Kevin Brownlow

Kevin Brownlow (2 June, 1938–) is a film historian, television documentary-maker, and author born in Crowborough, Sussex. Brownlow developed an interest in silent film at the young age of eleven. This interest grew into a life long passion for the cinema and a career spent documenting and restoring silent film.

Related Topics:
2 June - 1938 - Film - Historian - Television - Documentary - Author - Crowborough - Sussex - Silent film

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His fascination for World War II prompted the creation of an alternate-history film, It Happened Here, in which the Nazis defeated the Allies. Brownlow began work on this film at the age of 18, and soon began to collaborate with his friend Andrew Mollo, who was 16. After 8 years of struggling, during which the film's content changed dramatically, it was finally completed in 1964 with the last minute aid of Tony Richardson, but not released until 1966. Mollo and Brownlow spent several more years on their next film, Winstanley, 1975 about a Digger commune following the English Civil War.

Related Topics:
World War II - It Happened Here - Nazis - Allies - Tony Richardson - 1975 - Digger - English Civil War

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In 1968 Brownlow's first book about silent film, The Parade's Gone By..., was published. The book, which relied heavily on interviews with the leading actors and directors of the silent era, launched him on his career as a film historian. Brownlow spent many years garnering support for the restoration of Abel Gance's 1927 French classic, Napoleon, an outstanding early example of the use of split screen. Brownlow's efforts eventually succeeded, and the New York Film Festival screened the restored, re-scored version in 1981.

Related Topics:
Abel Gance - 1927 - French - Napoleon - Split screen - Scored - 1981

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During this period Brownlow began his successful collaboration with David Gill with whom he would produce several award winning documentaries on the silent era. The first of these was Hollywood, a 13-part history of the silent era in Hollywood, produced for Thames Television in 1979. This was followed by Unknown Chaplin (1983), Buster Keaton, A Hard Act to Follow (1987), and Cinema Europe: the Other Hollywood (1996), among others.

Related Topics:
David Gill - Silent era - 1979

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Since David Gill's death in 1997, Brownlow has continued to make documentaries, in collaboration with Patrick Stanbury, at Photoplay Productions, a production company formed by Brownlow and Gill. The most recent of these is Garbo, a documentary produced for Turner Classic Movies to mark the centenary of the actress' birth, and the soon to be released, I Am King Kong, about filmmaker Merian C. Cooper.

Related Topics:
1997 - Garbo - Merian C. Cooper

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