Anthony Frank Hinds (19 September 1922 – 30 September 2013[1]), also known as Tony Hinds and John Elder, was an English screenwriter and producer.[2][3]
In 1946 Hinds returned to Hammer 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. This business had been divided in the 1920s between William and his brother Frank Hinds. Frank's part is now the F. Hinds national jewellery chain.[6]
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.[1] 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 TV series Journey to the Unknown for LWT (1968–69) and The Lost Continent (1968) (the latter uncredited).[7] His last screenwriting credit was 1984's The Masks of Death.[4]
The horror script The Unquenchable Thirst of Dracula, which he wrote in the 1970s for Hammer,[8] 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 actor and film historian Jonathan Rigby as narrator.[9] In October 2017 a studio production of the script was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, with narration by Michael Sheen.[10]
Personal life and death
In 1956, Hinds married Jean Knowles, and they had two daughters.[4] He died from complications of Parkinson's disease at his home in Chadlington, Oxfordshire, on 30 September 2013.[4]