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it on some ribs at the top of a perpendicular column and covered the nave and altar with a couple of rolls of hessian. It looked pretty good by the time he had finished, and that ate up the last of our budget.”
Another Gainsborough veteran, writer- producer-director Val Guest, has his own very special memories of working with such comedy greats as Arthur Askey, Will Hay, the Crazy Gang and Alastair Sim. He discov- ered Michael Rennie and launched the screen career of a beautiful and talented teenager named Jean Simmons.
“I worked for Gainsborough at their Islington studio, then later at Lime Grove, Shepherd’s Bush,” Guest recollects. “One of my contemporaries at Gainsborough was Alfred Hitchcock. He was a great practical joker. One day he came into the office and borrowed a fiver. The weeks went by and he didn’t return it. That was quite a large sum in those days. I needed the money, so I sent a reminder to Hitch. Some time later, a large parcel was delivered inside was the five pounds - all in halfpennies!”
Although long retired, unit stillsman Johnny Jay has his own tales to tell. “My interest was in cameras and photography,” he reveals. “A relative knew Maurice Ostrer and he got me my first job at the famous Gainsborough studio at Islington. The year was 1935 and I was just fifteen at the time. I trained under two great stillsmen, Dave Boulton and Fred Carter, helping the pho- tographers carry their boxes, although I also got to help out on Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes.
“Much of the work during this period involved constant travelling between Gainsborough’s two main studios at Islington and the larger one at Shepherd’s Bush. The following year, Sydney Box took over from Ostrer as head of production at Gainsborough and I was working for Ted Reed in the stills department. I worked on Arthur Askey’s The Ghost Train, a comedy thriller, but Carol Reed’s Kipps, starring Michael Redgrave, Diana Wynyard and Phyllis Calvert, was the last film I did before being called up for war service in 1940.
“With the cessation of hostilities, my first film as unit stills photographer back at Islington was The Wicked Lady, not bad for
my first solo credit although in truth it was actor Stewart Granger who kindly recom- mended me for the job.”
From Gainsborough’s roster of direc- tors, most prominent were Leslie Arliss, Arthur Crabtree and Carol Reed, who became Margaret Lockwood’s favourite starring five times under his guidance. As the actress recalled, “most of my films were
me my worries were over although I knew other actresses, including Nova Pilbeam, had been up for the Iris Henderson role.
“We finished the entire film in five weeks in late Autumn 1937, in the cramped and uncomfortable studio at Islington. I suppose what surprised me most of all about Hitch was how little he directed us. I had done a number of films for Carol Reed
to provide cinemagoers with a much need- ed respite from the austerity and, more than often, the danger of their real lives.
“How did we make those films look so glamorous? asks Jean Kent. “Berman’s sup- plied the costumes from stock. Many of them were recycled, then went back into stock. We still had clothes coupons and rationing. For Carnival I had beautiful gypsy costumes. In 2,000 Women I wore one of Jessie Matthew’s dresses. At other times, some of the dresses were made from curtain material. And we even had to sup- ply our own silk stockings.”
Interestingly, at the outbeak of the war, the powers that be made the sensible deci- sion to switch all film production to Shepherd’s Bush as it was considered a too dangerous at Islington if the giant chimney stack had come crashing down as the direct result of a hit by enemy bombers.
By the late ‘Forties, Ken Annakin was directing Holiday Camp and the ensuing series of Huggett Family comedies, starring Jack Warner, Kathleen Harrison, Dennis Price, Susan Shaw, Jimmy Hanley, Jane Hylt on and Pet ula Clark, under the Gainsborough banner for Sydney Box as studio supremo. But soon the writing was on the wall for the company.
In 1949 all production ceased at both the Islington and Lime Grove (Shepherd’s Bush) studios when owners Rank decided it was more financially viable to close the Gainsborough plant with all future filming being transferred to Pinewood.
For those involved, it seemed like the end of an era. Yet old memories die hard. Of the hundreds of films shot there, from clas- sic comedies to Hitchcock’s thrillers, con- temporary dramas to the Regency melodra- mas, Gainsborough was always the leader in screen romance, celluloid escapism and popularist entertainment.
Now, with the resurgence of this great studio once again, along with the onset of the internet, www, cable and satellite, the problem of servicing these voracious appetites hangs heavy. It will though, allow revived studios like Gainsborough, offering brand new, modern US style complexes, incorporating the latest state of the art hi- tech production facilities, to almost guaran-
Iain McAsh talking with Margaret Lockwood (left) and Shirley Davis at rehearsals for the 30th Royal Film Performance of The Slipper and The Rose, 24th March 1976
made at Gainsborough Studios at Islington or Lime Grove, while both The Wicked Lady (Arliss) and Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes were filmed at Islington. After that, Rank took over our contracts at Denham. I only made one colour film in the 1940’s, Jassy, although The Wicked Lady should have been in colour. Our films were never made on location. In our day, we never moved out of the studio. All exteriors were shot as interiors.
“When making The Lady Vanishes Hitchcock asked for a test on me, then told
and he was quite meticulous by contrast. Hitchcock, however didn’t seem to direct us at all, contrary to some popular myths.”
Looking back over those early years, Jesse Lasky wrote in his memoirs: “We picked a location for the Islington studios where heavy fog would collect even when the rest of London was in bright sunshine. Some of the artistic soft-focus photography admired so much by the critics in this coun- try was simply fog that eluded the fans.”
During the darkest days of World War II, Gainsborough could always be relied upon
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