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Peter Duffell (10 July 1922 − 12 December 2017)[1] was a English film and televisiondirector andscreenwriter.
Duffell was born inCanterbury,Kent, in 1922. He was the only son of a broken marriage, which resulted in his attending a variety of schools inKent andLondon, as his mother moved away to work and he was raised by his grandmother. With a strong academic bent and great enthusiasm for the arts, he studied atLondon University and then atKeble College,Oxford, where he took an honours degree in English language and literature.
Duffell began his career as a director with installments of the film seriesScotland Yard and theEdgar Wallace Mysteries second features forAnglo-Amalgamated, both originally made for cinema release in the UK, as well as making documentaries and television commercials.
Based on his television work,Milton Subotsky ofAmicus Productions selected Duffell to directThe House That Dripped Blood (1971).Christopher Lee, who appeared in the film, called him Britain's most underrated director.[2][page needed] He turned down other Amicus films because he did not want to be typecast as a horror director.[3]
Duffell moved on to write and direct the film script of a book by one of his greatest heroesGraham Greene, who, although notoriously dismissive of most film adaptations of his work, rated Duffell’sEngland Made Me (1973) "excellent".[citation needed] One of the film's stars,Tessa Wyatt, said in a 2013 interview that during its filming as a young actress alone abroad, the "pervy director" tried to coerce her into unnecessarily stripping naked for a scene.[4]
Duffell was commissioned byWarner Brothers to directInside Out (1975), a caper movie filmed in Berlin.
Duffell was also Greene's choice to write and directThe Honorary Consul.[5] Together they collaborated on the script, but in the event other interests intervened and to the great dismay of both Duffell and Greene the film was made to another script by another director. The two men remained lifelong friends and Greene continued to hope that they would again work together. Duffell won theBAFTA award for Best Director forCaught on A Train (1980), written byStephen Poliakoff and featuringPeggy Ashcroft andMichael Kitchen. He also scripted and directed films based on the work of writers such asMargaret Drabble andFrancis King, and wrote many other screenplays for cinema and television.Experience Preferred but Not Essential (1982), which he directed forDavid Puttnam, was shown at the London Film Festival and at festivals in Italy and Canada. It enjoyed box-office success in America where – after a rave interview byVincent Canby inThe New York Times[citation needed] – it ran for six months in one New York cinema alone.
Duffell's six-hour television epicThe Far Pavilions (1984) forHBO andGoldcrest (shown byChannel 4 in the UK), from the best-selling novel byM. M. Kaye, was filmed in India.Omar Sharif said that Duffell's direction of the vast, colourful crowd scenes was on a par withDavid Lean's crowd scenes.[citation needed]
Letters from An Unknown Lover (Les Louves, 1986), is a bi-lingual French television film, also in English.King of The Wind (1990), is a children's adventure film shot in Turkey and the UK.
Duffell's many TV credits as director and writer includeThe Avengers (1967),Man in a Suitcase (1967–68),Journey to the Unknown (1969),Strange Report (1969),The Adventures of Black Beauty (1972),The Racing Game (1979–80),Inspector Morse (1988), andSpace Precinct (1995).
One of Duffell's great passions was music, above allWolfgang Amadeus Mozart, jazz – in his youth he led The Rhythm Club of High Wycombe - and flamenco, playing semi-pro flamenco guitar, sometimes atRonnie Scott's, and producing a flamenco LP by leading Spanish musicians. He loved cricket and was a member of theMCC for many years.
Duffell's autobiographyPlaying Piano in A Brothel, the title derived from an old film industry joke, was published in the USA by Bear Manor Media. (When asked what he did for a living the man replied "I'm a film director, but please don't tell my mother, she thinks I play piano in a brothel".) He lived with his wife of 30 years, the publicist Rosslyn Cliffe Duffell, between homes in South West of France and the South West of England, where he died after a stroke on 12 December 2017. He also leaves behind son Christopher and three grandsons, twins William, a successful photographer, Edwin Spooner and James.
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