Cecil M. Hepworth — Came the Dawn — Chapter 05 (1951) 🇬🇧
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Now dawns a most significant and important departure in the story of the films — the awareness of their news value — the value of news to the films; the importance of films to the news. News pictures became and remained for very many years the backbone of the pictures. It is probable that they will remain the sinews of them for as long as the pictures last.
So far as I am concerned it began with the South African War, and the formation of the City Imperial Volunteers and their departure to take an important hand in the conflict. In January, 1900, I stood on the deck of the Garth Castle and photographed the men coming up the gangway. Then followed an Animated Cartoon, Wiping Something Off the Slate, and afterwards a trick film, The Conjurer and the Boer. Only the first, of course, was a ‘news film’ in the proper meaning of the words but the other two were at least topical.
Queen Victoria’s Visit to Dublin in April, 1900, is news unqualified in three films totalling 250 feet. And the arrival of H.M.S. Powerful with the returning heroes of Ladysmith is certainly another news film.
The solar eclipse of May, 1900, was a somewhat remarkable ‘actuality’ film. I went out to Algiers on the steam-yacht Argonaut with apparatus which I had carefully constructed at home before leaving. This was a very strong oaken stand to hold the camera at ground level, a fourteen-inch focus, large-aperture lens, a motor to drive the camera steadily at slow speed and a storage battery to work the motor. On the auspicious morning the astronomical party drove out to a spot near Algiers where the duration of the eclipse would be at its longest, and there on a large concrete platform we all set up our respective gear.
I so set my camera that in the time at my disposal the diminishing image of the sun would enter the top right corner of my picture and leave again in about fifteen minutes at the bottom left. The lens was stopped down to its very smallest and had, in addition, a deep red glass screen covering its hood. Although there was only a little crescent of the sun showing when operations began it would have been fatally over-exposed without these precautions.
Then when the instant of totality arrived I whipped off the red screen and at the same time opened the lens aperture to the full extent, reversing the operations directly totality was over and the sun’s rim began to re-appear. By good luck, everything happened according to plan and I secured an excellent picture of the beautiful corona with enough of the before-and-after to give it point.
Naturally I seized the opportunities to take street scenes and so on in Algiers and Tangier where the ship also called, and some pleasant views of life aboard the Argonaut. These last have very particular significance for me, and that was in this wise. A young and bony Scot named John McGuffie had been elected as a sort of games master for the cruise — a task which evoked my horrified admiration. But he had no shyness and he did the job well. He did not try to drag me into the games, for he was a master of tact, but to my surprise and glee he singled me out for particular friendship. In the sequel I invited him to Walton to share in the joy of my newly purchased motor-car and he responded by taking me to his home in Chapel-en-le-Frith in Derbyshire, where I met his delightful family, including his sister, who afterwards became my wife.
I want to treat this matter at a little greater length than might seem to befit a film story, for this gracious lady not only had a profound influence on my life but she also had a very considerable influence on the films I was making. She was one of the four perfect women who have come into my existence. I don’t want to appear sentimental but it has often seemed to me as if some power occasionally put angels in the form of women on this earth to leaven the ordinary lump of humanity. All of these four women, except one, married quite unworthy men, and that one was she who married my father’s favourite brother — a replica of him in many ways.
During the happy summer of 1901 when I was visiting A. D. Thomas in Manchester on business and the McGuffie family at Chapel-en-le-Frith on pleasure, I invited brother-in-law-to-be John to come to Walton, drive in my crazy ‘car’ to Southampton, there hire a boat and go cruising. All of which came to pass. We found a small sailing boat called Sunflower. We insisted upon having a dinghy with it so that we could land when we wanted to — it was a very small canvas dinghy which we were assured would hold two — with care. We didn’t know it leaked. We sailed off into the blue, right down Southampton Water and out into the Solent and made for Gowes.
In my ignorance I had always thought that the water got gradually deeper as you left the shore, was at its deepest half-way across and then again gradually shoaled till you touched on the other side. Nothing of the kind; there are hills and dales under water just as there are on land. Utterly astonished we ran on to the Bramble Bank; most improperly placed half-way across to the Isle of Wight. So I bought a chart-book of the district — my dearest possession for years to come.
