Anthony Frank Hinds, also known as Tony Hinds and John Elder, was a British screenwriter and producer.
Background
He was the son of the founder of Hammer Film Productions, William Hinds. The son of performer Will Hammer (né William Hinds), Anthony Hinds was educated at Street Paul"s School. He briefly joined his father"s business before his war service as a pilot in the Royal Air Force during World World War World War II
Career
In 1946 Hinds returned to Hammer Film Productions and initially produced a great many modest thrillers. One of these was The Dark Road (1947), one of the quota quickies, which featured a jewellery shop called "Hinds", a reference to his father"s original business. Frank"s part is now the F. Hinds national jewellery chain.
In the summer of 1953 Hinds was enthralled by the British Broadcasting Corporation"s The Quatermass Experiment, a six-part science fiction thriller written by Nigel Kneale.
Hinds was so impressed by what he saw that he suggested Hammer buy the big screen rights. They approached the British Broadcasting Corporation and snapped up the rights.
After requesting the new "X" certificate from the British Board of Film Censors, The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) was a box-office success and was the first of the three Quatermass cinema films based on the television serials. Hinds came up with the idea of hiring country houses and shooting films in the rooms and grounds of the locations, which saved the cost of kitting out a full studio.
The company acquired Down Place, renaming it Bray Studios, and was based there until 1966.
Under the pseudonym John Elder he was a prolific screenwriter and from the mid-1960s he concentrated on this activity, though he produced the television series Journey to the Unknown for LWT (1968-1969) and The Lost Continent (1968). The horror script The Unquenchable Thirst of Dracula, which he wrote in the 1960s for Hammer, was never filmed. In October 2015 it was presented as a live stage reading by the Mayhem Film Festival at the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham, featuring the British film historian Jonathan Rigby as narrator.