Brian Forbes at 100

Despite a career of achievements since the 1950s, Bryan Forbes has been overlooked in recent decades, with almost no academic or popular reappraisal. To redress this neglect, and mark his centenary this year, ArtHouse Crouch End has selected four of his films to screen across October and early November. These demonstrate Forbes’ talent and versatility, with a musical, a thriller and moving dramas reflecting on both youth and age.

Known as Britain’s Renaissance man, Bryan Forbes excelled in many areas of cinema, developing careers in acting, writing, producing and directing. His East End upbringing instilled in him a desire to present marginalised groups with sensitivity; figures often caricatured or demonised on screen were humanised through his keen observation and perceptive dialogue. He proved particularly skilled at the presentation of women, as films such as The Whisperers and The L-Shaped Room demonstrate.

He took up screenwriting in the 1950s, largely due to his despair at the scripts he was offered as an actor, but his ambition was to direct, and he made the transition in 1961 with his debut Whistle Down the Wind. There followed a string of powerful, thought-provoking features bringing together some excellent collaborators, like composer John Barry, costume designer Julie Harris and the actors Michael Caine and Edith Evans.

As head of EMI, Forbes greenlit British classics like The Go-Between and The Railway Children, before going on to enjoy a career as a successful author.