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British director/writer John Baxter was a theatre manager and actor's agent until entering films in 1932. After a few months' work as casting director for the Sound City studio complex, Baxter directed his first film, the unprepossessingly titled Doss House (1933). During most of the 1930s, he specialized in cut-to-the-bone "quota quickies" aimed at working-class movie houses; unlike many of his contemporaries, however, he attempted to inject some style into his cheap little entertainments. Baxter was producer/director for British National during the war years, and in 1951 he became managing director for Group 3 Films. John Baxter's best film was Love on the Dole, a perceptive look at a Depression-era Lancashire family; his most profitable efforts include his "Old Mother Riley" comedy programmers and his Bud Flannigan-Chesney Allen vehicles.