Val Guest

When his acting career fell into decline, Londoner Val Guest worked as a journalist in England, then moved to Hollywood, where he wrote his own columns and hacked away as a tipster for Walter Winchell. Returning to London, he churned out scripts for such comic talents as Will Hay, the Crazy Gang and Arthur Askey, developing a talent for combining laughs with thrills. He made his directorial bow in 1942, subsequently producing and writing many of his own efforts. Guest was an accomplished trend-follower, directing girl-filled musicals, science fictioners, spy melodramas and even such sexploitationers as The Au Pair Girls (1972) Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1973). One historian has commented that Guest the director was far more talented than Guest the screenwriter, an assertion borne out by the fact that his best films--especially The Creeping Unknown (1955), Enemy From Space (1957) and The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)--were penned by others. On the other hand, Guest did a commendable job adapting and directing his own novel, 80,000 Suspects. Val Guest is married to actress Yolande Donlan, who starred in several of her husband's films (Mr. Drake's Duck, They Can't Hang Me etc.) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide