Donor in focus: Bryan Langley

bfi Special Collections has received many fascinating and rich collections over the years, but one of its latest acquisitions is a truly unique record of one man's career in film - the distinguished director of photography, Bryan Langley, who is now in his 95th year.

Mr Langley began as a trainee in 1927 with H.B. Parkinson Productions, based in London's Charing Cross Road, where he acquired a thorough training in negative cutting, film splicing, solvent mixing - and film distribution (i.e. lugging reels of film to various Wardour Street offices!) before being allowed out on his first photographic assignment, street scenes for The Song of London (Norman Lee, 1930). It was Parkinson who instilled in the young Langley the importance of keeping a record of all the films on which he worked, including the technical details. It is this record, spread over 5 albums, which form the collection which Mr Langley has recently deposited with the bfi. He calls them his 'photo-diaries' and they contain not only information on all the films he shot, but photographs taken on the set or location by the films' stills photographers, letters, cuttings, and studio ephemera.

During the 1930s Bryan Langley moved to BIP at Elstree Studios, first as assistant cameraman to Jack Cox, and then as director of photography himself, where he worked on productions by Alfred Hitchcock, (Murder, Rich and Strange, The Skin Game, Number 17), Lupino Lane, Norman Lee and John Paddy Carstairs.

During the war years, he was an official cameraman in the Army Film Unit, eventually resuming his civilian career in 1946 at Welwyn Film Studios, and then as special effects cameraman at Pinewood. His films during this period included Piccadilly Incident, The Lavender Hill Mob, Reach for the Sky, A Town Like Alice and The Weaker Sex. After a spell in advertising, he joined the BBC Television Studio at Ealing in 1959 and photographed such drama serials as Bleak House, Maigret and The History of Mr. Polly. The diaries end in 1960, as Bryan Langley leaves the BBC for a new career as an international film technician/cameraman for the United Nations.