Cecil M. Hepworth — Came the Dawn — Chapter 08 (1951) 🇬🇧
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Suddenly, in 1907, out of the blue, came disaster, bringing grief and dismay to all of us: cutting sharply across our lives, leaving a dreadful memory which for most of us will never be effaced. The thing which is feared above all others by those who work with celluloid, if they have any imagination at all. Fire! Fire, so swift and terrible that it is almost an explosion.
I had left a little early that evening in order to call at a club quite near to my house. One of our men came by on a bicycle and called out to me across the hedge that the works was on fire. I rushed and got out the car and drove as quickly as I could, but even as I started I could see the column of smoke rising above all the houses. I hadn’t wasted much time but the fire was half over when I got there. All the staff were crowded in the road in front of the blazing building, and to my first frantic question they assured me that they had accounted for everyone. But then, when to make sure, I ran over the names of all the people engaged at the time, it appeared that one, William Lane, was not among them. He was presumed to have run off home in terror, for it was in his room that the fire started. With that, I had to be content for the moment, but I sent a messenger at once to the lad’s home to find out whether he was there.
Strange how in moments of deep distress, tiny utterly unimportant things will insist upon thrusting themselves into your consciousness and will not be silenced. The dark-rooms were nearest to the road and every developing machine had an electric alarm bell to give notice when attention was needed. The fire had burnt these machines away and set all those dreadful bells ringing. In the dread silence, broken only by the hiss of the water from the fire engines, that horrible shrill tinkling went on and on as if it would persist to the very end of time. The batteries should run down, we hoped, and prayed, but still the maddening sound went on. Then the messenger came back and said that William Lane had not been at home.
As soon as the place was bearable for entry, I went in with the local policeman and the first thing we did was to stop those bells. Then we crept through the slush of the blackened rooms and made our way into the little perforating-room where the poor lad had been working and where the fire, they all said, had started. I still clung to the slender hope that he had not been there, but we found his body leaning back in a corner, a black cinder, shrunk to half its size. Only one foot was left with any likeness to human flesh, where it had been protected by the boot.
We lifted him out as tenderly as we could and laid him far away from the desolation where he had died. Then I had to go and tell his mother and father what had happened. They were already fearing it must be so, for they had heard nothing since the messenger had left them. There was nothing I could do except try to answer their questions and show a little of the sympathy I so wretchedly felt.
And when I got back there was still nothing I could do. The fire was quenched, half the people had crept away to their own homes and even the firemen were packing up their gear. Truly the thread of all our lives had been cut right across.
The next day was the first of several dreary days, in which we tried to measure what we had lost and how much we could rescue from the ruins — what chance we had of starting again. I won’t dwell any further on this unhappy time, but will try to tell of the many gleams of sunshine which struggled through the gloom now and again and began to point the way to some recovery.
There was that wonderful gesture from a man I scarcely knew — I think I had only met him once. His name was Jordan and he lived with his family in one of the little houses just opposite the studio. He came up to me when I was looking at the wreck next morning and he said that he knew how a calamity like that might easily catch a man very short of money for a time. He said that he had two hundred and fifty pounds doing nothing at his bank and I could have it in a few minutes and that he could raise as much again in two or three days if I should need it. When I went home later and told my wife about it, we felt that things could not be finished when there were people like that to help. As it happened I did not need money but that does not alter the fact that this was a most amazing and heartening gesture.
I received a lot of advice, too, of course, not always very wise or good. One thing that all sorts of people kept on dinning into me was that insurance companies always beat you down in your claims and that the only way to get your due recompense was to increase your claim by twenty-five or thirty per cent. I thought this over carefully and then I made up my mind. I would not add a penny on to anything. I would claim only the actual cost or value and I would make them pay my just claim.
Our policy was with the Royal Exchange Insurance Company. When they received the claim they sent down an assessor to check it. He was a very wise and careful man but very strict and painstaking in his methods. He spent several days on the job and this is how he began: — There were very many windows and the glass had been blown out of all of them. I had claimed for fluted glass at tenpence a square foot. He picked up some tiny pieces and said this is not fluted glass; it is ordinary window glass at twopence-halfpenny a foot. I said it is fluted glass and he said it wasn’t. So I suggested he should talk to some of the workpeople about the place. He did and they all confirmed what I had said. The pieces he had found were all too small to show the fluting but I think he grubbed up a little larger piece somewhere. Anyhow, he gave in.
