Annakin was born in and grew up in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire where he attended the local grammar school. After leaving school he became a trainee income tax inspector in the city of Hull. Annakin subsequently decided to emigrate to New Zealand, and travelled around the world in a variety of jobs.[2][3]
His early documentaries included London 1942 (1942), A Ride with Uncle Joe (1943), Make Fruitful the Land (1945), We of the West Riding (1945), English Criminal Justice (1946), It Began on the Clyde (1946) and Fenlands (1946).
Feature films and Gainsborough Pictures
Annakin had made a number of documentaries for Sydney Box, and when Box took over as head of Gainsborough Pictures he brought Annakin with him and assigned him to his first feature, Holiday Camp (1947). It was a solid hit and launched Annakin's career. Box called in Annakin to replace Michael Charlton, who was directing Miranda (1948) with Glynis Johns. The resulting film was another success.
Disney reunited Annakin and Todd on The Sword and the Rose (1953), co-starring Glynis Johns; it was a commercial disappointment. Annakin was offered the chance to direct a third historical film with Richard Todd, Rob Roy, but John Davis refused to let him out of his contract with Rank.
Annakin made a comedy, You Know What Sailors Are (1954) then did another imperial adventure story with Hawkins, The Seekers (1954). He arranged for Rank to buy the rights to a Pearl Buck novel The Hidden Flower but then decided not to make it as he felt interracial romance was out of date. He worked on a film set in Burma, Elephant Bill but John Davis of Rank refused to make it as it was too expensive.[5]
He returned to comedy for Value for Money (1955) with John Gregson and Diana Dors, for Rank; Loser Takes All (1956) with Johns, based on a script by Graham Greene, for British Lion Films. He was going to direct The Alcock and Brown Story for Alex Korda starring Kenneth More but the film was cancelled when Korda went bankrupt.[6] He was going to direct The Singer Not the Song with Marlon Brando and Peter Finch but pulled out when they were unable to raise finance and John Davis insisted Dirk Bogarde be cast. He directed Three Men in a Boat (1956) with Laurence Harvey and Jimmy Edwards for Romulus Films. Three Men in a Boat was especially popular.
He was going to direct The Singer Not the Song but was unhappy with the idea of making the film with Dirk Bogarde. Instead he travelled to South Africa to make another adventure story, Nor the Moon by Night (1958) for Rank, with Michael Craig and Belinda Lee. Around this time he was credited as a writer on Mission in Morocco (1959), though he did not direct it.
Disney called again and hired Annakin to make a mountaineering tale, Third Man on the Mountain (1959). They kept him on for Swiss Family Robinson (1960), which Walt Disney's nephew, Roy, considered "one of the greatest family adventure films of all time and a favourite for generations of moviegoers".[8] It was a huge hit.
June 16, 1965, saw the release of Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. At the time it was Annakin's most ambitious project, and Zanuck, the head of the 20th Century-Fox Studio, endorsed the Britishperiodcomedy film. In this project, Annakin co-wrote, produced and directed an international ensemble cast, including Stuart Whitman, Sarah Miles, Robert Morley, Terry-Thomas, James Fox, Red Skelton, Benny Hill, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Gert Fröbe and Alberto Sordi. The story, revolving around the craze of early aviation c. 1910, is about a pompous newspaper magnate (Morley) who is convinced, by his daughter (Miles) and fiancée (Fox), to organize an air race from London to Paris. A large sum of money is offered to the winner, and a variety of characters are drawn to participate. The film received favourable reviews, in which it was described as funny, colourful and clever, and was said to have captured the early enthusiasm for aviation.[10][11][12] It was treated as a major production, one of only three full-length 70 mm Todd-AO Fox releases in 1965, with an intermission and musical interlude part of the original screenings.[13] Because of the Todd-AO process, the film was an exclusive roadshow feature, initially shown in deluxe Cinerama venues, where customers needed reserved seats purchased ahead of time.[14] The film grossed $31,111,111 theatrically.[15] Audience reaction both in first release and even today, is nearly universal in assessing the film as one of the "classic" aviation films.[16] For its writing, Annakin and Jack Davies received an Academy Award nomination.
Annakin directed the big-scale war film Battle of the Bulge the same year for producer Philip Yordan and Cinerama.[9] He also started writing a follow-up to Flying Machine called Monte Carlo or Bust.[17]
This was followed by Monte Carlo or Bust (1969) for Paramount Pictures, which Annakin produced and directed from his own script and story. It was an attempt to replicate the success of Those Magnificent Men, but was not as well received.
Thanks to the money made from his films, Annakin moved to the south of France with his family. In 1978, Annakin left France and moved to Los Angeles.[19] According to his autobiography, this was due to running foul of criminals while attempting to get funding for a new project, who threatened his family.[20]
Annakin would continue to work on more screenplays, as well as attempt to develop a new film about Amelia Earhardt called Redwing. His 1992 project, the historical drama Genghis Khan was not completed, as the company financing it went bust."[22]
Autobiography
In 2001 Annakin released his autobiography So You Wanna Be A Director?[23] with forewords by Richard Attenborough and Mike Leigh. In its review, the Directors Guild of America stated "So You Wanna Be a Director? is an entertaining autobiography through which seasoned directors and aspirants alike can enjoy and learn from a man with such a versatile and long-lived career. If Annakin tells of his exasperation over trying to coax performances out of producers' girlfriends, the bad behaviour – and sometimes the drug problems – of certain stars and the vagaries of international film financing, he's providing tales that are as cautionary today as when he lived them".[24]
Annakin was honored as a Disney Legend by The Walt Disney Company in March 2002, only the second film director to be so honoured. He was awarded an OBE the same year for service to the film industry and received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Hull University.[25]