Title: Cromwell (film)
Content:  In 1960, Hughes read John Buchan's biography, Oliver Cromwell and more books before touring England and researching from historic sites to museums and archives. In September 1960, Warwick purchased the screen rights to Buchan's book and Hughes was announced as writer and director. During the next few years, it was reported Peter Finch and Tony Hancock were under consideration for the title role before Richard Harris was finally cast in 1968. Hughes originally wrote the script in 1961. Richard Harris liked it and wanted to star but financiers did not consider him a big enough star at the time to finance the film. They wanted Charlton Heston but Hughes did not think he was appropriate. (Heston wrote in his diaries on 2 November 1961 
Title: John Cromwell (director)
Content:  that a screenwriter had approached Hughes, urging him to buy the rights of a story that would be so repellent to Cromwell the director would be compelled to reject it—providing RKO grounds for terminating his lucrative agreement. Cromwell describes his dilemma: "They just sent me a script and said ‘this will be your next assignment. I looked at the script and the name was I Married a Communist and I thought this was kind of funny...I never read such a bad script in my life; the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that it could never be made...[but] I decided 
Title: Cromwell (film)
Content:  Cromwell is a 1970 British historical drama film written and directed by Ken Hughes. It is based on the life of Oliver Cromwell, who rose to lead the Parliamentary forces during the later parts of the English Civil War and, as Lord Protector, ruled Great Britain and Ireland in the 1650s. It features an ensemble cast, led by Richard Harris as Cromwell and Alec Guinness as King Charles I, with Robert Morley as Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester and Timothy Dalton as Prince Rupert of the Rhine. The film received two Oscar nominations during the 43rd Academy Awards held 
Title: John Cromwell (director)
Content:  Cromwell filmed a then-controversial adaptation of a Sinclair Lewis novel in Ann Vickers (1933). Irene Dunne plays the eponymous young social reformer who exposes the degrading conditions in American prisons and has an affair with a jurist Walter Huston. Jane Murfin's screenplay reflected the characterizations in the Lewis novel, where Vickers is a "birth control advocate" who engages in an extramarital affair. The script drew the ire of the Production Code Administration and the Catholic Church. The Studio Relations Committee (SRC) chairman James Wingate called the script "vulgarly offensive." The SRC, overseeing the MPPDA, demanded an overhaul of the Murfin's script. RKO managers protested, and a compromise was reached when Dunne's character was relieved of adultery charges by a change in her marital status. Though awarded approval, RKO's production spurred the formation of the Production Code Administration under moral crusader Joseph Breen
Title: Cromwell (film)
Content:  Irving Allen. In April 1969, it was reported Ronald Harwood was working on the script with Ken Hughes. (And that Hughes and Harwood would then make a film a about Leon Trotsky for Joseph Sahftel.) Hughes eventually succeeded in raising the money from Columbia in the US. After $600,000 had been spent they were tempted to pull out but changed their mind. The budget started at $6 million and blew out to $9 million. Most of the film was shot in England but the battle scenes were shot in Spain. The original cut went for three hours fifteen minutes but Hughes cut it down to two hours twenty four minutes. "I think it's the best thing I've ever done," said Hughes in 1970.
Title: Cromwell (film)
Content:  he turned down "Warwick's Cromwell script." ) Hughes tried to get Richard Burton to read the script but Burton was not interested. In April 1967, Irwin Allen announced that John Briley had rewritten Ken Hughes' script and that Peter Hall was going to direct. Allen hoped to get Paul Scofield to play Charles I and Albert Finney to play Cromwell. Columbia were going to finance with filming to take place the following year. (Hughes was making Chitty Chitty Bang Bang around this time.) Hughes later said he almost succeeded in making the film in 1968 but finance fell through at the last minute. In 1969, London's Parliament Square was constructed at Shepperton Studios. In February 1969, it was announced Hughes would write and direct 
Title: John Cromwell (director)
Content:  As early as 1919, Cromwell had taken a keen interest in novelist Joseph Conrad’s psychological drama Victory: An Island Tale (1915), concerning an English expatriate who attempts to withdraw as a recluse to a small Indonesian island. His solitary existence is undone when he rescues a young woman, leading to the infiltration of his sanctuary by a gang of sociopaths, with tragic results. Cromwell personally contacted Conrad shortly after publication of Victory to obtain production and dramatic rights to the work, only to discover that permission had been bestowed on producer Laurence Irving and McDonald Hastings, respectively. Cromwell directed a version of their adaptation in the United States in the 1920s that quickly 
Title: John Cromwell (director)
Content:  Cromwell's first two pictures of 1934 are considered "largely forgettable" according to author Micheal Barson, beginning with a "miscast" Katharine Hepburn in Spitfire. RKO's 26-year-old Hepburn as "Spitfire" (her pejorative sobriquet) was conceived as a "character study" rather than a genuine narrative, to showcase the rising young star. Based on the play Trigger by Lula Vollmer, Hepburn is improbably tasked with portraying an anti-social hillbilly-tomboy and faith healer in a rural backcountry community. Cromwell admitted that he was skeptical as to Hepburn's suitability for the part and objected to her contrived country accent. Cromwell, struggling with setting up his shots and conscious of avoiding cost overruns, disputed with Hepburn as to re-shooting of a key scene. The contretemps led to Cromwell's emphatic rejection of her requests and the director, "who did not like the film much", recalled that "I think those [disputes] were reflected in the picture." Nonetheless, Cromwell's visual compositions, along with the work of his cinematographer Edward Cronjager showcase Hepburn's "exuberant" performance, in which "her physical celebrations of the joys of life make this an eccentric and likeable film." Cromwell completed another soap opera with Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy, This Man is Mine (1934).
Title: John Cromwell (director)
Content:  stick it out." Cromwell reports that the studio immediately assigned a screenwriter to the pre-production team who was "one of the worst [anti-Communist] 'witch-hunters' in Hollywood, and I saw that this was pretty deliberate". Multiple screenwriters were tasked with developing a workable script from the flawed story. They came to loggerheads with Cromwell, finally convincing RKO management that it was "logically" impossible to make the picture. When delays in production threatened to trigger the "triple-salary" provision in Cromwell’s contract, RKO loaned Cromwell to Warner Bros. to make Caged. The final film, eventually released in 1949, had to be retitled The Woman on Pier 13.
Title: John Cromwell (director)
Content:  consciousness of the material—of which he had none! To him it was always just another part to play in the same old manner..." Cromwell made three more pictures for Paramount-Publix, all released in 1931: Scandal Sheet, with Bancroft, Unfaithful, with Ruth Chatterton and The Vice Squad with Paul Lukas and Kay Francis. During pre-production of the 1932 The World and the Flesh, a tale of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Cromwell became disgusted with both the quality of the scenario, as well as the Paramount's sharp curtailment in rehearsal time. Cromwell's historical outlook and stage experience informed these following 

Question: Who was the screenwriter for Cromwell?
Answer: Ken Hughes.
Kenneth Graham Hughes.