Victor Saville

Directing

Victor Saville

Born — Died

1895-09-25 — 1979-05-08

Place of birth

Birmingham, England, UK

Known for

Directing

Credits

40 titles

Victor Saville (25 September 1895, Birmingham, England – 8 May 1979, London) was an English film director, producer and screenwriter. He directed 39 films between 1927 and 1954. He also produced 36 films between 1923 and 1962. He produced his first film, Woman to Woman, with Michael Balcon in 1923, and on the back of its success produced pictures for the veteran director Maurice Elvey, including the classic British silent Hindle Wakes (1927). His first picture as director was The Arcadians (1927). In 1929 he and Balcon worked together again on a talkie remake of Woman to Woman for Balcon's company, Gainsborough Pictures. This time Saville directed it. From 1931, as Gainsborough Pictures an…

Known for

Behind the camera

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde poster
6.5

Dr. Jekyll believes good and evil exist in everyone and creates a potion that allows his evil side, Mr. Hyde, to come to the fore. He faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run amok.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

1941

Dark Journey poster
6.5

British double agent Madeleine Goddard meets and falls in love with German spy Baron Karl Von Marwitz during World War I.

Dark Journey

1937

Dark Journey poster
6.5

British double agent Madeleine Goddard meets and falls in love with German spy Baron Karl Von Marwitz during World War I.

Dark Journey

1937

A Woman's Face poster
6.8

A female blackmailer with a disfiguring facial scar meets a plastic surgeon who offers her the possibility of looking like a normal woman.

A Woman's Face

1941

Keeper of the Flame poster
6.6

Famed reporter Stephen O'Malley travels to a small town to investigate the death of a national hero.

Keeper of the Flame

1943

Goodbye, Mr. Chips poster
7.4

Throughout the late 19th-century and early 20th-century, Mr Arthur Chipping rises from a shy, nervous teacher to the beloved, revered headmaster of Brookfield School, with his life and career shaped by his love for his wife and his unwavering dedication to his students.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips

1939

The Silver Chalice poster
4.4

A Greek artisan is commissioned to cast the cup of Christ in silver and sculpt around its rim the faces of the disciples and Jesus himself. He travels to Jerusalem and eventually to Rome to complete the task. Meanwhile, a nefarious interloper is trying to convince the crowds that he is the new Messiah by using nothing more than cheap parlor tricks.

The Silver Chalice

1954

The Silver Chalice poster
4.4

A Greek artisan is commissioned to cast the cup of Christ in silver and sculpt around its rim the faces of the disciples and Jesus himself. He travels to Jerusalem and eventually to Rome to complete the task. Meanwhile, a nefarious interloper is trying to convince the crowds that he is the new Messiah by using nothing more than cheap parlor tricks.

The Silver Chalice

1954

Desire Me poster
6.5

A war widow falls in love with the man who informed her of her husband's death.

Desire Me

1947

Storm in a Teacup poster
7.4

A local politician in Scotland tries to break the reporter who wrote a negative story about him, and who is also in love with his daughter.

Storm in a Teacup

1937

Storm in a Teacup poster
7.4

A local politician in Scotland tries to break the reporter who wrote a negative story about him, and who is also in love with his daughter.

Storm in a Teacup

1937

Smilin' Through poster
6.3

John Carteret has long been depressed and lonely, because, at his wedding years ago, his bride, Moonyean, was murdered. He accepts into his house Kathleen, the 5-year-old orphaned niece of Moonyean, and she quickly grows up to look just like her aunt.

Smilin' Through

1941

The Earl of Chicago poster
6.3

A behind the times Chicago bootlegger goes to England with his lawyer to claim his estate as the Earl of Gorley.

The Earl of Chicago

1940

The Earl of Chicago poster
6.3

A behind the times Chicago bootlegger goes to England with his lawyer to claim his estate as the Earl of Gorley.

The Earl of Chicago

1940

The Green Years poster
6.4

An orphaned young boy is guided by his great-grandfather and strives to go to university to become a doctor. However, the boy's harsh grandfather stands in his way.

The Green Years

1946

The Long Wait poster
5.9

Soon after thumbing a ride from a truck driver, Johnny McBride is badly burned and suffers from complete amnesia when the vehicle he’s riding in blows a tire and goes over an embankment in a fiery blaze. McBride later receives a tip from an acquaintance that a photo of him was placed prominently in the window of a photography studio in a town called Lyncastle, so Johnny immediately leaves for the burg in the hopes that something there will jog his memory.

The Long Wait

1954

I, the Jury poster
5.9

After his best friend and war buddy is mysteriously gunned down, Mike Hammer will stop at nothing to settle the score for the man who sacrificed a limb to save his own life during combat. Along the way, Hammer rides a fine line between gumshoe and a one-man jury, staying two-steps ahead of the law—and trying not to get bumped off in the process.

I, the Jury

1953

Green Dolphin Street poster
6.3

Sophie loved Edmund, but he left town when her parents forced her to marry wealthy Octavius. Years later, Edmund returns with his son, William. Sophie's daughter, Marguerite, and William fall in love. Marguerite's sister, Marianne, also loves William. Timothy, a lowly carpenter, secretly loves Marianne. He kills a man in a fight, and Edmund helps him flee to New Zealand. William deserts inadvertently from the navy, and also flees in disgrace to New Zealand, where he and Timothy start a profitable business. One night, drunk, William writes Octavius, demanding his daughter's hand; but, being drunk, he asks for the wrong sister.

