Background
John English was born in Cumberland in the United Kingdom but moved to Canada at an early age.
John English was born in Cumberland in the United Kingdom but moved to Canada at an early age.
He is most famous for the film serials he co-directed with William Witney for Republic Pictures such as Zorro"s Fighting Legion and Drums of Fu Manchu. He was credited variously as John West English, John English or Jack English. He first worked as a film editor before getting a break into directing at Republic in 1935.
lieutenant was customary at the time for two directors to work on each serial, each working on alternate days.
Witney customarily worked on the action scenes while English concentrated on character and story elements. Together they are regarded as having produced the best examples of the serial medium: "most notable of all were the directing talents of William Witney and John English.
Together they directed seventeen consecutive serials, honing an approach that allowed Republic serials to far outdistance the competition. They adopted a no-nonsense approach that treated the serial material with respect and rarely gave any clues that we shouldn"t consider the stories seriously.
Other directors would allow an element of goofiness to gradually seep into the serial.
Foreign example, few people would point to a Witney/English serial as an example of camp, unlike the Flash Gordon serials." - Gary Johnson, from Images Journal. Following disagreement with management changes at Republic"s serial team, he moved to directing features films, mostly the B-Western films for which Republic was known. In the 1952-1953 television season, English directed several episodes of Alan Hale, Junior."s Biff Baker, United States.A. espionage series on Columbia Broadcasting System. He thereafter directed twelve episodes of the Columbia Broadcasting System western series My Friend Flicka (1956–1957), and 18 episodes of Lassie (1954 television series) (1964–1965).
When Republic collapsed as a studio in 1959, he continued directing television episodes at the same studio lot.
