This year marks the centennial of David Lean (1908-1991), a giant among British directors with a career that spanned war films, literary adaptations, domestic melodramas and international epics. Though known primarily in the US for his epic dramas--The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago--this series focuses on Lean's first ten British films, all made in the 1940s and early 50s. For critic David Thomson, the films of this period constitute Lean's greatest achievement: "They are lively, stirring, and an inspiration--they make you want to go out and make movies, they are so in love with the screen's power."

The David Lean Foundation has generously funded the BFI National Archive, working with Granada International and Studio Canal, to restore these films, all of which will screen with new prints from the BFI.

All program notes in this series adapted from notes by the BFI.

Special thanks to: Sue Jones--BFI.

Friday October 10 2008, 7:30PM ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

IN WHICH WE SERVE
(1942) Directed by Noël Coward and David Lean

Lean shared the directing credit with Noël Coward, who wrote and starred in this tense and moving account of life on board a wartime destroyer. Although based on the experiences of Louis Mountbatten, this is a state-of-the-nation film with social divisions on shore faithfully mirrored aboard ship. Lean arranged all the camera set-ups and directed Coward in his scenes in front of the camera.

Based on a play by Noël Coward. Producer: Noël Coward. Screenplay: Noël Coward. Cinematographer: Ronald Neame. Editor: Thelma Myers. Cast: Noël Coward, John Mills, Bernard Miles, Celia Johnson, Kay Walsh. 35mm, 114 min.

THIS HAPPY BREED
(1944) Directed by David Lean

Noël Coward was again the source for this story of a London lower middle-class suburban family in the inter-war years from 1919 to 1939. The finely and wittily observed family feuds unfold against a panorama of public events ranging from the General Strike of 1926 to the outbreak of war itself. Beautifully acted by an ensemble cast and shot in Technicolor, the film was a huge contemporary hit and has lost little of its appeal.

Producer: Noël Coward. Screenplay: Noël Coward, David Lean, Ronald Neame, Anthony Havelock-Allan. Cinematographer: Ronald Neame. Cast: Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, John Mills, Kay Walsh, Stanley Holloway. 35mm, 110 min.

Saturday October 11 2008, 7:30PM ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

HOBSON'S CHOICE
(1953) Directed by David Lean

Charles Laughton delivers a bravura performance as a self-important Lancashire bootmaker who attempts to dictate his daughter's choice of husband, only to find that she marries his downtrodden and simpleminded employee and starts a rival business. Set in the 1890s, this working class comedy by Harold Brighouse was first staged in 1916 but is here given a fresh breath of cinematic life thanks to luminous cinematography by Jack Hildyard.

Based on the play by Harold Brighthouse. Producer: David Lean. Screenplay: David Lean, Wynyard Browne, Norman Spencer. Cinematographer: Jack Hildyard. Cast: Charles Laughton, John Mills, Brenda de Banzie, Prunella Scales, Derek Blomfield. 35mm, 107 min.

BLITHE SPIRIT
(1945) Directed by David Lean

David Lean's first comedy, again scripted by Noël Coward from his Broadway hit, stars Rex Harrison as a successful and cheerfully cynical novelist whose marital bliss is interrupted by the mischievous ghost of his first wife, visible to him but invisible to everyone else. The simple but effective special effects, all the more impressive in Technicolor, won an Oscar.

Based on a play by Noël Coward. Producer: Noël Coward. Screenwriter: Noël Coward. Cinematographer: Ronald Neame. Cast: Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings, Kay Hammond, Margaret Rutherford. 35mm, 95 min.

Wednesday October 22 2008, 7:30PM ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

MADELEINE
(1949) Directed by David Lean

In this period drama, set in Victorian Glasgow and based on a true story, Lean exploits the ambiguous and enigmatic screen presence of Ann Todd. Here she plays a young woman who, rebelling against her patriarchal father, falls for a penniless but exploitative French aristocrat who later dies of arsenic poisoning. Madeleine is anything but a victim, daring to expose her sexuality. Guy Green's deep focus photography owes much to Citizen Kane.

