Peter Richard Gunton Hopkinson (1920 - 2007) was a British film-maker and director. A Second World War combat cameraman, and documentary director, reporter and writer, he also worked at Denham Studios in the heyday of British cinema. He was a member of The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA).Peter Hopkinson died on June 28, 2007, aged 87. He is survived by his wife, Margaret, and two stepsons.
Fascinated by film-making since being given a silent 35 mm projector at an early age, and stunned by the impact of Alexander Korda’s Things to Come (1936), 16-year-old Hopkinson applied for, and got, a job at Ealing Studios as clapper boy on George Formby comedies. On leaving Ealing, Hopkinson worked as a camera assistant at Alexander Korda’s Denham Studios, built on a site near the village of Denham, Buckinghamshire.
He worked with the American director King Vidor on The Citadel (1938), based on the novel by A.J. Cronin, and appeared briefly in The Thief of Bagdad (released 1940) before being called up for service in 1939. He joined the Army Film Unit under David MacDonald. When Hitler invaded Russia, Hopkinson volunteered for service overseas and was accepted, but in December 1941, aged 21, he heard of his selection as a cameraman and was sent to Persia to make a film about getting supplies through to Russia.
In Baghdad, the then prime minister Rashid Ali had allied Iraq with Germany, and the city had been invaded by the British. However, Hopkinson’s first film reached London safely and was edited by Roy Boulting. It was shown throughout the world as Via Persia (1942).
Hopkinson won an award from the Overseas Press Club for "Best Reporting from Abroad on Foreign Affairs" for his film To Open the World to the Nations: Suez (1955) made as the old order was in retreat and Nasser had taken over as Prime Minister.
In 1955, he joined NBC's Project 20 which planned a programme on Austria as the Allied occupying forces were departing. Hopkinson, as director/cameraman, wove his documentary around the re-opening of Vienna's Opera House with Beethoven's Fidelio.
Hopkinson joined World Wide Pictures and among the films he directed was Bandwagon, which won the Premier Award at the British Industrial Film Festival 1959.
He continued working long past retirement age, making his last documentary for Whickers War, broadcast in 2004
Split Focus; an Involvement in Two Decades is an introduction to documentary and a first installment of autobiography, describing the history of documentary television from its origins as cinema newsreel.
Published by Hart-Davis, 1969.
The Role of Film in Development
(Reports and papers on mass communication)
Published by UNESCO 1971.
Screen of Change (autobiography/memoir)
Published by The UKA Press 2007
Screen of Change is a memoir and historical study from film-maker Peter Hopkinson. The BUFVC has published chapter two ‘Film and Politics’, with the generous permission of the author. [2]
