Extensive feature about Gary Chapman and the creation of the book London’s Hollywood from the brilliant online resource Brenton Film
Brenton Film – about London’s Hollywood
April 9th, 2015Dolly Tree and Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger (1926)
March 16th, 2015Did the famous dress-designer Dolly Tree make an appearance in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger? On watching the film closely (once again) I saw something that had not registered before – a rather tantalising and interesting visual connection.
The mannequin parade (shown twice) was filmed at the Islington studio in June 1926 and all the gowns, estimated to be worth £10,000 at the time, were supplied by Peron Couture. The proprietor Jean Peron arrived in person at the studio to supervise the scenes. Since Dolly Tree was chief designer, and by some accounts an investor in Peron Couture, it is highly likely that the gowns displayed were created by her. I have placed this side-story in context of the making of The Lodger in my book London’s Hollywood.
Interestingly, one of the models, in the first dress parade, who proceeds Daisy (June Tripp) descending the stairs to the onlookers, was a striking lady wearing an elegant two-piece suit, smoking a cigarette and with slicked-backed dark hair.
One of the models in the mannequin parade from The Lodger (1926)
There is a photograph of Dolly Tree wearing the exact same suit and photographed at exactly the same time. Her hair is bobbed but another photograph from the same shoot shows her with slick-backed hair.
The resemblance to the known photo of Dolly Tree in the suit and the mannequin on screen wearing the same dress is quite uncanny. Could it be that she was also supervising the models with Peron in the studio and was asked to be one of the models? She of course knew Alfred Hitchcock as they had worked together on Woman to Woman in 1923 and prior to her career as a dress designer she had been an actress so the connection is quite plausible.
Thus, it might be likely that not only did Hitchcock himself have a cameo appearance in The Lodger but also Dolly Tree.
However, herein also lies another interesting conundrum about the dates for the filming of The Lodger and the controversy that ensued as Balcon attempted to get the film released. Filming had been conducted over a six-week period and was completed by the end of April 1926. Thereafter, the film had been cut and assembled for a private viewing and, as we know, C.M. Woolf, the distributor, did not approve and wanted to shelve the film. But Balcon, with the help of Ivor Montague, made revisions to the footage. Since the mannequin parade was filmed in June, this must have been one of the ‘new’ and ‘major’ additions, that swayed Woolf’s opinion to finally schedule a release.
For more information about Dolly Tree click here
London’s Hollywood Review
November 10th, 2014Nathalie Morris, (archive curator at the BFI) offers a positive review in Sight and Sound Magazine (December 2014)
‘valuable and enjoyable… a detailed and thorough study.’
‘provides valuable and enjoyable studies of a huge range of films while placing the studio within the context of issues affecting filming making across this period.’
‘a worthwhile addition to the growing body of research on British silent cinema.’
‘Chapman’s book chronicles, film by film, both the titles produced by the studio from 1920 onwards and those made by the company Gainsborough Pictures.. even when these were shot elsewhere. This approach helps build a sense of continuity across projects and careers, and gives an impression of the wider production scene in and around London.’
Chapman makes steps toward a major reassessment of the career of Graham Cutts ‘with a passionate defence of the director and his work.’
‘Another strength of the book is its highlighting of other personnel and roles such as costume designer Marcelle de Saint Martin… and continuity supervisor Renie Marrison.’
Chapman also ‘offers useful and informative pocket biographies of the host of other directors, writes, cameramen and actors who crossed the studio’s threshold during the 1920s’
London’s Hollywood: The Gainsborough Studio in the Silent Years
The first ever evaluation of the history, output and achievement of the most iconic film studio in London during the 1920s ‘a microcosm of the evolution of the British film industry during the silent era’…
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Special offer through The Great British Bookshop
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London’s Hollywood – Book of the Week
November 5th, 2014London’s Hollywood is book of the week on The Great British British Bookshop
‘…a microcosm of the evolution of the British film industry during the silent era’.
Marcelle de Saint Martin and British silent film
October 13th, 2014French born Marcelle De Saint Martin, became the first true head of a cohesive costume or wardrobe department for a British film studio beginning work at the Islington film Studio in the early 1920s.
A creative, talented and a striking beauty she had found great success designing costumes for the stage in London at the end of the First World War before joining Famous Players Lasky British Producers Ltd at their brand new American built and financed enterprise in a converted power station. And yet, her career as a designer for British silent film was sadly all too brief and short-lived.
The French designer, Marcelle De Saint Martin with some of her costume designs for productions filmed at the Islington film Studio in the early 1920s for Famous Players Lasky British Producers Ltd
London’s Hollywood: The Gainsborough Studio in the Silent Years
Published 15th July 2014
A detailed look at the British Silent Film industry with this first ever evaluation of the history, output and achievement of the most iconic film studio in England during the silent era.
Available in the following formats:
Hardback, £27, ISBN 9781909230132
Paperback, £14.99, ISBN 9781909230101
Amazon Kindle ebook, £8.99, ISBN 9781909230125
Apple ebook, £8.99, ISBN 9781909230118 (Through Apple / iTunes – search for title on iTunes bookstore)
Interview about London’s Hollywood in the Camden Review
September 25th, 2014
Video for London’s Hollywood
September 22nd, 2014A visual tour of the history of the Gainsborough (or Islington) studio in the silent years
‘a microcosm of the evolution of the British film industry during the silent era’.
