BRITISH STUDIOS.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18165, 1 November 1930, Page 17 (Supplement)

BRITISH STUDIOS.

GREAT DEVELOPMENTS. OUTLAY OF £5,000,000, ELSTREE TO RIVAL HOLLYWOOD. A Hollywood within a few miles of London, a new city of busy thousands, of huge studios and luxury villas peopled with famous “stars” and directors making films for the world. Films have already brought fame and prosperity to this beautiful village, but I am able to reveal to-day details of a gigantic scheme now under discussion to develop Elstree on a hitherto unthought-of scale (says a writer from Elstree in the London Daily Mail). Negotiations are taking place which it is hoped will mean the opening up of huge studios by three of the most important film companies in the United States, who have come to the conclusion that Elstree, owing to its convenient European position, is the most suitable centre for the production of multi-lingual pictures. British Capital. London contractors are conferring with representatives of these companies with a view to the immediate construction of the studios, to build and equip which it is estimated will

cost considerably more than £5.000,000.

Last week it was announced that Mr Adolph Zulcor, on behalf of the Paramount-Lasky Corporation of New York, had agreed to pay £300,000 to

the British and Dominions Film Corporation for the right to make films with the existing plant.

British capital is now likely to have a big field opened up to it. I understand that the three film, companies concerned are considering forming -a syndicate in this country to co-oper-ate with British investors in the scheme for financing the building of the studios. Work for Thousands. The .building of the studios alone would mean employment for hundreds, and the effect of the huge development would be felt throughout the country. A British film expert said: Elstree would become a film city rivalling Hollywood. Apart from the employment for British -actors and actresses, the studios would provide work for thousands of “crowd’ ’workers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, scene painters and scene shifters, engineers, and other technical workers. From Village to Busy Town. A few years ago Boreham Wood — where the studios are situated —was a slumbering village, a place of green pastures and peacefulness. To-day it is a busy town, and there are four separate blocks of studios for indoor scenes, each with -a floor space of 30,000 feet. Hundreds, of men and women go there to work each day, new villas, shops and buildings are going up all the time, and there is talk of building a huge luxury hotel. English, French, and German stars —including Miss. Fay Compton and Herren Heinrich George and Fritz Kortner —are making multi-lingual films for the new European market, which has been opened up by the advent of the talking film; M. Dupont, the master-director, is at work on a successor to his great “Atlantic,” and others are turning out pictures in English, French and German as fast as man can labour.