Wolf Rilla, who has died at the age of 85, accurately defined himself as a writer, filmmaker and television maker. He published six novels, directed 24 movies, notably Village of the Damned (1962), and was active in television from the brave days when the BBC's pioneer service was resuming at Alexandra Palace in 1946, after a wartime closedown of six and a half years.

As its first drama script editor, charged with seeking out plays and stories that could be enacted live in cramped studios, he alighted with glee on a taut thriller taking place in one room. Alas, the BBC did not rise to his recommendation, and Frederick Knott's Dial M for Murder went on instead to enjoy a long West End theatre run and a Hollywood production by Alfred Hitchcock.

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Rilla was born in Berlin, where his part-Jewish father Walter Rilla was a prominent actor. In common with many others in entertainment and the arts, Walter recognised the dangers when Hitler came to power, and the family moved to London in 1934 when Wolf was 14. He completed his schooling at the enlightened co-educational Frensham Heights school, Surrey, and went on to St Catherine's College, Cambridge. In 1942 he joined the BBC World Service's German section, transferring to television in the late 1940s.

He left the BBC staff in 1952 to pursue his ambition to make films, but continued to take on television productions as a freelance. In a collective memoir of those times, Coming to You Live, a BBC production secretary told of her baptism to live drama in a Sunday night play of his. It was a seaside thriller thought rather daring at the time. But then, she added rather unkindly, Wolf was "one of those trendy-type guest producers". In fact, he was a reliable, steady pair of hands and much loved by the crews he worked with.

In the cinema he was dependent at first on Group 3, an idealistic production company set up by the National Film Finance Corporation with Michael Balcon, John Baxter and John Grierson in charge. The idea was to give young talent a chance to make low-budget quickies, unfortunately - as it turned out - to no great acclaim. But by 1960 Rilla was working regularly for MGM in Britain. He directed his father, along with George Sanders and Richard Johnson, in Cairo (1963), a remake of John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle, with Tutankhamun's jewels in a Cairo museum now the target of the robbers.

His masterwork remains Village of the Damned, from John Wyndham's sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos. As well as directing it, Rilla was responsible, with Geoffrey Barclay and the American screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, for the adaptation. George Sanders also starred in this, with Barbara Shelley.

For television he dabbled in all manner of series, from The Adventures of Aggie, a 1956 BBC sitcom aimed chiefly at the American market, to the TV version (1969-71) of radio's popular Send for Paul Temple detective series. His novels included Greek Chorus, The Dispensable Man, The Chinese Consortium and one simply entitled Movie.

But for all his energy and creative output, it may well be that his lasting contribution to the popular culture of his day was educational. He lectured at the London International Film School, and wrote A-Z of Movie Making (1970), one of the most lucid, comprehensive and intelligent guides to writing for the industry that I know.

In bachelor days a member of the convivial Soho set revolving around Dylan Thomas and Jeffrey Bernard, Rilla was also a serious reader and music-lover. In 1958 he married Shirley Graham-Ellis, a publicist for the tea suppliers Jacksons of Piccadilly and London Films. They had a son, Nico, who as a filmmaker himself continues a family tradition that now spans three generations and 85 years.

After Wolf had held office in both the film technicians' union ACTT and the Directors' Guild, he and Shirley moved to the south of France, to buy and run a hotel at Fayence in Provence, where she survives him.

· Wolf Rilla, writer, film and television programme maker and hotelier, born March 16 1920; died October 19 2005

The German-born director and writer Wolf Rilla had a prolific career in British television and cinema, and will be particularly remembered for his direction of the 1960 film Village of the Damned, a chilling version (co-scripted by Rilla) of John Wyndham's classic sci-fi tale The Midwich Cuckoos.

The son of the actor Walter Rilla, he was born in Berlin in 1920, but when he was 14 years old the family moved to London to escape the rising power of Hitler. Wolf continued his education at Frensham Heights School in Surrey, then at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he studied English, graduating with an upper Second. His part-Jewish father, who had been an established actor in Berlin and Vienna, continued his career in British films and theatre, and in 1939 he joined the BBC as a writer-producer in Features and Drama.

