John Bryan

Production Designer

About

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Birth Place

London, England, GB

Born

August 12, 1911

Died

June 10, 1969

Cause of Death

Unknown

Biography

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Award-winning art director John Bryan used his eye for detail and keen sense of space and color to create atmospheric environments in everything from the critically acclaimed "Great Expectations" to the quasi-historical epic "Caesar and Cleopatra." Bryan started working in the '30s on the sets of films like the British family drama "The Song of the Road" and landed his first major art di...

Filmography

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This Is Not an Exit: The Fictional World of Bret Easton Ellis (2000)

The Garden of Allah (1936)

Brother Gregory

The Spanish Gardener (1956)

The Touchables (1968)

After the Fox (1966)

Tamahine (1964)

Photos & Videos

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Oliver Twist (1948) -- (Movie Clip) Rather More No Than Yes

Oliver Twist (1948) -- (Movie Clip) You're Under Me!

Biography

Award-winning art director John Bryan used his eye for detail and keen sense of space and color to create atmospheric environments in everything from the critically acclaimed "Great Expectations" to the quasi-historical epic "Caesar and Cleopatra." Bryan started working in the '30s on the sets of films like the British family drama "The Song of the Road" and landed his first major art direction position on "Pygmalion," adapted from the George Bernard Shaw play about a Victorian speech coach who bets he can teach a lower-class woman to speak like, and be taken for, a proper lady. The '40s proved a pivotal decade for Bryan; he won his only Oscar for his work on "Great Expectations," based on Charles Dickens's famous novel about a poor orphan whose life is changed by an anonymous benefactor, and he reunited with director Gabriel Pascal on "Caesar and Cleopatra," another Shaw adaptation centered on the unlikely relationship between the two powerful rulers. A few years later he served as the set designer of David Lean's "Oliver Twist," which featured a career-best performance from English actor Alec Guinness as the pitiable Fagin. After spending much of the '50s producing films, he returned to his production roots with "Becket," an Oscar-nominated drama that chronicles the turbulent relationship between an English king (Peter O'Toole) and his once-close confidant (Richard Burton).

Filmography

Cast (Feature Film)

This Is Not an Exit: The Fictional World of Bret Easton Ellis (2000)

The Garden of Allah (1936)

Brother Gregory

Writer (Feature Film)

The Spanish Gardener (1956)

Producer (Feature Film)

The Touchables (1968)

After the Fox (1966)

Tamahine (1964)

There Was a Crooked Man (1962)

The Girl on the Boat (1961)

The Horse's Mouth (1958)

The Horse's Mouth (1958)

WINDOM'S WAY (1958)

The Spanish Gardener (1956)

The Purple Plain (1955)

Man with a Million (1954)

Music (Feature Film)

Prison Song (2001)

Art Director (Feature Film)

Great Catherine (1968)

Production Design

Production Design

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1952)

Production Design

Sabotage Agent (1943)

Suicide Squadron (1942)

Inspector Hornleigh (1939)

Pygmalion (1939)

Stolen Life (1939)

Sound (Feature Film)

Prison Song (2001)

The Beneficiary (1997)

Sound Supervisor

Production Companies (Feature Film)

The Touchables (1968)

Special Thanks (Feature Film)

This Is Not an Exit: The Fictional World of Bret Easton Ellis (2000)

Cinematography (Special)

Countryfest '98 (1998)

Sound (Special)

The Champions of Magic (1996)

Sound Supervisor

Film Production - Main (Special)

Rodney Crowell: A Late Night In Nashville (1992)

Post Production (Special)

Polar Bears: Arctic Terror (1997)

Post-Production Supervisor

Chariots of the Gods? The Mysteries Continue (1996)

Post-Production Supervisor

The Free Willy Story: Keiko's Journey Home (1996)

Post-Production Supervisor

Life Events

Videos

Oliver Twist (1948) -- (Movie Clip) Rather More No Than Yes The Dodger (Anthony Newley) is confronting criminal Fagin (Alec Guinness) when their boss Sykes (Robert Newton) arrives, his girlfriend Nancy (Kay Walsh, the director's wife!) catching up, all this over the title character who's been grabbed by the cops, in David Lean's Oliver Twist, 1948.

