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We begin with Sir Sydney Samuelson, son of
the founder of Southall who sent Bill proofs from an unpublished
book on his father’s life. The proofs confirmed that the studios were
founded in a converted airplane hangar by film pioneer G.B. Samuelson in
1924.
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Two Little Drummer Boys,
starring Alma Taylor, one of Britain’s first silent movie stars, was
made at Southall in 1928.
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A photograph taken
of the burnt down studios now remembered by no one, had a note on the back
saying merely 1936.
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The cast of "Just William" staring out at us from 1948.
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In little more than a footnote in John Grierson's biography, the founder of
the British documentary movement, informs us of his attempt to encourage
feature film production from his office at Southall. With government
assisted loans Grierson's tenure in the 1950's saw a sustained period of
film production.
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Southall didn’t have a house style like
the Ealing studios, or deal with big films like Pinewood and Elstree, or
Shepperton. Rather the studios made modest productions for the
contemporary British market.
Viewed today, films like, Dancing
with Crime, The Runaway Bus and the Just William
series, reveal
an English
cultural consensus with a rigid social ordering determined by class, sex
and race.
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Life with the Lyons
was directed and co-written by Val Guest. Except for the exterior views,
the entire movie was produced at Southall Studios.
Through Amazon Bill had been able to purchase the film on VHS.
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This 50's sitcom starred the real-life Lyons family and was based on a
popular radio series by Bebe Daniels Lyons, Bob Block and Bill Harding.
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An extract from Frankie Howerd’s autobiography, 'On the way I Lost It’
(1976).
'On the last day of shooting 'The Runaway Bus' Val Guest came to me with
sadness. A film had to run in those days for 75 minutes to qualify for a
West End showing, and he'd discovered this film was only 72 minutes!
What shall we do, he asked, as we only have the studio for another
half-hour?’
‘I noticed there's a telephone box among the studio props, so I
will write a 3 minute monologue and somewhere in the film pretend to
phone my old granny! So a script was scribbled out and placed on a
music-stand out of camera range and I read the script while on the
phone.’
How did the Runaway Bus do?
‘The film opened at the Dominion, Tottenham Court Road, London,
to a good press and earned a lot of money!' .
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"Double Exposure" (1954).
'Made at Southall Studios, Middlesex'.
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The Studios would often use local houses for exteriors and their
families as extras. The Gay Dog, 1954, starring Wilfrid Pickles tells
the story of Jim Gay’s love of racing greyhounds. Standing directly
behind the dog's head is Jill Trimble who lived in nearby Queens Rd
which was used a lot because it had houses on both sides. Jill was
recruited as an extra at the going rate of ten shillings. |
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Jill and her younger brother, Peter, also appeared in the explosion
scene at the start of the 1953 sci-fi comedy Child’s Play. Peter Sallis
and Christopher Beeny co-starred. Directed by Australian born director,
Margaret Thomson, Child’s Play was written by Peter Blackmore who also
wrote another Southall film, Time Gentlemen Please, 2 years previously. |
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The arrival of a market driven ITV network in 1955, led Southall to
produce television series such as "Colonel March of Scotland Yard" with
Boris Karloff.
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In 2003 Pearl and
Dean were celebrating their 50th anniversary and Bill
contacted their PR department. They sent over a DVD with vintage cinema
ads:
Some of the early trailers were produced at Southall and voiced by Arthur
Lowe.
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"B"
thriller Date With Disaster, 1957, starred Shirley Eaton. Shirley
went on to play many roles in her film career.
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In 1958 Forrest Tucker and Warren Mitchell starred in Southall’s last
film, "The Trollenberg Terror (The Crawling Eye)" produced by
Monty Berman and Robert S. Baker - the team that went on to make "The
Champions", "Department S" and "Randall and Hopkirk" for ITV.
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Another useful resource is the publicity material supplied by
the film companies who used the Southall stages. We include this image
from a well illustrated thirty two page brochure which accompanied the
film Just William’s Luck. Seen here is director Val Guest with
the Just William authoress Richmal Crompton. William Graham who played
the mischievous William is the centre of the action.
Publicity
submitted by viewer, David Blake
Thanks to Andrew Gatherer who helped us find 10 films |
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Newspapers
too offer a glimpse of life at the Studios. The Middlesex County Times,
dated
22/07/1950,
reports on the making of The Second Mate.
Most of
the shooting was done on the Thames and Portsmouth with interior
sequences filmed at the Studios. The Second Mate was played by
young actor David Hannaford and starred Gordon Harker as his skipper.
The director was John Baxter.
Newspaper
excerpt submitted by George Twyman of the Southall Historical Society.
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