Val Guest began his career as an actor on the British stage and in early sound films. He ran the one-man London office of “The Hollywood Reporter” until an encounter with director Marcel Varnel led to a screen writing job at Gainsborough Studios. Guest’s directing career began in the early 1940s with a Ministry of Information short about the perils of sneezing (!), an inauspicious start to a lengthy roster of films that includes the science-fiction classics The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), Quatermass 2 (1957), The Abominable Snowman (1957) and The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961). He was married to the actress Yolande Donlan from 1954 until his death in 2006, aged 94 Val Guest (1911-2006) had one of the most varied careers in film history, both in output and profession. Since 1932, he had tried his hand at writing, directing, producing, acting and composing, all in film and all with varying degrees of success. His first taste of success came co-writing some of Will Hay’s best comedies with Marriott Edgar. Val’s directorial debut came in 1943 with Miss London Ltd. (1943), a rather patchy musical comedy vehicle for Arthur Askey. He has since been responsible for some of the best, and indeed some of the worst British films of our time. Two of his best are the science fiction classics, The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961). Two of the worst (and there’s been a few!) are When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970), Hammer’s abysmal follow up to One Million Years B.C. (1966), complete with dodgy effects and absolutely no script whatsoever and The Boys in Blue (1983), a really dire re-make of the brilliant Will Hay film Ask a Policeman (1939), originally co-scripted by Guest himself back in 1939.