Ken Annakin, OBE (August 10, 1914 – April 22, 2009) was an English film director. His career in films followed his work experience in documentaries. He made his directing debut in 1947 at the Rank Organisation, although the following year he moved to Gainsborough Pictures to direct three films about the Huggetts, a working class family living in suburban England. Annakin became known for a series of Walt Disney adventures including The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), The Sword and the Rose (1953) and Swiss Family Robinson (1960).
Annakin was a friend of George Lucas, and was Lucas’s inspiration for the naming of the character Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars.
He died on 22 April 2009, the same day as Jack Cardiff, who had been his cinematographer on the 1979 film The Fifth Musketeer.
Ken Annakin’s Filmography continues next page
Ken Annakin’s Filmography
West Riding (1946)
It Began on the Clyde (1946)
Fenlands (1946)
Holiday Camp (1947)
Miranda (1948)
Broken Journey (1948)
Quartet (1948)
Here Come the Huggetts (1948)
Vote for Huggett (1949)
The Huggetts Abroad (1949)
Landfall (1949)
Double Confession (1950)
Hotel Sahara (1951)
The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952)
The Planter’s Wife (1952)
The Sword and the Rose (1953)
You Know What Sailors Are (1954)
The Seekers (1954)
Value for Money (1955)
Loser Takes All (1956)
Three Men in a Boat (1956)
Across the Bridge (1957)
Nor the Moon by Night (1958)
Third Man on the Mountain (1959)
Swiss Family Robinson (1960)
Very Important Person (1961)
The Hellions (1961)
The Fast Lady (1962)
The Longest Day (1962)
Crooks Anonymous (1962)
The Informers (1963)
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965)
Battle of the Bulge (1965)
The Long Duel (1967)
The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968)
Monte Carlo or Bust! (1969)
The Call of the Wild (1972)
Paper Tiger (1975)
The Fifth Musketeer (1979)
Cheaper to Keep Her (1981)
The Pirate Movie (1982)
The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (1988)
Gengis Khan (1992)
Genghis Khan: The Story of a Lifetime (2002)