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with a director of the company, Mr. W. A. Reid, and his secretary were travellers in that same ship. We saw a great deal of Chaplin on that voyage and he proved a most delightful fellow-traveller. He was, and still is, a great artist, certainly one of the greatest the film industry has discovered. We met him again by invitation at his house at Beverley Hills, Los Angeles, and visited his studios and had many most interesting talks with him on production and allied subjects.
Now I come to a part of the story which is bristling with difficulties, for although we had many good films in the making or made, we had very expensive schemes in hand and it began to be evident that it would be more than we could do to finance them. It had always been the intention to float a public company to provide the capital for our ventures but the after-war boom had collapsed, and all the financial people who understand these things said we should have to wait until the money market was favourable.
We waited, but the various things we had started upon would not wait. They could not be held up and all the time they were using up money. It became apparent that either we must abandon all the enterprises we had set in motion — and that meant almost certain bankruptcy — or we must chance our arm and go to the public as originally intended. The scene-painting house was ready for use, the engine-house had all its machinery installed and nearly ready to run. All the drawings and designs for the new studios were prepared and the land secured and marked out, but we could not place the contract. Still we were advised to wait. The money market was not favourable. The times were not propitious. Yet, almost perforce, we launched a public company with a capital of a quarter of a million in £i shares (150,000 preference and 100,000 ordinary). This was Hep worth Picture Plays (1922) Ltd. It was almost still-born for it was very badly undersubscribed. I had been warned that this might be so and that the high reputation of the firm might not be proof against the unlucky choice of a date when the money market was depressed. But I felt that it must be risked, and I alone am to blame for the unhappy result.
Almost at once we were in difficulties. The studio scheme had to be abandoned and the land released for the construction of a bypass road. (I had previously secured a promise that this would be diverted enough to pass round the studios if built.) There were
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