Next day we set sail for the west and the wind and spring tide were with us. All was well for some hours. Then the breeze dropped and the tide grew stronger as we swept into shallower water. We could see the beach stones beneath us rushing backwards and gradually rising closer to us. The wind failed completely, the boat was out of control and turned sideways. The stones rose nearer and we could do nothing but wait. Suddenly we scrunched upon them, lifted a little and then dropped over into deep water on the other side, and the wind breathed again. So did we. It all seemed most uncanny but when we thought it over afterwards we realised how it came about.
We made Poole Harbour on that tide — pretty good going — and anchored of Brownsea Island, which I afterwards thought of trying to buy to build film studios on. A glorious idea. Then we rowed in the canvas dinghy to Sandbanks, and found the leak! We stretched luxuriously on the sand — the houses were not there then — and studied the chart-book. Suddenly I realised that the wind had freshened a good deal — there were white caps on the wavelets, and if we didn’t start at once we shouldn’t be able to. We just managed it but there was nothing to spare. We looked for the chart-book to go on with our studies, and remembered we had left it on the sand and the tide was rising. That sacred chart-book! I said I would go back and fetch it; there was no risk for one in that crazy cockle-shell but it was a different matter for two. But John said he would go as he was lighter than I and he couldn’t risk having to take a dead fiancé back to his sister. But I wouldn’t chance taking her a dead brother either and while we were arguing the wind was rising. Pair of fools that we were, we went together, and the special providence that looks after fools must have had quite a job.
Perhaps I should jump here past half a dozen or so of inconspicuous films of scenery and ‘made-up’ outdoor pictures to one which marked something of an epoch in my film life. The Explosion of a Motor-car (No. 130) was one which attracted a great deal of attention at the time, for it was typical of the public attitude towards ‘horseless carriages’ in those days, and had, for an alleged ‘comic,’ quite a germ of genuine humour in it. The car was steered by means of a little arrow-shaped handle in front of the driver. It was driven by a horizontal gas-engine in the back, which you started by putting on an old glove and pulling round the very dirty fly-wheel. It was belt-driven, like a small factory, with fast and loose pulleys which were engaged by means of a lever ready to the driver’s hand. The carriage was of dog-cart design, completely without protection, and so balanced that if the occupants of the front seats got out first the whole thing tipped up and pitched out the others. In suitable conditions it would run for five or six miles without requiring filling up with cooling water, but in that time it generally shed a journal-box, which you had to walk back along the road to recover and refit. It ‘had no reverse, but that didn’t matter for if you wanted to turn round in a narrow road you just got out and lifted up the front wheels and turned it round. The sales of Explosion of a Motor-car were the biggest we had had up till then.
Soon we began to feel the necessity of indoor sets, for the ideas for outdoor comics began to wear thin. So we set up a sort of stage in our little back garden. It measured fifteen feet by eight and had a few upright posts against which scenery flats could be propped. It faced due south so as to give us the longest possible spell of sunlight. This was progress indeed, but it was a long time before we began really to contemplate making many films of much greater length than the almost standard fifty-footers.
To people who are familiar with the general appearance of small theatrical set-ups — and who is not in these days of amateur theatricals? — this short description will probably convey all that is necessary, or if not, my drawing will fill in most of the details.
The little stage was in the open air because we were completely dependent upon daylight for our photography; also we had never heard of anyone using a covered studio for film work — probably no one ever had. All we wanted was a bit of floor for ‘actors’ to walk on and some scenery flats to set up against a suitable support to give the appearance of a room, kitchen or drawing or what-not.
The possession of a stage brought many other difficulties with it. Scenery had to be made and painted. I am no artist but I remembered my childhood’s nursery efforts and so the job fell to me. As the little vertical gas-engine soon blew itself to bits, a more orthodox horizontal one was installed in the kitchen and so freed the scullery for scene-painting purposes. It is on record that we had our meals in the kitchen beside the gas-engine and that the smell of the size from the scullery formed a welcome addition to our meals and saved us the cost of cheese. Up to this time, and indeed for some while afterwards, no thought of employing professional actors had ever entered our heads. The mere idea of films was abhorred by all stage people and it is doubtful whether any would have come to Walton if we had asked them. So we played all the parts ourselves and anyone who wasn’t acting turned the handle of the camera.