Producer: Stanley Haynes. Screenplay: Nicholas Phipps, Stanley Haynes. Cinematographer: Guy Green. Cast: Ann Todd, Leslie Banks, Elizabeth Sellars, Jean Cadell, Eugene Deckers. 35mm, 114 min.

THE SOUND BARRIER
(1952) Directed by David Lean

The human cost of scientific progress underlies this story of an aircraft manufacturer whose obsession for perfection leads him into near madness and brings his family suffering – a tendency shared by Lean himself. The script by Terence Rattigan delivers the drama, but the exhilarating aerial footage and the score by Malcolm Arnold are what lodge in the memory.

Producer: David Lean. Screenplay: Terence Rattigan. Cinematographer: Jack Hildyard. Editor: Geoffrey Foot. Cast: Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd, Nigel Patrick, John Justin, Dinah Sheridan. 35mm, 116 min.

Friday October 24 2008, 7:30PM ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

BRIEF ENCOUNTER
(1945) Directed by David Lean

David Lean's international reputation was established with this study of unfulfilled passion and guilt – themes that were to recur in his later work. Critically debated, mocked, referenced and remade, this account of an unconsummated affair between a middle-class housewife and a doctor, forced to meet at a railway station, retains a tight emotional grip on any contemporary audience.

Based on the play by Noël Coward. Producer: Noël Coward. Screenplay: Noël Coward, David Lean, Ronald Neame, Anthony Havelock-Allan. Cinematographer: Robert Krasker. Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Caery. 35mm, 86 min.

THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS
(1948) Directed by David Lean

One of the least known films in the director's distinguished canon, this absorbing love story is a fascinating companion piece to Brief Encounter and has been hailed by critic David Thomson as – of all Lean's works – 'the film most deserving rediscovery'. Mary (Ann Todd) has chosen a comfortable secure life with her rich banker husband (Claude Rains) lover romantic passion with her first love Steven (Trevor Howard). Adapted from a novel by HG Wells, The Passionate Friends is a triumph of visual storytelling from a master of the art.

Based on the novel by H.G. Wells. Producer: Ronald Neame. Screenplay: Eric Ambler, Stanley Haynes, David Lean. Cinematographer: Guy Green. Editor: Geoffrey Foot. Cast: Ann Todd, Trevor Howard, Claude Rains, Betty Ann Davies, Isabel Dean. 35mm, 91 min.

Sunday October 26 2008, 7:00PM* ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

GREAT EXPECTATIONS
(1946) Directed by David Lean

Undoubtedly one of the finest Dickens adaptations, the film is studded with memorable set-pieces, from young Pip's hair-raising encounter with Magwitch in the graveyard to the eerie Gothic fantasy world of Miss Havisham. The Oscar-winning team of cinematographer Guy Green and production designer John Bryan bring Dickens' settings to vivid, indelible life.

Based on the novel by Charles Dickens. Producer: Ronald Neame. Screenplay: David Lean, Ronald Neame, Anthony Havelock-Allan, Kay Walsh. Cinematographer: Guy Green. Production Designer: John Bryan. Cast: Cecil McGivern, John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Bernard Miles, Jean Simmons, Francis L. Sullivan. 35mm, 118 min.

OLIVER TWIST
(1948) Directed by David Lean

Dickens' extravagant vision of Victorian London is perfectly balanced by superb performances and Lean's fierce grip on the sprawling narrative. Guy Green and John Bryan lend an Expressionist look to Fagin's hellish underworld and Alec Guinness, in his second major role, gives a finely judged theatrical – if controversial – depiction of Fagin himself. Lean was always eager to open a film without dialogue and here he outdoes himself with a tour de force sequence of Oliver's pregnant mother battling against a storm.

Based on the novel by Charles Dickens. Screenplay: David Lean, Stanley Haynes. Cinematographer: Guy Green. Editor: Jack Harris. Cast: Alec Guinness, Robert Newton, John Howard Davies, Kay Walsh, Henry Stephenson. 35mm, 115 min.