Sidney Gilliat

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 629-633 (included in entry for Frank Launder). New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.

Sidney Gilliat, the English director, screenwriter, and producer, was born on February 15, 1908 in Edgely, Cheshire, England.

He began his screen-writing career in the silent movie era, writing inter-titles, going uncredited for his contributions to Honeymoon Abroad (1928), Champagne (1928), and Week-End Wives (1929).

He first entered into a working relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock on The Manxman (1929), for which he did uncredited research.

He partnered with Frank Launder, whom he first worked with uncredited on The Greenwood Tree (1929), and together they wrote, directed and produced almost 40 movies between their first credited collaboration Facing the Music (1933) through The Great St.

He eventually became a credited screenwriter in the 1930s, with A Gentleman of Paris (1931).

For Hitchcock, they co-wrote the classic The Lady Vanishes (1938).

Ten years later, he would help write the dialog for the director's Jamaica Inn (1939).

They also wrote Night Train to Munich (1940) for Carol Reed. Their collaboration is most famous for generating the St. Trinian's films, most notably The Belles of St.

Trinian's (1954), which was directed by Launder and featured a tour de force performance by Alastair Sim.

Sim was also the star of their The Green Man (1956), for which they received second straight Best British Screenplay nomination from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

Trinian's Train Robbery (1966), which they also co-directed.