Cecil M. Hepworth — Came the Dawn — Chapter 06 (1951) 🇬🇧 [xxx]
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Now let us go back to the little story of film-making at Walton-on-Thames, which I had left awhile to dip into the cognate subject of showmanship. We can skip a number of films which were a little more varied and a little better made as time went on; we can turn over a few more pages which describe films of much the same kind as before, we come to a sad moment in our country’s history and a very sad one in my own. We had mustered together every possible camera, settled the position of every man at our disposal, and indeed, had all our gear ready waiting on the stairs of our little house, ready to start to photograph our biggest effort, the Coronation of King Edward VII, when the news came through that the King was seriously ill and the whole ceremony postponed.
The only thing I could think of to do was to go up to London and see what the people seemed to think of it. I found them all wandering about rather aimlessly looking at the decorations. And I took some views of Disappointed London — London without a single motor- vehicle. But there were many thousands of Indians and Colonials who had come over for the coronation and they could not stay here indefinitely, so the Queen and the Prince of Wales held a wonderful review with Lord Roberts and a host of foreign princes, which gave us the chance to take half a dozen films of more than the usual length.
Then when the King was happily recovered, to the great joy of the people, the actual coronation took place and was duly and faithfully recorded by our cameras. We were, in fact, very successful in all our work of this description and served the country well with cinematographic news until the news-reels came into existence and took it over. In a sense the early film people were more ‘Fleet Street minded’ than the news-reel people when they followed later, for they went to extraordinary lengths to get their news pictures on to the screens on the day of the event. A railway van would be chartered and the negative of the Grand National developed while it was rushing to London. Or a motor-car would carry the wet film hanging out in a streamer behind to get it dry by the time it reached the theatre. I had no hand in any of these doings and do not quite know how far they were true. But we did do all that could reasonably be expected of us to put our pictures on at the earliest moment without spoiling them.
Our success with the Coronation seems to have inspired a spate of news-realism, what with Lord Kitchener at Ipswich, the procession of the King and Queen around London in October, the arrival of the German Emperor, Joseph Chamberlain’s departure for South Africa, the state opening of Parliament in February of the following year, 1903, and the launch of the third Shamrock. All these, of course, and many others were interwoven with the usual little comedies and the like, and then we come to a more ambitious effort in Alice in Wonderland. This was the greatest fun and we did the whole story in 800 feet — the longest ever at that time. Every situation was dealt with with all the accuracy at our command and with reverent fidelity, so far as we could manage it, to Tenniel’s famous drawings. I had been married about a year and my wife, broken-in to film work, played the part of the White Rabbit. Alice was played by Mabel Clark, the little girl from the cutting room, growing exasperatingly larger and smaller as she does in the book. The beautiful garden was the garden of Mount Felix, at Walton; the Duchess, the kitchen, the mad tea-party, the Cheshire Cat, the royal procession — all were there. The painting of the whole pack of cards human size was quite an undertaking and the madly comic trial scene at the end made a suitable and hilarious finale.
And so the story goes on. We had by now definitely broken away from the fifty-foot tradition and our films took whatever length, in reason, that the subject demanded. The great majority of them varied from 100 to 200 feet at that time (1903) though the fifty-foot idea persists in the system of numbering. This is because we had a lingering feeling that we might have to cut some of the ‘long’ films down to make them saleable to a few of our more prudent customers and then it would be convenient to have numbers in reserve to know them by. So Alice was numbered 430 to 446, but The Duchess and her Pig Baby could be purchased separately as No. 438. So when I jump from 450 to, say, 531, as I now propose to do, it doesn’t mean that I have skipped as many as eighty individual films but only that I am trying to avoid too many tedious details.
Indeed, I am only stopping here to mention one little effort which is probably unique even to the present day as it certainly was in its own time when it was said; ‘the Cinematograph has been used to burlesque a popular application of itself.’ The Warwick Trading Company under Charles Urban, building up its own excellent series of films, began to include microscope subjects under the tide of The Unseen World, The Urban-Duncan Micro-Bioscope. So we produced a burlesque called The Unclean World, The Suburban-Bunkum Microbe-Guyoscope, in which were shown, among other things, a number of horrible-looking [beedes] crawling about in the circular field of a microscope, and they continue to thrill the spectator until a couple of human hands come into view to wind up the animals, now obviously clock-work.
Still resisting the temptation to stop and comment upon the procession of films as they pass in memory before me, I come to one (No. 612) which I think should be mentioned as it points to our occasional allusions to the questions of the hour. It is three hundred feet devoted to The Great Servant Question: [Tine] photography with all the scenes dissolving into one another.’ We did not realise that before this book came to be written the whole ‘question’ would have ‘dissolved’ and left us with scarcely a memory that it had ever existed.
