Trivia

Educated at Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris.

John Ford has referred to the Ulster director as his "cousin".

Probably best known to modern audiences as the director of A Christmas Carol (1951) with Alastair Sim, considered by many film historians to be the best film version of Charles Dickens' classic "A Christmas Carol". He is also noted for his World War II film The Lion Has Wings (1939).

His film River of Unrest (1936), the English language equivalent of the name for the Irish political party "Sinn Féin", was banned in his native Northern Ireland at the time of its release in 1936, although it has since achieved critical and is shown in museums and other public access points in Northern Ireland. It appears to have been misunderstood. At the time, Hurst pointed out the original story had been written by a British Army officer and Hurst claimed that the film was "pro-British.".