Francis Searle was one of the more prolific of British directors. He
started his career in 1936, making one-reel shorts, and graduated to
two-reel documentaries and low-grade "B" pictures. In the 1970s he
turned out a string of 30-minute comedies.
His original career was as a layout artist in the advertising industry,
but in the '30s he was hired at Highbury Studios as a camera assistant.
He worked on dozens of the one-reel "Cinemagazine" shorts, then moved
over to Gaumont Studios where he made documentaries. His first feature
film as a director,
A Girl in a Million (1946),
was also the only "A" picture he ever did. Searle could turn out films
on time and under budget, which endeared him to second-tier producers
and guaranteed him plenty of work. He made a few films over his career
that garnered somewhat respectable critical reviews, such as
The Man in Black (1950),
The Rossiter Case (1951) and
Cloudburst (1951), but the majority of
his rather extensive output was run-of-the-mill "B"--and below--dramas,
action pictures and thrillers.