On David Lean - a film giant

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of David Lean. This giant of the film world was responsible for some of the twentieth century's iconic movies. From working on Noel Coward's In Which We Serve and launching the screen acting career of Alec Guinness in the film version of the Dickens classic Great Expectations, Lean was at the forefront of a dazzling mileu of British talent that adorned the cinema in the post Second World War years. Not an easy man to work with he nontheless helped develop the careers of several distinguished actors, Peter O'Toole and Omar Shariff among them.

He was responsible for some true masterpieces, such as Lawrence of Arabia with the opening desert scene, Dr Zhivago and The Bridge on the River Kwai, with a mesemerising peformance by Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson. As for the cream of the acting talent, Lean worked with them all, from Richard Attenborough to Jack Hawkins and Julie Christie to John Mills and many, many more. A perfectionist who drove himself and others to the point of distraction, at times a tyrant, he was not an actor's director or a particularly caring man. He was, though, a great artist and a list of even some of his films is a roll-call of cimematic delights. Read and marvel: Great Expectations; Oliver Twist; Brief Encounter; The Bridge on the River Kwai; Hobson's Choice; Lawrence of Arabia; Dr Zhivago; Ryan's Daughter; Passage to India . Shall we see his like again?