Murder of a Movie Star
Page 37
From a historical research point of view, what can be agreed on is that the world of the British silent movies is largely now lost to us due to the fact that hardly any of these films actually survive. It is estimated that more than eighty per cent of the British films produced between the start of the twentieth century and the late 1920s have been lost. In fact, the British Film Institute keeps a ‘most wanted’ list.
I was frankly amazed at the lack of regard for what should have been an important archive; films which have disappeared due to careless loss, or, more frequently, large-scale destruction of the physical reels of film.
By the late 1920s there was a sense among many that silent movies had become worthless once the ‘Talkies’ had replaced them, and some films were lost that way. Other films were lost due to a financial need to melt down the nitrate stock to extract the silver contained therein (typically when a film studio had gone bust) or to aid the war effort (at the time of the Second World War).
1. The British Film Industry in 1923
The British movie world at the time this story takes place was doing its level best to produce first-class pictures, but the reality was that it couldn’t compete with the glamour and high budgets of the increasingly popular American films (which the British movie-going public lapped up, although in 1923 we are still a few years away from the star attractions of Clara Bow or Louise Brookes).
By 1923 many British film studios were struggling to stay afloat, and many were not succeeding.
While British cinematic efforts had been pioneering and far-reaching from the start of the twentieth century, the race to stay level with the American market had already been lost by the time of the First World War in 1914 due to a combination of factors, listed below.
1. The Hollywood studios were backed by huge businesses, seeing an opportunity for investment, and the British Film Industry was rather led (and paid for) by one-off entrepreneurial individuals. They simply didn’t have the same budgets. As a result, much of the British output was very reliant on the world of the theatre and quite unambitious in scope; stage-sets and scenery were often simply reworked from the stage for the big screen.
Much of the work off-camera was rather haphazard too, and it was often a case of ‘all hands to the decks’, with the Producer Cecil Hepworth expecting his leading stars to ‘put in their hours in the developing and drying rooms if they were not required for filming’ (Matthew Sweet’s Shepperton Babylon: The Lost Worlds of British Cinema, Chapter One).
2. There was also a prohibitive system in place whereby British cinema companies took ‘block bookings’ of fashionable American films way in advance of their release dates, meaning that sometimes British films were not even given available showing space, even if they were good.
3. In addition, the British studios did not receive any financial impetus or encouragement from the British Government, who were tightening up in all areas of the economy, rather than trying to encourage the arts (this all changed in 1927, when the British Government introduced a requirement for British cinemas to show a particular quota of British films for ten years, the so-called ‘Quota Quickies’).
Please note that in 1923 we have not yet reached the days of the very established London studios at Isleworth, Ealing, Pinewood, Shepperton or the famous Gainsborough Studios at Islington (where Alfred Hitchcock plied his craft at the start of his career).
Instead, there were the Hepworth studios at Walton-on-Thames, Oswald Stoll’s Cricklewood studios, and Bertie Samuelson’s studios at Worton Hall. These studios produced films either using the money and expertise of their owners (such as Stoll or Hepworth), or else they would bring in professionals from outside, sometimes setting up whole new companies in order to fund ventures, which is what Bertie Samuelson did, frequently.
In the year 1923 several companies were shooting films at Worton Hall, either working with Samuelson, or renting the place from him (British-Super Films, the Napoleon Film Company and the Samuelson Film Manufacturing Company).
2. British Movie Stars in 1923
While there were ‘famous’ British actors and actresses, there was nothing like the star system of America in place.
Names which stick out from this time are: Betty Balfour, Lilian Hall-Davis, Chrissie White, Henry Edwards, Stewart Rome, Ivor Novello, Flora Le Breton, Gladys Cooper, Violet Hopson.
Please note that the impossibly handsome matinee idol Ivor Novello who drifts into this story at the party scene in Chapter Twenty-Nine had not yet come to the forefront of British cinema, with his first big picture being released in summer 1923 (although he was already well known for his musical contributions). It would not be until the mid-twenties that he would become the most pre-eminent actor of the period, an icon of cinema in films such as The Rat and The Lodger (1925 and 1927 respectively).
In 1923 while many of the movie stars were well-known actors drawn from the stage or music-hall, many were chancers and total unknowns who happened to be given a lucky break by a Producer or Director, with the occasional plucky aristocrat thrown in for good measure (for example Lady Diana Manners in The Glorious Adventure of 1922).
On the whole, in 1923 actors and actresses came and went with quite some regularity, and most of the names of the ‘famous’ film stars of the time have now long been forgotten.
Many actors (Violet Hopson and Ivy Duke are examples) were big stars for a while in the 1920s, only to lose their fame within a few short years, relegated to working as extras or taking bit-parts in the ‘Talkies’ in the 1930s, and it is not inconceivable that my character of Mark Paris could have been ‘famous’ at the time of the First World War, only to be relegated to working behind the scenes in the movie world less than a decade later.
What seems strange to us now is that movie stars in the 1920s were often chosen or ‘discovered’ because of their resemblance to another, more famous actor or actress; see for example the discovery of Chrissie White by Cecil Hepworth, and (later) Victoria Hopper by Basil Dean.
Stars were very often ‘re-named’ for the movies by a Producer, even if they had enjoyed a successful stage career previously (Cecil Hepworth was famous for re-naming his stars, such as ‘his’ famous actor Stewart Rome, and would even chase his actors through the courts to protect these names).
While the characters in this story are fictional, the allusion throughout to the use of drugs (cocaine particularly) among film stars is accurate and was a common theme during the time that this book is set in.
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(*This note is my own summary, and is not, of course, exhaustive nor meant to be a detailed guide).
Acknowledgements and Further Reading
This book is dedicated to my sister, Heidi. A real-life superstar. Thank you for all you do.
My thanks go to the usual suspects: Marco and our small daughter, my parents and our wider family. Thanks also go to Red Gate Arts for their lovely and responsive design work.
As part of the research for this story two books clearly stand out. These are:
1. Matthew Sweet’s Shepperton Babylon: The Lost Worlds of British Cinema (Faber and Faber, London 2005); and
2. Ed Harris’ Britain’s Forgotten Film Factory: The Story of Isleworth Studios (Amberley Press, 2015).
Please note that this story is a work of fiction and does not in any way seek to replicate any of the scenarios listed in the books above or to draw details from them other than those specifically mentioned in the Historical Note.
Needless to say, any mistakes remaining are my own.
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About the Author
Cambridge-educated, British-born L.B. Hathaway writes historical fiction and contributes to a number of popular history magazines and websites. She worked as a lawyer at Lincoln’s Inn in London for almost a decade before becoming a full-time writer. She is a lifelong fan of detective novels set in the Golden Age of Crime, and is an ardent Agatha Christie devotee.
Her other interests, in no particular order, are: very fast
downhill skiing, theatre-going, drinking strong tea, Tudor history, exploring castles and generally trying to cram as much into life as possible. She lives in London and Switzerland with her husband and young family.
The Posie Parker series of cosy crime novels span the 1920s. They each combine a core central mystery, an exploration of the reckless glamour of the age and a feisty protagonist who you would love to have as your best friend.
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