Biography

Michael Balcon started in films as a distributor, then a producer from the early 1920s, helping to launch the career of Alfred Hitchcock. In the 1930s, Balcon was prominent in building up a huge annual production programme of films for both Gainsborough and Gaumont-British. Head of MGM-British, 1936-38, then in charge of production at Ealing. Knighted in 1948. After Ealing, produced some films independently (A Boy Ten Feet Tall (1963)), and helped form Bryanston Films, a group of independent film makers, including several ex-Ealing colleagues such as Basil Dearden and Michael Relph. After a frustrating period as Chairman of British Lion (1964-68), in which he found it impossible to fulfill his commitment to support a continuity of indigenous production, he became Chairman of the British Institute's Experimental Film Fund before retiring in 1972.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

[1977, following publication of Charles Barr's "Ealing Studios"] A great many motives were attributed to why we made the films we did; all I can say is that we just enjoyed making films.

We made films at Ealing that were good, bad and indifferent, but they were indisputably British. They were rooted in the soil of the country.

I always look for people whose ideas coincide with mine, and then I'm ready to give them a chance to make a name for themselves.