Cecil M. Hepworth — Came the Dawn — Chapter 19 (1951) 🇬🇧
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What I cannot understand now is that while all these dire happenings were proceeding, on the one hand, on the other I was cheerfully getting on with the production of my best and most important film, the second Comin’ Thro’ the Rye. I think I must have had something of a split mind: my memory refuses to be conscious of these completely opposite phases occurring even within years of each other. But it does sometimes happen, indeed, perhaps rather frequently I think, that the onset of disaster is preluded and concealed by a spurt of better times than usual. I will go over some of the events of 1923 and see whether they will account for the confusion.
Rye was described as one of the outstanding films among several fine English pictures released — in order of date it was the sixth, and last, of the Hepworth Company films put out that year. Of the others a very remarkable one was Henry Edwards’ Lily in the Alley — remarkable because it was a long feature film without any titles except that opening one. All the story was explained by the action.
The British National Film League was started two years before this to raise the standard, improve the quality and promote the general interests of British films. By the beginning of this year it included every British producing company of consequence, and now it decided to run a British Film Week in London, to be followed by similar shows in various areas all over the country. Under the presidency of Col. A. C. Bromhead, a luncheon was held early in November with the Prince of Wales as the chief guest. There were many great films this year, mostly foreign of course, and they necessarily were not eligible. Unfortunately the number of good English films was not sufficient to fill the bill and there were adverse comments and many complaints that the pictures submitted for exhibition were of too varied a quality for so great an occasion. All the same, the effect on the whole was that of an acknowledged and successful move.
Of the foreign films it was noticeable that Harold Lloyd produced great comedies which were tremendously popular, and the coming of cartoons with Felix the Cat started the most popular series in the country. Louis Lumière, who had first shown films to the public at Lyons on March 22, 1895, was hailed as the inventor of cinematography. I do not know that he ever himself laid claim to that title but it is evident that it should be a very distributed one, for numbers of people have had a hand in the birth of that invention. There was no progress in the fight against the entertainment tax, but several British films found sales in America, including most of the Hepworth pictures. In August, 1923, the Hepworth Company announced an agreement whereby its pictures would be handled by Ideal Films Ltd.
At the inaugural luncheon of the B.N.F.L. at the Hotel Victoria with Col. A. C. Bromhead, C.B.E., in the chair, I was very thrilled to meet the Prince of Wales. He evidently was, or appeared to be, very interested in British films. He was a most natural and genuinely kindly gentleman, courteous and friendly, with unaffected dignity. I formed that impression then, greatly intensified later on when circumstances put him at the dictation of hostile interests and he was compelled to lay down his crown. It seemed to me, and it seems to me still, that we lost then the best King we had ever had since Alfred.
Among others present at the luncheon were several very important people, including the Earl of Abercrombie who had often expressed great interest in Hepworth films. The meeting was a great success and it led to the taking of the Scala Theatre for the first London British Film Week.
As may be imagined I was most anxious to put up a good showing and as we had had long notice that this film week would in the end be forthcoming, I had, in my intention, set aside the still scarcely begun Comin’ Thro’ the Rye. I felt in my bones that it was going to be a good picture and indeed I believed it would turn out to be the best I had ever made. And then, I suppose, largely because of the very many other difficult and disturbing things which were going on around me, I had at that time no other picture of my own make which had not already been shown or was in any way competent to take its place on such an important occasion.
The first version of Comin’ Through the Rye, made in 1916, had been a great favourite with the public, but I had long felt that such a popular story was worthy of more generous treatment than it received in those comparatively primitive days. The rights then had been acquired for a limited period only, but now we bought them for all time, that is, of course, till the copyright runs out fifty years after the author’s death. I set about to make the film as worthily as I possibly could.
The first thing was to find a rye-field — that is to say, a field which was intended to be sown with rye. I couldn’t find one within many miles and as I wanted it close at hand I rented a field just opposite the studios and had it sown. It had a beautiful old oak tree just in the right place to make a conspicuous feature in my picture. Before it was sown it had to be ploughed and that ploughing made a good opening shot for the film. Then there was the sowing which was also photographed, and the real story begins when the young crop is half a dozen inches high. It ends when it is harvested by an old man who looks something like Father Time.
