James Clavell

Writer

October 10, 1924 (69 years)

† September 7, 1994

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Biography

James Clavell, born Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell (10 October 1924 – 7 September 1994) was an Australian (later naturalized American) novelist, screenwriter, director and World War II veteran and prisoner of war. Clavell is best known for his epic Asian Saga series of novels and their televised adaptations, along with such films as The Great Escape and To Sir, with Love.

Filmography

8.4

Shōgun

In Japan in the year 1600, at the dawn of a century-defining civil war, Lord Yoshii Toranaga is fighting for his life as his enemies on the Council of Regents unite against him, when a mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby fishing village.

7.7

Shōgun

An English navigator becomes both a player and pawn in complex political games in feudal Japan.

7.9

The Great Escape

The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.

7.1

Noble House

Despite its impressive history and reputation, the international trading company Struan's is in trouble. Overextended by the previous management, new tai-pan Ian Dunross has had to issue public stock to improve the company's financial standing. Even this, however, has not given him the capital he needs. As a result, he is courting a private investor, American billionaire Linc Bartlett. Bartlett decides secretly to back Dunross' arch enemy, Quillian Gornt, who will stop at nothing to destroy Struan's. When Dunross realises that Gornt is suddenly strong enough to ruin the Noble House, he must urgently forge new alliances or reshape ancient ones.

7.0

The Fly

Industrialist François Delambre is called late at night by his sister-in-law, Helene, who tells him that she has just killed her husband. Reluctant at first, she eventually explains to the police that he invented a matter transportation apparatus and, while experimenting on himself, a fly entered the chamber.

7.5

To Sir, with Love

A British Guianese engineer starts a job as a high school teacher in London’s East End, where his uninterested and delinquent pupils are in desperate need of attention and care.

5.2

Tai-Pan

The film begins following the British victory of the first Opium War and the seizure of Hong Kong. Although the island is largely uninhabited and the terrain unfriendly, it has a large port that both the British government and various trading companies believe will be useful for the import of merchandise to be traded on mainland China, a highly lucrative market.

6.2

633 Squadron

When Norwegian resistance leader Lieutenant Erik Bergman reports the location of a German V-2 rocket fuel plant, the Royal Air Force's 633 Squadron is assigned the mission to destroy it. The plant is in a seemingly-impregnable location beneath an overhanging cliff at the end of a long, narrow fjord lined with anti-aircraft guns. The only way to destroy the plant is by collapsing the cliff on top of it.

6.1

The Satan Bug

A US government germ warfare lab has had an accident. The first theory is that one of the germs has been released and killed several scientists. The big fear is that a more virulent strain, named The Satan Bug because all life can be killed off by it should it escape, may have been stolen.

7.1

King Rat

When Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942, the Allied POWs, mostly British but including a few Americans, were incarcerated in Changi prison. Among the American prisoners is Cpl. King, a wheeler-dealer who has managed to establish a pretty good life for himself in the camp. King soon forms a friendship with an upper-class British officer who is fascinated with King's enthusiastic approach to life.

6.3

Walk Like a Dragon

California, 1870s. The cowboy Lincoln 'Linc' Bartlett finds out there's a slave auction of Chinese women in San Francisco and he intervenes and purchases the Chinese Kim Sung from the auction with the intent of setting her free. But it doesn't occur to Linc that setting her free isn't enough. Where is she going to go? Kim doesn't speak English and she's just going to be exploited by somebody else. Linc takes Kim home to serve as a housekeeper. Ma Bartlett Linc's mother, is not happy that a Chinese girl is living in her home, and even less happy when Kim and her son fall in love. Their affair also arouses the jealousy of Cheng Lu, a Chinese immigrant.

6.5

The Last Valley

People in a small German village in the last valley to remain untouched by the devastating Thirty Years' War try to exist in peace with a group of soldiers occupying the valley.

5.8

Watusi

Following WWI, fortune hunter Allen Quartermain's son Harry travels to Africa to search for King Solomon's mines. He dons a special medallion given by his father from the Watusi tribe, who guard the mines. Along the way, Harry and his friend Rick meet and take with them Erica, daughter of a missionary killed by a local tribe.

5.6

Five Gates to Hell

A group of nurses, doctors and nuns are taken hostage in Vietnam and sent up river to a castle hideout so they can cure an ailing war general.

7.0

Shogun

Englishman John Blackthorne, serving the Netherlands as navigator of the "Erasmus," is sailing a merchant fleet bound for uncharted Japan. In Asian waters, the fleet is caught in a violent storm and capsizes. This is a compilation of footage from the miniseries, intended for international theatrical release.

8.0

The Children's Story

A just-established totalitarian government places a new teacher in a classroom of young children while the old teacher is sent away. The new teacher challenges the students' view of their world. Young Johnny asks questions, but the teacher manages to twist the truth into reasonable answers. It doesn't take long for the children to see things the new teacher's way.

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