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BRITAIN SCORES HER FIRST SUCCESSES 281
himself, a feat which enabled the Cohns to start their own company, Columbia — probably did more to raise the quality of British pictures at that time than any other producer.
The overall picture of the period was a scrappy one. Gaumont, at Shepherd's Bush, experimented with melodrama with a futuristic touch and went strongly for the works of H. G. Wells. Stoll, first at Surbiton and then at Cricklewood, kept up a constant flow of tworeel Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Fu Manchu thrillers interspersed with features with an exotic tinge, importing the then highly popular Sessue Hayakawa, Japanese star of American films, to play in its productions.
G. B. Samuelson, at Worton Hall, Isleworth, took up a strong patriotic line with Sixty Years A Queen, and a forerunner of Noel Coward's Cavalcade called The Game of Life, as well as more earthy and flag-wagging pictures of which God Bless Our Red White and Blue, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor are two representative titles.
From these studios came the top pictures of the early twenties. George K. Arthur made a great hit in the first screen version of Kipps. The sentimentalists wept over Matheson Lang and Ivor Novello in Carnival (no showing was complete without a tenor singing a theme song from the orchestra pit when Novello climbed agilely from his gondola to the balcony of the room occupied by Matheson Lang's (screen) wife). The country roared at Alfs Button, but British successes were too far between to grow the deep roots necessary to withstand the blast which was coming.
Germany, crushed and defeated in 19 18, began slowly to get on its feet once more. Her young men, bitter and disillusioned, turned to the cinema to express their despair. They produced such unusual pictures as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Hands of Orlac.
Needing foreign currency, Germany sold their films at ridiculous prices in those countries whose money represented wealth when exchanged for Reichsmarks. Rights in their films, for the whole of Great Britain, could be bought outright for as little as £80 for a full-length feature. No British film could stand up to that sort of competition.
Not that German films destroyed British films. They only helped. The real competitor was America, and her films were being blockbooked to such an extent that British studios discovered that it was not uncommon for nearly two years to elapse between completion