David Lean David Lean Sir David Lean (25 March 190816 April 1991) was an English film director, producer, screenwriter and editor, responsible for large-scale epics such as "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957), "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), "Doctor Zhivago" (1965) and "A Passage to India" (1984). He also directed adaptations of Charles Dickens novels "Great Expectations" (1946) and "Oliver Twist" (1948), and the romantic drama "Brief Encounter" (1945). Originally a film editor in the early 1930s, Lean made his directorial debut with 1942's "In Which We Serve", which was the first of four collaborations with Noël Coward. Beginning with "Summertime" in
The Last Adventurers was edited, with greater tautness than it deserves, by director-in-waiting David Lean. The casting is also noteworthy, with future Carry On star Esma Cannon in a rare glamour role, and Ballard Berkeley (who would later play the Major in "Fawlty Towers") playing the heroic lead." The Last Adventurers The Last Adventurers is a 1937 British drama film directed by Roy Kellino and starring Niall MacGinnis, Roy Emerton, Linden Travers and Peter Gawthorne. A shipwrecked castaway is rescued by a sea captain, and then falls in love with the captain's daughter. In the "Radio Times", David Parkinson wrote, "It's a pity