Cecil M. Hepworth — Came the Dawn — Chapter 13 (1951) 🇬🇧
For the screen version of Pinero’s next play, Sweet Lavender, it was necessary to take a few London scenes in Fountain Court, Temple, a typical little garden much frequented by the guardians of the law. Being nothing if not courteous, we humbly begged permission from the powers that were, applying, as is right and proper, to the highest authority available. We were met with a most peremptory ‘certainly not.’ So we held a council of ways and means to consider the various possibilities. First there was a visit in mufti, so to speak, to the sacred spot to observe and report upon conditions there — direction of sunlight at various times, best positions for the camera on the one hand and for the actors on the other in each of the views it was desired to take. Particularly did we want to know how the place was guarded. This last, the most important point, proved to be the easiest, for the uniformed custodian was observed to make a round of all the gardens here, which took him about one hour, before he returned again to any one spot.
It was decided that I must not take any part in the operations as it wouldn’t do for me to be caught. So the others, with Geoff. Faithfull at the head, took charge and engaged a room at a nearby pub where the actors assembled and robed themselves for the fray. A couple of cabs were engaged and told to stand by. At the prearranged moment, that is when the keeper had just finished at the spot selected for the first shot, the cabs full of actors streamed on to the place of action. Every scene had been carefully rehearsed beforehand and they were to be dealt with in the order arranged.
Camera-man took up his spot and the actors theirs. The scene was taken and all moved on to the next position, following in the wake of the unconscious keeper. All the scenes were secured in their order and the participants were back in their dressing-room-pub before he got round again to the first position. Nice work, I thought.
Once when I was ‘directing’ Albert Chevalier and Henry Ainley in a scene from The Outrage, a war picture which Chevalier had written, there was a moment when I could not, in words, make them understand exactly what I wanted. In a sudden rush of enthusiasm, I seized one of their swords and struck the attitude and expression I had in mind. Chevalier said: ‘Good gracious! The man is an artist!’ High praise indeed from him; it covered me with blushes under which I crept back to my camera. The Outrage was a powerful short story, laid in a period of chivalry and romance, with a terrible incident which had its reflection in several of the current stories of German atrocities.
Although we produced a large number of war-subjects at the instance of the Government, especially later on, we by no means neglected the needs of the general public for relaxation in this time of stress, as I have already said. But there was one short topical which we made on our own account and without any other prompting than the excitement of the times. It was called Unfit or The Strength of the Weak, and we produced it very quickly, for it was written overnight and put in hand the next morning. The principal scene was laid in a part of Walton called Cowey Stakes, appropriately enough, some low-lying land beside the river where the victorious Roman armies were said to have crossed it so many years ago. It was played by Stewart Rome, Marie de Solla and Violet Hobson, and Tom Powers played, very well indeed, the role of a young man, refused by the army and afterwards conspicuously brave in the service of his country at home, a theme very often used as the war wearily continued, due perhaps to our instinctive sublimation of some of our own unconscious hopes. The length of this film was 1,175 feet and it was published on October 15th, 1914.
Almost at the same time we produced His Country s Bidding, a drama of 1,750 feet, whose lesson may be deduced from the title. But it is also a very strong love-story with marital duty triumphant in the end over passionate love. Here we had Stewart Rome again with Alma Taylor and Harry Royston. And then, to even things up a bit, still in the same month, we had a rousing ‘comic’ called Simkin Gets the War Scare, with Tom Butt in the name part and a length of 525 feet.
These three Contributions to the War were described under the flaming cover of a huge union jack, with the important dates of publication, but so well known did we evidently think we were that there isn’t even a mention of our address.
But in the synopsis of The Baby on the Barge, which came out in the following year (1915), we had sufficiently regained our modesty to submit our full address, ‘2, Denman Street, Piccadilly Circus, London W. 1.’ This was another powerful story by Blanche Macintosh who used a quite different version of the jealousy theme to which she was rather addicted. It is the first time, I think, that the picturesqueness of barge-life and canal scenery was called into play for film work. Alma Taylor, with a baby not named in the cast, played the wrongfully-suspected wife, and Stewart Rome the husband who suspected her on very flimsy -evidence. Lionelle Howard, then a rather recent recruit to the company, was her brother, whose suspicious action, after thinking he had killed a man in self-defence, led to the trouble. Also in the cast were Violet Hopson, Henry Vibart and William Felton. The length was 3,000 feet. Vibart, if not exactly in the stock-company was certainly of it, and he was very popular and very dear to all of us.
I am, of course, passing over dozens of films in various stages of production about this time — only mentioning an occasional one here and there which seems to indicate the general trend of our work. It is to be assumed, if you please, that we were always going on as before, but at greater length, and increasing in solid value.
