Dinah Shurey

Dinah Shurey (17 June 1888 – 1963) was a British film producer and director of the late 1920s. She is most famously known for her 1929 film The Last Post. Additional credits to her name include Afraid of Love, Second to None (1926), Every Mother's Son (1926), Carry On (1927). Shurey often calls upon themes surrounding the British war within her films, tending to take on a more melodramatic narrative style. Due to overexertion, Shurey was dismissed from duty and sent home. She later worked with actor-manager Lena Ashwell to organise concerts for troops on the Western Front. After the war, Shurey managed the acting couple Eva Moore and Henry V. Esmond.

Film career

Shurey's film career began with Teddington Film Company, for which she worked in a number of roles, graduating to assistant film director.

In May 1924, Shurey founded her own film production company, Britannia Films and in 1929 her own distribution company Showman Films. Shurey was the only female British film director of her day. Britannia made five films, two of which, Carry On and The Last Post Shurey directed herself.

Her wartime experiences instilled in Shurey a fascination for melodramatic and militaristic British experiences, which scholar Bibi Berki states foreshadowed the majority of her filmography, including films such as Carry On! and The Last Post. Berki further suggests that it was for her films Second to None and Carry On!, which both deal with the military experience within the First World War, that Shurey borrowed warships from the British military.

The Last Post (1929) For her second venture into directing Shurey co-wrote with Lydia Hayward, who was a consistent collaborator on Shurey's films. Her intention was to produce a film that commented on the British war sentiment during the First World War. The article raised questions as to whether or not women could successfully create a film that held the same standard as men, arguing that, using Shurey's filmography, women could not.

Shurey suggested she write a piece in Film Weekly as a direct response to her critics titled, “Women Can Direct Films - From a Woman Who Knows.” Its publishers refused permission to name Shute directly, and Shurey's decided to take legal action on the High Court.

Paul Rotha compared Shurey to Harry Bruce Woolfe, calling her "an upstanding Empire loyalist" who "had made some quite atrocious films".

Filmography Afraid of Love (1925) Second to None (1926) Every Mother's Son (1926) Carry On (1927) The Last Post (1929)