From a privileged upper middle-class background, as a young man Mander engaged in motor sports, aviation and ballooning.

After directing The Flying Doctor in Australia in 1936, Mander lived and worked in Hollywood, where he was cast in over 60 feature films until his death in 1946.

[11] In early 1910 Mander took flying lessons with Claude Grahame-White at the Brooklands aerodrome (adjoining the motor racing circuit).

In May 1910 a man named Alfred Hooper was riding his bicycle to work when a car driven by Mander "ran into him and knocked him down".

[17][18] The couple celebrated their marriage at the residence of the bride's father, dressed in Indian costume and married in the Hindu Brahmo Samaj rites.

In early 1913 Mander, in company with the aviator Claude Grahame-White, made his first ascent in a gas balloon, launched from Saint-Cloud in the western suburbs of Paris.

He was promoted to sub-lieutenant in February 1915 in the Royal Naval Division (RND), made up of volunteers and reservists not needed for service at sea.

[16] In March 1920 Mander participated in the Kop Hill Trial, organised by the Essex Motor Club, driving a Mathis automobile.

[9] Mander made his credited film acting debut in a small role in Testimony, a drama released in September 1920 by George Clark Productions.

The film featured Ivy Duke and David Hawthorne in the leading roles and was directed by the actor Guy Newall (his directorial debut).

[31][32] In June 1921 Mander petitioned for the dissolution of his marriage to Prativa "on the ground of her adultery with Mr. Reginald de Beer" (described as a clerk "employed in a Government office").

[5][34] Early in 1922 Solar Films took a twelve month lease of the Philharmonic Hall in order to present a series of travel film-lectures.

[34] In February 1922 Solar Films Ltd. presented the first in a series of "film-lectures" at the Albert and Philharmonic Halls, on the subject of Burma delivered by Major-General Dunsterville.

The group, which included Alfred Hitchcock and Adrian Brunel, often "assembled at the Legrain coffee shop in Brewer Street, Soho, on the days we were not working (which were all too frequent)".

[44][45] In 1925 Kathleen Mander appeared alongside her husband in a short comedy film, Cut It Out: A Day in the Life of a Censor, another Atlas Biocraft production directed by Brunel, in which she was credited as 'Mrs.

[50][51] In late 1926 Mander joined the staff of De Forest Phonofilms, initially operating from a small studio in Clapham, and managed by the West End showman Vivian Van Damm.

The company was producing short sound films called 'phonofilms', using an optical sound-on-film system developed in the early 1920s by the American inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case.

Phonofilms, comprising mainly music hall sketches, songs and extracts from plays, began to be shown in the supporting programmes of British cinemas from October 1926.

[54][55] The First Born was directed by Mander, his first major film as director, and he also played the lead male role as the dissolute 'Sir Hugo Boycott', alongside Madeleine Carroll as his wife.

[56] The film critic Paul Rotha wrote that The First Born "provided evidence of his wit and intelligence in filmic expression... being almost entirely the product of Mander's creative mentality".

[61] In 1935 Mander travelled to the United States and lived in Hollywood for nine months, during which he acted in Here's to Romance for the Fox Film Corporation and The Three Musketeers for RKO Radio Pictures.

[62] Soon after Mander returned to Britain from Hollywood, he was asked by the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation to undertake direction of The Flying Doctor, to be filmed in Australia.

Mander arrived in Sydney aboard the Strathnaver on 12 November 1935, accompanied by Gaumont-British staff members John O. C. Orton (scenario department) and Thomas D. Connochie (production manager).

[66] During his time in Sydney Mander was charged on two separate occasions with "driving at a speed dangerous to the public", on 3 February 1936 on Parramatta Road and on 10 March "in the vicinity of Bankstown, Warwick Farm and Liverpool".

On the first occasion Mander had been driving the car with the female lead Mary Maguire as a passenger, returning from Leura filming location scenes for The Flying Doctor.

[73] The film featured Madeleine Carroll in the female lead, an actress Mander had earlier directed in The First Born (1928) and Fascination (1931).

[47] Mander was given opportunities to act in British roles in American films such as playing Benjamin Disraeli in Suez (1938) and King Henry VI in Tower of London (1939).

[47] In 1939 Mander played pivotal dual roles in Daredevils of the Red Circle, a twelve-chapter movie serial made by Republic Pictures.