Dallas Bower (25 July 1907, London â€" 18 October 1999, London) was a
prominent British director and producer active during the early
development of mass media communication. Throughout his career
Bower’s work spanned across radio plays, television shows,
propaganda shorts, animations and feature films, with his most notable
projects consisting of Alfred Hitchcock’s first film in sound
Blackmail (1929), the British Broadcasting Company’s radio play
Julius Caesar (1938), the Dunkirk evacuation propaganda short Channel
Incident (1940), the feature film Henry V (1944), and an Anglo-French
adaptation of Lewis Carroll's children's novel Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland entitled Alice au pays des merveilles (1949). He later
produced some of the earliest British television commercials.The
majority of Bower’s work has been lost over time, due to both
degradation and the purposeful melting down of the cellulose nitrate
prints to extract small amounts of silver during the Second World war,
leading to the placement of some of Bower’s projects in the British
Film Institute's 75 Most Wanted lost films. Dallas Bower was born on
the 25 July 1907, in apartment 34 of Kensington Hall Gardens, London.
Throughout his childhood Bower frequently visited the Old Royalty
Cinema alongside his uncle, where they saw motion pictures such as The
Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), which Bower would
later cite as a significant early influences that would inspire his
future involvement in the film industry. Bower was educated at
Willington Primary School in Putney, where he met Violet Florence
Collings (1906-1999) who he married on the 18 November 1925 at the age
of 18. Together they had two daughters and a son before separating in
1945. Bower continued his education at St John’s College
Hurstpierpoint, where he studied classical literature in addition to
contemporary technology.Bower was first introduced to radio by an
older student at St John’s College who had been working on a small
valve set. The pair would soon after establish an amateur radio
station based in Bower’s grandfather’s house in Putney. Following
his graduation from St John’s College, Bower was employed by the
Marconi Scientific Instrument Company, while at the same time he was
selected to edit the radio theory and design journals Modern Wireless
in 1925 and Experimental Wireless in 1926.
prominent British director and producer active during the early
development of mass media communication. Throughout his career
Bower’s work spanned across radio plays, television shows,
propaganda shorts, animations and feature films, with his most notable
projects consisting of Alfred Hitchcock’s first film in sound
Blackmail (1929), the British Broadcasting Company’s radio play
Julius Caesar (1938), the Dunkirk evacuation propaganda short Channel
Incident (1940), the feature film Henry V (1944), and an Anglo-French
adaptation of Lewis Carroll's children's novel Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland entitled Alice au pays des merveilles (1949). He later
produced some of the earliest British television commercials.The
majority of Bower’s work has been lost over time, due to both
degradation and the purposeful melting down of the cellulose nitrate
prints to extract small amounts of silver during the Second World war,
leading to the placement of some of Bower’s projects in the British
Film Institute's 75 Most Wanted lost films. Dallas Bower was born on
the 25 July 1907, in apartment 34 of Kensington Hall Gardens, London.
Throughout his childhood Bower frequently visited the Old Royalty
Cinema alongside his uncle, where they saw motion pictures such as The
Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), which Bower would
later cite as a significant early influences that would inspire his
future involvement in the film industry. Bower was educated at
Willington Primary School in Putney, where he met Violet Florence
Collings (1906-1999) who he married on the 18 November 1925 at the age
of 18. Together they had two daughters and a son before separating in
1945. Bower continued his education at St John’s College
Hurstpierpoint, where he studied classical literature in addition to
contemporary technology.Bower was first introduced to radio by an
older student at St John’s College who had been working on a small
valve set. The pair would soon after establish an amateur radio
station based in Bower’s grandfather’s house in Putney. Following
his graduation from St John’s College, Bower was employed by the
Marconi Scientific Instrument Company, while at the same time he was
selected to edit the radio theory and design journals Modern Wireless
in 1925 and Experimental Wireless in 1926.
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