From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Robert James Hamer (31 March 1911, Kidderminster, Worcestershire – 4 December 1963, London) was a British film director and screenwriter. He was the son of the actor Gerald Hamer (1886-1972). Hamer was won a scholarship to Cambridge University but was sent down (expelled) from Cambridge, and began his career in 1934 as a cutting room assistant and from 1935 worked as a film editor involved with such films as Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939) co-produced by Charles Laughton. At