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Langley, Bryan (1909-2008)
 

Cinematographer

Main image of Langley, Bryan (1909-2008)

Bryan Langley was born in Fulham, London, in 1909, the son of baritone opera singer Herbert Langley. He left school at 17 and went to work for cinema entrepreneur Harry B. Parkinson at the H. B. Parkinson Company.

Initially trained across all the departments, Langley gravitated towards the cameras and by 1930 he was the chief lighting cameraman. He joined British International Pictures in 1930 where he shot many productions including Number Seventeen (d. Alfred Hitchcock 1932), Blossom Time (d. Paul Stein, 1934) and Royal Cavalcade (d. Norman Lee, 1935) until he signed up for army service in 1941 and the Army Film Unit.

After the war he spent ten years at Pinewood before the lure of the television industry brought him to BBC Ealing in 1958. He photographed the television series The History of Mr Polly (1959), Bleak House (1959) and Maigret (1960). In the 1960s he became an international film cameraman for the United Nations Relief Work Agency, touring the world making documentaries. On his return to England he set up as a freelance cameraman working mainly for the BBC and also for industrial documentary company Hugh Baddeley Productions.

Ann Ogidi

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FILM & TV CREDITS

From the BFI's filmographic database

Related media

Thumbnail image of Bryan Langley: BECTU Interview Part 1 (1987) Bryan Langley: BECTU Interview Part 1 (1987)

Film stock, frame size, Independent Frame and the Schufftan process

Thumbnail image of Bryan Langley: BECTU Interview Part 2 (1987) Bryan Langley: BECTU Interview Part 2 (1987)

On his early career in silent film at the studios of H.B. Parkinson

Thumbnail image of Bryan Langley: BECTU Interview Part 3 (1987) Bryan Langley: BECTU Interview Part 3 (1987)

Covering WWII beyond Europe for The War Office Film Unit

Thumbnail image of Bryan Langley: BECTU Interview Part 4 (1987) Bryan Langley: BECTU Interview Part 4 (1987)

A sighting of Mr Baird and working at BBC studios in the late '50s

Selected credits

Thumbnail image of Dark Eyes of London, The (1939)Dark Eyes of London, The (1939)

Some mysterious deaths seem to be linked to an insurance company

Thumbnail image of Number Seventeen (1932)Number Seventeen (1932)

Early Hitchcock sound thriller about criminals holed up in a deserted house

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