Page 8 - Film Facilities & Studios Almanac_ok

EXPOSURE • 18 & 19
PINEWOOD
Pinewood Studios Charles Boot stepped in Attenborough, Jack Watling,
and purchased Heatherden Hall from Col. Morden and with Rank as his partner, the two men laid the foundations for what was destined to become the pre-eminent pro- duction headquarters for British films to this day.
The Chairman of the newly-founded company was J. Arthur (later Lord) Rank. Pinewood very quickly became a magnet for highly respected filmmakers of the day, including a youthful Alfred Hitchcock and the pio- neer, Herbert Wilcox It herald- ed a new era of prosperity for the oft beleaguered British Film industry.
All very different though in the dark days of World War 2 when Pinewood was seconded to the Royal Mint, provoking the jokey response that it was the only time when the studio actually had any money!
With the arrival of the Americans into the war came such famous names as Frank Capra, Garson Kanin and Irwin Shaw. Among the many classic wartime documentaries made at Pinewood were Fires Were Started, Listen To Britain, A Diary For Timothy, The Silent Village, Coastal Command, Close Quarters, Desert Victory, Tunisian Victory, Burma Victory, The True Glory, Left Of The Line, Malta G. C., A Harbour Goes To France and Journey Together. The Boulting Brothers, John and Roy, Carol Reed, Humphrey Jennings, Pat Jackson, Hugh Stewart and Jack Lee were some of the many talents contributing their services as producers, directors, writers and editors at this time.
Among the actors was a youthful Richard
was the very first British studio to receive its own Academy Award, won by Charles Staffell, for his
1968 special process work with front projection and tech- nical achievements. But now, in common with all other British studios, Pinewood has long been ‘four wall’. From its golden days as a fully serviced studio, producers using its facilities today have to bring in their own technical crews for each and every production.
For the uninitiated visitor, Pinewood Studios with its dou- ble fronted, half-timbered Tudor lodge which forms the studio’s main entrance, can be hard to find. The studio nes- tles in a quiet corner of lush farmland at Iver Heath, around a 90 minute drive from Wardour Street if you’re lucky, with Denham, once the base of Sir Alexander Korda’s empire and now the home of Rank Film Laboratories in one direc- tion and Uxbridge and historic Windsor Castle in the other.
Back in 1934, a young Yorkshire flour miller named Joseph Arthur Rank met up with Charles Boot, the chair- man of a building company who had tried to establish his own Hollywood-style studio in Britain some ten years earlier, but with little success.
For this purpose, he had acquired Heatherden Hall, sit- uated in the Ecclesiastic Parish of Iver Heath in the County of Buckinghamshire. The Hall’s previous wealthy owners had included Dr. Drury Lavin in the late 19th century and then Colonel Grant Morden, a Canadian financier and the Member of Parliament for Brentford & Chiswick.
David Tomlinson and John Justin, along with Hollywood tough guy Edward G. Robinson, all of whom starred in Journey Together under John Boulting’s direction.
Many of these important wartime documentaries are now in the custody of London’s Imperial War Museum, at Kennington near Waterloo Station, where they are still in constant demand by war researchers and students.
Feature production was switched from Pinewood to nearby Denham in 1938 in anticipation of the global con- flict, but filming was again resumed at the studio with the cessation of hostilities when Rank again took control of the main complex on 4 April, 1946, with the production of such British classics as Green For Danger, Black Narcissus, Oliver Twist, The Red Shoes, Great Expectations, Captain Boycott , Esther Waters, The Importance Of Being Ernest and The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie.
By 1954 such highly acclaimed British films as Simba, The Seekers, Above Us The Waves and Passage Home (all very British and stiff- upper-lip.’) were nearing com- pletion, with Dirk Bogarde, Jack Hawklns, Donald Sinden and Kenneth More being hailed as the big stars of the period.
Pint-sized Norman Wisdom in his famed cap and ‘gump’ suit cavorting in the company of such winsome leading ladies as Joan Rice, Shirley Abicair, Belinda Lee, Maureen Swanson, Lana Morris and Jill Dixon. Starting in 1955 with Trouble In Store, under his Rank contract, Oscar nominee Wisdom starred in a dozen comedies,
Stills courtesy BFI Stills & Posters/Pinewood Studios/Rank/Carlton/Danjak S.A./Graffiti/Foyer/Falk/All copyright owners acknowledged where known.