From the Herald and News, 2nd Sept 2010

ELMBRIDGE Council say its considering various options for the former Walton Library building but will not reveal exactly what those are. The Surrey Herald and News put questions to the council regarding the dilapidated building at the junction of High Street and Hersham Road, in Walton, but despite it being empty since 2008 no one would speak about future plans or timescales.

An Elmbridge spokeswoman would only say: "The council is considering various options for this prominent building in Walton."

But a small group of residents have new proposals for the building which could see it transformed into a Film and Visual Arts Centre to celebrate Walton's historic connections with the industry. The group was set up by former county councillor Andrew Sturgis, of West Grove, Walton, and his daughter, Lucinda Sturgis, who has worked in the film industry for 20 years. They emphasise the plans were intended to be flexible and could be adjusted with input from residents. The group will have a stall at Walton Heritage Day, this Saturday, (September 11) by the River Thames, off Manor Road, Walton, in order to promote the proposal and establish support from the public.

• Read the full story here

A century on, the traders of Cecil Court are uniting to explore the heritage of this unique street. Courtesy of the BFI, there will be a screening a number of early films including the first ever film of Alice in Wonderland which was released by Hepworth from 17 Cecil Court in 1903, which will be accompanied by pianist John Sweeney. Film historian Simon Brown will speak about Flicker Alley and the early days of British film and there will be a blue plaque installation throughout the Court showing which film-related businesses were where and when. There will be other themed window displays and events too, including the Tenderflix film screenings, part of the Rushes Soho Shorts festival.

Date: Saturday 24 July 2010 Time: 10am - 8pm

Full details here - http://www.cecilcourt.co.uk/flickeralley.pdf - on the Cecil Court website.

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Courtesy of GoLondon http://golondon.about.com/b/2010/07/18/cecil-courts-flicker-alley-festival.htm

"Helen of Four Gates" has been discovered in a Canadian archive by Nick Wilding and brought back home for its first screening in over 90 years at Hebden Bridge. The film was directed by pioneer of early motion pictures Cecil Hepworth and is based on a novel by former mill girl Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, who lived in Heptonstall in the 1920s. It stars Alma Taylor in the title role.

It will be shown at the Hebden Bridge Picture House on Thursday 10th June 2010.

The British Film Institute will be screening it the following month as a key part of their Lost and Re-discovered Films festival.

Click on the link for more information about this showing.

More information about Cecil Hepworth and his films at hepworthfilm.org.

This was a very difficult restoration due to the extremely poor condition of the remaining fragments of film, as you might expect from a fragile nitrate film over 100 years old that had been kept in poor circumstances for much of its life.

Read all about the restoration process by following the link to the BFI in this story. 

The newly restored film will be publicly available to view on the BFI website www.bfi.org.uk and in BFI Mediatheques around the UK from early March 2010, completely free of charge.

We can't wait to see it! Well done BFI!

There have been numerous film versions made of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, since 1903 when May Clark played the first screen Alice, in the longest film ever made in Britain at the time. It was considered far too long by most distributors, and was cut up into episodes for distribution and screening in the "picture palaces" of the time. (Or was this only a cynical money making ploy? We shall never know.)

Director Cecil Hepworth cast his wife as the White Rabbit, doubling as the Queen, and the 15-year-old May Clark was excused from her duties as studio secretary to star in the film. Local schoolchildren were drafted in to play the Cards and other characters, and the film was shot in the grounds of Mount Felix at Walton On Thames, just round the corner from the Hepworth Studios. Hepworth's version pioneered several new trick shots, as special effects were known at the time. Since this silent premiere of the most famous of all Lewis Carrol stories, many different film versions have appeared, in all kinds of genres.

The latest "Alice" is a fantasy film directed by Tim Burton, combining the Lewis Carroll novels "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass" in a mix of live action and animation. Mia Wasikowska plays the role of Alice, alongside Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as The Red Queen, Anne Hathaway as The White Queen, Crispin Glover as The Knave of Hearts and Stephen Fry as The Cheshire Cat. The plot and screenplay differs somewhat from a pure rendition of the Carrol original!

The film will premiere in London at the Odeon Leicester Square on February 25, 2010. It's good to see this film acknowledging its historic roots. If only Hepworth had included the Jabberwock in his film!

hepworthfilm.org

• Explosion of a Motor Car (1900)
• Hamlet (1913) Closet Scene
• Hamlet (1913) Ghost Scene
• How it feels to be run over (1900)
• The classic Rescued By Rover (1905)
• Daisy Doodad's Dial (1904) (Turner Film Company)
• Please tell us if you find more.

For more about Hepworth Films please visit hepworthfilm.org

Although it's not attributed correctly, this film on YouTube - "The Fatal Sneeze" is from the Hepworth studios. Restored, brimming with gags and a brilliant sound track by YUNJI LEE, it's a rollicking good fun film to watch. Directed by Lewin Fitzhamon and produced by the Hepworth Manufacturing Company, also known as Hepwix, which appears in the film itself above the window that the man's sneeze breaks. A mix of studio and exterior shots around Walton on Thames keeps the tempo high and the laughs regular. A gem!

Read Simon Brown's article about the film here http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/974449/index.html

hepworthfilm.org

A fantastic new film, Harishchandrachi Factory, directed by Paresh Mokashi,is a two hour commemoration of Phalke's work and has been selected as India's official entry in the Best Foreign Film category at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards.

Harishchandrachi Factory premieres in London's Cineworld cinema at Shaftesbury Avenue on 6th November 2009. Not to be missed!

Follow the link to read the full story of a fascinating collaboration between the British and Indian film industry in the early days of silent film, and how the story continued.

She was the last of the four children of director-producer Cecil Hepworth (1874-1953), who had the longest and most prolific career of any of his contemporaries. Although born after the collapse of her father’s film company at the Walton-on-Thames studio, Val Williamson was a stalwart supporter and promoter of her father's work throughout her life. The Cinema Museum is writing an obituary for the Giornate Del Cinema Muto web pages.

A week before her death, the premiere of a documentary painted a revealing picture of the great man from her family perspective. In conversation with the film historian Tony Fletcher, Val brings to life Hepworth’s public and private life, reflecting on many family stories and adventures for the first time. With the help of rare and unseen archive films from the BFI National Archive, and other archives and collections, she sheds new light on her father, who is seen in front of the camera as he has never been seen before. – Bob Geoghegan

Cecil Hepworth was a pioneer of the British Cinema. He began in the showman period in the late 1890s, carrying his 40-second films to lecture halls all over the country, where frenzied audiences demanded their repetition many times at a sitting. From the fairground era to the time of the great Hepworth Company at its Walton-on-Thames studios, he helped to advance the art of the cinema. To his studios came famous stage actors, anxious to try the new medium, and there many “stars” made worldwide reputations: Alma Taylor, Chrissie White, Gerald Ames, Ronald Colman, Violet Hobson, Stewart Rome. From Walton-on-Thames films were dispatched in quantity to the world, even to the United States before the Hollywood era. (Adapted from the dustjacket text for Cecil Hepworth’s autobiography, Came the Dawn, Phoenix House, London, 1951)

Visit the tribute website to learn more about Cecil Hepworth, his films, studios, stars, work, life and family.