Kenneth Cooper Annakin, OBE (10 August 1914 – 22 April 2009) was an English film director.
His career spanned half a century, beginning in the early 1940s and ending in 1992, and in the 1960s he was noticed by critics with large-scale adventure epic and comedies films, like Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, Battle of the Bulge, The Biggest Bundle of Them All and Monte Carlo or Bust!. During his career, Annakin directed nearly 50 pictures.
Biography
Annakin was born in and grew up in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire where he attended the local grammar school. After leaving school he became a trainee income tax inspector in the city of Hull. Annakin subsequently decided to emigrate to New Zealand, and travelled around the world in a variety of jobs.
He was compere and stage manager of Eugene Permanent Waving Company's roadshow, touring the Northern provinces. When World War II broke out, Annakin became a firefighter in Soho, then joined the Royal Air Force.
Documentaries
Injured in the Liverpool Blitz, Annakin joined the RAF Film Unit, where he worked as a camera operator on propaganda films for the Ministry of Information and the British Council. We Serve (1942), a recruiting film for women, was directed by Carol Reed, who made Annakin his assistant director; Annakin subsequently directed several training films for Verity Films, a group led by Sydney Box, who was soon to become head of Gainsborough Pictures.
His early documentaries included London 1942 (1942), A Ride with Uncle Joe (1943), Make Fruitful the Land (1945), We of the West Riding (1945), English Criminal Justice (1946), It Began on the Clyde (1946) and Fenlands (1946).
Feature films and Gainsborough Pictures
Annakin had made a number of documentaries for Sydney Box, and when Box took over as head of Gainsborough Pictures he brought Annakin with him and assigned him to his first feature, Holiday Camp (1947). It was a solid hit and launched Annakin's career. Box called in Annakin to replace Michael Charlton, who was directing Miranda (1948) with Glynis Johns. The resulting film was another success.
Broken Journey (1948) with Phyllis Calvert was a commercial disappointment. However, Quartet (1948), an anthology film based on stories by W. Somerset Maugham, for which Annakin directed one segment, was well received.
Holiday Camp featured the Huggetts, a working-class family living in suburban England headed by Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison. They were spun off into their own vehicle directed by Annakin, Here Come the Huggetts (1948) with Petula Clark, Jane Hylton, and Susan Shaw as their young daughters, Amy Veness as their grandmother and Diana Dors as their cousin. It was popular and led to Vote for Huggett (1949) and The Huggetts Abroad (1949).
Associated British
Annakin moved to Associated British Pictures Corporation, for whom he directed Landfall (1949), a war film; and Double Confession (1950), a thriller. He did another installment for an anthology movie based on Maugham stories, Trio (1950).
For producer George Brown, Annakin did the comedy Hotel Sahara (1951) with Peter Ustinov and Yvonne de Carlo.
Walt Disney
Annakin then received an offer from Walt Disney to make The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952) with Richard Todd.
He made an action film set during the Malayan Emergency, the United Artists film The Planter's Wife (1952) with Jack Hawkins and Claudette Colbert, which was a big hit in Britain.
Disney reunited Annakin and Todd on The Sword and the Rose (1953), co-starring Glynis Johns; it was a commercial disappointment. Annakin was offered the chance to direct a third historical film with Richard Todd, Rob Roy, but John Davis refused to let him out of his contract with Rank.
Annakin made a comedy, You Know What Sailors Are (1954) then did another imperial adventure story with Hawkins, The Seekers (1954). He arranged for Rank to buy the rights to a Pearl Buck novel The Hidden Flower but then decided not to make it as he felt interracial romance was out of date. He worked on a film set in Burma, Elephant Bill but John Davis of Rank refused to make it as it was too expensive.