[2] Smedley-Aston began his career at Elstree Studios, where he worked with Alfred Hitchcock and was assistant director on many films including Dance Band, Royal Cavalcade, Drake of England (all 1935) and Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939).
After World War II, he joined the Rank Organisation and worked on several films, notably David Lean's Great Expectations (1946).
[2] As a close associate of director/producers Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, Smedley-Aston was involved with the 1955 takeover of the British Lion Film Corporation, where he acted as a trouble-shooter and budget supervisor.
Also in the 1950s, he worked on several high-profile US financed films, including Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955), The Million Pound Note (1954) and Sam Spiegel's Melba (1953).
[3] As an independent producer he reunited the popular Crazy Gang for Life is a Circus (1957), and cast a young Sean Connery to join Lana Turner in Another Time, Another Place (1958).