MICHAEL HARRIS' FILM DIRECTORS - FREDDIE FRANCIS (1917-2007)

There are two important stages to the long career of Freddie Francis which spanned over sixty-years. First there is his Academy Award winning work as a cinematographer and secondly, one cannot ignore his prolific output as a director of low budget British horror films. During this phase of his career, Francis worked for both the Hammer and Amicus studios turning out some notable box office hits during the British horror wave of the 1960's-70's.

Francis began his career as a Clapperboy at 17 and was ready to become a Camera Operator by 1939, but war service interrupted his progression and he served with the Army Kinematographic Service. At the end of the Second World War he resumed his career as an operator on such films as The Small Back Room (1946), Mine Own Executioner (1947), Moulin Rouge (1952) and Moby Dick (1956).

In 1956, Francis became a fully fledged Cinematographer with A Hill In Korea and from here on he built himself up a reputation as a highly sought after lighting cameraman. Notable credits include Room At The Top (1959), Saturday Night And Saturday Morning and Sons And Lovers (1960) for which he earned his first Oscar for Best Cinematography.

With an Academy Award to his name, Francis turned to direction realising that he needed to be recognised as a director rather than a cameraman. Apart from his debut feature, which was a rather troubled romantic comedy called Two And Two Make Six (1961), the vast majority of Francis' directorial output was horror films and even though he openly admitted that he had no great affection for the genre, he nevertheless enjoyed some substantial box office hits. These make up the best of his work including the Amicus portmanteau horrors, Dr Terror's House Of Horrors (1965), Torture Garden (1967) and Tales From The Crypt (1972). The latter includes a particuarly moving performance from Peter Cushing as a rubbish collector driven to suicide by his ruthless neighbours who wanted his property, which had considerable land value. But on St Valentine's Day, Cushing rose from his grave to deliver his tormenters a particuarly nasty Valentine card! For Hammer, Francis directed such notable horrors such as Paranoiac (1963), The Evil Of Frankenstein (1964) and the enormously successful Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968).

But despite the success of these films, Francis was firmly "typecast" as a horror film director much to his chagrin and he fell into this trap where nobody would give him the backing to make anything unless it was a horror film. Indeed the best of Francis' work has considerable visual style that papers over the basic material but all too often, he found himself lumbered with inferior projects and as a result of this the quality of his direction varied. For instance, anybody who has seen Son Of Dracula (1974), a dire rock and roll horror film with Ringo Starr as Merlin the Magician and Harry Nillson as Dracula's son would most probably agree. The Creeping Flesh (1972) with Cushing as a Victorian scientist who discovers a skeleton that grows flesh when it makes contact with water stands as one of his best works. Here his style and a stronger script than usual allowed him to overcome the undeniable absurdities of the basic premise. The twist at the end here is completely unexpected! However, by the mid-seventies, the British horror wave was long forgotten and he had been offered nothing but inferior projects that were unworthy of his talents. Therefore, Francis elected to give up the director's chair and go back to working as a Cinematographer.

This decision proved to be the right one because Francis' profile increased with such films as The Elephant Man (1980), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) and Dune (1985). In 1989, he collected his second Oscar for his colour camerawork on Glory (1989). In his later years, Francis won numerous lifetime achievement awards and was generally regarded as one of Britain's finest cameramen. His last credit was for David Lynch's The Straight Story (1989) before his death on 17 March 2007 as a result of complications following a stroke.

In conclusion, Francis may well be better acclaimed as a Cinematographer, but the strength of his best works as a director lead me to believe that he would have enjoyed an equal amount of acclaim in both capacities had been given the opportunity to direct an assignment away from horror that was right for his considerable talents.