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 Michael Relph. (1915 – 2004)

His designs are made in crayon and wash, and as designs show a distinct theatrical influence but when built in the studio become essentially cinematic. In ‘Dead of Night’ his work had an exceptionally emotional quality which made the backgrounds unusually important and an essential part of the dramatic content of the film.

They Came To A City – Ealing Studios 1945
(Please click to enlarge all these thumbnails)

Champagne Charlie. Ealing Studios 1944
Starring Tommy Trinder and Stanley Holloway.

Champagne Charlie. Ealing Studios 1944

Saraband For Dead Lovers Ealing Studios 1948 (Credited as Associate Producer)

Saraband For Dead Lovers Ealing Studios 1948

Read Michael Relph’s profile >>
MICHAEL RELPH began his film career in 1932 under Alfred Junge in the Gaumont British Art Department. Today, apart from being one of the ablest of designers, he is also an associate producer at Ealing Studios.

He, like Carrick, is a believer in the future of the film as a medium independent of story telling – he says ‘a medium with such fluid and limitless potentialities cannot for ever be confined within the present conventions’ and feels that there must be ’some revolutionary new use of the film as an art just round the corner’.

When working for Alfred Junge he assisted on such films as ‘The Good Companions’, ‘Sabotage’, ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’. Between 1936 and 1938 he was Art Director for small pictures at Teddington; then set dressing on various big films including `Dangerous Moonlight’. During the war he was assistant on Thorold Dickinson’s memorable production ‘Next of Kin’.

Between 1943 and 1946 he worked on a number of Ealing’s most successful films as Art Director, including ‘The Bells go Down’, `They Came To A City’, ‘Champagne Charlie’, ‘Dead of Night’ and `Nicholas Nickleby’. In the making of ‘Captive Heart’ he became Production Designer and Associate Producer, as was the case with `Frieda’ and ‘Saraband for Dead Lovers’.

Michael Relph is also well known as a designer for the London Theatre, including the West End productions of the following plays: `The Doctor’s Dilemma’, ‘Heartbreak House’, ‘ Watch on the Rhine’, ‘A Month in the Country’, ‘Up and Doing’, ‘Love in Idleness’, ‘Old Acquaintance’.

His designs are made in crayon and wash, and as designs show a distinct theatrical influence but when built in the studio become essentially cinematic. In ‘Dead of Night’ his work had an exceptionally emotional quality which made the backgrounds unusually important and an essential part of the dramatic content of the film.

Michael Relph faded to black on the 30th September 2004, in Selsey, W.Sussex, UK.

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