Lance Comfort
{{Short description|English film director (1908–1966)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2012}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Lance Comfort
| image = Film_director_Lance_Comfort.jpg
| caption = Directing Jess Conrad in Rag Doll (1961)
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1908|8|11|df=y}}
| birth_place = Harrow, London, England
| death_date = {{death date and age|1966|8|25|1908|8|11|df=y}}
| death_place = Worthing, Sussex, England
| restingplace =
| othername =
| occupation = Film director, producer
| yearsactive = 1945–1965
| spouse =
}}
Lance Comfort (11 August 1908 – 25 August 1966) was an English film director. He was a prolific maker of B movies from 1945 to 1965.
Early life
Lance Comfort was born in Harrow, London on 11 August 1908.
Career
In a career spanning over 25 years, he became one of the most prolific film directors in Britain, though he never gained critical attention and remained on the fringes of the film industry, creating mostly B movies.{{Cite web|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/552314/index.html|title=BFI Screenonline: Comfort, Lance (1908–1966) Biography|website=screenonline.org.uk}}
Comfort carried on working almost right up to his death in Worthing, Sussex, on 25 August 1966.{{Cite web|url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b9eee6941|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160311210854/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b9eee6941|url-status=dead|archive-date=11 March 2016|title=Lance Comfort|website=BFI}}
Critical assessment
The film historians Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane praise Comfort's gifts "in the confident exercise of melodramatic impulses in the interests of illuminating character and relationship, in a decorative visual style to serve these impulses, and in giving their heads to string of dominant actors". They add that all of his films "are persuasive narratives, marked by absence of sentimentality and the whiff of human reality".Steve Chibnall & Brian McFarlane, The British 'B' Film, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2009, pp. 140–43.
Filmography
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
- Penn of Pennsylvania (1941)
- Hatter's Castle (1942)
- Those Kids from Town (1942)
- Squadron Leader X (1943)
- Escape to Danger (1943)
- When We Are Married (1943)
- Old Mother Riley Detective (1943)
- Hotel Reserve (1944)
- Great Day (1945)
- Bedelia (1946)
- Temptation Harbour (1947)
- Daughter of Darkness (1948)
- Silent Dust (1949)
- Portrait of Clare (1950)
- Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents (1953–1957)
- The Girl on the Pier (1953)
- Bang! You're Dead (1954)
- Eight O'Clock Walk (1954)
- The Man in the Road (1956)
- Face in the Night (1957)
- Man from Tangier (1957)
- At the Stroke of Nine (1957)
- The Ugly Duckling (1959)
- Make Mine a Million (1959)
- The Breaking Point (1961)
- Rag Doll (1961)
- Pit of Darkness (1961)
- The Painted Smile (1961)
- Touch of Death (1961)
- The Break (1962)
- Tomorrow at Ten (1962)
- Blind Corner (1963)
- Live It Up! (also known as Sing and Swing in the U.S.) (1963)
- Be My Guest (1965)
- Devils of Darkness (1965)
{{div col end}}
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- McFarlane, Brian, Lance Comfort, British Film Makers series, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2002. {{ISBN|0-7190-5484-2}} and {{ISBN|978-0-7190-5484-6}}
- McFarlane, Brian, "Lance Comfort: melodrama and an honourable career", Journal of Popular British Cinema, 1, 1998
External links
- {{IMDb name|0173806|Lance Comfort}}
- {{Screenonline name|552314}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20100118111534/http://www.lovefilm.com/browse/contributor/98662/Lance_Comfort.html lovefilm.com – a selected filmography]
- [http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/scope/documents/2001/may-2001/book-rev-may-2001.pdf Archive: Book Reviews, May 2001]
{{Lance Comfort}}
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Category:English film directors
Category:People from Harrow, London
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