The position of the gas-engine in the kitchen reminds me that an aunt — Aunt Bella, a third sister of my mother’s — took pity on our primitive ways and came to keep house for us for a while. She was a kind creature and though she admitted she didn’t like the gas-engine going while we were at lunch she agreed that it enabled us to keep our eyes upon it and let us get the battery charged with less interruption to our ordinary work. Where on earth she slept, or indeed where any of us slept, is a complete mystery to me, for I have no recollection at all of ever sleeping anywhere.
It will probably have been apprehended that we practised a degree of economy in those days somewhat in excess of that which is to be encountered in most modern studios, but even so, we could hardly have survived if kindly fate had not interposed a finger in our pie. I am quite unable to fix a date for this occurrence or even to find its proper place in our catalogue. All I can say is that it occurred and had its due and considerable influence on my affairs. I can, however, say it was before my marriage and after the eclipse of the sun which, indirectly, led up to it. That puts it in 1901 or the latter part of 1900.
An old gentleman — we thought he was old — came to see us at Walton for some reason which is now buried in the mists of forgotten things. He looked around at everything we could show him, asked a good many questions and at last asked me if I would sell half the business as it stood and take his son, H. V. Lawley, as my partner. We discussed terms, settled upon a price and made some suitable arrangement for Monty Wicks and that was that. The new money was a very great help, for we were down to our last fiver. It is some little consolation to realise now that that condition is not entirely unknown in modern studio practice.
Partner Lawley soon picked up our peculiar ways and, being no snob, settled down at once without demur to our primitive household habits. It did not take him long to acquire enough knowledge of cinematography to make him a useful operator. Soon after he arrived I took on another very useful man named Percy Stow who developed a great aptitude for ingenious trickwork in films, and as both of them were well able and willing to take their turns at the developing and printing machine, turn and turn about with me whenever necessary, we all got on famously together.
I have only been really drunk once in my life. I daresay you are wondering what on earth that has to do with developing machines. Well, it hasn’t very much — it just came into my head when I was thinking about the three of us getting on so well together. For we all three got rolling drunk one evening without having a single drop of anything to drink! We were very interested at that time in the problem of getting our news pictures upon the screens in the shortest possible time. Now the two great sources of delay are the necessity of washing the films thoroughly, which takes time, and of drying them afterwards, which takes much longer still. It’s the gelatine that’s the trouble. It takes a long time to wash the chemicals out of the gelatine and much longer still to dry it afterwards.
But I happened to remember a little-known process which does not have gelatine in its make-up. It is called collodio-bromide and, as may be imagined, collodion takes the place of gelatine and a rinse is sufficient to clean it and it dries in a minute or two. Its drawback is that it is terribly slow — wants a very long exposure to the printing light. However, it can be accelerated tremendously by treating it with a little eosine, which is the dye from which red ink is made. This process had been used for glass lantern-slides very successfully and I determined to experiment with it. But directly the dyed emulsion was coated upon celluloid a strange thing happened. Every particle of the sensitising dye was sucked out of the collodion by the celluloid and all the valuable extra speed went with it. It appeared that celluloid had a tremendous affinity for eosine and stole it from the collodion. It dyed the celluloid red and left the collodion white, and so insensitive to light that it was impossible to do anything with it.
The drunkenness? Well, that happened this way. Collodion is made by dissolving gun-cotton in a mixture of alcohol and ether. The sensitising agent is added to it in the dark-room. We three, in the dark except for a red lantern, and looking, I should think, like a trio of witches, were stirring the stuff for a considerable time and the vapour had the same effect upon us as though we had been drinking heavily. Anyhow, we finished off the job and then went out for a walk to Shepperton, singing loudly and rolling arm-in-arm all the way.