Green Dolphin Street

1947

Tonight and Every Night poster
5.5

An American girl falls for an RAF pilot while performing at a British music hall.

Tonight and Every Night

1945

Tonight and Every Night poster
5.5

An American girl falls for an RAF pilot while performing at a British music hall.

Tonight and Every Night

1945

If Winter Comes poster
6.7

The small English town of Penny Green is swarming with scandal when textbook author Mark, unhappily married to the shrewish Mabel, cultivates a friendship with Effie, a young pregnant girl. As the townsfolk theorize that Mark is the baby's father, Effie - already troubled because of her impending motherhood - commits suicide, and circulating rumors lead the authorities to think Mark killed her. The innocent writer must fight to clear his name.

If Winter Comes

1947

The Mortal Storm poster
7.3

The Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. After the Nazis come to power, the family is divided and Martin Breitner, a family friend, is caught up in the turmoil.

The Mortal Storm

1940

Kim poster
6.5

During the British Raj, the orphan of a British soldier poses as a Hindu and is torn between his loyalty to a Buddhist mystic and aiding the English secret service.

Kim

1950

The Greengage Summer poster
6.4

Sensitive story of a British girl's awakening from childhood into life and love on vacation in France.

The Greengage Summer

1961

Conspirator poster
5.8

A newlywed suspects her husband of being a Communist spy.

Conspirator

1949

My Gun Is Quick poster
5.5

Detective Mike Hammer's investigation of a murder puts him in the middle between warring jewel thieves.

My Gun Is Quick

1957

White Cargo poster
6.2

In Africa early in World War II, a British rubber plantation executive reminisces about his arrival in the Congo in 1910. He tells the story of a love-hate triangle involving Harry Witzel, an in-country station superintendent who'd seen it all, Langford, a new manager sent from England for a four-year stint, and Tondelayo, a siren of great beauty who desires silk and baubles. Witzel is gruff and seasoned, certain that Langford won't be able to cut it. Langford responds with determination and anger, attracted to Tondelayo because of her beauty, her wiles, and to get at Witzel. Manipulation, jealousy, revenge, and responsibility play out as alliances within the triangle shift.

White Cargo

1942

The Citadel poster
6.4

Young, idealistic, newly qualified Scottish doctor Andrew Manson arrives in Wales and takes his first job in a mining town, and begins to wonder at the persistent cough many of the miners have. When his attempts to prove its cause are thwarted, he moves to London. His new practice does poorly, but when a friend shows him how to make a lucrative practice from rich hypochondriacs, it will take a great shock to show him what the truth of being a doctor really is.

The Citadel

1938

The Sport of Kings poster
7.0

Algernon Sprigg, a horse-racing fanatic, is convinced that everyone is a gambler at heart. To prove his theory, he bets a friend that he can convert Amos Purdie, the puritanical head of an anti-betting association, into a punter within a week.

The Sport of Kings

1931

The Sport of Kings poster
7.0

Algernon Sprigg, a horse-racing fanatic, is convinced that everyone is a gambler at heart. To prove his theory, he bets a friend that he can convert Amos Purdie, the puritanical head of an anti-betting association, into a punter within a week.

The Sport of Kings

1931

Calling Bulldog Drummond poster
6.5

Bulldog Drummond leaves retirement to help a Scotland Yard Sergeant catch thieves armed with radar.

Calling Bulldog Drummond

1951

Above Suspicion poster
6.2

Two newlyweds spy on the Nazis for the British Secret Service during their honeymoon in Europe.

Above Suspicion

1943

Hindle Wakes poster
10.0

A Lancashire mill girl has an illicit adventure with the owner's son while on holiday. Based on the once notorious Houghton play.

Hindle Wakes

1931

Hindle Wakes poster
10.0

A Lancashire mill girl has an illicit adventure with the owner's son while on holiday. Based on the once notorious Houghton play.

Hindle Wakes

1931

Bitter Sweet poster
6.0

A woman runs away with her music teacher in order to escape an arranged marriage, but they struggle to make ends meet.

Bitter Sweet

1940

I Was a Spy poster
6.4

During World War I, a young nurse in a hospital in German-occupied Belgium is secretly feeding military information to the British. Complicating matters is the guilt she feels when she has to treat the German casualties inflicted as a result of the information she's passed on, and the fact that the local German commandant is falling in love with her.

I Was a Spy

1933

Evergreen poster
6.4

Harriet Green, a beloved and radiant music hall star of the Edwardian era, mysteriously disappears on the eve of her wedding. Years later, she reappears on the stage as young looking and beautiful as ever.

Evergreen

1934

Forever and a Day poster
7.5

In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Leslie Trimble, tries to dissuade him from selling by telling him the 140-year history of the place and the connections between the Trimble and Pomfret families.

Forever and a Day

1943

First a Girl poster
6.4

An aspiring singer quits her menial job and is talked into performing as a female impersonator by her friend. Her drag act makes her famous, which causes problems for her when a very determined young man falls in love with her. A remake of the 1933 German film Viktor und Viktoria.

First a Girl

1935

The Good Companions poster
6.4

Film musical taken from JB Priestley's novel about three musicians joining together to save a failing concert party, the Dinky Doos.

The Good Companions

1933