Stanley Baker "This Sporting Life" but had to drop out when "Guns of Navarone" went over schedule. She says Baker never regretted losing the part of Bond to Sean Connery but regretted not making "This Sporting Life". Baker wanted to move into production, and to this end formed his own company, Diamond Films with Endfield. They developed a script about the Battle of Rorke's Drift written by Endfield and John Prebble. While making "Sodom and Gomorrah" Baker struck up a relationship with that film's producer, Joseph E. Levine which enabled him to raise the $3 million budget for "Zulu" (1964), directed by
Jack the Ripper (1959 film) Jack the Ripper (1959 film) Jack the Ripper is a 1959 film produced and directed by Monty Berman and Robert S. Baker, and is loosely based on Leonard Matters' theory that Jack the Ripper was an avenging doctor. The black-and-white film starred Lee Patterson and Eddie Byrne and co-starred Betty McDowall, John Le Mesurier, and Ewen Solon. It was released in England in 1959, and shown in the U.S. in 1960. The film borrowed icons from previously successful horror films, such as "Dracula" (1958) and "The Curse of Frankenstein" (1957), by giving the Ripper a costume of a top hat