So far as I can gather from the printed catalogue of ‘selected’ films which was issued later, we do not appear to have had much use of the stage now that we had got it. Almost every picture was taken in natural scenery and the great majority were deliberately selected for their essentially English character and for the peculiar beauty of the countryside of this land. I don’t think there was any specially patriotic consciousness about this at the time — it was probably a matter of personal taste. But much later on, when it became the practice of English studios to ape the methods and style and treatment of American films, in the vain hope of winning some of the success which had only too obviously passed to them, I did consciously rebel. It seemed to me then — and it does still seem to me — that the best hope and the most honourable course for every country is to be true to its own culture, to produce the pictures which are native and natural to it, and to try to tell of the things which are good and worthy about it and its civilisation. Certainly not to try to poach upon the natural preserves of other lands. Not only because that is rather dishonest but also, and chiefly, because it is certain to be unsuccessful.
Natural, open-air scenery could not, of course, meet all our needs and the first use of the new stage was in No. 132, The Egg-Laying Man, a trick film in which the head of the actor (me) fills the whole screen. It has often been stated that D. W. Griffith, the great American producer, who appeared, and had such astonishing skill, several years later, was the originator of, and the first to use, the ‘close-up.’ That is not so. One of the first pictures ever made, The Kiss, used it with great success. It was tremendously popular in its day and found its way into nearly every fair and circus in the country. The way the two huge faces nuzzled into one another was just a little nauseating in its intimacy, but it was mild in comparison with what we get in nearly every love story film nowadays.
Soon there followed The Eccentric Dancer, in which the device later known as ‘slow-motion photography’ was used, probably for the first time. I remember we had to hand-turn the camera at tremendous speed to get the effect, which was exceedingly comic until continual use dimmed its infinite variety. two other novel effects come next to one another in the list, How it Feels to be Run Over, and a reversing film, in the second half of which the action is shown backwards and the bathers dive feet-first out of the water and on to the diving-board.
Then there are several more of these alleged ‘comics’ whose only interest now is that they seem to show gradual progress to better work, and then we come to more news pictures of the return of the C.I.V.s from South Africa, and to no less than nine films of life in the British Army and thirty similarly devoted to the Navy — all, I think, taken by our new recruit, H. V. Lawley, who had, by then, been with us long enough to learn how to use a camera, and use it to good effect.
But it will be tiresome if I continue to quote the titles of successive films which have already brought us up to No. 220 in the catalogue; and I will skip to a very important date in English History and in my own film-life. This was January, 1901, the death of Queen Victoria. We took the funeral procession from three positions including the one I had at Victoria Station. I cannot do better than quote from the description written at the time. ‘This photograph was taken from such close quarters that everyone who takes part appears life-size and has his portrait faithfully recorded. A very remarkable feature about it is the splendid portrait which it includes of the King, the German Emperor and the Duke of Connaught. They are following close behind the gun-carriage which turns the corner right in front of the camera, so that it appears to fill the entire view. The King holds up his hand to stay the further portion of the procession for a while to allow more room for the earlier part, and while he and his companions rein up in the centre of the view, he leans over and talks to first one and then the other. The result is a most delightful group of the three august personages.’
That is how it appeared to the public: this is how it seemed to me: — I had a wonderful position just inside the railings of Grosvenor Gardens opposite Victoria Station. My camera was the coffin-like construction which had been made some time before for taking the Phantom Rides. When it was used on the front of an engine, I did not realise, or care, how much noise it made. In the great silence and hush of the most solemn funeral in history it was a very different matter. That silence was a thing that closed in everything like an almost palpable curtain, not broken, but only accentuated, by the muted strains of the funeral march. Then at its moment of greatest tension I started to turn my camera, and the silence was shattered! If I could have had my dearest wish then the ground would certainly have opened at my feet and swallowed me and my beastly machine. But the noise had one curious effect. It caught the attention, as it must certainly have done, of the new King, Edward VII, and I believe that is why he halted the procession so that posterity might have the advantage of the cinematograph record.
But, so far as we were concerned, photographing the funeral was only the beginning. My friend, A. G. Bromhead, representative of Léon Gaumont of Paris, had collected for us many orders for the films of the procession and we had many more on our own account. We hurried back to Walton to develop the negatives and to start making the prints. We worked all through the night and the next day and the following night to fill these orders and the others which kept coming in. Then early on the morning after that, when we thought, thanking God, we had finished, we went up into the drying rooms (bedrooms you will remember) and found to our horror that all the prints, except those already despatched, were spoiled. Through some fault in the material the film stock had all turned milky- white. We phoned Bromhead as soon as we could, but he said print them over again as soon as possible but in the meantime send up the spoiled stuff — I have any number of further orders. It seems that our negatives were better than others and very many people wanted prints. Before that job was done I had worked for eight days and nights with only nine hours off for food and sleep and the others did not fare much better. One of them, John Whitton, who had not been long with us, was found fast asleep on the floor of one of the drying rooms when Lawley and I went up to see how he was getting on before snatching an hour or two off for ourselves, and although we tried everything we could think of to wake him we just could not do it, and we had to leave him there.
