Pat Jackson

Biography

Patrick Douglas Selmes Jackson (26 March 1916 – 3 June 2011) was an English film and television director. Born in Eltham, to a formerly affluent family which was severely affected by the Wall Street Crash in 1929, and his father's long-term illness and early death ending Jackson's formal education. He joined the GPO Film Unit on his 17th birthday as a messenger boy after his mother persuaded her MP, Sir Kingsley Wood, then also postmaster general, to find work for her son. Rising to production assistant, he was part of the crew for the short film Night Mail (1936). The voice narrating the poem by W.H. Auden ("This is the Night Mail crossing the border, bringing the cheque and the postal order.") was Jackson himself. He directed a number of documentaries, the first being The Horsey Mail (1938) about the rural postal service in Suffolk. The First Days (1939), co-directed by Harry Watt and Humphrey Jennings, was the first of the wartime documentaries, in this instance concerned with the 'Phoney War' period. Jackson's debut feature film was Western Approaches (1944), a semi-documentary war film for what was now the Ministry of Information's Crown Film Unit. For what became a three-ye…

Directed

1. The Prisoner (1967) — Director
2. The Saint (1962) — Director
3. The Professionals (1977) — Director
4. Danger Man (1960) — Director
5. What a Carve Up! (1961) — Director
6. Shadow on the Wall (1950) — Director
7. Encore (1951) — Director
8. Don't Talk to Strange Men (1962) — Director
9. Man in a Suitcase (1967) — Director
10. The Feminine Touch (1956) — Director
11. White Corridors (1951) — Director
12. Western Approaches (1944) — Director
13. The Birthday Present (1957) — Director
14. Snowball (1960) — Director
15. Seven Keys (1961) — Director
16. The First Days (1939) — Director
17. Arthur of the Britons (1972) — Director
18. Virgin Island (1959) — Director
19. Something Money Can't Buy (1952) — Director
20. Welfare of the Workers (1940) — Director
21. Ferry Pilot (1942) — Director
22. Seventy Deadly Pills (1963) — Director
23. King Arthur, the Young Warlord (1975) — Director
24. The Horsey Mail (1938) — Director
25. The Mysterious Stranger (1965) — Director
26. On the Run (1968) — Director
27. To Chase A Million (1967) — Director
28. Builders (1942) — Director
29. Catch As Catch Can (1965) — Director
30. Mystery at the Forge (1965) — Director
31. The Night Prowler (1965) — Director
32. Highway Robbery (1965) — Director
33. All at Sea (1965) — Director
34. Dead End Creek (1965) — Director
35. Health in War (1940) — Director
36. The Stable Door (1966) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Six Into One: The Prisoner File (1984) — Self
2. Back to the Back of Beyond (1997) — Pat Jackson