Graham Cutts

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Graham Cutts (born January to March 1884 in Brighton , † September 7, 1958 in London ) was a British film director and producer.

Life

The trained naval engineer John Henry Graham Cutts was interested in the cinema and began in 1909 as a projectionist in Newcastle and Birmingham. He made his directorial debut in 1922 with Cocaine , which was renamed While London Sleeps due to problems with censorship . He then founded the film company Graham-Wilcox Productions with Herbert Wilcox , for which he shot The Wonderful Story , which was received positively by film critics , in 1922 , and Flames of Passion with the American Mae Marsh , the first British screen to be shown in the USA Film after the First World War. Also starring Marsh was his last film for Graham-Wilcox , the commercially successful Paddy-the-Next-Best-Thing (1923). He then worked for the newly founded company Balcon - Saville - Freedman , which was called Gainsborough Pictures from late 1924 . He turned woman against woman (1923), which convinced both critics and moviegoers. The young Alfred Hitchcock was involved as an assistant for the first time in this production . From then on, Hitchcock was regularly added to Cutts' side and assisted in four of the following films: The White Shadow (1924), The Passionate Adventure (1924), The Blackguard (1925) - a UFA production, and The Prude's Fall (1925).

There were disagreements between Cutts and Hitchcock, who became increasingly influential in the productions, so that Michael Balcon gave Hitchcock the opportunity to show his talent alone with The Pleasure Garden (1925) and Cutts again with The Rat (1925) " a free hand ”. The film established the screen image of its leading actor Ivor Novello as a seducer in the style of Rudolph Valentino and was so successful that two sequels were shot under Cutts' direction with The Triumph of the Rat (1926) and The Return of the Rat (1929) .

1927 Cutts went to Germany again and filmed including the Noël Coward -Stück The Queen What in the Parlor . After the third film The Rat, and with the start of the sound film age, Cutts left Gainsburough and lost his place among the leading British film directors.

In the early 1930s he worked for four films for Basil Dean and directed the second successful film with Gracie Fields , Looking on the Bright Side (1932). He switched to light musicals and comedies, including several so-called quota quickies . From 1940 to 1947, Graham Cutts made war documentaries and short films.

His daughter is the actress Patricia Cutts .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Cutts, Graham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British film director and producer
DATE OF BIRTH between January 1884 and March 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Brighton
DATE OF DEATH September 7, 1958
Place of death London