I remember staggering home after one of these long spells of work and wondering at the continual pealing and chiming of the church bells all around me. It was early morning and there was only one church within miles, and that was silent. It was just illusion, a result of fatigue. But, never mind, we made a good deal of money and topped up our reputation quite a bit.
Although we had a stage of sorts and, between us, a considerable experience of film-making, we seem very seldom to have attempted pictures with more than one scene in them. One of the first of this kind we made had, about 1901, a rather curious history, but it was some time earlier than the events of this chapter. It was the story of a burglary, in three scenes. I was the burglar with a full black beard — I suppose we felt that a burglar couldn’t possibly be clean shaven. The first scene, set up on the stage, represented the outside of a house with a window through which I — the burglar — climbed. We struck that scene and set the next, the inside of the house with the burglar coming through, seizing coats and things and starting to go back. Then we had to strike that scene and reset the first one to see the robber climbing back out of the window and getting away with his haul.
It was a very simple little work, but it had three peculiarities.
- It was a story of undetected crime and would never have passed the censor in later days.
- It showed delightful unsophistication in taking the scenes in that order instead of doing the first and third together in one go.
- In the excitement of resetting the last scene, in which work, of course, I helped, I entirely forgot my beard and came out of the window clean shaven! But if we were unsophisticated, what about the showmen and the public? We held an inquest on the picture as it stood and decided to let it go out with all its imperfections on its head. And although a number of copies were sold we never received a single complaint!
As it happened — luckily for me as I thought at the time — I had then a good deal of business in Manchester, and as that grim city is within twenty miles or thereabouts of some very beautiful scenery, including Chapel-en-le-Frith which held so much charm for me, it is natural that I did not refuse to attend to that business when it came my way. It came in the form of one of the most remarkable personalities of the entertainment world of that or any other time.
He was an utter scamp, a very lovable fellow and one of the greatest showmen who ever lived. He was very actively, extremely actively, engaged in the cinematograph show business. His name was A. D. Thomas, which for purposes of enhancement, he soon changed to Edison-Thomas and then, later on, to Thomas-Edison, and if people got it into their heads that he was the Edison, the great ‘inventor’ of moving pictures and many other things, well, that was their look-out. He didn’t do anything to disillusion them. He plastered the whole town wherever he went, and he went nearly everywhere, with tremendous posters in brilliant colours describing his wonderful shows and his still more wonderful self. He had something in the nature of a more-or-less permanent address in Oxford Street, Manchester.
He bought several of our better films — he knew how to choose — but more especially he employed me to take particularly local films for him. These were generally of workers leaving some large factory in the neighbourhood of places being visited or about to be visited, by one of his travelling shows.
The turn-out of the local fire brigade, all smoke and sparks and perspiring horses, was one of his favourite subjects, and I must have taken well over fifty of them for him. Less honestly (honesty was his long suit — his Sunday suit, always left at home), he would parade the town in person, mounted high on an open lorry, actively turning his camera on every little knot of people he passed. As the lorry was plastered with his colourful posters telling them to come and see themselves at such-and-such hall tonight, it left the people in no doubt as to what he was doing. Unfortunately for their hopes the camera had no film in it; it was merely a dummy, and, if they failed to see themselves on the screen, it was just too bad. The hall was filled and they had a good show for their money, so what’s the odds?
There was another showman about that time who afterwards became more prominent in the trade than A. D. Thomas. He was not so clever and more dishonest, but wild horses will not drag his name from me, for fear the information that came to me about him may have become exaggerated on the way, as sometimes happens. According to the story, his method was very simple. He engaged the principal hall in several towns, spread his posters for a one-night show all over the place, stayed long enough in the hall to collect the money as the people came in and then quietly took his leave by a side door. No pictures, no machine, no anything! But then, as I say, the story may have been exaggerated.
