Sydney Box

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Sydney Box bigraphy, stories - Writer, Screenwriter

Sydney Box : biography

1907-4-29 – 1983-5-25

Sydney Box (29 April 1907 – 25 May 1983) was a British film producer and screenwriter, and brother of British film producer Betty Box. In 1940, he founded the documentary film company Verity Films with Jay Lewis.

He produced and co-wrote the screenplay, with his then wife Muriel Box, for The Seventh Veil (1945), which received the 1946 Oscar for best original screenplay. The couple were then hired by the Rank Organisation to run Gainsborough Studios. They disapproved of the Gainsborough melodramas which had been the studio’s major success in the previous few years and switched production to a broader range of more "realistic" films with mixed results. Gainsborough was merged into the Rank Organisation in 1949. Box ended his cinema career in 1958 to concentrate on TV work. Box was part of a consortium that launched Tyne Tees Television in 1959.

Sydney and Muriel divorced in 1969.

Selected filmography

Screenwriter

  • 29 Acacia Avenue (1945)
  • The Seventh Veil (1945)
  • The Years Between (1946)
  • A Girl in a Million (1946)
  • The Happy Family (1952)

Producer

  • (1943)
  • Don’t Take It to Heart (1944)