Articles & Texticles

Continuing a series about Art Directors in the British film industry up to 1948, when the book containing these articles was published.

This chapter deals with Douglas Daniels

My Brother Jonathan, 1948
Thora Hird had already been appearing professionally for 8 years before playing a part in this film!

His sets are always very finished in detail. He gets much of his effect by paying attention to details of character and craftsmanship. He says that perhaps the most interesting experience in film making is to him ‘the contact with the chaps whose handicraft is shown on the screen but whose names do not appear on the credits’.

Another beautiful line and wash drawing from My Brother Jonathan, 1948

From My Brother Jonathan, 1948

Every drawing a masterpiece. My Brother Jonathan, 1948

IMDB only lists him as production designer or Art director for 8 films. It seems surprising to me that such a skilled draughtsman as Daniels should have had such a brief (14 year) career.

Here’s the biographic details from the book:-
DOUGLAS DANIELS came into films as an assistant in Vincent Korda’s art department when Zoltan Korda was making ‘Sanders of the River’ at Sound City in 1934. In the following year he was working as Erno Metzner’s associate *on ‘The Robber Symphony’, directed by Faher, a most revolutionary production that was much talked of at the time. He soon became known as a very sincere artist and, until the outbreak of war in 1939, worked at different times for Universal, Ealing and Jack Buchanan productions.
In 1936 he built a mill for ‘The Mill on the Floss’, a picture with little else to its credit. His sets are always very finished in detail. He gets much of his effect by paying attention to details of character and craftsmanship. He says that perhaps the most interesting experience in film making is to him ‘the contact with the chaps whose handicraft is shown on the screen but whose names do not appear on the credits’.
He was a Silver Medallist for Architecture and Art at the London Polytechnic in 1926, and practised for several years as an interior decorator.
During the war he was engaged on camouflage work and also undertook some very interesting engineering work; in 1944 he joined A.B.P.C. and art directed ‘Man from Morocco’, ‘Quiet Week-end’ and, recently, ‘My Brother Jonathan’. In 1948 he became Production Designer to the ‘Independent Frame Group’. He is Hon. Secretary of the Society of British Film Art Directors and Designers, which body he helped to form.