Ken Annakin was one of the world's leading filmmakers. He will be missed by cinema fans throughout the world.

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The film industry and international citizenry lost a valued friend with the passing of directorial giant Ken Annakin April 22, 2009.

To those who knew him it would be universally said that the only ingredient to match his gigantic talent was his humanity.  His spirit of adventure and cinema challenge remained to the end of his life, as I could personally attest.  Every conversation with Ken included fresh creative insight, the thinking of an ever expanding innovator.

Annakin was the third of a trio of brilliant directors and outstanding humanitarians I knew well, preceded chronologically by Mervyn LeRoy and Rouben Mamoulian.  One ingredient that all of these outstanding directors possessed was outstanding insight.  This ability enabled them to understand and expand their innate creativity.

The spirit of the dedicated international adventurer appeared early in Annakin's life.  The Yorkshireman from East Beverley parlayed his Derby winnings into a trip to Australia.  In his words he "bummed around,"- which meant getting familiar with the lay of the land.  He also had a stint as a journalist, which honed his skills for later film script activity.

While working with the Royal Air Force as a mechanic in Liverpool, Annakin was injured as a result of a German air attack.  He sustained 24-hour amnesia.

"There is one full day that I can never account for,"- he told me in one of the earlier interviews I did with him. 

Eventually Annakin's war activity led to him working as a cameraman in British war documentaries.  One of the cinema's great directors, Carol Reed, by then already a legend, liked what he saw in Annakin's professional skills.

"Carol Reed had always been one of my favorites,"- Annakin said.  "One day when I was working with him he said, 'It's time for you to come over on our side.'"-

Reed invited Annakin to move from camera work into the ranks of directing.  From there Annakin came into initial contact with the profession in which he would spend the rest of a productive professional life.

As soon as the war ended Annakin was off on his new career.  He struck pay dirt with the 1947 release "Holiday Camp"- starring Jack Warner, a comedy about family activity surrounding one of the famous Butlin camps, where British families spend vacations economically.  The film's success was further validated by three additional films made on the activities of the Huggett family.

One year later another Annakin comedic gem was released with "Miranda"- starring a saucy Glynis Johns as a mischievous mermaid complicating the lives of married couple Googie Withers and Griffith Jones. 

In another 1948 release Annakin turned in one of his eminent directing efforts in the concluding segment of "Quartet,"- a film based on four short stories by Somerset Maugham, in which the distinguished author provided an introduction and close.  Annakin's "The Colonel's Lady"- was breathtaking in structure and execution. 

Nora Swinburne portrays a kindly, secluded woman who is ignored and cheated upon by her selfish British country aristocrat husband, played by Cecil Parker. 

When Swinburne gains fame for a book of poetry built upon a woman finding the love of her life, Parker feels that he has been humiliated and that she has cheated on him.  To his ultimate shock, she tells him that he was the male model in the story, the man she had loved early in their relationship before he profoundly changed.

The success of "Quartet"- was followed up by "Trio"- in 1950 with three Maugham stories being dramatized.  Annakin directed two of the segments, "Mr. Know-All"- and "The Verger."-

Annakin's versatility was once more evidenced in the 1951 release "Hotel Sahara"- with Yvonne De Carlo and Peter Ustinov cast as co-proprietors of a hotel set in neutral desert expanse during World War Two, delivering double duty laugh lines.  De Carlo uses her charms to prevent dismissal from their own enterprise as she regales forces of both sides of the conflict while Ustinov constantly fears for the worst.

With the 1957 release of "Across the Bridge"- Annakin launched into the world of film noir amid probing psychological drama.  Rod Steiger delivered one of the finest performances of his distinguished career playing an international business swindler who is compelled to elude Scotland Yard and flees to a small Mexican border town.

The film, adapted from a Graham Greene story, finds Steiger totally isolated as the merciless police chief, who detests the wealthy magnate, refusing to allow him to leave town.  The town's citizens detest Steiger and refuse to take his money, turning against him. 

The negative citizen reaction comes after Steiger, to curry favor with authorities, turns in the name of a wanted man who is subsequently killed by police.  He was perceived as a hero of the oppressed people.  The presence of his widow pursues Steiger and ultimately he is befriended only by a dog named Dolores as he is compelled to sleep outdoors after being turned out of the hotel where he had stayed.

Since "Across the Bridge"- was a British J. Arthur Rank production, a standing provision involved filming in Britain or Europe, and so Annakin shot the film in Spain as that nation was used to substitute for Mexico.

A good talent indicator is how a professional is treated by the top people in that given profession.  In Ken Annakin's case he was held in the highest esteem and given important responsibilities by two of the biggest names in Hollywood history, Walt Disney and Darryl F. Zanuck. 

In the Annakin  tradition, the films that so greatly enhanced Annakin's reputation for those two film luminaries were international efforts.

Annakin's first Disney film was "Robin Hood and His Merrie Men"- starring Richard Todd, a frequent Annakin leading man, and Peter Finch.  The lush color and radiant cinematography of long time friend and ultimate Beverly Hills neighbor Guy Green were among the ingredients that generated robust international box office.