Wolf had no interest in acting, but in 1942 he joined the German section of the BBC World Service as a writer and translator; then, when BBC Television was reactivated at Alexandra Palace after a six-and-a-half-year closedown due to the Second World War, he became the corporation's first drama script editor. He is credited with recommending Frederick Knott's beautifully plotted suspense thriller Dial M for Murder, which attracted much attention when it was transmitted in 1952 as "Play of the Week" and which went on to be a stage hit in the West End and later a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

It was in 1952 that Wolf Rilla realised his ambition to direct movies, though his first films were minor low-budget thrillers, including Noose for a Lady (1953), The Large Rope (1953) and The Black Rider (1954). He was then asked to join Group 3, a production company set up by the National Film Finance Corporation and run by the distinguished team of Michael Balcon, John Baxter and John Grierson, with the express purpose of providing an outlet for new talent.

Rilla's first film for them, End of the Road (1954), was a compassionate study of old age starring Finlay Currie, and the first of Rilla's films to attract critical attention. The Blue Peter (1955), which starred Kieron Moore as a shell-shocked war hero whose cynical view of the world is altered when he becomes an athletics director at a boys' camp, had a lot of appeal, and was Rilla's first film in colour, but, like most Group 3 productions, it fared only modestly at the box office and was Rilla's final film for the company.

Pacific Destiny (1956), based on Arthur Grimble's memoir A Pattern of Islands, starred Denholm Elliott as Grimble, who served as a British colonial officer in the South Seas, and Susan Stephen as his supportive wife, but the Samoan location footage, beautifully shot in CinemaScope, won more praise than the episodic movie. The Scamp (1957), an effectively sentimental story of the attempts of a teacher (Richard Attenborough) to raise an unruly youth while the boy's drunken father is abroad, was popular, and Bachelor of Hearts (1958), a frothy tale of university adventures, was a big success, partly due to its German star, Hardy Kruger, who had become a favourite after his performance in the prisoner-of-war drama The One That Got Away.

Piccadilly Third Stop (1960) was a disappointment, a routine tale of an embassy heist, but it was followed by his finest film (the first of two for MGM), Village of the Damned, with Rilla extracting every chill to be found in Wyndham's eerie tale of a country village where 12 of the women are impregnated while asleep - it is theorised that the aliens deposited the children in the women's wombs, the way cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of host birds. Although the children are lovingly raised by the women, it gradually becomes apparent that they are wicked beings with plans to take over the planet. Rilla said,

What interested me was not to make a fantastic film but a film that was very real. To take an ordinary situation and inject extraordinary events into it.

The children's power is first indicated when one of the babies compels his mother to put her hand repeatedly into boiling water because she has given him a bottle that is too warm. Costing only $82,000 to make, the film grossed $1.5m in the US and Canada alone. "That film has become a classic," said its star Barbara Shelley a few years ago:

It's shown - I've never been invited - in places like Brazil; I know that Wolf Rilla goes off, all expenses paid, as the director.

Its minimal budget meant that special effects were few, but particularly unsettling was the way the children's eyes glowed when they were using their powers. "Beware the eyes that paralyse!" warned the advertisements. Tom Howard, a photographic effects specialist, created the effect by cutting a negative print in over the positive, turning the irises nearly white. The children's leader was effectively played by young Martin Stephens, now an architect and meditation teacher, who later described Rilla as "a very good director. A very clear director, and a patient one." Rilla said later, in conversation with his former child actors,

People always ask how did I get such good performances out of you lot. Simple - I asked you to do nothing except be still and stare. Children fidget and are never still, and I wanted you all to be absolutely still and steady and just stare. Very unchildlike, and, of course, very unsettling.

Rilla's second film for MGM, Cairo (1963), was a fair remake of John Huston's classic heist movie The Asphalt Jungle, with Tutankhamun's jewels the intended booty, and a cast including George Sanders and the director's father, Walter Rilla. During these years, Rilla would occasionally be guest director on television plays, and from the Sixties on, most of his work was in television, where he directed and/or scripted a variety of shows, from plays to the Paul Temple series. When he returned to the big screen, it was for such titles as Secrets of a Door-to-Door Salesman (1973) and Bedtime with Rosie (1974).

Wolf Rilla also wrote six novels, lectured at the London International Film School, and published The A-Z of Movie Making (1970), about working in the film industry. In later years, he and his wife Shirley moved to Fayence, in Provence, where they ran a hotel, Le Moulin de la Camandoule.

