Charles Alfred Selwyn Bennett (2 August 1899 – 15 June 1995) was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and director probably best known for his work with Alfred Hitchcock. He was nominated for the first Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Foreign Correspondent.
Charles Bennett was born in a disused railway carriage in Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, England, the son of Lilian Langrishe Bennett (1863–1930), an actress and artist. Bennett's mother told him his father was Charles Bennett, a civil engineer killed in a boiler explosion, though he thought it was actor Kyrle Bellew (1855–1911). Bennett had an elder brother, Frederick (known as Eric), and a younger brother, Vere. His father is recorded in his baptismal register as Frederick Bennett, engineer. The film historian John Belton has asserted that Bennett's father died when he was four. In the 1911 census, Lilian Bennett recorded herself as a widow, and an artist.
Bennett was mostly educated at home, but also briefly at St Mark's College, Chelsea.
Bennett was a child actor, appearing in Max Reinhart's production of The Miracle at Olympia Theatre in 1911. He played child roles in stage productions of Alice in Wonderland (1913), Goody Two Shoes (1913), Drake (1914) and The Marriage Market (1915), and toured in productions all over England.
He had a role in the film John Halifax, Gentleman (1915) as the young John Halifax; the older Halifax was Fred Paul. The performance was not particularly well received and Bennett became an extra and assistant to Adrian Brunel. He continued to appear in stage in productions of The Speckled Band (1916), King Lear (1916) with Sir Herbert Tree and Raffles (1917).
In 1917 he enlisted in the army and served with the Royal Fusiliers. Most of his war service was spent on the Somme, where he saw action. He was awarded the Military Medal and ended the war with the rank of lieutenant. He was invalided out due to a gas attack and left the army in 1919.
Bennett resumed his acting career, playing with the Brewster's Millions company (1920), then the Compton Comedy Company, the Lena Ashwell Players, the Gertrude Elliott Touring Company, and the Henry Baynton Company (for whom he appeared in Antony and Cleopatra and A Midsummer Night's Dream).In 1923 he joined the Alexander Marsh Shakespearean company, touring throughout England. He later said "At first I was a terrible actor. I used to get jobs and be fired from them; but gradually I learned to act."
In 1925 Bennett joined the Ben Greet Repertory, which performed in Paris from 1925 to 1926. During this time, while acting in the evenings he wrote his first three full-length plays: The Return, based on his war service, Blackmail and The Last Hour.
In December 1926 Bennett played Theseus in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at London's Winter Garden Theatre. In April 1927 he was in a production of Othello at the Apollo Theatre alongside John Gielgud, Robert Loraine and Gertrude Elliott.
In May 1927 Bennett appeared in a production of his own play The Return, which he also directed. Peggy Ashcroft was in the cast. Bennett said "it got wonderful reviews but never made any money." In December 1927 he appeared in Loraine's production of Cyrano de Bergerac.
Bennett had the biggest success of his career to date when Al Woods decided to finance a production of Blackmail in 1928, produced by Raymond Massey and starring Tallulah Bankhead. The play was not well received at first, but had a hugely successful run on tour. The play was seen by Alfred Hitchcock who arranged for British International Pictures to buy the film rights and adapted Bennett's play into a script, with Benn Levy doing the dialogue. His film of Blackmail (1929) is generally credited as the first British sound film, and was a huge commercial success.
Bennett's play The Last Hour debuted on London stage in December 1928 and was a popular hit in London. The Last Hour (1930) was turned into a movie directed by Walter Forde, the first "talkie" for Nettleford Studios.
Bennett's fourth play was The Danger Line (1929), based on Hazel May Marshall's story Ten Minutes to Twelve. He also wrote a one act play After Midnight (1929). Bennett later said "In 1929 I was making an immense amount of money, and I was happy. I had six plays touring the country. Then, talkies were really beginning to hit, and the theatres were beginning to go to hell."
The success of Blackmail led to British International offering him a contract in September 1931 to deliver three film stories a year for two years. He was reunited with Alfred Hitchcock and they collaborated on a story for Bulldog Drummond, to be called Bulldog Drummond's Baby. However Hitchcock then directed some films which flopped and BIP chose not to proceed with the project.
While at BIP he wrote stories for as yet filmed books: Death on the Footplate, The Parrot Whistles, High Speed, Love My Dog and Fireman Save My Child.
Bennett provided the story for a number of low-budget movies for George King who he later called the "world's worst director": Number, Please (1931); Deadlock (1931), which was a big hit; Midnight (1931), the latter based on his play; and Two Way Street (1932).
Bennett wrote and directed the play Sensation (1931), a melodrama, but it was not a success, although it was adapted into a film.
He followed it with another play Big Business (1932), which Bennett also directed and appeared in alongside his then-wife Maggie. But by now he had given up acting to focus on writing.