Most of the exteriors were taken at Moreton Old Hall in Cheshire, a magnificent timbered building which made lovely backgrounds from a dozen different angles. We had a great stroke of luck here when we discovered a real rye-field right up against the rear of the old house. This keyed in excellently with our own rye-field back at Walton. Our interior scenes were built up exactly to match the real rooms in the old house and everything was perfectly in keeping.
But luck didn’t hold throughout. We were about three quarters of the way through the film, that is to say well on in the summer, for the picture took most of the year to complete, when the leading man, Shayle Gardner, playing the principal part of Paul Vasher, contracted typhoid fever and was out of the cast for months. I did all I could with the remaining scenes in which Vasher does not appear, but there is no need to point out how very awkward it was.
When it came to providing a worthy film for the British Film Week at the Scala Theatre I had nothing to offer.
But it happened, rather curiously, for things rarely turned out that way, that the ‘Rye’ film was complete up to a certain point, because the order of its taking had been to a great extent conditioned by the growing up of the rye. So with much misgiving I decided to let it appear as a sort of ‘unfinished symphony. It was in fact a great success even in that truncated form, and with its ‘stage presentation,’ its specially selected music, and an orchestra of twenty-eight musicians, it attracted enthusiastic attention.
Shayle Gardner recovered in due course, to the very great and thankful relief of everybody, and came back to the studio to complete the picture, though not until December. It all fitted well at last and showed no untidy joins.
It is strange to recall that, apart from this, one of our greatest difficulties was to make a footpath through our rye-field which would not look at all artificial. People walking along the selected route seemed to make no difference at all. What was trampled down one day grew up again in the night. So we filled a wooden box with heavy stones and towed that behind the procession of walkers and after a while that produced the effect in the end. The rye scenes were, of course, taken at various times during the summer so that the age of the crop should correspond with the time-development of the story.
Everybody worked to the very best of his or her ability in this picture and I put all that I have in me into it. I did not know at the time that it was going to be my ‘swan song,’ but so it proved, for it was the last of the Hepworth Picture Plays.
Now I must pick up the main story again at the point where the receiver was appointed to sell or realise the assets of the company and repay to the debenture holders the amount of their holdings, £35,500 in all. It appeared that this should not be at all difficult for the assets of the company were then conservatively valued at between three and four times that amount. He was a kindly man, friendly disposed and probably very skilful in his own particular line but without special knowledge of the film business, not that that was necessarily needful. He told me that in his last receivership he had not only repaid the debentures in full but had realised a considerable sum in addition that he had been able to hand back to the company, and with which they were able to restart their undertaking. Receivers don’t have to do that. Their only concern is to realise enough to pay off the debentures in full. After that they have no further duties or interest in the matter. They have no concern with shareholders or creditors.
In our case, however, he was not so successful. The contents of the engine-house, diesels and generators, the compressing plant, the travelling gantry and the switchboard, which last alone had cost £3,250, were all sold together for £950. The two studios, with the freehold land on which they were built, together with all accessories, the four printing and developing machines, the drying machines, the electric-lighting apparatus, cameras, and in fact everything there went for £4,000 as a going concern. The same sad story went right through the whole deal and in the end the debenture holders got only seven shillings in the pound!
It may perhaps be of interest to see how the rest of the trade in England was faring during the decline and fall of my company. It is no consolation — but it may be some little explanation — that other producers in the country were in similar straits, though their efforts to struggle through were more successful. It is an indication of the depth of worry in which I was submerged that I was quite unaware until years afterwards that others were at that time nearly as deeply under.
In spite of the fact that the Snowden budget, Labour being in power, remitted the strangling entertainment tax on all seats priced at sixpence and under, and that in many other respects the year opened well for the industry; in spite of the fact that the Prince of Wales’ blessing upon British pictures, given in the previous November, supported by the Premier and many important leaders, was still having its beneficial effect upon all thoughtful people, the production of British films gradually declined during the year. Until at the end of it there came a time when not a single foot of film was being exposed in any British studio.
