The Cinema's First Thrills

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22402, 24 April 1936, Page 14 (Supplement)

The Cinema's First Thrills

Amusing stories of the infancy of moving pictures were told at a meeting of the British Kinematograph Society at Film House, London, recently by three notable pioneers—Mr. Fred Paul, Mr. Cecil Hepworth and Mr. William Barker. Mr. Paul described how he invented his theatograph and showed moving pictures as far back as 1896. He went to Sir Augustus Harris. That great showman remarked that he had seen animated photographs in Paris, and was sure that they must jump in with a London entertainment immediately, as public interest would be dead in a few weeks. "Showmen talk nowadays of enthusiastic audiences," said Mr. Paul. "They don't know what enthusiasm means. In those days, when I drove from one

to another in a ono-horso vehicle, re-winding the film as I went, audiences used to cheer my shots of Persimmon's Derby, demand three repetitions, and sing 'God Bless the Princo of Wales.' " Mr. Hepworth recalled that, when he travelled the country with his programme of six films, audiences were so appreciative that ha used to show them forward and backward, and then stop in the middle and discuss them. "I had to," he admitted. "The whole six were only 240 ft. long, and the show had to run two hours. "On one occasion a clergyman objected to a film of Loie Fuller doing her famous serpentine dance. I announced it as Salome dancing before Herod, and everybody was delighted." Mr. Hepworth began making pictures in a villa at Walton-on-Thames, with a capital of £2OO. "In the kitchen 1 installed a vertical gas engine, as noisy

as a road drill; the bathroom was the printing room; the sitting room was the office," ho said. "Here we made a short called ' Express Trains'—announced to exhibitors as 'a photograph of a cutting through which no fewer than three trains rush emitting clouds of dense steam —price £1 10s.' " Here, too, he produced the first picture in which an attempt was made to tell a story. " Rescued by Rover " was tlio title. Mr. Hepworth was scenario writer, director and cameraman; the parts were all played by members of the household, including a collie dog, the total cost was £7 13s 9d, and 395 copies were sold. Mr. Barker described the days when he produced " Hamlet " in one reel in one day. The ,artists wore paid half a guinea a day; he picked up a tall man for the Ghost, and finding one girl could swim told her she- could be Ophelia. A few years later the industry had grown to the point where he could offer Sir Herbert Beerbobm Tree £IOOO for a day's work. In 1909 he produced what he claimed to be the first talking picture, with synchronised gramophone records. The two first songs used in this way were "Oh, Oh, Antonio!" and "Love Me and the World is Mine." The experiment failed because there was then no means of amplifying the sound, and the voicos sounded, in Mr. Barker's phraso, "like a bee in the Albert Hall."