The first time I went to Chapel-en-le-Frith at the invitation of my new-found friend, John McGuffie, he casually suggested that I had better take my evening clothes with me. When I arrived and was introduced to his two sisters and his younger brother — the parents were both dead — I learned to my horror that we were all to go to a dance in a neighbouring village. It was, however, a fresh and very pleasant experience when I got over my first dismay, for a dance in those days and in a little out-of-the-way village was utterly different and remote from anything to be even guessed at now. Remember, it was long before the first world war. Jazz and the saxophone had never been guessed at and ways and customs were very different.
We five packed into a hired carriage, wrapped ourselves in many rugs and drove as fast as the horses would go — which was very slow indeed — over the ups and downs of Derbyshire country roads — of which, of course, I could see nothing in the dark — and arrived at length at the village hall. Then there was quick unrobing so as to get into the ‘ball-room’ quickly, for if you did not get your programme filled up early, you were lost. The McGuffie girls had each allotted me two dances before we left their home, and were most assiduous in finding me partners for all the others, whose names I jotted in if I could hear them correctly, otherwise the colour of their dresses. I learned that two dances was the maximum allowance for any one girl — it was considered ‘significant’ if that number were exceeded. It was a very pleasant and happy little affair. The dancers in that village were not of the village girl and hobbledehoy class but mostly the neighbours and friends of the people I was staying with, quiet, moderately cultured, very happy and not at all noisy.
Afterwards at their home I found that they still retained a curious old-fashioned custom which rather surprised me; they always dressed for dinner in the evening. I admit I came to scoff but remained to praise, and when I was married and my wife came South with me we brought the quaint old Northern custom with us and kept it up. I believe that it did help me to retain what little sanity I have in spite of the disturbing worries of film-making. If you can force yourself to shut down your business sharp at six o’clock, go home and throw off your working clothes and shed your worries with them (and that is what it really feels like), put on a boiled shirt and a smiling face, and meet a nicely dressed and happy wife, you need never give your troublesome work another thought until tomorrow morning.
We were married at Buxton on February 11th, 1902. There was a heavy snowstorm the day before and I hurriedly cancelled the carriages and ordered sledges instead. It was taking chances on tomorrow’s weather but luckily it played up to me and both protagonists and guests all enjoyed the novel experience. It even earned me my first bit of publicity in a London paper. If they had known I was a film man I shouldn’t have had it, so differently were we regarded all that time ago. Nowadays it would be ‘Film Producer Weds Country Girl in Snow,’ or something of that sort. Incidentally, why do people in newspapers always ‘wed,’ never ‘marry’?
All the remaining three of that happy little family married within a few months of that time and that happy house was emptied. I have never seen it since, and now, all but one of those people are dead. And shortly after the time of my marriage, A. D. Thomas, ‘Thomas-Edison,’ played his last few tricks and played himself out. His various debts crowded around him. I was slow to realise what was happening, or shut my eyes to it when he pleaded for a little more time, and I parted from him in the end his creditor for nearly five hundred pounds. This was a sad blow for a little business like ours, but we weathered the storm and though we shipped a good deal of water we were not wrecked.
One more showmanship note. Quite early in my film-life I was commissioned to photograph a young lady taking off all her clothes while she swung and hung on a trapeze. The trapeze was rigged up on the roof of the Alhambra so that I could have plenty of daylight, but it was very disappointing. When she had taken off her last ‘shimmy’ she was found to have on a perfectly respectable bathing-dress. But that is not what I mean. It was disappointing because in my effort to keep the whole swing of the trapeze in my picture I had taken the camera so far away that the figure was very small indeed and you could hardly see what was going on. Or should I say, what was coming off?
I do not think that film ever appeared before the public and even if it had it would not have been questioned, for there was no thought of a censorship then. Indeed, there was little need for one for it was only very occasionally that a film appeared to which objection could reasonably be taken. But later on there came a small but apparently growing quantity of short films which were said to be intended for ‘smoking-room’ exhibition. They were only a few at first but, like the small black cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, they seemed to some of us to be ominous.
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