While I was writing this I received a letter from a man who was compiling a series of books for the British Film Academy about films in the early days, and he had been unable to obtain any information about ‘editing’ silent films. He had been told to ask me if I would be willing to supply it. Then I realised to my surprise that I knew nothing whatever about editing. None of my films had ever been ‘edited.’ Editing in film production means broadly, cutting out unnecessary pieces and joining in and rearranging others to get the best effect.
I always held the view that the editing should be done in the original script, before ever an inch of it goes under the camera. I had heard of producers exposing ten thousand feet or more for a five thousand foot film and then cutting the scenes short, or out, to bring it down to the prearranged length. This seemed to me to be all wrong and not merely on the score of economy. When an artist starts to paint a picture he does not select a canvas twice the area he wants for the finished work. On the contrary he spends a very great deal of thought and attention on the arranging of the various parts of his design, the balance of masses, the shape and direction of lines, the light and shade, the contrast of colour and the whole question of what he calls his ‘composition’ before he puts a brush to his palette. It stands to reason that if he attempted to cut down his canvas after he had painted it he must of necessity leave out something which at first he had thought to be important.
So I gave the same thought and attention to my script. I re-transcribed every word of it myself, chewing over every line in my mind, cutting out and rearranging the pieces as seemed to me to be best and stopping and forcing myself to visualise every little scene as it was to appear on the screen. I even estimated its length and jotted that down on the paper. So when I went on the floor I knew exactly what I wanted, where every actor was to stand at the beginning of the scene, where and at what cue he was to move and, of course, what he was to portray not how he was to portray it — that was his business, not mine: I am not an actor. One thing I had to be specially careful about; what I called the various ‘boiling points’ of the different artists. I knew from experience that some of them come to the peak of their endeavour after, say, ten rehearsals while others boil up after three. Also that if they once pass the peak, you never get such good work out of them again in that scene. So the ‘early boilers’ had to be tactfully asked to stand aside for a bit while the ‘simmerers’ were poked up a little and all brought to the boil at the same moment! That is one of the advantages of a stock-company: you get to know these things!
Nevertheless, it did frequently happen that for failure in this or some other respect it was advisable to repeat a scene, and then I wrote on my script which ‘take’ was to be printed though, of course, the others would be held in reserve.
When I was rearranging the script in the beginning I wrote in every sub-title and every spoken title which was to appear in printed words on the screen. The actors were instructed to use this wording where it occurred; in all other places they were encouraged to use their own words — any which came natural to them within the emotional framework of the scene.
Here I come to one of my most peculiar peculiarities. I never saw a single ‘rush’ — never had anything to do with any of the scenes after they were photographed until they were all joined together in their proper order with all the titles and sub-titles in place — in short, the whole thing completely finished. I am not asking you to believe that this is a good plan: I am quite sure it was good for me.
To me it seemed, before I started to photograph a picture, that the whole thing stood up before me as a kind of misty mosaic for which I had to construct the various little pieces to be fitted into it afterwards. It had in my mind a kind of balance which I dreaded to disturb. I felt that if I had physical sight and knowledge of these little pieces as they were finished — bits of the concrete mixed up with what was still abstract — the balance of my mental conception would be upset; I should lose my sense of proportion.
I realise that all this may appear very egotistical, even conceited. I don’t care. I am writing this book for my own pleasure and I am getting a great deal of pleasure in chewing the cud of my past endeavours. I am not hoping that it can give anything like that pleasure to you, though I feel very flattered that you should have persisted so far with it. But I think that an autobiography must at least be honest in attempt, apart from what it may achieve in actual fact, and that it is up to the reader to cull from it what he can of interest or information or whatever it may be that he is hoping for and forgive the rest. If I try to hide anything under the bushel of affected modesty it will only spoil my pleasure and add nothing to yours.
I will admit that this stoical refusal to see any ‘rushes’ of my films, or to look at any finished sequences, was heroic self-sacrifice which was very difficult to bear, for I am only human and never was any man more keen than I to gloat over his work the moment it was born.
I see that Alfred Hitchcock, a great producer, has recently been preaching much the same gospel, from the same text; that the proper time to cut a film is at the script stage before ever it is photographed, but I don’t think he would be able now to carry it as far as I did. The exigencies of film work with sound must at times call for close-cutting in the after stages. two figures arguing heatedly would probably be best built up in excitement by cutting sharply backwards and forwards from one to the other. Even there I would rather, for the sake of smoothness, keep them both in view in one longer shot and allow the expressions of both faces to be studied together.
