Carol Reed was born December 30, 1906 and died on April 25, 1976, in London.
He went to King’s School in Canterbury, and his parents planned for him
to become a farmer. In the mid twenties, he tried acting on the stage. Later on
he became director of Edgar Wallace’s detective dramas, and the representative
for screen adaptations of his works. At the beginning of 1930s, he began working
on film as Basil Dean’s assistant. The first film he directed was Midshipman
Easy (1935). Until World War II, he successfully directed films, full of
humour, dominated by ordinary people with ordinary lives. With The Stars Look
Down he attracted attention of the critics. During World War II, he was part
of British military unit that shot propaganda documentaries. The period of his
greatest successes came after World War II, when he joined the leading authors
of post-war world film. Most important films from this period were Odd Man
Out (1947), The Fallen Idol (1948), The Third Man (1949),
The Outcast of the Island (1951), and The Man Between (1953). This
was followed by a fall in his career when he began piling up failures. His next
success came in 1968, with the musical Oliver (which won 5 Oscars,
including for best director and best film). In 1962, he abandoned the set of the
new version of Mutiny on the Bounty, unable to come to terms with actors
and producers. In 1952, he became an honorary Sir for his meritorious
contribution to cinema.