Biography

Cyril Montague Pennington-Richards was born in London. He began his film career producing religious films for J. Arthur Rank's Religious Film Society. He entered the "mainstream" film industry as a cinematographer with Ireland's Border Line (1938), a low-budget vehicle for Irish comic actor Jimmy O'Dea. During World War II Richards was attached to the renowned documentary unit The Crown Film Unit, and was the cinematographer on Humphrey Jennings famous Fires Were Started (1943). After the war ended he continued as a cinematographer, working on many films directed by his former colleagues in the CFU, such as Brian Desmond Hurst's Theirs Is the Glory (1946), Jack Lee's The Wooden Horse (1950) and Pat Jackson's White Corridors (1951).

He was the cinematographer on Hurst's A Christmas Carol (1951), considered by many to be the definitive version of the famous Charles Dickens novel. He worked with noted American director Edward Dmytryk, who was making films in England due to his being blacklisted during the notorious McCarthy "Red Scare" era in the US. Richards made his directorial debut with the comedy The Horse's Mouth (1953), and made his reputation with a series of modest, somewhat whimsical comedies over the next 20+ years. He made his final film, the modestly budgeted adventure Sky Pirates (1980), in 1977, after which he retired.
- IMDb mini biography by: frankfob2@yahoo.com

He left home at 16 intending to go into engineering then with lack of knowledge but plenty of business sense he set himself up in a radio shop and had made £2,000 before he was 18. A year later he joined a film advertising company who made him a director at 20. He decide to make a film about Canterbury which he sold so he moved into the film business as a lighting cameraman for 15 years. He had no money sense as when he had money he spent it and if he didn't have any he made some. At one time he lived on a yacht in the South of France coming back to England for Work. He made numerous documentary films for The Crown Film Unit including 'Fires Were Started' He moved to South Africa and bought a farm but kept coming back to England for work. Eventually he became a lighting cameraman for 15 years before turning to directing. Still into farming he had a 22 acre farm in Surrey and continued with television work including a number of episodes of the children's adventure series 'The Buccaneers'.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tonyman 5