unimaginatively staged and only served the two actors Richard Burton and Sophia Loren as a star vehicle. Bridges' Hate Knows No Postseason (1975), which competed unsuccessfully in the competition at the Berlin Film Festival, was also rated as attractive only for acting . In the romantic drama, Vanessa Redgrave was seen as the hotel owner and single mother of a daughter who is forced into an ominous love triangle by the appearance of an old childhood sweetheart (played by Cliff Robertson ).

In his two subsequent costume dramas, Shadows of the Past (1982) and The Last Hunt (1985), Bridges relied again on the recipe for his hit film Message for Lady Franklin and dealt with the social constraints and conventions in English society in the early 20th century. In both films he was able to fall back on an ensemble of well-known actors such as Alan Bates , Julie Christie , Glenda Jackson and Ann-Margret , or James Mason , Edward Fox and John Gielgud , but the critics were only receptive to The Last Hunt . The film was compared to the work of Anton Chekhov and won an award at the Moscow Film Festival . Also in 1985, he directed the Emmy award-winning production Displaced Person . The television drama, based on Kurt Vonnegut's short story DP , is set in post-war Germany and focuses on a 12-year-old boy who grew up in an orphanage and who goes in search of his father, a colored US soldier. Bridges' career as a director ended in the early 1990s with the romantic drama Fire Princess with Eric Roberts and Jennifer Jason Leigh and the Beatrix Potter television adaptation The Tale of Little Pig Robinson (both 1990).

In 1954, Alan Bridges married his fellow actress Ann Castle (born Eileen Middleton Brown), who he used in several of his television plays and film productions. The marriage resulted in a daughter (* 1962) and a son (* 1965). Bridges last lived in Shepperton , near London, and used his spare time to warm up to reading, music, sports and the theater, among other things. He was a member of the Garrick Club .

Filmography (selection)

  • 1972: Shelley (TV)
  • 1973: Message for Lady Franklin (The Hireling)
  • 1974: Brief Encounter
  • 1975: hatred knows no season (Out of Season)
  • 1977: Midsummer Celebration (Ragtime Summer)
  • 1978: Saturday, Sunday, Monday (TV)
  • 1978: La petite fille en velours bleu
  • 1980: Rain on the Roof (TV)
  • 1981: Very Like a Whale (TV)
  • 1982: The Return of the Soldier
  • 1984: Pudd'nhead Wilson (TV)
  • 1985: Displaced Person (TV)
  • 1985: The Shooting Party
  • 1990: Fire Princess
  • 1990: The Tale of Little Pig Robinson
  • 1991: Secret Places of the Heart

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Alan James Stuart Bridges . In: Debrett's People of Today . Debrett's Peerage Ltd., 2007 (accessed via Biography Resource Center . Farmington Hills, Mich .: Gale, 2009).
  2. ↑ Bergan, Ronald: Alan Bridges obituary at theguardian.com, January 29, 2014 (accessed January 30, 2014).
  3. ↑ a b Marriages . In: The Times, July 26, 1954, ed. 52993, p. 10.
  4. ↑ a b Rosenblum, Constance: World War I Foreshadows 'The Shooting Party' . In: The New York Times , June 9, 1985, Late City Final Edition, Section 2; P. 14, column 3; Arts and Leisure Desk.
  5. ↑ Awards At Royal Academy Of Dramatic Art . In: The Times , September 4, 1946, p. 7.
  6. ^ The Birmingham Repertory "King Henry VI," Part Three . In: The Times, April 2, 1952, ed. 52276, p. 6.
  7. ^ "Pericles" Restored Birmingham Repertory Production . In: The Times, June 30, 1954, ed. 52971, p. 12.
  8. ^ "Richard II" At Birmingham A Break With The "Artist-King" Tradition . In: The Times, June 23, 1955, ed. 53254, p. 5.
  9. ^ "King Henry VI" Birmingham Repertory Production . In: The Times, June 10, 1953, ed. 52644, p. 10.
  10. ^ "Henry VI" At The Old Vic Birmingham Players In Third Part . In: The Times, July 16, 1953, ed. 52675, p. 9.
  11. ^ Festival Hall Concerts Miss Sorel's Début With Orchestra . In: The Times, February 25, 1957, ed. 53774, p. 3.
  12. ^ Adaptation of Edwardians Too Many Hares for Hunting . In: The Times, October 16, 1959, ed. 54593, p. 16.
  13. ^ Katz, Ephraim: The Macmillan international film encyclopedia . New York, NY: Macmillan, 1994.- ISBN 0-333-61601-4 .
  14. ↑ Two Stars Not Enough To Compensate Plaza: Where Love Has Gone From Our Film Critic . In: The Times, Jan. 14, 1965, ed. 56219, p. 5.
  15. ↑ Longer Stratford Season . In: The Times, October 4, 1967, ed. 57063, p. 8.
  16. ↑ This week on television In: Der Spiegel 09/1975 of February 24, 1975, p. 143.
  17. ^ Robinson, David: Scandal and reaction at Cannes . In: The Times, May 28, 1973, ed. 58793, p. 7.
  18. ↑ a b c Lexicon of International Film 2000/2001 (CD-ROM).
  19. ↑ Vincent Canby's film review in the New York Times, September 11, 1981.
  20. ^ O'Connor, John J .: A Vonnegut Story: 'Displaced Person' . The New York Times, May 6, 1985, Section C, p. 18.
  21. ↑ Alan Bridges . In: World who's who: Europa biographical reference . London: Routledge, 2002.
personal data
SURNAME Bridges, Alan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bridges, Alan James Stuart (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British director, actor and producer
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Liverpool , England
DATE OF DEATH December 7, 2013