Peter Handford Video | Interviews

Peter Handford (21 March 1919 – 6 November 2007) was a British location sound recordist. He is considered a master and pioneer of this genre of sound recording. Born into a vicarage family at Four Elms in Kent, England, Handford began work in 1936 with London Films at Denham as a trainee sound recordist. He honed his sound recording skills during the D-Day landings, where he served with the Army Film Unit of the British Expeditionary Force. His first screen credit was on Black Magic (1949) and in the same year he recorded Under Capricorn for Alfred Hitchcock. In 1972, Hitchcock sought... MORE

Peter Handford (21 March 1919 – 6 November 2007) was a British location sound recordist. He is considered a master and pioneer of this genre of sound recording. Born into a vicarage family at Four Elms in Kent, England, Handford began work in 1936 with London Films at Denham as a trainee sound recordist. He honed his sound recording skills during the D-Day landings, where he served with the Army Film Unit of the British Expeditionary Force. His first screen credit was on Black Magic (1949) and in the same year he recorded Under Capricorn for Alfred Hitchcock. In 1972, Hitchcock sought him out to work on Frenzy. Handford pioneered the use of original synchronous sound recording for David Lean on the 1955 film Summer Madness, shot on location in Venice, and developed the technique during the British New Wave cinema movement, working on films such as Room at the Top, The Entertainer, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Sons and Lovers, Billy Liar, Tom Jones, Oh! What a Lovely War; and on The Go-Between and other films for Joseph Losey. He also worked on American productions, including the 1970s railway-based Murder on the Orient Express and The Lady Vanishes, on both of which radio LESS