Nigel Balchin

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Nigel Balchin (born December 3, 1908 in Potterne , Wiltshire as Nigel Marlin Balchin , † May 17, 1970 in London ) was an award-winning British writer and screenwriter . He was best known for his work for the films of the 1950s and 1960s such as Malta Story , The Man Who Never Was , 23 Steps to the Abyss , Barabbas or Summer of the Cursed . Balchin also wrote under the pen name Mark Spade .

life and work

Nigel Marlin Balchin was born in 1908 in Potterne, Wiltshire, England, to William and Ada Balchin. He attended Dauntsey School in West Lavington (Wiltshire) from 1919 to 1927 . At Cambridge University he received a scholarship to Peterhouse , the oldest of the Cambridge colleges , where he was trained in the natural sciences. He graduated with honors. Balchin then worked for the National Institute of Industrial Psychology between 1930 and 1935 , where he was a design and marketing consultant for JS Rowntree & Sons . During the Second World War he was a civil servant in the Ministry of Food, and then a successful scientific advisor in the rank of brigadier.

Balchin has been a freelance writer for satire magazines since 1933 and published novels under his own name. Several of them were filmed with great success in Great Britain and the USA in the following decades , including the templates for Malta Story , directed by Brian Desmond Hurst , and The Man Who Never Existed for director Ronald Neame in England . In 1956 Balchin moved abroad, where he wrote scripts for Hollywood, among others . For the psychological thriller 23 Steps to the Abyss with Van Johnson in the lead role, he worked as a screenwriter in 1956, directed by Henry Hathaway . In 1961 Balchin returned to England. There, under the direction of Roy Ward Baker, the screenplay for the film Summer of the Cursed with Dirk Bogarde , John Mills and Mylène Demongeot was created .

The grave of the writer Nigel Balchin in Hampstead Cemetery, London

Balchin died on May 17, 1970 at the age of 61 in a nursing home in the London borough of Hampstead and was buried in Hampstead Cemetery.

Awards

bibliography

Novels
  • No Sky (1934)
  • Simple Life (1935)
  • Lightbody on Liberty (1936)
  • Darkness Falls from the Air (1942)
  • The Small Back Room (1943)
  • Mine Own Executioner (1945)
  • Lord, I Was Afraid (1947)
  • The Borgia Testament (1948)
  • A Sort of Traitors (1949)
  • A Way Through the Wood (1951)
  • Sundry Creditors (1953)
  • The Fall of the Sparrow (1955)
  • Seen Dimly Before Dawn (1962)
  • In the Absence of Mrs. Petersen (1966)
    • German: It started so harmlessly or the other Mrs. Petersen. Translated by Susanne Graf and Felicitas Heinsen. Krüger, Stuttgart and Hamburg 1969, DNB 455602484 .
  • Kings of Infinite Space (1967)
  • A way through the wood
  • Seen dimly before dawn
    • German: Her name was Leonie. Translated by Susanne Graf and Felicitas Heinsen. Krüger, Hamburg 1967, DNB 455602506 .
  • Sundry Creditors
    • German: A big family? Transfer from Eva-Maria Dahm. Krüger, Hamburg 1955, DNB 450213854 .
  • The small backroom
  • The Borgia Testament: [novel]. Translated by Herberth E. Herlitschka. Steinberg-Verlag, Zurich and [Nuremberg] 1951, DNB 57211625X .
  • Mine own Executioner (1945)
    • German: My own executioner. Translated by Herberth E. Herlitschka. Steinberg-Verlag, Zurich 1948, DNB 992987881 . Also as: You cannot escape yourself: A novel from the practice of a psychiatrist. Translated by Herberth E. Herlitschka. Krüger, Hamburg 1950, DNB 450213870 .
  • Among Friends
Collections
  • Last Recollections of My Uncle Charles (1954)
Short stories
  • God and the Machine (1954, in: Nigel Balchin: Last Recollections of My Uncle Charles )
  • Mrs. Sludge (1954, in: Nigel Balchin: Last Recollections of My Uncle Charles )
  • Cabinet Decision (1959, in: Isabel S. Gordon and Sophie Sorkin (Eds.): The Armchair Science Reader )
  • The Master (1961, in: Michael Sissons (Ed.): In the Dead of Night )
Play
  • Lennie's Point of View
    • German: The night of the optimist: One piece. German adaptation by Wilhelm Berner. Distribution and publishing house for German stage writers and stage composers, Hamburg 1963, DNB 790467801 .

Filmography (selection)

movie theater

script

template

watch TV

  • 1954–1959: BBC Sunday-Night Theater (TV series, 3 episodes)
  • 1959: Mine Own Executioner (TV movie)
  • 1960: Mijn Eigen beul (TV movie)
  • 1962: The Hatchet Man (TV movie)
  • 1965: ITV Play of the Week (TV series, 1 episode)
  • 1967: Uncle Charles (TV series, 1 episode)
  • 1969: ITV Saturday Night Theater (TV series, 1 episode)
  • 1970: Teatro de misterio (TV series, 1 episode)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Portrait of Nigel Balchin in: CliveJames ( Memento of the original from November 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.clivejames.com
personal data
SURNAME Balchin, Nigel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Balchin, Nigel Marlin (maiden name); Spade, Mark (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British novelist and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH December 3, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Potterne , Wiltshire
DATE OF DEATH 17th May 1970
Place of death London , England