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Alexander Mackendrick (September 8, 1912 – December 22, 1993) was an American born Scottish director and teacher. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and later moved to Scotland. He began making television commercials before moving into post-production editing and directing films, most notably for Ealing Studios where his films include ''Whisky Galore!'' (1949), ''The Man in the White Suit'' (1951), and ''The Ladykillers'' (1955). After his first American film ''Sweet Smell of Success'' (1957), his career as a director declined and he became a teacher of film making in the United States. He was the cousin of the Scottish writer Roger MacDougall. ==Biography== He was born on 8 September 1912 the only child of Francis and Martha Mackendrick who had emigrated to the United States from Glasgow in 1911. His father was a ship builder and a civil engineer. When Mackendrick was six, his father died of influenza as a result of an pandemic that swept the world just after World War I. His mother, in desperate need of work, decided to be a dress designer. In order to pursue that decision, it was necessary for Martha MacKendrick to hand her only son over to his grandfather, who took young MacKendrick back to Scotland when he was seven years old. Mackendrick never saw or heard from his mother again. Mackendrick had a sad and lonely childhood.〔 He attended Hillhead High School from 1919 to 1926 and then went on to spend three years at the Glasgow School of Art. In the early 1930s, MacKendrick moved to London to work as an art director for the advertising firm J. Walter Thompson. Between 1936 and 1938, Mackendrick scripted five cinema commercials. He later reflected that his work in the advertising industry was invaluable, in spite of his extreme dislike of the industry itself. MacKendrick wrote his first film script with his cousin and close friend, Roger MacDougall. It was bought by Associated British and later released, after script revisions, as ''Midnight Menace'' (1937). At the start of the Second World War, Mackendrick was employed by the Minister of Information making British propaganda films. In 1942 he went to Algiers and then to Italy, working with the Psychological Warfare Division. He then shot newsreels, documentaries, made leaflets, and did radio news. In 1943, he became the director of the film unit and approved the production of Roberto Rossellini's early neorealist film, ''Rome, Open City'' (1945). ==Period with Ealing Studios== After the war, Mackendrick and Roger MacDougall set up Merlin Productions, where they produced documentaries for the Ministry of Information. Merlin Productions soon proved financially unviable. In 1946 Mackendrick joined Ealing Studios, originally as a scriptwriter and production designer, where he worked for nine years and directed five films made at Ealing; ''Whisky Galore!'' (US: ''Tight Little Island'', 1949), ''The Man in the White Suit'' (1951), ''Mandy'' (1952), ''The Maggie'' (US: ''High and Dry'', 1954) and ''The Ladykillers'' (1955), the first two and the last being among the best known of Ealing's films.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alexander Mackendrick」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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