Introduction
Lance Comfort (11 August 1908 – 25 August 1966) was an English film director and producer born in Harrow, London.
In a career spanning over 25 years he became one of the most prolific film directors in Britain, though he never gained critical attention and remained on the fringes of the film industry, creating mostly B movies.
Comfort carried on working almost right up to his death in Worthing, Sussex, 1966. He had four children: Edward, born in 1929, James, born in 1931, Anna, born in 1934 and Jack, born in 1936.
Critical assessment
The film historians Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane praise Comfort's gifts "in the confident exercise of melodramatic impulses in the interests of illuminating character and relationship, in a decorative visual style to serve these impulses, and in giving their heads to string of dominant actors". They add that all of his films "are persuasive narratives, marked by absence of sentimentality and the whiff of human reality".