Filmography

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1981 Training Salesmen on the Job Director

Script

1981 After the Sale Was Over Director

1981 Play it Safe Director

1981 You've Got Your Job - I've Got Mine Script

1981 Building the Partnership Script

1978 Management Case Studies 1-4 Director

1978 Management Case Studies (1 - 4) Director

1974 Bedtime with Rosie Director

Producer

1974 Wheelchair Script

1973 Secrets of a Door-to-door Salesman Directed by

1971 Death of Fasching By [Script]

1967 Symphony in Gold Director

1966 Kraft Superfine Margerine Makes the Taste Buds Blossom Director

1966 Money Go Round Script

1963 The World Ten Times Over Directed by

Written by

1963 Cairo Director

1961 Watch It Sailor! Director

1960 Piccadilly Third Stop Directed by

1960 Witness in the Dark Director

1960 Village of the Damned Directed by

Screenplay by

1960 Die ZORNIGEN JUNGEN MÄNNER Director

1959 Bachelor of Hearts Director

1959 Jessy Director

Script

1958 The Desert Bus Director

1958 Trial by Candlelight Director

1957 The Scamp Directed by

Written by

1957 Tarboosh Director

1956 Pacific Destiny Director

1956 The Winged Madonna Director

1955 Stock Car Directed by

1955 The Black Rider Directed by

1955 Sir Andrew's Fate Directed by

1955 The Blue Peter Director

1955 April Fool Director

1954 The End of the Road Directed by

1953 Glad Tidings! Directed by

Screen Play by

1953 Noose for a Lady Directed by

1953 The Large Rope Director

1953 Marilyn Directed by

Screenplay

Wolf Rilla (1920–2005) was a film director and writer of German background, although he worked mainly in English.[1]

Rilla worked on both versions of Village of the Damned, in the first as director and in the second as a writer. He wrote many influential books for students, such as The Writer and the Screen: On Writing for Film and Television and The A to Z of Movie Making.

Contents

1 Early life and career

2 Personal life

3 Filmography

4 References

5 External links

Early life and career

Rilla was born in Berlin, where his part-Jewish father Walter Rilla was a prominent actor.[2] In common with many others in entertainment and the arts, Walter recognised the dangers when Hitler came to power, and the family moved to London in 1934 when Wolf was 14. He completed his schooling at the enlightened co-educational Frensham Heights School, Surrey, and went on to St Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 1942 he joined the BBC World Service's German section, transferring to television in the late 1940s.

He left the BBC staff in 1952 to pursue his ambition to make films, but continued to take on television productions as a freelance. In the cinema he was dependent at first on Group 3, an idealistic production company set up by the National Film Finance Corporation with Michael Balcon, John Baxter and John Grierson in charge. The idea was to give young talent a chance to make low-budget quickies, unfortunately - as it turned out - to no great acclaim. But by 1960 Rilla was working regularly for MGM in Britain. He directed his father, along with George Sanders and Richard Johnson, in Cairo (1963), a remake of John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle, with Tutankhamun's jewels in a Cairo museum now the target of the robbers.[3]

His masterwork remains Village of the Damned, from John Wyndham's sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos.[4] As well as directing it, Rilla was responsible, with Geoffrey Barclay and the American screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, for the adaptation.[5] George Sanders also starred in this, with Barbara Shelley.[6]

For television he dabbled in all manner of series, from The Adventures of Aggie, a 1956 BBC sitcom aimed chiefly at the American market, to the TV version (1969–71) of radio's popular Send for Paul Temple detective series. His novels included Greek Chorus, The Dispensable Man, The Chinese Consortium and one simply entitled Movie.

Personal life

Rilla married the actress and director Valerie Hanson after they appeared together in a BBC TV production of The Portugal Lady, and they had a daughter, Madeleine, in 1955. In 1967 he married Shirley Graham-Ellis, a publicist for tea suppliers Jacksons of Piccadilly and London Films. Rilla and Graham-Ellis had a son, Nico, who as a filmmaker himself continued a family tradition that now spans three generations and 85 years, although now he has since left the film business and become a Chef. His daughter Madeleine died in a car crash in 1985.

After Rilla had held office in both the film technicians' union ACTT and the Directors' Guild, he and Shirley moved to the south of France, to buy and run a hotel at Fayence in Provence.[4]

Filmography

Noose for a Lady (1953)

Glad TIdings (1953)

The Large Rope (1953)

Marilyn (1953)

The Black Rider (1954)

The End of the Road (1954)

Stock Car (1955)

The Blue Peter (1955)

Pacific Destiny (1956)

The Scamp (1957)

Bachelor of Hearts (1958)

Jessy (1959)

Witness in the Dark (1959)

Die zornigen jungen Männer (1960)

Village of the Damned (1960)

Piccadilly Third Stop (1960)

Watch it, Sailor! (1961)

The World Ten Times Over (1963)

Cairo (1963)

Pax? (1968)

Secrets of a Door-to-Door Salesman (1973)

Bedtime with Rosie (1974)