Compton Bennett

Writer · Director

Born

January 15, 1900 · Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, UK

Died

August 13, 1974

Birth name

Robert Compton-Bennett

Compton Bennett started out as a bandleader and then became a commercial artist. He turned out a few amateur films that caught the attention of producer Alexander Korda's London Films, and they hired him in 1932 as a film editor. During World War II he directed a few instructional films for the British military and some propaganda shorts for the general public. His feature debut as a director was The Seventh Veil (1945), which was a big success. MGM took note, and he was brought to Hollywood to make films for them. The films he made there weren't particularly well-received--his most successful, King Solomon's Mines (1950), was lauded mainly for its impressive action scenes, which were in fact directed not by Bennett but by Andrew Marton, who received co-director credit--and he returned to Britain a few years later. While there he divided his time between films and television, with an occasional foray into directing theatrical productions. In 1957 he turned out two well-received films, After the Ball (1957) and The Mailbag Robbery (1957). He made his last feature in 1960 and, apart from an occasional foray into television, retired. He died in London in 1974.