Graham Cutts

{{Short description|British film director (1884–1958)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{Use British English|date=March 2025}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Graham Cutts

| image =

| imagesize =

| caption =

| birth_name = John Henry Graham Cutts

| other_names = Jack

| birth_date = 1884

| birth_place = Brighton, Sussex, England

| death_date = 7 February 1958

| death_place = London, England

| occupation = Film director

| yearsactive = 1922–1940

}}

John Henry Graham Cutts (1884{{Efn|Some sources give the birth year as 1885.{{r|Betts}}{{cite book |last1=Katz |first1=Ephraim |title=The Macmillan International Film Encyclopedia |date=6 April 2001 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0333906903 |edition=4th}} The British Film Institute gives 1884.{{r|BFI}} The UK General Register Office shows a John Henry G. Cutts born in Brighton in 1884 Q1. }} – 7 February 1958), known as Graham Cutts, was a British film director, one of the leading British directors in the 1920s. His fellow director A. V. Bramble believed that Gainsborough Pictures had been built on the back of his work.{{r|Low|p=167}} Cutts worked with many leading figures in the UK film and stage world, including Basil Dean, Alfred Hitchcock, Gracie Fields, Ivor Novello, and Noël Coward.[https://web.archive.org/web/20090114120711/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/individual/7922 BFI Database]

He started his career as a northern exhibitor {{cite book |last1=Low |first1=Rachael |title=The History of the British Film 1918 - 1929 · Volume 4 |date=13 September 2013 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781136206344 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6UbaAAAAQBAJ&dq=%22graham+cutts%22+-wikipedia+-hitchcock&pg=PA135}}{{rp|132}} and moved into direction. When opportunities were limited in Britain, he filmed extensively in Europe.{{cite book |last1=Croall |first1=Jonathan |title=From Silent Film Idol to Superman The Life and Career of John Stuart |date=8 June 2023 |publisher=McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers |isbn=9781476689548 |page=32 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PXXCEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22graham+cutts%22+-wikipedia+-hitchcock&pg=PA32}}

Ernest Betts describes him as "[seeming] likely to become a major talent in British films with Woman to Woman which he directed in 1922. Cutts had a polish, a know-how, an intimacy with worldly affairs which impressed the ordinary filmgoer … The Rat, The Wonderful Lie and The Blackguard which Cutts made in the 1920s showed a director who had learned much from the continental school and could match Hollywood in technical virtuosity."{{cite book |last1=Betts |first1=Ernest |title=The Film Business A History of British Cinema 1896-1972 |date=13 October 2023 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781003810148 |page=59 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kNDcEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22graham+cutts%22+-wikipedia+-hitchcock&pg=PA59}} Anthony Slide observes that "Both Graham Cutts and Herbert Wilcox deserve recognition as prominent British filmmakers who realized the necessity to bring over American actors (or more precisely former stars) to appear in their productions and thus assure them an American market."{{cite book |last1=Slide |first1=Anthony |title=Silent Topics Essays on Undocumented Areas of Silent Film |date=2005 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |pages=14–15 |isbn=9780810850163 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-t8vnF3OI8IC&dq=%22graham+cutts%22+-wikipedia+-hitchcock&pg=PA14}}

Cutts directed the sensational Cocaine (1922), the most controversial film of the 1920s.{{cite book |last1=Robertson |first1=James Crighton |title=The Hidden Cinema: British Film Censorship in Action, 1913–1975 |date=1993 |page=25 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780415090346 |url=https://archive.org/details/hiddencinemabrit0000robe/mode/2up?q=cutts}}

Reviewing Paddy the Next Best Thing (1923), Variety concluded "This is one of the best British films yet made", and the Kinematograph Weekly lauded Cutts' "smooth" direction and his skill in the humorous sections.{{cite book |last1= Cherchi Usai |first1=Paolo |title=The Griffith Project, Volume 10 Films Produced 1919-1946 |date=25 July 2019 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=9781839020001 |page=144 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dOXxDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22graham+cutts%22+-wikipedia+-hitchcock&pg=PA144}}

His daughter was actress Patricia Cutts (1926–1974).