Reed, Carol (1906–1976)

English film producer and director. He was an influential figure in the British film industry of the 1940s. His films include Odd Man Out (1946), The Fallen Idol (1948), The Third Man (1949), Our Man in Havana (1960), and the Academy Award-winning musical Oliver! (1968).

Reed reached the pinnacle of his career in conjunction with producer Alexander Korda. He also collaborated with writer Graham Greene.

Reed was born in London, the son of the actor Herbert Beerbohm Tree, and followed his father onto the stage in 1924. He played small parts until he joined the writer Edgar Wallace as an actor and producer in 1927 on a series of plays adapted from his crime novels. In 1932 he entered films as a dialogue coach at Associated Talking Pictures. Apart from his debut feature, Midshipman Easy (1934), Reed mostly handled minor melodramas, the best of which was Laburnum Grove (1936). However, Bank Holiday (1938) and The Stars Look Down (1939), with their authentic local atmosphere and realistic performances, established him as one of Britain's leading directors, and the comedy thriller Night Train to Munich (1940) showed that he was capable of creating and sustaining suspense. He was a director with the Army Cinematograph Service 1942–45, made the wartime drama The Way Ahead (1944), and shared an Academy Award with US codirector Garson Kanin for The True Glory (1945), a documentary account of the final year of World War II.

Other films include Kipps (1941), The Young Mr Pitt (1942), An Outcast of the Islands (1951), The Man Between (1953), A Kid for Two Farthings (1955), Trapeze (1956), and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965).

In 1952 he became the first British film director to be knighted.