The director

Maurice Elvey was the most prolific film director in the history of the British film industry, having made over 180 films; many of these were short films, episodes in movie series or highly popular feature films. Hindle Wakes was Elvey's 116 th film, when he was an established director. However, he is not particularly well known because financial constraints within the British film industry meant that the production values of his films (like those of other British directors of the time) could not really compete with the Hollywood output in commercial terms. The trade papers (like the Kinematograph Weekly) record Hindle Wakes as a box-office success, as was Elvey's 1918 version. This was a relatively buoyant time for both the director and the production company.

Elvey entered the film industry as a director in 1913. He carried on making films for the next forty-four years, mainly in Britain, with a brief sojourn in Hollywood in the 1920s. He worked in most of the major genres, though he tended towards comedies and melodramas. A review of one of his films in the Bioscope magazine refers to the 'sincere and painstaking' manner in which it was made. He showed an early commitment to professionalism and a sure sense of the commercial. His films offer a clear sense of English culture and mores, and his surviving silent film work forms a substantial part of our film heritage from that period. (The Story of David Lloyd George was directed by Elvey in 1918 but never screened. Believed lost, it was rediscovered in the 1990s. Its restoration sparked new interest in Elvey.)

In the early 1930s, he made mainly low-budget costume dramas and comedies. Like most in the industry, he benefited from the increased production and sense of social purpose arising from World War II. A film like A Lamp Stills Burns (1943) is a fine example of feature propaganda from the period. An increased sense of realism lasted into the late 1940s and 1950s. But Elvey found himself once more working in low-budget melodramas and comedies. His last film was directed in 1957. A failed eye test prompted his resignation and he died in 1967.

Victor Saville, the co-director, went on to make a sound version of the same film in 1931, featured at screenonline.