A Review of London’s Hollywood on the Silent London blog
September 22nd, 2014Henry K. Miller’s review of London’s Hollywood on the Silent London blog
‘Gary Chapman is right to describe his subject as “a microcosm of the evolution of the British film industry during the silent era” ‘.
‘Chapman’s book is comprehensive… an invaluable resource for students of the period.’
The jockey Stephen Donoghue – an unlikely British silent film star
August 20th, 2014Come on Steve – a jockey as a British Silent Film Star!
Stephen Donaghue on the front cover of Picturegoer
In late 1925, C.M. Woolf persuaded Michael Balcon to produce a series of six two-reel racing pictures starring Stephen Donoghue, the most celebrated champion jockey of his day. Walter West, who had made his name at Broadwest in the early 1920s creating numerous racing dramas was engaged as director.
Stephen Donoghue, Carlyle Blackwell and Frank Bullock winning the studio stakes – during filming of Riding For a King (1926) at the Islington studio
Despite being an unlikely British silent film star, Donoghue took to the medium of film like a duck to water and was not in the least bit camera conscious or awkward. Asked how he liked making his film debut he said ‘Great… everything’s so new and absorbingly interesting and I’m, enjoying every minute of it. I almost feel I should like to give up everything else and make screen acting my profession – although of course, I don’t know very much about it yet. I just do what Mr West tells me and hope for the best.’ He claimed he wasn’t too nervous before the camera because he had been interviewed and photographed so many times before.
Frank Bullock (Australian jockey champion- seen left) visited the Islington studio one day to see how his colleague Stephen Donoghue (far right) was enjoying his film experience. With Carlyle Blackwell and June.
The first film to be produced was Riding for a King, which featured Donaghue and Carlyle Blackwell, Miles Mander and the pretty actress June Tripp (simply called June). Filmed by Bert Cann, one of America’s foremost cameramen, the story was about a jockey hero whose unhappy fate was to love Lady Betty Raleigh (June). Blackwell and Mander were already well established silent film stars but June was a relative newcomer. June said that she had been engaged for the picture without any sort of test and wanted to feel ‘that I’m justifying the choice.’
Stephen Donoghue and June in a scene from Riding For a King (1926) filmed at the Islington studio
The picture’s chief purpose was ‘providing a full-length study of Donoghue’s personality in private life and on the racecourse’ and he was seen as a slight, youthful looking, charming little man, with an evident sense of humour. No-one would ever suspect that he had a grown-up son, also a jockey.
Needless to say, the race climax was the best part of the film. Another five pictures were filmed in the first few months of 1926 and released thereafter: Dark Horses, A Knight of the Saddle (with Carlyle Blackwell and Madge Stuart), Beating the Book (with Carlyle Blackwell and Violet Hopson), The Stolen Favourite and The Golden Spurs (with Irene Russell).
London’s Hollywood: The Gainsborough Studio in the Silent Years
Published 15th July 2014
A detailed look at the British Silent Film industry with this first ever evaluation of the history, output and achievement of the most iconic film studio in England during the silent era.
Available in the following formats:
Hardback, £27, ISBN 9781909230132
Paperback, £14.99, ISBN 9781909230101
Amazon Kindle ebook, £8.99, ISBN 9781909230125
Apple ebook, £8.99, ISBN 9781909230118 (Through Apple / iTunes – search for title on iTunes bookstore)
Alfred Hitchcock directs Nita Naldi in The Mountain Eagle (1926)
July 31st, 2014Alfred Hitchcock arrived in Munich in late September 1926 to start work on The Mountain Eagle, his follow-up to The Pleasure Garden (1926) as arranged by Michael Balcon for Gainsborough Pictures.
Based on a story called Fear O’God, it starred the American actress Nita Naldi and British actor Malcom Keen and was filmed in the Emelka studios in Munich and on location in Obergurgl in the Urz valley, the highest village in the Austrian Tyrol.
When Naldi arrived she was dark, Latin, slinky and glamorous, with four-foot heels and long nails. Dressed in black with a black dog to match, she called the elderly Barclay ‘papa’. She was also ‘cynical, irreverent, bawdy, often undisciplined, and far more intelligent than she let on and she never took herself too seriously’.
Playing against type as a straight, unsophisticated heroine. Naldi had been typecast in the past as a femme fatale vamp and had made her name with John Barrymore in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920) and then with Rudolph Valentino in Blood and Sand (1922) and DeMille’s Ten Commandments (1923). At the time she was taking an extended vacation in Paris with her companion, the wealthy James Searle Barclay, Jr, who was twenty-four years her senior and whom she would later marry.
Alfred Hitchcock directs Nita Naldi in The Mountain Eagle (1926)
Hitchcock found her to be an amusing woman, bizarrely at odds with her statuesque screen presence and despite her protests transformed her to match the demure and plain character she was to play. They remained friends and when Alfred Hitchcock and Alma Reville married in December 1926, they spent some time in Paris with Nita Naldi before spending the rest of their honeymoon in the Palace Hotel in St Moritz.
London’s Hollywood: The Gainsborough Studio in the Silent Years
Published 15th July 2014
A detailed look at the British Silent Film industry with this first ever evaluation of the history, output and achievement of the most iconic film studio in England during the silent era.
Available in the following formats:
Hardback, £27, ISBN 9781909230132
Paperback, £14.99, ISBN 9781909230101
Amazon Kindle ebook, £8.99, ISBN 9781909230125
Apple ebook, £8.99, ISBN 9781909230118 (Through Apple / iTunes – search for title on iTunes bookstore)