Leslie Arliss

Leslie John S. Arliss (born October 6, 1901 in London - Catford , † December 30, 1987 in St. Helier , Jersey ) was a British screenwriter and film director .

Live and act

The son of an employee at a gas company - not the actor George Arliss, as is often read - had initially worked as a journalist and concentrated on the work of a theater and film critic (for the 'Johannesburg Star'). At the age of 30, Arliss switched to the film business and began writing scripts. From 1933 to 1936 he mainly wrote the manuscripts for comedies by producer Michael Balcon , but also participated in the script for the lavish hurricane-patriotic colonialist portrait of Rhodes of Africa , a single ode to the British Empire and its colonial rule in Africa. From the beginning of the war, templates for anti-Nazi propaganda pieces such as Pastor Hall and The Foreman Went to France followed .

In 1940 Arliss switched to film directing with the comedy The Farmer's Wife and in the following years launched the careers of some later top stars of British entertainment cinema such as Stewart Granger , Margaret Lockwood , Phyllis Calvert , Patricia Roc and James Mason . His films of the 1940s - above all The Lord in Gray , Cornwall Rhapsody and The Woman Without a Heart - were often mockingly accompanied by critics, but were extremely popular with the audience, cultivated melodramas, plush adventure material and love romance, which mainly played in past centuries.

Towards the end of the same decade, Arliss' films lost their importance entirely, and from 1953 he turned increasingly to television, for which he directed episodes of several series.

Filmography

Screenwriter

• 1931: Tonight's the Night - Pass It On
• 1932: Holiday Lovers
• 1933: Orders is Orders
• 1933: Jack Ahoy!
• 1934: Road House
• 1935: Heat Wave
• 1935: Rhodes of Africa
• 1936: Windbag the Sailor
• 1937: Said O'Reilly to McNab
• 1938: To Dangerous to Live
• 1939: For Freedom
• 1940: Pastor Hall
• 1941: The Foreman Went to France

Director

• 1940: The Farmer's Wife (co-director, script assistant)
• 1941: The Night Has Eyes (also script collaboration)
• 1942: Der Herr in Grau ( The Man in Gray , also screenplay collaboration)
• 1944: Cornwall Rhapsody ( Love Story , also script collaboration)
• 1945: The woman without a heart ( The Wicked Lady , also script collaboration)
• 1947: Romance in the South ( A Man About the House , also screenplay collaboration)
• 1947: Idol of Paris
• 1949: Saints and Sinners (also production, script assistant)
• 1951: The Woman's Angle (also assisted with script)
• 1953–1956: Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Presents (TV series)
• 1954: See How They Run (also assisted with script)
• 1955: Miss Tulip Stays the Night
• 1955–1957: Sailor of Fortune (TV series)
• 1956–1957: The Buccaneers (TV series)
• 1957: Insomnia is Good for You (short film)
• 1957: Danger List (short film)
• 1957: Man With a Dog (short film)
• 1957–1958: The New Adventures of Charlie Chan (TV series)
• 1963: Indian River (TV series)

literature

• Kay Less : The large personal dictionary of the film Volume 1: A - C. Erik Aaes - Jack Carson. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 146.

Web links

• Leslie Arliss in the Internet Movie Database (English)