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390
Round the Studios
The property department is a marvel of its kind, and the B.I. P. prop men are indefatigable. Asked in one day to provide a balloon basket, six motor-cycles of the kind used by American speed-cops, and a number of Chinese preserved eggs — they " delivered the goods " without hesitation.
B.I. P. have an associated organization in British Instructional Films, whose large single-floor studio is at Welwyn Garden City. Although several full-length pictures have been made here — notably Dance Pretty Lady — the Welwyn studio is used mainly for the production of the excellent Secrets of Nature series.
Elstree (Imperial Studios)
British and Dominions Film Corporation, Ltd., Imperial Studios,
Elstree, Herts.
T^HE big Imperial studios of British and Dominions, next door to -■■ British International Pictures at Elstree, stand for a great deal in the British film industry. For, as well as their own pictures, B. and D. make 6 films a year for the Paramount organization in this countrj^' and, during the summer of 1932, completed an arrangement with United Artists, which guarantees American release for the fine British films made at the Imperial studios.
B. & D. actually came into existence in 1928, when they started making silent films at Cricklewood. They moved to small Elstree premises the following year and made some sound pictures before transferring their activities to the Imperial studios. They have built, added, enlarged and modernized ever since, so that they now have one of the finest film-factories in the country. They employ a staff of 700, exclusive of actual players. They have 9 cameras. They can turn out 36 full-length pictures a year on their 3 sound-stages, each with its own projection-theatre. Their workshops are the finest in the land, with duplicate sets of v/oodworking machinery and a plasterer's shop staffed by the greatest living experts in this particular medium of make-believe and decorative manufacture. Their stages consume current to the tune of 7,000 amperes. They can accommodate 7 films simultaneously in the cutting-rooms.
Herbert Wilcox, the chief of production at B. & D. and the doyen of British directors, has insisted from the start on a policy of the best and nothing but the best. B. & D. sets are invariably the last word in magnificence : the gowns his stars wear are designed and carried out only by front rank creators of clothes. WUcox has some of the best talent in England and builds stardom for his players in the true Hollywood style. Lynn and Walls, Jack Buchanan and Sydney Howard were readymade in the public estimation ; but with such stars as Dorothy Bouchier, Anna Neagle, Winifred Shotter and Elsie Randolph, B. & D. have shown their skill, and demonstrated that the starring system is well worth its place in the scheme of screen things.
Islington
Gainsborough Pictures (1928), Ltd., Poole Street, Islington, London, N.i.
A WAY in the gloomier part of London, in a district of factories, ware■'* houses and slum-dwellings, there stood in the years before the war a power-station which supplied current to the Metropolitan Railway.