Some time before the production of Rescued by Rover, we came to a rather important change in our affairs. A. C. Bromhead, as Gaumont in Cecil Court, had been our chief selling agent at the time of the Funeral of Queen Victoria and for some while afterwards, but the time came when I felt that we were too much out of things at Walton and ought to have our own direct representation in London, especially as we had by then several items of apparatus to sell as well as our films. So it seemed natural to drift back to our original hunting ground and we rented a couple of shops in Cecil Court, which, because there were so many of us there, was becoming known as ‘Flicker Alley.’
We had a rather disastrous first year which led to the ignominious retreat of the first manager, and a young fellow named C. Parfrey, who had been looking after our accounts there since the beginning, undertook to give more time and pull our affairs straight, which he did very successfully.
My partner, H. V. Lawley, and I, who had all along been the best of friends, began not to see quite eye-to-eye on several matters of very little importance in themselves which assumed, as they heaped up, considerable significance. To show how little they were really, here is a typical example. I had been to London and used the opportunity to buy fifty rolls of negative film each of fifty metres, about 8,250 feet. In view of our growing requirements, that seemed to me to be a quite reasonable investment, but Lawley thought it was gross extravagance — and said so. There was a suggestion that I was squandering the partnership funds to satisfy my own opulent ideas. There was nothing more to it than that but these little things mounted to a growing irritation between us, and in the end we decided to dissolve the partnership.
In order to pay him out — no, that doesn’t sound right! In order to refund to him his half of the agreed value of the business at the time, I formed a little private company among a few of my father’s friends, who agreed to take shares. The Hepworth Manufacturing Company Limited was registered April 25th, 1904, and C. Parfrey was appointed London Manager. He carried on to everyone’s complete satisfaction until the Great War flared up in 1914. He was in America then, arranging and opening our agency there, and he came back in spite of much strong American advice to stay there and help gather up the valuable pieces when the fools this side had fought to a standstill.
Parfrey had, and I suppose he still has, an excellent head for business. In ‘Flicker Alley,’ under his auspices, we sold projectors, resistances and accessories, most of which had some stamp of originality upon them and, of course, my original arc -lamp. And from here we sold our films and made not perhaps a fortune but enough to carry on and to continue improving our products and repute.
At Walton there came in from time to time several people, some with a little theatrical experience and all with a burning desire to become film-producers. They had what chance we felt able to offer them and they did from time to time produce a few films. These were not altogether their fault, for I butted in in many cases, especially when there were interior scenes to be dealt with. They made their little marks upon the archives and faded gradually away to pass, I hope, into easier atmosphere and opportunities for better work.
I do not wish to appear ungrateful, for these wishful ‘producers’ did undoubtedly fill in a time when we were beginning to enlarge our ideas. Some of them were worse than others and some better than the average but it would be very invidious to sort them out and that is why I do not wish to mention any names at this point. They all had one peculiarity in common which I did not like at all. They harangued and abused the poor little tame actors and actresses who were working for them and spilled their unpleasant language all over the place. I felt that I knew nothing about these things, but I protested. They all informed me then that it was perfectly usual, the invariably common practice on the stage, and, in fact, that it was the only way to get any good work out of stage people.
It may have been the usual behaviour on the stages they came from — though I doubt it. It was certainly not the way of things on the theatrical stage when I became better acquainted with it several years later. Nothing of that kind goes on in the theatre of today or in any studio. I am quite sure it was never the best way to get good work out of any actors, whatever their station in life.
It appears from the silent evidence of the catalogue that it must have been about early 1905 that our little company was joined and refreshed by the coming of Lewin Fitzhamon, whose original and sprightly ideas had a considerable effect upon our work. The Press Illustrated, parodying the titles of a number of popular journals, shows his puck-like humour to much advantage.
The next film that catches my eye after a procession of comics, scenics and general interests, is a long ‘dramatic’ called Falsely Accused, which had a considerable vogue in spite of its extortionate length of 850 feet. And 1905, introduced by The Derby, The King of Spain’s Review, The Royal Wedding at Windsor, and some other topicals, as well as many ‘made-up’ films, brings us to the most notable for many years, Rescued by Rover.
I had been dropping out from the actual making of films and devoting myself more to the supervision of the work of others and to scenic photography which has always been my hobby, but Rescued by Rover was a particularly family affair. My wife wrote the story, my baby — eight months old — was the heroine, my dog the hero, my wife the bereaved mother and myself the harassed father — though why in the world I should have thought it necessary to play the part throughout in a frock coat and tall hat is more than I can understand.
