Cecil M. Hepworth — Came the Dawn — Chapter 20 (1951) 🇬🇧
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I am not prepared to deny that the gradual and final collapse of the business which had been the major part of my life was not a very real grief to me. It certainly was. But I was not broken by it, except, of course, financially, and even that was not complete. In fact from the time when failure began to loom as a probability, if not a certainty, I always had at the back of my mind that I still had personal assets in the form of experience and reputation which should be fairly readily saleable. It was only a thin consolation for the loss of so very much I held dear, but I felt that it would be there when I needed it.
It was a poor conceit but I did feel that if the worst should happen and it became known in the trade that I was free to consider engagement as a film director there would not be much lack of opportunities for me to choose from. But no such opportunity offered. I dare say my many friends among my former competitors were sorry to see me go under but they did not throw me a line. Maybe it was a sense of delicacy that restrained them. Maybe if / had gone to them it would have been different, but I did not think of that until it was too late to try it. Perhaps that was my last false step.
I had long ago taken into my own keeping the negatives which I had made personally of certain historical subjects, like the visit of Queen Victoria to Dublin, the Queen’s funeral and so on, and when all the trouble was over, and I had plenty of time on my hands, I cut up and re-arranged all these, with suitable titling, into an historical film which I called Through three Reigns. I tradeshowed it on my own in a London theatre and it was very well received. If it had not been for the still-remaining evil of ‘advance booking’ I should probably have made a nice little bit of money with it. But in the meantime, ‘Sound Pictures’ burst like a bomb upon the silent film industry. All the theatres were feverishly ‘wired for sound’ and silent films which had not already got their dates booked were relegated to the third-rate limbo — if they could get any bookings at all. Through three Reigns was still-born.
So I rearranged my material with a number of early Hepworth films which I managed to pick up here and there — comics mostly — into a lecture called The Story of the Films with which, years afterwards, I had a moderate success in all sorts of big towns in England, Ireland and Scotland.
There is very little left to tell, for, though this is the story of my life, my film life is the only part of it that is likely to be of interest to anyone but myself. But it is not to be assumed that there was any moaning. I had had a very full and happy life. I have had a very happy one since; not so full but certainly not empty, and I haven’t finished it yet.
The grievous thing about that studio debacle was that I had foreseen and foretold the coming of a great shortage of studio floor space in England before our studios were given away for little more than the value of the land they were built on, and I pleaded for delay and waiting for a better price. It was only a year or two afterwards that producers were screaming for floor space and prices were soaring.
I was in America at the time of the actual sale, trying to dispose of ‘Rye’ in the interests of the liquidation. I rented a theatre in New York for a private showing and engaged a ‘surefire’ organist to accompany the film with the special music which had all been so carefully prepared beforehand for the London showing and the British Film Week. He refused the suggestion of a rehearsal; he said he could read music and had played for hundreds of films. He made an awful mess of it; got the most cheerful tunes in the tragic scenes and vice versa, and mucked up the whole thing. But in any case the film was quite unsuited to the then American ideas. I was told that it might not be so bad if it was jazzed up a bit and I came home.
The sale of the negatives — all of the negatives we had issued in twenty-four years — was another blow. They were sold to a man who did not know how to use them and eventually resold them to be melted down for ‘dope’ for aeroplane wings. And with them he was given, thrown in, the rights of such copyright subjects as Alf’s Button. I bought in Rye myself and saved it from that fate — I suppose it would have gone with the others if I had not had it in America.
Now it would be utterly false and unworthy if I pretended I did not mind all these happenings. I did mind very much indeed. But I could not quite believe they were final. Perhaps, Micawberlike, I kept on hoping that something would turn up. But it never did, and the last of the old assets were disposed of; and the unfortunate debenture-holders — mostly my children and myself — still clinging to the belief that the deeds were worth much more than their face value, received a beggarly seven shillings in the pound. It was clear that the end had really come.
Nevertheless, I clung to what I thought was my good repute and felt sure that as soon as I was known to be free, some other producing company — perhaps several of them — would bid for my services and I should be able to start again without any of the drag of business worries on my shoulders. But that didn’t happen.
Nevertheless, I was not down and out or even near it! I felt the fierce bludgeonings but though I was not the master of my fate my head was in a mess but unbowed.
