Sapphire Films

{{Short description|British television production company}}

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

{{Infobox company

| name = Sapphire Films Ltd.

| industry = Television production

| founder = Hannah Weinstein

}}

Sapphire Films Ltd. was a British television production company, active from 1955 until 1961. Amongst their best-known series are The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, The Buccaneers, The Four Just Men and Sword of Freedom, produced for Lew Grade's ITC and screened on ITV in the UK, as well as being syndicated in the United States.{{cite book|author1=Andreas Fickers|author2=Catherine Johnson|title=Transnational Television History: A Comparative Approach|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PpfbAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA77|date=13 September 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-76032-8|pages=77–78}}

Sapphire Films was founded by producer Hannah Weinstein with initial funds from the Hollywood branch of the Communist Party USA.{{cite news|last=Matthews|first=Tom Dewe|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/oct/07/books.featuresreviews1|title=The outlaws|work=The Guardian|date=October 7, 2006|accessdate=January 15, 2018}} Weinstein hired nearly two-dozen blacklisted American writers to script The Adventures of Robin Hood (and later The Four Just Men) under pseudonyms, and instituted elaborate security measures to ensure that the writers' true identities remained secret.

Sapphire Films ceased to function in late 1961 owing to financial problems caused by Weinstein's then husband, Jonthan Fisher.{{cite book|last=Prime|first=Rebecca|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aHlMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT129|title=Hollywood Exiles in Europe: The Blacklist and Cold War Film Culture|location=New Brunswick, New Jersey & London|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=2014|page=129|isbn=9780813570860}}