Lewis Allen (director)

Allen was married twice: to English literary agent Dorothy Skinner (died 1969 – one son) and Trudy Colmar, who survived him. Allen died in Santa Monica, California on 3 May 2000, aged 94. He was survived by one son.

His last film as director was Decision at Midnight (1963) which he also produced.

He directed Whirlpool (1959), a woman-on-the-run drama made for the Rank Organisation but filmed on location in Germany.

In Britain, he produced and directed Sean Connery and Lana Turner in the soapy melodrama Another Time, Another Place (1958).

In 1955 Allen directed two Edward G. Robinson films, A Bullet for Joey and Illegal.

In 1954 he directed the tense and claustrophobic Frank Sinatra vehicle Suddenly which became, alongside The Uninvited, his most widely known and highly regarded film.

Allen began directing TV, episodes of Your Favorite Story (1953–54) (which he also produced) and Meet Corliss Archer.

He directed the DuMont television series Ethel Barrymore Theater, filmed in 1953 and shown in syndication as Stage 8 in 1958.

Allen did some second unit directing on The Great Gatsby (1949) with Alan Ladd. He then made a pair of Alan Ladd vehicles, Chicago Deadline (1950) and Appointment with Danger (1951).

RKO hired Allen to direct a swashbuckler At Sword's Point, filmed 1949 and released 1951. He was borrowed by Edward Small to direct the biopic Valentino (1951). He then left Paramount.

In 1948 Allen returned to Britain to film So Evil My Love, a lavishly mounted, melodramatic period thriller set in Victorian London, which reunited him with Milland, playing an out-and-out bad lot ruining the lives of Ann Todd and Geraldine Fitzgerald.

Allen later said that he found Milland a pleasure to work with, and the two teamed up again in Sealed Verdict (1948), a topical drama dealing with the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in the American-occupied zone of post-war Germany.

In January 1946 Allen signed a new contract with Paramount. For that studio he directed a romantic comedy The Perfect Marriage (1947) with David Niven and Loretta Young; The Imperfect Lady (1947) with Ray Milland and Teresa Wright and Desert Fury (1947), a noir-ish Western drama starring Lizabeth Scott and Burt Lancaster.

Allen again worked with Russell twice, in Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1945), a comedy, and on The Unseen (1945), a film with a similar supernatural theme which is often considered the unofficial follow-up to The Uninvited.

He was borrowed by RKO in Those Endearing Young Charms (1945) - a big hit at the time.

He was given his first chance to direct a feature film in 1944. He made a highly auspicious debut with The Uninvited, an atmospheric and memorable ghost story set on the misty coast of south-west England, starring Ray Milland and Gail Russell. The film was very favourably received and subsequently acquired the status of a classic of its genre.

Allen went to Paramount in 1941. They trained him for a number of years. He directed a wartime propaganda short Freedom Comes High (1943) and was dialogue director in Dixie (1943).

Allen went to London to direct a production of The Women in 1940. In May 1941 he signed a contract at Paramount Pictures.

In 1935 he began working on Broadway. His credits include directing the U.S. premieres of J.B. Priestley's Laburnum Grove (1935) (131 performances) and The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1937) with Cedric Hardwicke.

He did the general stage direction of Victoria Regina (1935–36) (a big hit, with Helen Hayes and Vincent Price), Tovarich (1936–37) (another success, 356 performances) and French Without Tears (1937–38). He later did Priestley's I Have Been Here Before (1938) and Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's Ladies and Gentleman with Helen Hayes (1939–40). Allen then received an offer to direct for Paramount.

Lewis Allen (25 December 1905 – 3 May 2000) was a British-born director whose credits included classic television series and a diverse range of films. Allen worked mainly in the United States, working on Broadway and directing 18 feature films between 1944 and 1959. From the mid-1950s he moved increasingly into television and worked on a number of the most popular shows of the time in the US.