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 Tom Morahan (1906 - 1969)

Tom Morahan is a very true artist and a great fighter for the recognition of the film as a medium separate from other art forms. To some his nature appears at times to be rather rugged. But among those that know him he is recognized as a most genial character with undying energy and honesty of purpose.

(Please click these thumbnail images to enlarge them.)

Jamaica Inn. Continuity sketches, Ink wash. Mayflower Productions.

Men of Two Worlds - Water Colour. Two Cities Films.

Perrin and Trail - Pen & Wash. Two Cities Films.

St Martin’s Lane (AKA The Sidewalks of London) Charcoal & Wash. Mayflower Productions.

Jamaica Inn. Charcoal & wash. Mayflower Productions.

TOM MORAHAN is the son of a sculptor and so learnt at a very early age to design three-dimensionally. After studying architecture, painting and sculpture at the City and Guild School and the Royal Academy School, he went to Paris.

Returning to England he went into films because all his work tended towards realism and he believed that it was ‘the only medium in which you could be realistic and not bad’. It also offered him the opportunity of continuing with painting, sculpture, and architecture all together.

He joined Vincent Korda as a draughtsman in 1933 and remained one of his assistants until 1936, leaving him at the termination of `Rembrandt’. In the same year he art directed his first picture for Capitol and then joined Czinner to take over ‘Dreaming Lips’ from Andrejew.

In 1937 he designed a production for Jack Buchanan entitled `The Sky’s the Limit’. At the end of that year he joined Mayflower Productions to design the backgrounds to Charles Laughton’s three best films, ‘Vessel of Wrath’, ‘St Martin’s Lane’, and ‘Jamaica Inn’. These films were well suited to Morahan’s lively imagination and vigorous approach. His drawings were very personal in style, and at the time were extensively reproduced and much talked of.

While preparing designs for ‘The Admirable Crichton’ war came and this had to be abandoned. During the war he worked with Thorold Dickinson on the best official film made, ‘Next of Kin’, with Michael Relph as his assistant. This was followed by other films at Ealing, including ‘The Foreman went to France’, ‘Went the Day Well?’ and two Will Hay pictures. Then linking up with Thorold Dickinson again they both went to Africa to prepare ‘Men of Two Worlds’. On returning to England Morahan made a most wonderful reproduction of the African jungle at Denham.

Then came ‘While the Sun Shines’, and off he went to America to join David 0. Selznick and design the background for Hitchcock’s `The Paradine Case’. While there he prepared the drawings for Hal Wallace’s ‘So Evil My Love’ which was eventually made in England by Two Cities.

He is now working as production designer on ‘Mr Perrin and Mr Trail’, a psychological drama.

Tom Morahan is a very true artist and a great fighter for the recognition of the film as a medium separate from other art forms. To some his nature appears at times to be rather rugged. But among those that know him he is recognized as a most genial character with undying energy and honesty of purpose.

(Excerpted from: “Art & Design In The British Film” A Pictorial Directory of British Art Directors and their work. Compiled by Edward Carrick, 1947 )