About

Known credits:
29
Birthday:
1911-03-31
Place of birth:
Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England, UK
Website:
N/A

Robert Hamer

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Robert James Hamer (31 March 1911, Kidderminster, Worcestershire – 4 December 1963, London) was a British film director and screenwriter. He was the son of the actor Gerald Hamer (1886-1972).

Hamer was won a scholarship to Cambridge University but was sent down (expelled) from Cambridge, and began his career in 1934 as a cutting room assistant and from 1935 worked as a film editor involved with such films as Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939) co-produced by Charles Laughton. At the end of the 1930s, he worked on documentaries for the GPO Film Unit.

When his boss at the GPO Alberto Cavalcanti moved to Ealing Studios, Hamer was invited to join him there. He gained some experience as a director by substituting for colleagues and contributed the 'haunted mirror' sequence to Dead of Night (1945). He followed this with the three Ealing films under his own name for which he is best remembered: Pink String and Sealing Wax (1946), It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), both featuring Googie Withers, and the black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), with Dennis Price and Alec Guinness.

Hamer died of pneumonia at the age of 52 at St Thomas's Hospital in London. An alcoholic, who was homosexual in an era when it was taboo in the UK, Hamer's career "now looks like the most serious miscarriage of talent in the postwar British cinema", according to film critic David Thomson.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Hamer, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

Known for

Directing
1960 School for Scoundrels Directing Director 60
Fair
1959 The Scapegoat Directing Director 59
Average
1957 Bernard Shaw Directing Director N/A
N/A
1955 To Paris with Love Directing Director 58
Average
1954 Father Brown Directing Director 58
Average
1953 The Long Memory Directing Director 59
Average
1952 His Excellency Directing Director 59
Average
1949 The Spider and the Fly Directing Director 59
Average
1949 Kind Hearts and Coronets Directing Director 68
Fair
1947 It Always Rains on Sunday Directing Director 59
Average
1945 Pink String and Sealing Wax Directing Director 58
Average
1945 Dead of Night Directing Director 63
Fair

Writing
1964 A Jolly Bad Fellow Writing Writer 59
Average
1959 The Scapegoat Writing Screenplay 59
Average
1954 Father Brown Writing Screenplay 58
Average
1953 The Long Memory Writing Screenplay 59
Average
1952 His Excellency Writing Screenplay 59
Average
1949 Kind Hearts and Coronets Writing Screenplay 68
Fair
1947 It Always Rains on Sunday Writing Writer 59
Average
1943 San Demetrio London Writing Writer 59
Average

Production
1943 San Demetrio London Production Producer 59
Average

Crew
1955 Rowlandson's England Crew Script N/A
N/A
1945 Pink String and Sealing Wax Crew Additional Writing 58
Average

Editing
1942 The Foreman Went to France Editing Editor 59
Average
1941 Ships with Wings Editing Editor 58
Average
1941 Turned Out Nice Again Editing Editor 59
Average
1940 French Communique Editing Editor N/A
N/A
1939 Jamaica Inn Editing Editor 59
Average
1938 St. Martin's Lane Editing Editor 59
Average