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B
from British Film Directors
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
Summary
Roy Ward BAKER
In a long and remarkably varied career, Roy Ward Baker (often credited as Roy Baker in his early films) demonstrated an assured ability to impose a distinctive style on often highly commercial material. Born in London on 19 December 1916, he entered the industry in 1933 with Gainsborough and followed the classic industry career path, working his way up from tea-boy to runner and eventually assistant director. During the Second World War he worked with the Army Kinematograph Unit where he met the writer and producer Eric Ambler who was to give him his first feature credit as director on The October Man (1947). This striking debut established many of the qualities which were to distinguish Baker's best work. The film's complex, noirish plot is taughtly controlled, the visual style is lean but atmospheric and there is a detailed sense of both place and time. Baker also draws an unusually ambiguous performance from John Mills as the psychologically troubled central character who is accused of murder.
Much of Baker's work over the next five years was relatively routine, but the success of his Second World War submarine drama Morning Departure (1950) was to take him briefly to Hollywood. Traversing familiar territory for the British war film, Morning Departure features a cast of stalwart heroic types (John Mills, Richard ATTENBOROUGH, Nigel Patrick) trying to remain calm while faced with the possibility that they won't be rescued from their disabled submarine. Baker intensifies the sense of impending doom with his understated handling, a technique that was to serve him well again on A Night to Remember (1958).
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- British Film DirectorsA Critical Guide, pp. 23 - 38Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2007