Endfield began his career as a theatre director and drama coach, becoming a significant figure in New York's progressive theatre scene. It was largely through a shared interest in magic that Orson Welles became aware of him, and recruited him as an apprentice for Mercury Productions. One of his independent films was Inflation, a 15-minute commission for the Office of War Information that was rejected as being anti-capitalist. The debacle surrounding the production of The Magnificent Ambersons ended with the expulsion of the Mercury team from the RKO lot. Endfield signed on as a contract director at MGM where he directed a variety of shorts, before freelancing on low-budget productions for Monogram and other independents. He served in the Army during World War II. It was with the film noirThe Underworld Story, a United Artists independent production, that Endfield first received significant critical and studio attention. The film was a major leap from anything he had previously produced in regards to budget and social commentary, constituting a coruscating attack on press corruption which could equally be taken as a wider attack on the McCarthyite ideology of the times. He followed this with the film often cited as his masterpiece, The Sound of Fury , a lynching thriller based on a true story. Except for the lynching scene, the film was not well received by critics. It was with these two films that Endfield's signature approach to character developed, pessimistic without being uncompassionate.
Career in the United Kingdom
In 1951 Endfield was named as a Communist at a HUAC hearing. Subsequently blacklisted and without work, he moved to the United Kingdom in 1953, where, under various pseudonyms, he continued his career. He would often cast fellow blacklistees in his films, such as Lloyd Bridges and Sam Wanamaker. Three films - The Limping Man, Impulse, and Child in the House - list Charles de la Tour as co-director because the ACT insisted Endfield, who was not a full member of the union, could only direct in the UK if he had a British director on set as a standby. Hell Drivers was the first project he released under his real name and earned him his first BAFTA nomination, for Best British Screenplay. His 1961 film Mysterious Island featured special effects by Ray Harryhausen. One of his most notable films was Zulu, a war epic depicting the Battle of Rourke's Drift in the Anglo Zulu War of the 1870s. This was followed by Sands of the Kalahari with Susannah York. After a few more independent productions he withdrew from directing films in 1971, his final film being Universal Soldier, in which he made a cameo appearance alongside Germaine Greer. In 1979 he wrote the non-fiction book Zulu Dawn, which tells the story of the British military campaign against the Zulu Nation in 1879. A film adaptation of the book was released that same year, co-written by Endfield and directed by Douglas Hickox.
Endfield is co-credited with Chris Rainey for a pocket-sized/miniature computer with a chorded keypad that allows rapid typing without a bulky single-stroke keyboard. It functions like a musical instrument by pressing combinations of keys that he called a "Microwriter" to generate a full alphanumeric character set. It is currently under further development, as "CyKey", for PC and Palm PDA, by Endfield's former partner, Chris Rainey and Bellaire Electronics. CyKey is named after Cy Endfield. British magician Michael Vincent credits Endfield as one of his biggest influences. The classic Cy Endfield's Entertaining Card Magic, by Lewis Ganson, includes a variety of Endfield's creations in card magic.