Smoothness in a film is important and should be preserved except when for some special effect a ‘snap’ is preferable. Unreasoned jerkiness is tiring and unconsciously irritating. The ‘unities’ and the ‘verities’ should always be observed, to which I would add the ‘orienties.’ Only the direst need will form an excuse for lifting an audience up by the scruff of its neck and carrying it round to the other side, just because you suddenly want to photograph something from the south when a previous scene has been taken from the north. The preservation of direction of movement is also very important. If a man goes out of a room by a door on the right and goes straight into another room he should, of course, make that latter entry from the left. But the second scene might be taken a month later than the first, so that detail may easily be forgotten. The ‘continuity girl’ should look after that, just as she should note to remind the actor how far he had smoked down his cigarette in the earlier scene.
The cryptic diagram here indicates that the two characters have entered the scene from the left, and, having been joined by two others in the course of the action, leave it at the end of the ‘take’ by the right and coming ‘down stage,’ that is towards the camera.
The vulgar fraction in the opposite corner is intended to show that the previous take in this same set was scene No. 5 and the next one in this set will be scene No. 47. That reduces the risk of forgetting to take a small but necessary shot and having to rebuild the whole set to photograph it later. Here I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness to my excellent script-writer, Blanche Macintosh (my long-term friend, Mrs. Hubbard), whose writing I scarcely ever altered as I have said, although I always transcribed it for my own memorising purposes.
I remember once having a talk with Pinero about some play of his which I was hoping to make into a film. He was always wonderfully kind and polite, as really clever people usually are. He said that he need not remind me of the great importance of ‘preparation’ in play-writing or film-making. I agreed, though I hadn’t the faintest idea what he meant. I took care to find out afterwards as soon as I possibly could. And afterwards I always arranged to ‘prepare’ beforehand — to lay down invisible tracks, so to speak — for the incident or adventure which was to come along later. It was like laying down ground-bait. You will have much better sport with your fishing if you go and attend to that the night before.
There must, of course, be nothing blatant about this ‘preparation.’ The audience will be entirely unaware of it and will not have the faintest idea what you are up to. When the situation spontaneously arises their minds will all unconsciously be attuned to respond to it, their eyes and ears agog for it. It will seem to come as a far more complete surprise than if you just sprung it upon them out of the blue. It will be much more effective and stimulating.
An autobiography must, as I see it, include some allusion to the author’s religion, or lack of it; for either state, positive or negative, must have importance in the development of his life. My own attitude in this matter needs no long description. When I was a youth I took religion seriously. I sang in a choir — though now
I see it was more a love of part-singing than of the church — and I prayed hard at every opportunity. I firmly believed that I should in consequence receive tremendous help in the next world — which is still problematical — and a great deal of assistance in this, which I didn’t get. I really needed help at that time and none was forthcoming. My faith fizzled out and I dropped it, deciding that the whole question was beyond my mental powers.
For among all the people I have read of there are hundreds of entirely different religions and all completely convinced that itself is the only true one. If all are wrong in the sight of the others it seems to me to be possible that all are wrong. But I am certainly not an atheist. I am, I suppose, an agnostic in what I take to be the true meaning of the word — one who simply does not know. I am unable to visualise a personal God, listening individually to the prayers of the millions of creatures struggling on this scrap of dirt called Earth. But that means nothing except the limitation of my own intellect — just as I cannot believe that time goes on for ever or that it comes to an end, for in that case what happens afterwards?
My own spiritual need is only by some means to be able to express my gratitude. I have altogether failed in the writing of this book if I have not made it clear that my life on the whole has been a happy and satisfying one. I have had my ups and downs of course, but the ups have been greater than the downs. From the beginning I have had fun all through. Nearly everything I have done or touched has been something of a ‘lark.’ If I die tomorrow I shall have to admit that I have had a square deal and more than a square deal; I certainly have not been cheated. But this tardy acknowledgment is not sufficient. I have to say ‘thank you’ to someone.
Now I certainly believe in a power, a spirit, a something responsible for all the marvels of the universe, marvels beggaring all description which surely cannot have happened by chance. But you cannot offer thanks to an abstraction, or at least I cannot. That is much too difficult. There has to be some ‘name’ to whom thanks can be addressed. So I am obliged to fall back upon the simple formula I learned at my mother’s knee. And while I am expressing my gratitude — counting my blessings is what it really comes to — I feel I may as well voice my ‘lively sense of favours to come’ and put up a prayer for some of the little things I need.
It is curious to note that these simple requests are very often successful, too frequently to be accounted for by the ordinary laws of chance. That however need not imply any extra-mundane influence. The still only partially understood workings of the subconscious mind may take a hand in many of them, leaving chance to do the rest. The mass of evidence about faith healing is too great to be disregarded and our own subconscious minds seem to be the means by which it is accomplished. ‘Suggestion,’ they say, is the trigger which sets them off. It is apparently difficult to get at the subconscious mind but those little petitions may touch the trigger.
All this has nothing whatever, or very little, to do with picture production, and now I will return to my main theme.
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