Came the dawn : memories of a film pioneer (1951)

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inside of the house with the burglar coming through, seizing coats and things and starting to go back. Then we had to strike that scene and reset the first one to see the robber climbing back out of the window and getting away with his haul. It was a very simple little work, but it had three peculiarities, i. It was a story of undetected crime and would never have passed the censor in later days. 2. It showed delightful unsophistication in taking the scenes in that order instead of doing the first and third together in one go. 3. In the excitement of resetting the last scene, in which work, of course, I helped, I entirely forgot my beard and came out of the window clean shaven! But if we were unsophisticated, what about the showmen and the public? We held an inquest on the picture as it stood and decided to let it go out with all its imperfections on its head. And although a number of copies were sold we never received a single complaint! As it happened — luckily for me as I thought at the time — I had then a good deal of business in Manchester, and as that grim city is within twenty miles or thereabouts of some very beautiful scenery, including Chapel-en-le-Frith which held so much charm for me, it is natural that I did not refuse to attend to that business when it came my way. It came in the form of one of the most remarkable personalities of the entertainment world of that or any other time. He was an utter scamp, a very lovable fellow and one of the greatest showmen who ever lived. He was very actively, extremely actively, engaged in the cinematograph show business. His name was A. D. Thomas, which for purposes of enhancement, he soon changed to Edison-Thomas and then, later on, to Thomas-Edison, and if people got it into their heads that he was the Edison, the great 'inventor' of moving pictures and many other things, well, that was their look-out. He didn't do anything to disillusion them. He plastered the whole town wherever he went, and he went nearly everywhere, with tremendous posters in brilliant colours describing his wonderful shows and his still more wonderful self. He had something in the nature of a more-or-less permanent address in Oxford Street, Manchester. He bought several of our better films — he knew how to choose — but more especially he employed me to take particularly local films for him. These were generally of workers leaving some large factory in the neighbourhood of places being visited or about to be visited, by one of his travelling shows. 58