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The estate had recently come into the market. It had fine gardens, access to a lake, plenty of trees and a large house, and though it was fairly expensive I had no qualms about it then for it seemed exactly what we wanted. It proved so indeed when it furnished so many of the luxury scenes for my Alps Button — the most successful film I ever made. It seemed wise to buy it while we had the chance, and, anyway, it was real estate and should fetch its price at any time if we wanted to dispose of it.
But circumstances alter cases. To show how the atmosphere of the 'boom' impressed itself unconsciously upon people in the trade at that time, here is a little story which I believe to be perfectly true though I must not mention names. A young man of limited experience applied for a job with a big concern which had just entered the film production business. His application appeared to be going successfully and when he was asked how much salary he wanted he drew a bow at a venture and said, 'three hundred pounds.' He meant per annum. But they thought he meant monthly, and they gave him a contract for £3,690 a year, indefinitely!
In the following year, 1920, the number of British films issued appears to have been decreasing, ours as well as others. But in our case, and probably in other cases as well, it was the number of titles, not the total length of films or their quality which was going down: the long films were getting longer and the 'shorts' were tending to disappear. Among the films of the year which may perhaps be remembered still there were Welsh-Pierson's very fine production (English) Nothing Else Matters, Griffith's Broken Blossoms (American), the film of the year, and Miracle Man, perhaps the best all-round picture. Our Alps Button and The Amazing Quest of Mr. Ernest Bliss come into the following year.
We were producing regularly and continuously and with quite fair success, though to give a list of the names now that the pictures are all forgotten would be meaningless and merely boring. The whole trade was flourishing and we had our share in that.
We formed our own distributing organisation in America and secured office accommodation in Glasgow. Then comes a sinister note though it did not appear so at the time: a mortgage on land and properties at Weybridge to secure all moneys due or to become due to Barclays Bank Ltd. That was on January 7th, 1920.
Nevertheless it seems to me now to be portentous enough but that may be because I know what it all led to; I do not remember
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