'Letter From Ulster' Director Honoured

Northern Ireland's most legendary film director and Belfast's first bohemian, Brian Desmond Hurst, has been honoured with a commemorative 'blue plaque' in the city's Queen's Film Theatre.
As part of the Belfast Film Festival both The Directors Guild of Great Britain and the Ulster History Circle have been recalling the east Belfast-born film maker.
Special screenings of Theirs is the Glory and the US servicemen WWII mini 'epic' A Letter from Ulster took place prior to the plaque unveiling.
A Letter From Ulster (1943) saw Hurst and lifelong friends Terence Young (scriptwriter) and his fellow Ulsterman and Assistant Director William (Bill) MacQuitty creating a film promoting a sense of community between the people of Northern Ireland and over one hundred thousand troops from the USA based in Northern Ireland at the time.
Tensions between the US troops and the local population were rising and there was a need to defuse the situation.
Brian lived a bohemian and sometimes controversial life and mixed socially with Noel Coward, WB Yeats, Henry de Vere Talbot Clifton and Laurence Olivier - in sharp contrast to his humble beginnings.
Introducing his first movie was Hurst's biographer, Allan Esler Smith. He also spoke about Theirs is the Glory (1946) where Hurst took 200 members of the 1st Airborne back to Arnhem to direct and 'remake' their role in the Battle of Arnhem.
Brian said: "The film is my favourite because of the wonderful experience of working with soldiers, and because it is a true documentary reconstruction of the event. I say without modesty it is one of the best war films ever made."
The Ulster History Circle are also honouring Brian's co-film maker William MacQuitty with a blue plaque to be unveiled in Bangor.
(DW/BMcC)