Not many writers can claim to have produced material for both the comedian Ronnie Barker and Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath, but Chris Bryant was a man of many talents, working as a writer, politician and lawyer. His multiple jobs did cause occasional problems, and there was some controversy in Canada in the early 1960s when it came out that the Attorney-General’s assistant was moonlighting as a stand-up comedian.

Bryant is probably best known and most widely celebrated as the co-writer of Don’t Look Now (1973), the chilling thriller set in Venice starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. It was one of eight feature films that he co-wrote with Allan Shiach (Allan Scott) between 1970 and 1984.

They met at McGill University in Montreal, where Bryant was a law lecturer and Shiach a student and they began their showbiz careers on Canadian television, initially specialising in comedy. As film writers they worked on a wide range of projects including the period drama Joseph Andrews (1977) and the horror film The Awakening (1980) with Charlton Heston.

Bryant was born Christopher Brian Spencer Dobson in Bolton, Lancashire, in 1936. He was educated at Radley College and Corpus Christi, Cambridge, and subsequently studied, taught and practised law in Canada, where he met Shiach, an heir to the Macallan whisky business. Dobson adopted the name Chris Bryant as his professional showbiz name, though when he was unhappy with the way directors treated his work he would use a third name, Bradley T. Winter, an anagram of “Badly Rewritten”. Shiach used the professional name Allan Scott. They wrote for the satirical comedy series Nightcap, a forerunner of Saturday Night Live, and they had their own late-night show, on which the guests included Rowan and Martin and Oscar Peterson.

In the UK they worked initially in television and contributed to various series, including Special Branch (1969). They graduated to the big screen with The Man Who Had Power Over Women (1970), a sex comedy with Rod Taylor. Don’t Look Now remains their finest achievement, a tightly plotted and claustrophobic thriller, fleshed out from a Daphne du Maurier short story. Directed by Nicolas Roeg, it stands comparison with the best of Hitchcock.

After going solo as a writer, Bryant worked largely in television and wrote several big international dramas and mini-series, including Sword of Gideon (1986), which followed Mossad’s attempts to track down those responsible for the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, and Young Catherine (1991), with Vanessa Redgrave and Julia Ormond. A few of his big TV dramas were ultimately credited to Bradley T. Winter. He favoured historical settings and also wrote the original story for Trevor Nunn’s film Lady Jane (1986), starring Helena Bonham Carter.

Bryant could trace his ancestry back to the 11th century, his great-grandfather was an important industrialist and Bryant stood for Parliament for the Conservatives in Bolton in 1966. He is survived by his wife, Penelope, and three children.

Chris Bryant, screenwriter, was born on June 7, 1936. He died on October 27, 2008, aged 72