Nevertheless, there were at least two interesting events this year. One was the Kinematograph Garden Party at the Royal Botanical Gardens which not only was a great social success but resulted in a nice little sum of £2,500 for the Trade Benevolent Fund, by then truly and thoroughly on its feet. The other was the gathering together, at the instance of W. N. Blake, of all the old-timers in the industry since 1903 at the Holborn Restaurant on December 9th. This was so successful that there was a clamant demand for its repetition every succeeding year until the last of the veterans departed. That has not happened yet and the veterans are still meeting annually, under the skilful auspices of Tommy France, though some of us are beginning to get a little old. At the original meeting dear old Will Day brought a selection from his wonderful exhibit at the South Kensington Museum of ancient apparatus of Kinematography, so that there were veterans then both inanimate and human, united once more.
During this year colour-films and stereo-films were both continually cropping up, with little success for the one and none for the other. Sound films on the other hand were beginning to show signs of being a practical proposition, and the de Forrest ‘Phono-film’ embodies the embryo of all that the present sound films have now successfully accomplished.
Meanwhile I, and half a dozen of the players who had taken the principal parts in Rye, were doing a little entertainment turn on our own. It should be mentioned that the stage ‘presentation’ which I had produced for this film at its first showing at the Scala had been very successful and attracted a great deal of attention. When the film was afterwards completed I thought it would be good fun to take a London theatre and give it a run. This idea was financed by Jimmy White. The theatre I wanted — one of the largest — had another film running at the time, but I was told that I could have the first refusal after the run came to an end if I paid two hundred pounds as a deposit to secure it. I did that and the run came to an end after several weeks, and then another show was put on with no word said to me about it!
My natural protests were met with a bland smile at my credulity and ignorance of theatrical usage and I realised that I was beaten, for a remedy would be too costly for me. So I fell back upon the Scala, which is a beautiful theatre but too much off the beaten track.
I cannot describe this special ‘presentation’ without a lot of drawings and diagrams which would be uninteresting. But it gave the effect of a huge picture in a gilt frame which at first showed nothing but the ordinary title familiar on every silent film. This gradually dissolved into a stage scene with the living actors going silently through their parts. That dissolved into another title filling the frame, to be replaced again by the appropriate scene and so on. That sounds very bald but the effect was quite magical and as the actors were ‘personal appearances,’ the whole thing went with a swing and pleased everybody. So much so that I persuaded Sir Oswald Stoll to come and see it with a view to putting the ‘act’ — without the film, of course — on at the Coliseum.
The complete show ran at the Scala for thirteen weeks, but it did not actually make money though it covered expenses. As it happens I can give an actual date in this instance, for we reached the hundredth performance on my fiftieth birthday, March 19th, 1924. Then Stoll gave me a three weeks’ contract to run the show without the film at the Coliseum for two hundred pounds a week. We all enjoyed that immensely. Then we travelled with it with the film to numbers of picture theatres throughout the country wherever there was a stage big enough to carry it, but that number was naturally limited.
At the Coliseum there was a rather particular stage-manager, unusual because he did not like bad language used in the theatre behind the scenes, whatever happened in front. Our set, of course, was permanently on a section of the revolving stage so we had nothing to do but to wait while it pulled round into position and then lit up. On one occasion the light fused and the electrician said ‘Damn’ under his breath. The manager said, ‘Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith, Mister Smith!’ in accents of growing horror.
I remember the stage and all the dressing-rooms and everything about the place behind the curtain was immaculately clean, and that is not usual in a theatre. I liked that stage-manager, indeed all the personnel there were exceedingly nice, and we had a very good time. Once I was called round to the front of the house to try and pacify an old lady who ‘was creating somefink awful.’ When I got there I found her in indignant tears and she told me she had come up all the way from the country to see Alma Taylor in the flesh and had been put off with a coloured film. I tried hard to reassure her that she really had seen Alma, but she would not be convinced, so I took her round to the back and introduced her to the lady, and it was rather a compliment to the effectiveness of the illusion.
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