Stanley A. Wicken ("Stan")

Stan Wicken was music librarian at British Movietone News, where he was credited as arranging the music for ‘MOVIETONE REVIEWS A MEMORABLE YEAR 1937’ in No.447A of December 1937. In September 1939 Wicken was one of the Movietone editorial staff evacuated to Denham, although they returned to Soho Square after producing only sixteen issues. Wicken continued to work at Movietone throughout the war, with Bob Frost [qv] as his assistant for part of the time. In 1947 John Huntley noted that Wicken was the British Movietone News ‘supervising sound recordist and film editor, and...has a library of over a million feet of music comprising material for every conceivable occasion.' Wicken was also sound editor, and Huntley acknowledged that the job demanded ‘a technician, not a musician.' The issue sheets show that Wicken was still working as music librarian at Movietone in May 1949. Reg Sutton [qv], who joined the company in 1949, remembered him as the reel’s ‘sound cutter,' who also laid the music tracks for ‘The Flight of the White Heron’ (1954), Movietone’s film of the Royal Tour of the Commonwealth. Wicken was listed in the Movietone staff list for January 1964, and Peter Hampton [qv] remembered him working as a sound editor.

Sources

G. Sanger ‘The Story of British Movietone News in the War Years,' c.1946, copy in BUFVC: J. Huntley ‘British Film Music’ (London, 1947), p.134.: Reg Sutton’s typescript autobiography, copy in BUFVC: BUFVC, T. M. Gallacher, ‘Additional Notes,' October 1998: Information from Peter Hampton, March 1999. BUFVC: E-mail from Terry Gallacher to Linda Kaye (1/9/2010).