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The Washington Post (08/Aug/2010) - British director of 'A Night to Remember'

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  • article: British director of 'A Night to Remember'
  • author(s): Adam Bernstein
  • newspaper: The Washington Post (08/Aug/2010)
keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Bette Davis, British Film Institute, Darryl F. Zanuck, Gainsborough Pictures, New York City, New York, Night Train to Munich (1940), Rhonda Fleming, River Thames, London, Roy Ward Baker, The Lady Vanishes (1938)

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British director of 'A Night to Remember'

Roy Ward Baker, a British film director who brought an understated precision to his craft and whose credits included the thriller "Don't Bother to Knock" starring Marilyn Monroe as a deranged babysitter and the celebrated Titanic melodrama "A Night to Remember," died Oct. 5 at a hospital in London.

He was 93. His son Nicholas, speaking with the Associated Press, did not disclose a cause of death.

Mr. Baker's most powerful films were as unflashy and self-effacing as the director himself. This efficient approach led him to a successful transition to television work in the 1960s, notably directing episodes of "The Avengers" and "The Saint."

He later became a stalwart, intermittently inspired helmer of British horror films, including the lesbian-themed "The Vampire Lovers" (1970) and "Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde" (1972) which introduced a sex-change angle to the venerable Robert Louis Stevenson shocker.

A New York Times movie critic, A.H. Weiler, found "The Vampire Lovers," which starred the voluptuous Ingrid Pitt, "a departure from the hackneyed bloody norm . . . professionally directed, opulently staged and sexy to boot."

Mr. Baker had entered the British film industry as a teenager, serving as a tea boy, fetching pipes and running errands. By the late 1930s, he worked himself up to "assistant assistant" to such directors as Alfred Hitchcock on "The Lady Vanishes" and Carol Reed on "Night Train to Munich."

In short, he knew how to get things done for demanding directors. This skill served him well in the British army during World War II, when he made documentaries and educational films for troops on short notice and tight budgets.

His work impressed novelist and screenwriter Eric Ambler, who was then one of his military superiors. After the war, Ambler asked Mr. Baker to direct "The October Man" (1947), which was based on one of the author's scripts and starred John Mills as a murder suspect.

Mr. Baker and Ambler collaborated on "A Night to Remember" (1958), based on Walter Lord's fastidiously researched book about the passenger ship and its demise in the icy North Atlantic during its maiden voyage.

The story of the Titanic, a supposedly "unsinkable" vessel that sunk in 1912 after hitting an iceberg, had long intrigued filmmakers.

Where other directors (Jean Negulesco in 1953, James Cameron in 1997) highlighted romance and intrigue among passengers, Mr. Baker's version was a crisp, unpretentious look at the events leading to the tragedy. Laurence Naismith played the captain of the ship and Kenneth More one of his key officers.

In the New York Times, film critic Bosley Crowther called "A Night to Remember" "tense, exciting and supremely awesome" and "as fine and convincing an enactment as anyone could wish - or expect."

Roy Horace Baker, whose father worked in a fish market, was born in London on Dec. 19, 1916; in the late 1960s Roy added Ward, his mother's maiden name, to distinguish him from another director with the same name.

As a teenager, he talked his way into Gainsborough Studios, where he took to heart advice he later told aspiring filmmakers: "Stick close to the camera and keep your mouth shut."

His marriages to Muriel Bradford and Joan Davies ended in divorce. He had a son from his second marriage, but additional survivors could not be confirmed.

With the backing of Ambler, Mr. Baker rose to prominence with "The October Man" and again directed its star, John Mills, in "Morning Departure" (1950), a taut drama about a submarine that is trapped on the sea floor and the crew that must come to terms with its fate.

Soon after the film's release, dozens of sailors were killed after the British submarine Truculent collided with a Dutch ship on the Thames River.

Mr. Baker feared that the sensitivity of the Truculent disaster would lead to his film quickly being pulled from theaters, but instead the "Royal Navy approved it as a fitting tribute to those who had died," according to a British Film Institute biography of Mr. Baker.

After the success of "Morning Departure," he was lured to Hollywood by Darryl F. Zanuck, the studio chief at 20th Century Fox. There he directed Tyrone Power in the period piece "The House in the Square" (1951) and Monroe in one of her first leading roles in "Don't Bother to Knock" (1952).

He later told an interviewer he was careful not to contribute to the "Marilyn Monroe Industry," even though he adored her. "I don't think she really liked me," he said. "Well, it was very unfortunate in a way. She could never trust anybody except the people who were going to do her harm. She was awfully good at that."

During the next several years, Mr. Baker made above-average crime dramas and thrillers including "Inferno" (1953), made in 3-D and starring Robert Ryan as a millionaire who vows revenge after being left in the desert to die by his wife (Rhonda Fleming) and her lover (William Lundigan).

Mr. Baker also directed the bracing escape film "The One That Got Away" (1957). An atypical wartime drama, it was based on a true story and starred Hardy Kruger as a cunning German flier who escapes from several British POW camps.

Mr. Baker told the London Guardian that after achieving a critical and popular breakthrough with "A Night to Remember" he was promised "the top brick in the chimney" at his home studio, Rank. Nevertheless, he kept being passed up for distinguished projects, a fact he appeared to take in stride.

Mr. Baker's later films included "Quatermass and the Pit" (1967), a science-fiction yarn, and "The Anniversary" (1968), a black comedy with Bette Davis sporting an eye patch.

If his career was ultimately fitful, Mr. Baker did not seem bothered. "I hope my audiences will take enjoyment in a piece of work well done," he told the London Guardian in 2000. "Occasionally, not every time. If I weren't a director, I would have been a very good cabinet maker. I like the detail and precision of that work. My pictures are all very presentable. There's nothing untidy about them."