The 1959 release "The Third Man on the Mountain"- was filmed in Switzerland.  It involves the effort of James MacArthur to climb a Matterhorn-like mountain called The Citadel.

"Walt Disney told me that "-The Third Man on the Mountain' was his favorite film,"- Annakin told me.  "What Walt liked about it was the idea of man seeking to defy the odds and certain forces of nature to achieve a goal.  Walt liked the message of the film.  It was so much like his own life of establishing goals and doing things that so many others felt could not be accomplished."-

In 1960 the biggest moneymaker of Annakin's career, and one of the top hundred grossing films in cinema history, "Swiss Family Robinson,"- was released.  A shipwrecked Swiss family headed by John Mills and Dorothy McGuire arrive by raft in the lush tropical island of Tobago. 

Once more the topic was challenging the forces of nature and beating the odds in a colorful international destination.  Again James MacArthur appeared, as did another of Annakin's favorite performers, Janet Munro.

At that point Darryl F. Zanuck came into Annakin's life.  One of his greatest career challenges occurred, one that was brilliantly surmounted.  Cornelius Ryan's blockbuster bestseller about the allied D-Day invasion, "The Longest Day,"- was being filmed and Annakin was called upon to direct the most challenging invasion sequences of the Omaha Beach invasion.

"At the time filming was being done I would go for walks with Darryl Zanuck after dinner,"- Annakin recollected in a personal interview I did.  "He was always creating.  We had contests during those walks to see who could come up with the most creative ideas."-

Performing along with a stellar cast of movie giants in the 1962 release along with Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery, Robert Ryan, Rod Steiger, and Richard Burton, to name but a few, was James MacArthur, who became a close personal friend while appearing in numerous of Annakin's films. 

MacArthur in the April 24 Los Angeles Times obituary on Annakin called him "a general, which a director has to be, but he was a man of great intelligence and a very warm soul.  But he knew what he wanted and he was going to get it."-

MacArthur capsulated the essence of Annakin:

"Whether it was working with tigers, elephants and snakes on the island of Tobago for "-Swiss Family Robinson,' shooting in a crevice in the mountains of Switzerland for "-Third Man on the Mountain' or directing dozens of tanks in the snowy mountains of Spain for "-Battle of the Bulge,' he just got it done.  This was his spirit."-

The last film to which MacArthur alluded, "Battle of the Bulge,"- released in 1965, contained a star-studded cast on the order of "The Longest Day"- and included, along with aforementioned MacArthur, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, Dana Andrews, Robert Shaw, and Charles Bronson. 

As in the tradition of "The Longest Day"-, "Battle of the Bulge"- contains some of the most authentically and artistically rendered war scenes.

In 1965 another Annakin international spectacle was released, this one containing brilliant flying sequences.  "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines"- also contained numerous laugh lines from British comedy greats Peter Ustinov, Terry-Thomas, and Benny Hill in a film based on an air race from London to Paris during the early years of aviation. 

The innovative script co-written by Annakin with Jack Davies received an Academy Award nomination.

Robert Wagner, who starred with Raquel Welch, Edward G. Robinson, and Vittorio De Sica in the 1968 crime spoof  "The Biggest Bundle of Them All,"- became a longtime friend. 

"(He) just loved the movies, and he brought so much enthusiasm to it,"- Wagner explained.  "He was just very adventurous.  He had a tremendous curiosity, and up until the end of his life, he was still involved with the intrigue and the romance of making movies."-

Annakin's autobiography "So You Wanna Be a Director?"- was published in 2001 and detailed his adventurous life with rich sketches on his films and international locations.  It contained the combination of keen insight, candor, and humility, ingredients that those who had the privilege to know him enjoyed and appreciated.

In 2002 Annakin had the honor of Order of the British Empire conferred on him by Queen Elizabeth.  The British National Film Institute held a champagne dinner in his honor in conjunction with playing his films at the National Theatre for one month.

Annakin was married for the final half century of his life to a partner who not only shared a family and married life with him, but who was also a shrewd adviser regarding his film activity.  When Ken met Pauline in London she was working in the film industry.  Her love for it complemented his own. 
 

Authors Bio:
Began in the journalism field in hometown of Los Angeles. Started as Sports Editor and Movie Writer at Inglewood Daily News chain after working in sportswriting of high school events at the Los Angeles Examiner.



Received a bachelor's in political science with history and English minors at California State University at Northridge. Later received a Juris Doctorate degree from University of San Fernando Valley College of Law, serving as editor of the Law Review.



Wrote international historical work "Struggle for the Holy Land: Arabs, Jews and the Emergence of Israel." In the movie historical field wrote "Early Film Noir", "L.A. Noir" and "Hitchcock and the Methods of Suspense."



On the political essay front, have done nearly 500 articles, posting at the former Political Strategy which is now Political Cortex along with The Smirking Chimp.