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THE WORK of film-maker Maurice Hatton, who has died of a heart attack aged 59, ranged from the playgrounds and fairgrounds of industrial England to the care of children with Down's syndrome, from bewildered fictional heroines to knockabout Russian spies and British agents. His films include Praise Marx and Pass the Ammunition (1968) with an un-Morse-like John Thaw and Scene Nun Take One (1964), with Susannah York; Long Shot (1978), with Neville Smith and movie celebrities such as John Boorman and Wim Wenders; Nelly's Version (1983), with Eileen Atkins; and American Roulette (1988) with Andy Garcia and Kitty Aldridge, a film which has yet to have its cinema release. Hatton's most recent work is the documentary Satan at His Best (1995), exploring the memories of British prisoners-of-war who worked in Auschwitz.
Hatton, born and raised inManchester, left school early, and took a photography course at the Manchester College of Art and Technology. He joined the film society, and was a founder of the philosophical society. He was, it is said, emphatic about his Jewishness, but more in the Mel Brooks than the the religious sense.
He became a news photographer, and moved permanently to London, where he lived in a series of mysteriously splendid flats, each one larger than the last. He...