Nigel Balchin
Writing
Biography
Nigel Balchin was an eminent 20th-century novelist and screenwriter. Born in Wiltshire in 1908, he had a successful early career as an industrial psychologist. Whilst seconded to Rowntree’s, he was intimately involved in the launch of Black Magic chocolates. During World War Two, Balchin worked first for the Ministry of Food and later for the Army, ending the War as Deputy Scientific Adviser to the Army Council, with the rank of Brigadier. Balchin’s wartime employment provided him with plenty of original and interesting material and served as the springboard for his career as a novelist. Between 1942 and 1962 he produced a string of commercial and critical successes, including Darkness Falls From the Air, The Small Back Room, Mine Own Executioner, A Sort of Traitors, Sundry Creditors, The Fall of the Sparrow and Seen Dimly Before Dawn. He also found fame as a scriptwriter, adapting several of his own works, including Mine Own Executioner, and writing screenplays for films such as Mandy, Twenty-Three Paces to Baker Street, The Man Who Never Was (for which he won the 1956 BAFTA) and The Singer not the Song. In addition, Powell and Pressburger produced a highly acclaimed film version of The Small Back Room in 1949. Nigel Balchin died in London in 1970.
Known For
Anthology series of dramatic works.
ITV Saturday Night Theatre
Epic account of the thief Barabbas, who was pardoned for his crimes and spared crucifixion when Pilate offered the Israelites a choice to pardon Barabbas or Jesus. Struggling with his spirituality, Barabbas goes through many ordeals leading him to the gladiatorial arena, where he tries to win his freedom and confront his inner demons, ultimately becoming a follower of the man who was crucified in his place.
Barabbas
A Roman Catholic priest defies a Mexican bandit whose gang kills villagers in alphabetical order.
The Singer Not the Song
Following a traffic accident, things take a turn when the victim's identity is revealed.
Separate Lies
Malta, 1942, during World War II. While the German air force is relentlessly bombing the island, a British pilot falls in love with a young Maltese girl.
Malta Story
London, the early 1950s. Born deaf, Mandy is mute for most of her childhood. As she reaches school age her family itself is in danger of breaking up. Christine, Mandy's mother, has heard of a residential school for the oral education of the deaf.
Mandy
As the Germans drop explosive booby-traps on 1943 Britain, the embittered expert who'll have to disarm them fights a private battle with alcohol.
The Small Back Room
The true story of a British effort to trick the Germans into weakening Sicily's defenses before the 1943 attack. A dead soldier is dressed as a British officer and outfitted with faked papers showing that the Allies were intending to invade occupied Greece. His body is put into the sea where it will ultimately drift ashore and the papers be passed along to German Intelligence.
The Man Who Never Was
Remake of Josef von Sternberg's 1930 classic.
The Blue Angel
A government team researching cures for plague find their results put on the Official Secrets list. One of their number is so incensed by this that he lets the maimed and jealous companion of a female colleague draw him into what, technically, could be a treasonable act.
Suspect
Philip Hannon, a blind playwright living in London, overhears part of a conversation , that leads him into a desperate race, to find a kidnapped child. When he gets no help from the police, he along with his butler, and his ex fiancée, attempt to track down the crooks.
23 Paces to Baker Street
A politician rises rapidly to fame and fortune and discovers that power corrupts and ultimately becomes the very type of politician he had set out to displace.
Fame Is the Spur
The trouble with Josephine is that her ever-loving and over-sympathetic nature leads her to switch from needful men to even more needful men...
Josephine and Men
Fearing her husband could become a killer, a woman seeks a psychiatrist's help.
Mine Own Executioner
Unbeknownst to him, a soldier is sent on a doomed mission because of the high likelihood of him divulging secrets if captured and tortured.