And this is how he finished. The last single claim was for just over a thousand pounds for a large quantity of raw film-stock which had been stored in the perforating-room ready for use. There was nothing to show for it but some hundreds of crumpled tin boxes smothered in the black ashes of burnt celluloid. He looked at the few invoices we were able to produce, gazed at the black cinders which we said had been film — and passed the claim in full.
You will ask, as the coroner did, how it came about that the young fellow could not make his escape the instant the fire started. This is the more extraordinary when it is realised that by stretching his arms he could, without moving, touch both door and window and that both door and window were only lightly latched and one opened outwards.
I have tried so often to reconstruct the fatal moment and the best I can arrive at is that he had matches with him, though that was forbidden; that one dropped on the cement floor and he trod on it by accident and so ignited some bits of loose film that had fallen there; that he then tried to stamp out the flame and so lost the couple of seconds in which he might have made his escape.
Never, never try to deal with burning celluloid. I hate to see any kind of fire-extinguishers standing about in places where film is used, for I know that if people try to put out a film fire they will almost certainly fail, and in the attempt, may lose their only chance of saving their own lives.
This tragic fire was a staggering blow from which we only slowly began to recover. There was, of course, a tremendous amount of rather sickening work to be done; work which was not productive in any way but was merely directed towards the salvage and repair of anything which could possibly be saved. The outer walls remained standing and part of the roof, but most of the flooring was destroyed. All the perforators and their motors had gone completely and there was very little left of the developing machines. It was a miserable time and the only bright thing about it was the cheerful willingness with which everybody set about the doing of everything that was possible.
Meanwhile, plans for the future had to be gone into and considered. Before the fire we had already begun to feel rather cramped not only in studio space but in the matter of such subsidiary things as extra dressing-rooms and a ‘green-room’ for the artists, extra drying-rooms for the films and a whole lot of other things which we had wanted but had had to do without. I began trying to scheme out how we could turn as much as possible of our ill-fortune into good and decided to build a bigger and better studio. So while the old one was being rebuilt so far as was necessary to put it into thorough repair, and all hands were turning to replacing and reinstating the damaged and burnt-out machinery, I was making plans for the extension of the whole plant.
The new studio was to be just like the old one only larger and was to be placed parallel with it but at a sufficient distance away to leave a kind of square or courtyard between them. The square was to be completed by connecting the two front ends with darkrooms and drying rooms and the two rear ends with a mechanics’ shop below and a scene-dock above.
As soon as the old dark-rooms were ready again we started in to complete such of our orders as had not been cancelled and also to prepare as far as possible for future business. We had a large export trade at that time including a standing order from America for either thirty or forty copies — at our discretion — of every subject that we produced. This meant not only a great deal of printing but also a very large amount of work after the actual printing was finished. For all the films by this time had come to consist of a large number of different scenes most of which had a title in front or an inserted title of spoken words. These titles could not be inserted in the negative because in the case of foreign orders the titles had to be in the language of the country in which they were to be shown. There was, therefore, for every picture negative, a roll of negative titles for each of the countries who ordered prints. A quite elaborate system of signals painted on the negative where each title was to come had to be evolved, for you could not expect an examining-room girl to know how to insert, say, each Russian title in the proper place or even right way up.
The same applied (only more so!) to films which were printed in different sections on variously coloured celluloid. For convenience the sections of any one colour were grouped and printed together. They had to be separated afterwards and assembled according to a similar signalling system. It required some thinking out, but, once established, the system worked without any difficulty.
I have now got to a place — its date is somewhere in 1908 — where my reconstituted diary shows a jumble of events with very little sequence and several completely blank pages. It could perhaps be taken apart and its contents fitted together again in order of time and little watertight compartments, but that would, I think, rob them of both significance and interest. Order of date is all very well for people with Catalogue minds’ but order of events is much more important, for dates are stupid things; they merely follow one another like convicts walking in line, but events act and re-act together and flash their influence to and fro almost endlessly.
