Ken Annakin

The path Ken Annakin took in Swiss Family Robinson in 1960 was built against the earlier adaptation of the same novel from 1940: speaking to the Los Angeles Times in July 1959, Annakin says he used that film as an example of what not to do, keeping away from studio sets and leaning on location shooting and on art direction. Shooting was done on the island of Tobago, and the film cost five million dollars, half a million over its budget. The Longest Day had four separate units, and the credits give Annakin as director of the British exteriors; the American exteriors went to Andrew Marton, the German sections to Bernhard Wicki and the Sainte-Mère-Église sections to Gerd Oswald. In July 1965, while he was finishing Battle of the Bulge in Spain, Universal thought of him as director for another war film. The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men of 1952 was shot from start to finish in England, with an entirely British cast and crew.