
Directing
Gavin Millar
Born 1938-01-11 · Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, UK
Gavin Millar (11 January 1938 – 20 April 2022) was a Scottish film director, critic and television presenter. Millar was born in Clydebank, near Glasgow, the son of Tom Millar and his wife Rita (née Osborne). The family relocated to the Midlands when he was nine and he was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham. He undertook national service in the Royal Air Force and then read English at Christ Church, Oxford from 1958 to 1961. Millar took a postgraduate film course at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. Millar was a film critic for The Listener from 1970 to 1984. He also contributed to Sight and Sound and the London Review of Books. He wrote a new section to Karel Reisz's book The Technique of Film Editing for the 1968 edition. On television, he wrote, produced and presented Arena Cinema for the BBC from 1976 to 1980, and wrote and presented numerous other cinema and visual arts documentaries. In 1980, he directed Dennis Potter's Cream in My Coffee for London Weekend Television, which received a BAFTA nomination. His first feature film as director was 1985's Dreamchild. He would later collaborate with Dreamchild's producer Rick McCallum again on the episode Peking, March 1910, part of George Lucas's television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in 1993. It was later re-edited to be part of Journey of Radiance when the series became The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones on its DVD release. His 1994 television film Pat and Margaret, featuring Victoria Wood, received a further BAFTA nomination, and Housewife, 49 (2006), a later collaboration with Wood, won the 2007 award. Millar died of a brain tumour on 20 April 2022, aged 84. He was survived by his five children and by six grandchildren.
Acting credits
6.6Tommy Fawkes wants to be a successful comedian. After his Las Vegas debut is a failure, he returns to Blackpool where his father—also a comedian—started, and where he spent the summers of his childhood.
Funny Bones
1995
5.0Documentary about the British film studio. First appeared on the BBC television programme Omnibus.
Made In Ealing: The Story of Ealing Studios
1986
8.5This documentary reunites director Peter Lennon and cinematographer Raoul Coutard, who recount the making of their then controversial but now classic documentary on Ireland in the Sixties. Rocky Road to Dublin was screened for only a few weeks at a single Dublin theatre.
The Making of Rocky Road to Dublin
2004
Episode of the BBC TV series focusing on Franc Roddam's 1979 film "Quadrophenia."
Talking Pictures: Quadrophenia
1979
8.0The Eye Hears, the Ear Sees is a 1970 documentary exploring the career of Norman McLaren, a Scots-Canadian animator known for his pioneering work in experimental animation, using innovative techniques to blend visual art with sound design.
The Eye Hears, the Ear Sees
1970
NRInterview with French director Jacques Tati, focusing on his on-screen persona, Monsieur Hulot. Produced for the British television series "Omnibus".
Monsieur Hulot's Work
1976
NRA film, first broadcast in 1970, that celebrates the life and work of author Virginia Woolf through the memories of her friends and relations.
Virginia Woolf: A Night's Darkness, A Day's Sail
1970
Norman McLaren was a cinematic genius who made films without cameras, and music without instruments. He produced sixty films in a stunning range of styles and techniques, collecting over 200 international awards, and world recognition. In Creative Process, director Donald McWilliams demystifies the process of artistic creation. Drawing on McLaren's private film vaults, a gold mine of experimental footage and uncompleted films, McWilliams explores McLaren's methods, including his celebrated "pixillation" technique, and his daring forays into animated surrealism.
Creative Process: Norman McLaren
1990
Behind the camera
6.680-year-old Alice Hargreaves is about to visit Columbia University to attend a reception in honour of author Lewis Carroll. As a child, Alice's close friendship with the writer was the creative catalyst for Carroll's most beloved work. However, as Alice reflects on her experiences with the author, she slowly realises the complexity of their bond has had lasting, deeply felt ramifications.
Dreamchild
1985
6.1Somewhere in England, in the Autumn of 1955, a widowed father and his son live an idyllic life together. Only their gas station happens to sit on a piece of land that a local developer wants to buy. And when he won't take no for an answer, and sets government inspectors and social works onto Danny and his father, Danny and his father decide to get even with Hazell and his pheasant- shooting friends in a manner in keeping with their own family tradition.
Danny the Champion of the World
1989
6.0The elder Jones's lecture tour takes parents and son to India, where Indy explores the meaning of faith in oneself with Theosophist philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti. Then, when Indy falls victim to typhoid fever in China, his mother must have faith and trust that the villagers' ancient medicines will save him.
The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Journey of Radiance
2000
6.0Downtrodden wife and mother Nella's life takes an unexpected turn for the better after she joins the Women's Voluntary Service office in Barrow-in-Furness during the Second World War. However, her new-found happiness is shattered when her son Cliff leaves to join the troops - provoking a painful confrontation with her husband Will.
Housewife, 49
2006
7.5A play about an ambitious young manager of a Dixons-style electrical warehouse who gets saddled with a 65-year-old re-trainee on a frenetic bank holiday.
King of Fridges
2004
7.0Bess Throckmorton, a farmer's daughter from Devon, encounters an ancient relative who soon reveals himself to be the ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh, determined to escape the Tower of London once and for all and return to Devon. When Sir Raleigh learns that a pair of dastardly brothers have designs on his ancestors' farm, he devises a plan to thwart them.
