:Jack Howells
{{Short description|Welsh film director (1913–1990)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
Thomas John Howells (July 1913 – 6 September 1990) was a Welsh film-maker, who is best remembered for his 1962 documentary Dylan Thomas (also known as A Tribute to Dylan Thomas), the only Welsh film to have won an Academy Award, for Documentary Short Subject in 1963.{{Cite web |title=1962 (35th), Documentary (Short Subject) |url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1963 |access-date=20 August 2024 |website=Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences}}{{cite web |url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/152887/Dylan-Thomas/details |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110520033915/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/152887/Dylan-Thomas/details |url-status=dead |archive-date=2011-05-20 |department=Movies & TV Dept. |work=The New York Times |date=2011 |title=New York Times: Dylan Thomas |accessdate=2008-05-26}}
Career
Howells was born in Abertysswg near Rhymney and was a school teacher before switching to film-making, working within the Pathe Documentary Unit before going freelance. He wrote around 30 documentaries during the course of his career, and from the 1960s produced work for HTV, including Return To Rhymney (1972) and Penclawdd Wedding (1974). A frequent musical collaborator was Edward Williams.Russell, Patrick, Taylor, James Piers (ed.). Shadows of Progress: Documentary Film in Post War Britain (2019), Chapter 8, '[https://books.google.com/books?id=2wn8DwAAQBAJ&dq=%22shadows+of+progress%22+%22Jack+Howells+Productions%22&pg=PT170 The World Still Sings: Jack Howells]', by Dave Berry.
Although best known for his impressionistic and lyrical documentaries, he also wrote screenplays for around 30 non-TV feature films, including Front Page Story (1953) and Skid Kids (1953).{{cite book |editor1-first=John |editor1-last=Davies|editor1-link=John Davies (historian)|editor2-first=Nigel |editor2-last=Jenkins | editor2-link=Nigel Jenkins| editor3-first=Baines |editor3-last=Menna|editor4-first=Peredur I. |editor4-last=Lynch|title=The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales |year=2008 |publisher=University of Wales Press |location=Cardiff|page=380 |isbn=978-0-7083-1953-6}}
Selected filmography
- [http://timeimage.org.uk/films-of-the-british-council/cricket-1950/ Cricket] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160322034214/http://timeimage.org.uk/films-of-the-british-council/cricket-1950/ |date=22 March 2016 }} (1950) – scriptwriter
- Elstree Story (1952) – writer
References
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External links
- {{IMDb name| id=0398096}}
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