It is most likely that the blankness of the pages is due to the hiatus which must have occurred at this time. The original studio and all the work-rooms had been destroyed by fire and were now being rebuilt; the second studio, nearly double its size, had had its foundations cut out and its walls were going up as rapidly as could be expected, but the little ants’ nest had been badly disturbed and with all the industry in the world it is clear that there must have been considerable interruption in its output.
There must have been a time when from the present point of view, nothing of importance was happening, and from the scanty records that I am able to piece together, I can find very little except trivialities, which are scarcely worth recording here. We were, of course, rebuilding our walls and workshops and, in a sense, rebuilding our own lives. Looking back upon that time I think there must have been a subconscious urge in all of us to cling together as people are apt to do after a shipwreck upon an unknown shore — an instinctive response to an unrealised need of mutual support.
I had, a little while before the fire, tried an experiment which many other employers have tried without great success. It was to form a little games and social club for the staff to meet in the evenings and enjoy one another’s company. For we all lived in what was then little more than a village and there was small opportunity for recreation. I might have anticipated the result. However much people who meet and work together all day may like each other, they naturally prefer a change when they are not at work. The idea started off well enough but it gradually petered out. The only part that survived, and that probably because of my own enthusiasm, was the group of unaccompanied gleesingers.
I have a vivid recollection of this little company around the open grave of their comrade who had perished in the fire, singing a hymn as a simple requiem to his memory. It was two or three years before this that I had started to get together a little choir of our workers for unaccompanied part-singing once a week during the winter. One or two friends were roped in later to swell the choir and we all enjoyed those weekly rehearsals very much. We were sixteen strong by 1908. One of our first ventures was carol singing at Christmas time. We all carried Chinese lanterns which were lighted up outside the gate of the house we were going to attack. Then we marched slowly up the drive singing the ‘First Nowell.’ I think it sounded good and it certainly looked good. Arrived at the front door we changed to another carol or two and then we were sent away with a sixpence or shilling, or perhaps we were invited in. After the first year people began to expect us and to welcome us, and we came to know which houses were better avoided.
At one house we visited there was a large evening party in progress and as soon as we were heard approaching, the front door was flung open, the lights in the house were put out and we were ushered into a large room where the only light was that from our lanterns. We went through our repertoire of carols and more difficult part-songs and there was no doubt about the pleasure of our hosts, who gave us a couple of pounds for our selected charity and champagne and cakes for ourselves. This part-singing enterprise was continued for several years and, indeed, led afterwards to much more ambitious efforts in the shape of light operas with orchestra and dresses and scenery and all the rest of it, but that is another story which I may touch upon later.
To get back to the film work (which I submit was none the worse for these happy interludes) I find that Fitzhamon had been with us for more than two years at this time. He was very busy and his curious Puck-like mind kept on evolving strange ideas which were often quite successful. In one letter he writes under date December 3rd, to an actor: Tf there is a heavy fall of snow this month I shall be glad to continue that sleigh picture commenced two seasons ago.’ I could not in a hundred words give so good an impression of the times we worked in then.
One of our first attempts at publicity was the regular production of ‘stills’ — ordinary still photographs of selected events which, in the course of the film, occur in movement. We were a little late in adopting this comparatively easy way of publicising our activities, because I have always been rather against the use of stills. To say that one of these frozen pictures stands for and represents an intricate play of movement seems to me like taking a single chord from a musical score and saying that that represents a symphony.
Although I never ostensibly occupied the position of producer until a much later date, feeling that such special work should be entrusted to those who had been brought up to it as stage managers or the like, I did take a very considerable part in supervising all that was going on. To this, I suppose, must be attributed the fact that all the films that came from the house of Hepworth had a certain likeness or style by which they were recognisable, in spite of the vastly different character of their subjects. The subjects, indeed, varied very largely — comics, dramas, news, actualities, comedies and stories of all kinds from books and plays.