My Friend Walter
1992
5.7At the request of his old war time colleague Ailsa Brimley, George Smiley agrees to look into the murder of Stella Rode. Brimley had only just received a letter from her saying she feared for her life at her husband's hand. The husband, Stanley Rode teaches at Carne School, but Smiley is doubtful that he had anything to do with his wife's death. As Smiley investigates, he learns that Stella was a nosy busybody who loved to learn other's little secrets and then gossip about them - or possibly blackmail them. When a student is killed and Smiley unearths a secret, he has the evidence to name the killer.Based on John Le Carré's 1962 thriller (his first) in which George Smiley is brought out of spy retirement to solve a murder in a British public school. The setting is based on Le Carre"s own schooldays in Sherborne and his brief experience teaching at Eton.
A Murder of Quality
1991
9.0"All I said was the gramophone's too loud." Tony and Zoe Lyle 's silly row starts like any other, but Tony finds that Zoe means it this time. She's walking out and he's got a week to save a marriage that he hasn't looked at in 18 years, and with it all the trappings of a good life in Maida Vale.
Goodbye
1975
6.2Past and present intertwine: An elderly couple returns to the hotel where they became close when they were young and flashbacks to the earlier visit reveal the origins of both their pleasures and problems. Somewhere between the past and the present, Dennis Potter attempted to find "the shape of a life, of two lives..."
Cream in My Coffee
1980
7.3Eustace and Dorrie Edgehill have decided to leave Samola, a British protectorate in the Pacific. After the failure of his latest harebrained scheme, no one is likely to give Eustace a job now. Or are they?
Mr. and Mrs. Edgehill
1985
5.7Scoop is a 1987 TV film directed by Gavin Millar, adapted by William Boyd from the 1938 satirical novel Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. It was produced by Sue Birtwistle with executive producers Nick Elliott and Patrick Garland. Original music was made by Stanley Myers. The story is about a reporter sent to Ishmaelia (a fictional African state) by accident.
Scoop
1987
6.5A look at the classic "Cinderella" story from the perspective of one of her 'ugly' stepsisters
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
2002
6.01949 the early years of the Cold War. Albert Schweitzer has become one of the most admired men in the world. The "jungle doctor" Albert Schweitzer tells the story of a philosopher and physician who promoted peace during the Cold War, built a hospital in what is now Gabon and proved stronger than the CIA.
Albert Schweitzer
2009
5.8Local journalist, Cameron Colley writes articles that are idealistic, from the viewpoint of the underdog. A twisted serial killer seems to have some motives. His brutal murders are also committed on behalf of the underdog. The stories begin to merge and Cameron find himself inextricably and inextricably implicated by the brutal killer. The arms dealer that Cameron plans to expose is found literally 'disarmed' before he can put pen to paper. The brewery chief, loathed by Cameron, who sold up at the expense of his workers, finds himself permanently unemployable. The police are convened of Cameron's guilt and so are half his friends and colleagues. Cameron is forced to employ all his investigative skills to find the real killer and his motive.
Complicity
2000
9.0When Denis Midgley's father is rushed to hospital, Midgley drops everything to be by his side. They've never really got on, so Midgley wants to be sure he's there if his father ever regains consciousness. As he hates his job as a schoolteacher, and his home-life with his wife, her senile mother and their insolent teenage son, he has no qualms about lingering around the hospital. But as days turn into weeks, his father obstinately refuses to 'slip away', and Denis' motivation for staying by his father's bedside has more and more to do with Valery, a young nurse.
Intensive Care
1982
8.0Trina Lavery returns home to Stoke after 20 years, to look after her ill mother. She learns that Bernard Cleve is also living in Stoke. Bernard was accused of killing Trinas best friend many years ago but was never convicted. Another girl is killed and Bernard is again a suspect. Trina thinks he is innocent but places herself in danger in trying to prove it.
My Fragile Heart
2000
7.7Unexpected events occur when Pat, a glamorous British-born star of American soaps, returns home to plug her auto-biography on television and meets, for the first time since they were teenagers, Margaret her plain and frumpy younger sister. The meeting is painful for both women highlighting the vast differences in their lives and resurrecting painful memories of their unhappy childhood with an uncaring, errant mother. The tabloid press smell a juicy story and a race ensues to trace the whereabouts of the long lost parent.
Pat and Margaret
1994
NRJulie Walters stars as a single mother seemingly haunted by a sinister telephone system that seems to have become an evil intelligence in its own right.
Unfair Exchanges
1985
8.5A series of monologues.
Talking Heads 2
1998
NRThe fictional story about the little dog that discovered the FIFA World Cup Trophy after it was stolen in 1966.
Pickles: The Dog Who Won the World Cup
2006
4.0A man, whose companion dies of AIDS, confronts his lover's ex-wife and the two end up building a friendship while coping with the emotional aftermath of the death.
Tidy Endings
1988
8.0What is it that Edgar Garrett sees, or thinks he sees, on his farm one morning in the mists of early spring? Whatever it is, one thing is certain. Life will never be the same again for him and his family.
The Russian Soldier
1986
7.0Bev Bodger is a married teacher tempted by an old school boyfriend to enjoy a little sex and chocolate in Paris.
Sex & Chocolate
1997
4.6An enjoyable story of a 13-year-old girl, Louise, who lives alone with her widowed mother. Louise is sent off to a boarding school, but not before she discovers some secret documents kept hidden by her father. A curious look reveals that her father was a member of the secret order of Freemasons. When she finally gets to school, she tries to explain to her friends what the Freemasons are. Later, Louise's mother discovers a box of condoms in her daughter's room and wrongly presumes that the girl is sexually active.
Secrets
1983