Sir Michael Balcon (1896 – 1977): English film producer

British film producer and production executive. He was knighted in 1948. Michael Elias Balcon was born on 19 May 1896 in Birmingham. Leaving grammar school in 1913, he worked for the Dunlop Rubber Company during the First World War. After the war, he co-founded a film distribution company, producing his first film Woman-to-Woman in 1922, with Alfred Hitchcock as art director, screen writer and assistant director.

In the early 1920′s, he launched Alfred Hitchcock’s career and built up a big annual production programme of sound films for Gainsborough and Gaumont-British. Head of MGM English production, 1936-38, then in charge of production at Ealing. Knighted 1948.

Balcon founded Gainsborough Picture in 1928 and became director of production with Gaumont-British (1931) and MGM-British (1936), during which time he was responsible for films such as Man of Aran (1933), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), and The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935).

But the studio with which his name became synonymous was Ealing, where he was director and chief of production from 1937 to 1959. Classic comedies that were produced under his guidance included Kind Hearts and Coronets, Passports to Pimlico and Whisky Galore (all in 1949), The Man in White Suit (1951), The lavender Hill Mob (1952), and the last Ealing comedy, The Ladykillers (1955); many of these films featured Alec Guinness. Hue and Cry (1947), The Blue Lamp (1950), The Cruel Sea (1953), The Divided Heart (1954), and Dunkirk (1958) were among his other notable films. In 1964 he also served for a time as chairman of British Lion Films.

Balcon believed that British films should be designed for a specific home market, as opposed to those who wanted to compete with Hollywood in the international market, resulting in Ealing’s production of patriotic adventure films during World War II.
Sir Michael Balcon (1896 – 1977): English film producer