Biography
A clapper boy in British films while a teenager, Freddie Francis became a camera assistant and in the mid-1950s was an operator for
Oswald Morris, the director of photography on
John Huston's
Moulin Rouge (1953) and
Beat the Devil (1954); he also directed second-unit footage for Huston's
Moby Dick (1956). As a director of photography himself, Francis worked for directors
Karel Reisz (
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning [1961],
Night Must Fall [1964]),
Jack Cardiff (
Sons and Lovers [1960]), and fellow Huston-alumnus
Jack Clayton (
Room at the Top [1959],
The Innocents [1961]). In the early 1960s he began directing but still occasionally shot films for such directors as Reisz and
David Lynch. As a director, Francis has specialized in horror films, notably at Hammer, but also for producers Max J. Rosenberg and
Milton Subotsky and the anthology films Dr. Terror's House of Horrors [1965],
Torture Garden [1967], and
Tales from the Crypt [1972]). ~ All Movie Guide