In Rover Drives a Car (though I don’t think that was really the name of the film), a dog steals the kidnapper’s car and actually drives the baby home! That car was a wide open one with no such thing as hood or windscreen, but it had a fairly deep apron in front under which I was just able to conceal myself and put up an unobtrusive hand to hold the lower edge of the steering wheel. The dog sat on the driver’s seat with his paws on the upper side of the wheel and the baby sat beside him, thoroughly enjoying the novel experience. I wonder what the police would say if we attempted that on the public road today! Baby’s Playmate came soon after this and then a second fine film dealing again with the Black Beauty theme, in which that sagacious horse calls a fire engine to save the baby from a burning hay-rick. And then, near the end of the year that blessed infant was being rescued again, but this time by an elephant!
None of these films was very long and it must not be supposed that we were producing no others while all this was going on. I am just picking these out because they seem to me to be sufficiently unusual to be interesting. What with me and my dogs and Fitzhamon and his horses — and even elephants — we were doing quite a good trade in animal pictures. At one time we even had a snake! I was told he was quite harmless but he was over four feet long and it took me quite a time to get to like him well enough to wear him round my neck and to caress him for the encouragement of the actress who had to fondle him. His end was untimely for we lost him one day in Ashley Park and never heard of him again. We thought it better not to make enquiries.
In the following year, the animal theme continued with further variations. In A Plucky Little Girl, a rather older child this time, with the help of her dog, is successful in capturing a criminal — always a safe bet — and the same theme in different forms persists for some years later, but here we will leave it and change the point of view entirely to take a peep at what was happening to our films on the other side of the Atlantic about this time.
It was in or about the year 1909 that the internecine film war in America culminated in the formation of a trust whose object, so far as we were concerned, was to put a stop to the import of English and other European films. It was met by the formation of a counter-trust in the shape of the International Projecting and Producing Company who arranged for the introduction of foreign films on the same terms as those paid by the members of the trust for their privilege; half a cent per foot. So that we continued to export to America for some considerable time.
It was at about this time that the news-reels actually got into their stride and took their very important share in the making of entertainment for our picture-theatres. It is interesting to remember that the Hepworth Company had once been, and for a long time, the acknowledged best in the production of news pictures, but we willingly relinquished that position when we were able to transfer the same credit to the gentler art of story-telling. But I had always held the view from the very start that news films were destined to become, and indeed very shortly did become, the backbone of the moving pictures; and it may be that if and when story pictures should go into a temporary decline — which is by no means impossible — news-reels, and particularly their bigger brothers, the so-called documentary films, may step into the breach and hold the fort until a better type of story-picture comes to be produced. And after that, I should think, they will never give up the place they will have so fairly won.
It was said at one time, and it is still largely true, that cinema audiences were of an average mental age of eleven to thirteen years. Ordinary human beings of that age inevitably grow up and as they grow their tastes mature and their contentment in mere story books gives way to a desire for more serious reading. It may happen; it may, perhaps, be beginning to happen even now, that picture audiences may evolve along similar lines and come to desire some sterner material among that which is merely entertaining.
Such ideas are looked upon as revolutionary by most people in ‘the Trade’ and the holders of them regarded as rebels, but I find them interesting to talk with and I like to hear their views. Several such people swam into our orbit about this time and many of them continued to revolve with us for a considerable period, while others shot off into space again after a little while. Among these latter was a very nice Dutch actor-producer named Bauermeister, whom we were very glad to have and sorry to lose. I suppose there was no particular niche into which he fitted but his presence was a welcome influence while it lasted.
Another who had a much more far-reaching influence upon us was the genial American, Larry Trimble, but of him I shall have much more to say a little later on, and there were several others who cropped up in my life from time to time who will, no doubt, crop up in these pages as I come to them.
Words of wisdom may flow at times from unexpected sources. A man in a high position whom I know very well, worked himself up into a rage over something jocular I said to him, meaning no offence. I know that when he is in a temper he is much more likely to speak the truth than at other times so I listened attentively. He said, ‘You ought to keep a better guard on your tongue, Heppy. You are offending people right and left. That is why you don’t get on in the world — that’s how you have lost all your friends.’ There was a lot more in the same strain, and much of it, though basically true, was considerably exaggerated. The real reason why I don’t get on in the world is that I have never really sufficiently wanted to — and I have many friends. But it is certainly wiser to make sure that your hearer has a sense of humour before indulging your own. There is nothing a man dislikes so much as a possibly comic allusion which he does not understand — and consequently fears.
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