This was the first occasion in which professional actors were employed at Walton, Mr. and Mrs. Sebastian Smith playing respectively the flirtatious soldier and the wicked old woman who stole the baby while the nurse’s back was turned. They each received half-a-guinea which included their fares from London! The nurse’s part was played by Mabel Clark. For some reason this quaintly simple little film has found its way into the National Film Library and has been instanced again and again, either as an example of most praiseworthy economy in cost or, alternatively, of budding genius in production. It was enormously popular and financially successful in its time and we had to make it all over again a second time and then even a third, because we wore out the negatives in the making of the four hundred prints to satisfy the demand. It was my biggest thing ever, since The Funeral of Queen Victoria. Its cost was trifling by today’s standards.
Meanwhile our little company was slowly gathering to itself the sort of people who fitted in, shared our feelings and ideas, reinforced our abilities and turned out the kind of work we wanted and could be proud of. First among these, both in time and in quality, were Stanley Faithfull and, a year later, his brother Geoffrey. Never has any name been more justly worn. They came when they left school, each at the age of fourteen, about 1896 and 1897. I have known them intimately ever since and never for one second in all that long time have I known either of them to falter in the perfection of good faith.
Tom White was Stanley’s school friend. His father asked me to take him on and unconsciously did me the best of good turns, for he is another of the same order of knighthood and his name also suits him to perfection. He is at this moment of writing the General Manager at the Pinewood Film Studios, and if you want to hear the highest praise that any man can win, ask anyone what they think of him there.
Lewin Fitzhamon, too, was a rattling good sort — one of the very best. He introduced the two little girls, Dolly Lupone and Gertie Potter, and made with them several bright and pleasant little films. He brought along, too, a little later on, the two little Ginger Girls whose flaming hair lighted up the roads and lanes of Walton for a considerable time. They were the protagonists in a number of ‘shorts’ which again were full of that gaiety and sprightly happiness which was the hall-mark of all Fitz’s work. His greatest triumph was with the Tilly Girl series, with Alma Taylor and Chrissie White, who were soon to become the most important members of the famous Hepworth Stock Company.
Now I want to make it quite clear that all and any of these young people were liable to be called upon, the girls specially, to take on various jobs in the process of film-making other than acting. They came gladly and worked with a will, drying, sorting, labelling or boxing, or even running errands. And never was there a sound of grumbling — never any that I heard anyway. Contrariwise, as Tweedledum would say, anybody anywhere, carpenter, electrician, dark-room hand or clerk might be roped in to act a part at any time, and all were willing and glad to obey.
But our crowd were not the only ones imbued with this spirit. Even the horses in Walton village had the same idea. There were only a few of them and normally their job was to run the small omnibus to or from the station to meet the trains. Abnormally, they had to turn out with the fire-brigade when the call came. Then the bus was hastily abandoned wherever it might be and the horses galloped off to the fire-engine house, and the passengers in the bus could jolly-well walk. This happened to us sometimes, for casual actors came down by train and if they were stranded they arrived very late for their parts in the film. Good old timers like Thurston Harris were among those who fell victims to this capricious habit. The bus drivers were great local characters named Bert and Fred Stowe.
A notable effort from the Fitzhamon basket, about 1908, was a trick and chase film in one — a combination of two very popular styles at that time. It was called The Fatal Sneeze. Gertie Potter was the mischievous ‘boy’ with the pepper pot who caused all the trouble. There were dozens of scenes in which the unhappy sneezer, whose every orgasm caused dreadful wreckage, was chased from one scene to another until his last effort set the whole visible world swaying from side to side and he himself exploded and disappeared in smoke. It was a crude performance, but I have kept it in my film-lecture as an example and it always provokes more laughter and mirth than many a modern comedy.
We strayed far afield at times. One of our fellows, named Scott-Brown, went to Egypt and brought back many short negatives, one of which was tremendously popular, Moonlight on the Nile. Half its effect was due to the staining and toning which we gave to the prints. This is something which is necessarily quite unfamiliar to laboratory workers of the present day. The prints were made individually and to a great extent by hand. But they could be, and were, very greatly enhanced by having certain of the scenes stained with an appropriate dye — blue for moonlight, red for firelight for instance. There was another post-printual process, too, which often added real beauty to the scene, called ‘toning.’ In this case it was not the base of the film which was coloured but the photographic image itself. So it was possible to have the picture-substance of a deep brown-red colour on a background of light blue. All these effects could only be obtained by elaborate after-treatment of the otherwise finished print. It was difficult and expensive but it was worth while at the time, and was only abandoned as work became more commercialised and it is never even heard of now.
