Arthur Crabtree started out in the film industry as an assistant camera
operator with BIP, graduating to full lighting cameraman at Gainsborough
Studios in 1932, and director of photography in 1935. Crabtree's
more memorable assignments as a cinematographer include Oh,
Mr. Porter! (1937), Kipps
(1941), The Man
in Grey (1943), Fanny
by Gaslight (1944) and Waterloo
Road (1945).
The following year he became a director with Madonna of the Seven Moons
(1945), the first in a series of extravagant Gainsborough costume melodramas.
He uncharacteristically delved into low-key whimsy with the "Kite"
segment in the omnibus feature Quartet
(1948). Crabtree’s career ended with ventures into television
and a clutch of b-movies, amongst them the spine-tingling horrors Fiend
Without a Face (1958) and Horrors
of the Black Museum (1959).
