Victor Saville

Produttore, Regista, Sceneggiatore

25 settembre 1895 — 8 maggio 1979 (83 anni)
Victor Saville (25 September 1895, Birmingham, England – 8 May 1979, London) was an English film director, producer and screenwriter. He directed 39 films between 1927 and 1954. He also produced 36 films between 1923 and 1962.

He produced his first film, Woman to Woman, with Michael Balcon in 1923, and on the back of its success produced pictures for the veteran director Maurice Elvey, including the classic British silent Hindle Wakes (1927). His first picture as director was The Arcadians (1927). In 1929 he and Balcon worked together again on a talkie remake of Woman to Woman for Balcon's company, Gainsborough Pictures. This time Saville directed it.

From 1931, as Gainsborough Pictures and the Gaumont British Picture Corporation joined forces, Saville produced a string of comedies, musicals and dramas for Gainsborough and Gaumont-British, including the popular Jessie Matthews pictures. In 1937, he left to set up his own production company, Victor Saville Productions, and made three pictures for Alexander Korda's London Films at Denham studios.

As an independent producer he had purchased the film rights to A. J. Cronin's novel The Citadel. He was persuaded to sell them to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in return for the chance to produce the film and another big-budget adaptation, Goodbye Mr Chips (1939). Both films starred Robert Donat and were a great success in the USA as well as in Britain, providing Saville with a passport to Hollywood.

When the war broke out in 1939, Saville was in America and was advised to remain there. He produced pictures in support of the war effort, such as The Mortal Storm and Forever and a Day (1943) (in which he worked for the last time with his former star Jessie Matthews), and in 1945 Tonight and Every Night, based on the history of the Windmill Theatre in London.

After the war Saville continued directing films for MGM but eventually returned to Britain. Saville acquired production rights for Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer mysteries and produced a few features, though Spillane thought he was interested in doing so only to acquire the money to produce The Silver Chalice. He produced two final films in the 1960s, The Greengage Summer (1961), adapted from the novel of the same name, and Mix Me a Person (1962).

Film e Serie su Plex

  • Le tre spie
    Le tre spie1937
  • Patrizia e il dittatore
    Patrizia e il dittatore1937

Famoso per

  • Un bacio e una pistola
    Un bacio e una pistola1955
  • Addio, mr. Chips!
    Addio, mr. Chips!1939
  • Bufera mortale
    Bufera mortale1940
  • Prigioniera di un segreto
    Prigioniera di un segreto1943
  • Al di sopra di ogni sospetto
    Al di sopra di ogni sospetto1943
  • La cittadella
    La cittadella1938
  • Kim
    Kim1950
  • Il delfino verde
    Il delfino verde1947
  • Il calice d'argento
    Il calice d'argento1954
  • Le tre spie
    Le tre spie1937
  • Stanotte ed ogni notte
    Stanotte ed ogni notte1945
  • Alto tradimento
    Alto tradimento1949
  • Anni verdi
    Anni verdi1946
  • Una ragazza ed una pistola
    Una ragazza ed una pistola1957
  • Peccatori senza peccato
    Peccatori senza peccato1947
  • Paradiso in fiore
    Paradiso in fiore1934
  • Patrizia e il dittatore
    Patrizia e il dittatore1937
  • La lunga notte
    La lunga notte1954
  • Tzigana
    Tzigana1940
  • L'ultima rapina
    L'ultima rapina1951

Filmografia