On another occasion I sent Scott-Brown to British North Borneo with the strictest injunctions to send every bit of film home just as soon as it was exposed, for I knew that tropical conditions had a nasty trick of dissolving out the latent image on the film, if it is under their influence for long, undeveloped, and leaving it almost as though it had never been exposed. Unfortunately he didn’t do it. He developed a test from each roll and finding that was all right, brought the whole lot back with him. It was all spoilt; scarcely anything of an image could be developed. And all his tests showed really brilliant photography.
Among the few unpleasant things that happened about this time was the rascally behaviour of a well-connected man in London who certainly should have known better. He bought two or three copies of nearly everything we produced, but he sold ten or fifteen prints of each! It was horribly artful to buy more than one of each and so cover up his nefarious practices.
After Rover, there is not very much in our immediate catalogue which calls for special notice. There is a very ambitious film, which bears the stamp of Fitzhamon’s peculiar gift — Prehistoric Peeps, based upon the work of E. T. Reed of Punch, for which all the resources of the works were devoted to the building and painting of the wildest of wild animals; and there was a film on the Death of Nelson which was intended to synchronise with the playing and singing of the well-known song. Then there was a bright idea for depicting the growth of scandal from mouth to mouth, with the title of What the Curate Really Did, and then the first of a series of political pictures which was called The Aliens’ Invasion. A pantomime picture and a melodrama, each of 700 feet, a horse picture called Dick Turpin and then the catalogue comes to an undignified end with a few short and quite insignificant nonentities.
For with the apparently important number of one thousand and ninety-five, we had realised that the time had come to drop the making of short films, such as can be sold on a catalogue description, and to start making pictures on a very different scale — the sort that were afterwards called ‘feature’ films.
Well, that is how it appeared to me at the first glance. But looking back rather more carefully I begin to perceive that it could not possibly have happened like that. There must have been a period, probably a long period, during which the transition very gradually took shape. I should think it kept step to some extent with the changes which were occurring in the showmanship side of the business.
These changes were probably epitomised in the similar changes in our own village. The occasional fairs which visited us at regatta time did not come to us to buy their films, if they had any, which is doubtful, and I don’t think we had a converted shop either. We did have a small village hall in the High Street for dances and bazaars and so on, and this was early converted into a sort of picture-house which had the field to itself for several years. Then a slightly larger hall was erected in Church Street and that became our ‘Electric Palace.’ Soon that was conquered in turn by a large picture theatre at the other end of the town — it could no longer be called a village — and then that in its turn was compelled to share its audiences with the largest one of all — up to this present writing.
This sort of thing was going on all over the country. First the fair-ground and the travelling exhibitor at the mechanics’ institute and the like. Then the converted shop or two shops knocked into one, with benches for seats and very little ventilation. Next, the small hall rigged up as a palace; followed by the specially-built theatre, and then a much larger competitor; and finally a ‘Super.’ As all the earlier ones were infested by fleas — and infested is a mild word — they soon became known as ‘flea-pits,’ and some of them retain that pet-name still.
There must have been a peculiarly voracious variety of flea, specialising in picture-houses, a [Pulex Irritans Pictorialis], breeding with great exuberance in the cultural atmosphere of their chosen habitat. Luckily they have disappeared now from all except the least reputable of their haunts.
It was outside the village hall at Walton, before it was raised to the status of a picture-house, that there occurred a little incident which is worth recording. We were filming some sort of story in which a street accident was concerned, probably a running-down by a motor-car, for that was the usual butt in those days. A dummy of a man was lying propped up against the wall of the building and there was a large crowd watching, for our activities were the great free entertainment of the day.
A local doctor — a rather unpopular man as it happened — was cycling down a side-street and he quickened his pace when he saw the crowd. Then, noticing the injured man, as he thought, for he was a little short-sighted, he jumped quickly off his bike, unstrapped his bag of instruments, pushed aside the two ‘policemen’ bending over the body and — realised his mistake! He saw the camera but he tried to look unconcerned and at his ease as he mounted and rode away, followed by the laughter and cheers of the unsympathetic crowd.
It was, I think, while the small picture-houses were gradually giving way to larger and ever larger ones, that our films — and those of our competitors too, of course — were slowly growing longer and bigger. I don’t think we consciously visualised this change in advance; it marched so slowly and insidiously upon us that we scarcely noticed its coming. The half a dozen smaller producers continued to be small and to turn out small pictures. Fitzhamon was bigger and made bigger and longer films as he felt the need of time to develop his ideas. Percy Stow also needed room to expand his few but difficult trick pictures and Gaston Quiribet (‘Q,’), the clever Frenchman who had recently joined the gang, contributed longer films which we were very glad to welcome. All that was noticeable on the surface was that there was a steady, if diminishing, flow of small films with occasional bigger ones coming to the top and demanding attention.
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