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A sound engineer with the BBC while still a teenager, Hughes made training films while he was in the service. In the late '40s he made documentary and narrative shorts, and wrote and directed his first feature in 1952. Hughes specialized in crime films in the '50s, including his Shakespeare update Joe Macbeth with Paul Douglas. The success of 1960's The Trials of Oscar Wilde with Peter Finch led to bigger-budget projects over the '60s and '70s, including such oddities as Casino Royale (on which he was one of five directors), the musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Mae West's last film, Sextette.