Antony Balch

A legendary figure in British film distribution of the 1960s and 1970s, Antony Balch was renowned for buying up European art/exploitation films and giving them catchy new English titles ("Weird Weirdo", "Don't Deliver Us From Evil"), as well as being responsible for the legendary sound version of Benjamin Christensen's silent documentary classic Häxan (1922), where the intertitles were replaced with a commentary by Balch's friend William S. Burroughs, with whom he started his film career with the shorts Towers Open Fire (1966) and The Cut Ups (1966), both extensions of Burroughs' writing technique. Balch's only two features were the surreal Burroughs-influenced Bizarre (1970) and the comedy Horror Hospital (1973).