Elstree Calling
An unofficial website dedicated to Elstree Studios
The Thirties:
At the start of the Thirties, Elstree Studios boss John Maxwell recruited a fellow Scotsman who would, in time, become the successor to Maxwell's throne.
As the industry, from cinema managers to film company owners, wresteled with the problems and costs that the "talkie" generation brought, Maxwell gave permission to Thomas Bentley to go onto the studio floor with the first all-talking British film to be made and released in colour, titled Harmony Heaven, in 1930.
The Thirties presented many challenges to the country, not least the British Film Industry. But a host of films took to the screen fresh from production at British International Pictures (BIP).
Stars practicing their art in front of the cameras included Ann Todd, Ursula Jeans, Henry Kendall and a young John Mills. The latter would go on to star in the film It's Great to Be Young, in 1955, and in the legendary Ice Cold in Alex, in 1958, both made at the studios.
Film titles from the BIP stable which hit the silver screen in the Thirties were as varied as Blossom Time, starring world-renowned tenor Richard Tauber, and Goodnight Vienna, Rookery Nook, Red Wagon, The Magistrate and Abdul the Damned.
It has been said that not all of the action at BIP in the Thirties was saved for The Big Screen. High jinks were popular at the studios as actors, actressesm directors (including Alfred Hitchcock) and technicians played a variety or practical jokes on each other.
But the light-hearted behaviour was firmly put on one side in February 1936 when a serious fire resulted in the loss of The British and Dominion Studios next door to BIP.
Only timely intervention and the hard work of a team which included BIP studios manager Joe Grossman, studio staff, and of course the fire service, prevented the loss of BIP Studios too.
In the later Thirties, the release of films from BIP included Housemaster, Jamaica Inn, St. Martin's Lane, which starred Vivien Leigh and Rex Harrison, Murder in Soho, and The Poison Pen. But with the end of the decade in sight, changes were imminent at Elstree.
At the start of the Second World War, The Royal Ordinance Corps commandeered the studios based in Borehamwood.
With its arrival, a 550-seater auditorium name the Garrison Theatre was built with the purpose of entertaining the many troops who would eventually be based around the studios.
But the site would not be confined to the purpose of entertaining the and boosting the morale of the troops.
Elstree played an even more important part in the six year duration of the war, as various devices that aided the war effort were secretly created on the site.
© Paul Burton 2008
Please do not use any part of this article without first contacting Paul Burton to request permission.