I sold my ship — nasty jar, that — and my car, and drew in horns wherever I could. The Faithfull boys, men rather, true to type as ever, hung around. Stanley’s ‘still’ and enlargement business continued in being, for I had arranged with the receiver to let him carry on till the building was sold, and I went into it with him. When we were cleared out, we three set up in a D. and P. business — developing and printing amateur roll-films — first at Hampton Hill and then at Staines, Middlesex. There I built and patented another developing machine, quite different this time, for roll-films of all sizes. I sold several of the machines for between three and four hundred pounds each, which helped, and later we took in enlarging of stills for the film trade and installed machinery for that. But nothing really paid. I struggled and squirmed and tried many things, but the small capital dwindled and got smaller still.
I was still living at Walton-on-Thames — my daughter, Barbara, was old enough to be mother to the two other children and me, and we moved into a bungalow which was easier to manage than the house. My architect friend, Carvill, had purchased the powerhouse cleared of all its machinery, and turned it into a very jolly little theatre for amateur theatricals and the like. He conceived the idea of starting an amateur operatic society and got hold of a chap who, rather reluctantly, agreed to run it as musical director. He had approached me, for he had been in my little choir, but I told him it was far beyond my capacity. But the other chap seemed dreadfully doubtful and Carvill asked me again. At last I agreed to stand by and try to take a rehearsal if ever there was a let-down.
The first rehearsal was called and there was no conductor! Greatly dismayed, I took it on, and I held it for four years. We did Mikado first, then Patience, Ruddigore and Gondoliers. The joy of those adventures with that very clever producer, Miss Clara Dow, to take care of the acting, healed all my little wounds and cheered me up again.
But I must not allow myself to be tempted into reminiscences which cannot be of much interest now that they are divorced from films. So I am going to cut out several years which were unprofitable though not unhappy and jump to the time when, by chance, I slid back into the film-industry again.
First, however, I must tell of a curious incident, because recounting it is the only way in which I can discharge a debt of gratitude. I have said I was not unhappy and that was still true but I was in low water and slowly getting deeper and deeper and beginning to wonder a little where it was going to end. And then one morning at breakfast time I opened a registered envelope addressed to me: — nothing in it but a bank note for £100! There was no clue of any sort as to where it had come from — even the post-mark told me nothing. By no earthly means can I say thank-you except by this public acknowledgment. If the generous and understanding donor should chance to see this I hope it will be taken as a token of sincere gratitude for an act which did even more good than was perhaps expected of it.
For it was at this point that things did begin to look up again for me. Paul Kimberley had, of course, been stranded on the same shore by the same wave which took me there. We walked up the steep beach in different directions and I saw very little of him afterwards for a long time. He did in the end, however, get into a very good job as managing director of the English branch of an American film company, the National Screen Service Ltd. This international firm was formed with the object of making and supplying ‘trailers’ to advertise each week the film which was to be shown the following week in the picture theatres.
It will perhaps be remembered that the British Board of Film Censors, which I had a small share in forming in 1912, was charged with the duty of deciding whether or not each film, produced here or imported, was fit to show in English picture houses. But they soon found that they could not do this fairly unless they had two classes of certificates, one called ‘A’ for films which were not recommended for children, and another called ‘U’ for universal exhibition. This scheme worked well for a long time, but the coming of ‘trailers’ put a different complexion upon it. For the trailer for an ‘A5 film quite naturally often got shown during a week in which the rest of the programme was ‘U,’ and the theatre was consequently full of children!
Even the trailer was not good for kids, but they got their appetites whetted and wanted to see the film as well. The licensing authorities were up in arms and said these things must not be, and the censorship board was in a quandary. Brooke-Wilkinson, wise man, hit upon the remedy. He said we will have ‘U’ trailers on ‘A’ films as well as on the others, and the censor shall see them all and guarantee their innocence. And the people who make trailers must take care that they do not contain anything which would prevent them being passed as ‘U,’ whatever the ‘feature’ might be like. The licensing people agreed and Kimberley agreed, but they all said that there must be a liaison officer to see that the conditions were duly carried out. But who?
Brooke- Wilkinson said, ‘What about Hepworth?’ and Paul Kimberley said, ‘Why not Hepworth?’ — both at the same time. So it came to pass that I joined the staff of National Screen Service, and of two other major companies who were making their own trailers, and I have been there ever since.
The scheme functioned so well that my work gradually became little more than a sinecure. I filled in my time in many ways in the interest of National Screen Service and gradually settled down to my present job: the production of 16 mm. stereoscenic sound films in colour with a view to subsequent enlargement to 35 mm. for the more important picture theatres.
I am happy in this job which takes me out into beautiful scenery and the making of the sort of films I enjoy. I have numbers of friends, dear friends, in this company and in the film trade generally. Fate has been good to me after all. I am content.
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