Oliver Twist (1948) -- (Movie Clip) You're Under Me! Undertaker Sowerberry (Gibb McLaughlin), is persuaded by Bumble (Francis L. Sullivan) to take in John Howard Davies (title character), who then meets Charlotte, Mrs. Sowerberry and Claypole (Diana Dors, Kathleen Harrison, Michael Dear), in David Lean's version of Dickens' Oliver Twist, 1948.

Oliver Twist (1948) -- (Movie Clip) Do You Want Him? John Howard Davies (Charles Dickens' orphan title character) has just wandered into London, spied by young Anthony Newley as the Artful Dodger, then designer John Bryan and director David Lean with spectacle leading to the introduction of Fagin (Alec Guinness) in Oliver Twist, 1948.

Horse's Mouth, The (1958) -- (Movie Clip) Opening: Locked Out Opening credits followed by grumpy painter Gulley Jimson (Alec Guiness) being released from jail, not pleased to be met by admirer Nosey (Mike Morgan), in The Horse's Mouth 1958, from Guinness' own screenplay.

Pandora And The Flying Dutchman (1952) -- (Movie Clip) A Lack Of Love Following their first embrace, Pandora (Ava Gardner) and van der Zee (James Mason) on the Spanish coast of an evening, in writer-director Albert Lewin's Pandora And The Flying Dutchman, 1952.

Pandora And The Flying Dutchman (1952) -- (Movie Clip) As Much Her Slave... First appearance of Ava Gardner (first title character), Harold Warrender (as "Geoffrey" narrating), introducing Reggie (Marius Goring) and Stephen (Nigel Patrick) in a Spanish seaside town, director Albert Lewin's Pandora And The Flying Dutchman, 1952.

Pandora And The Flying Dutchman (1952) -- (Movie Clip) Darling Of The Gods Skinny-dipping American Pandora (Ava Gardner) on the Spanish Mediterranean coast finds a yacht and its captain (James Mason, his first scene), strange events in writer-director Albert Lewin's Pandora And The Flying Dutchman, 1952.

Pandora And The Flying Dutchman (1952) -- (Movie Clip) With One Bloody Blow Writer-director Albert Lewin from contemporary to fantasy flashback, van der Zee (James Mason) imagining himself in the old legend, his wife (Ava Gardner) and Abraham Sofaer the imposing judge, in Pandora And The Flying Dutchman, 1952.

Great Catherine (1968) -- (Movie Clip) Hands Off You Swine! Brit captain Edstaston (Peter O'Toole, also co-producer), in Petersburg to brief the empress on the American revolution, meets apparently dissolute Prince Patiomkin (Zero Mostel) and niece (Marie Kean), Akim Tamiroff and Jack Hawkins in support, in the Bernard Shaw adaptation Great Catherine, 1968.

Oliver Twist (1948) -- (Movie Clip) Parish Workhouse Possibly the only movie scene in which the mother (Josephine Stuart) of the hero appears, certainly the only one in a rainstorm, invented by director David Lean and cohorts, seeking a more dramatic opening to their famous 1948 treatment of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, camera by Guy Green.

Garden Of Allah, The (1936) -- (Movie Clip) Undoubtedly English From the monastery which Brother Antoine (Charles Boyer, introduced here) has inexplicably fled, joining Domini (Marlene Dietrich), a soul-seeking French tourist, attended by hustling Batouch (Joseph Schildkraut), crossing North Africa, in Richard Boleslawski's The Garden Of Allah, 1936.

Purple Plain, The -- (Movie Clip) Too Much Light Here Easter dinner in WWII Burma, missionary Miss McNab (Brenda de Banzie) hosting Dr. Harris (Bernard Lee) and his patient, troubled flyer Forrester (Gregory Peck), ever more enthralled by mission worker Anna (Win Min Than), in Robert Parrish's The Purple Plain, 1955.

Bibliography

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