George Clark, a producer in London, formed George
Clark Productions in 1919 and released several successful films. In 1921
he was tired of the London climate and decided to build his own studio outside
of London in Beaconsfield.
Beaconsfield Studios opened in 1922 with their first
production a two-reeler comedy, The Beauty and the Beast written, directed
and starring Guy Newall. For a couple of years, things went smoothly but
as the film industry went into a slump, even independent productions became
scarce.
In 1927, when the parliment passed the Quota Bill,
new companies were scrambling to set up operations. Among the new start-ups
was The British Lion Film Corporation Ltd., with Edgar Wallace, as Chairman.
Since Wallace lived close by in Bourne End, the company purchased Beaconsfield
Studios.
The first production for British Lion at Beaconsfield
was the 1930 release of The Ringer, which was written by Wallace. With the
advent of sound, Wallace added a sound stage and started on the studio's
first talkie, The Squeaker, directed by Wallace himself, with sound by RCA
Photophone. When this production was finished, Wallace was given a contract
in Hollywood to write King Kong.
During the 1930's, Beaconsfield continued producing
a wide variety of films with such notables as John Gielgud, Paul Robeson,
Gracie Fields, Margaret Lockwood, Ray Milland, Herbert Wilcox, Val Guest,
Basil Dean, A.A.Milne and George Bernard Shaw.
At the outbreak of the war, in 1939, the Ministry
of Works requisitioned the studios for Rotax to make aircraft engine magnetos
for the war effort.
In 1946, after the war, Alexander Korda bought British
Lion. He kept the company but sold Beaconsfield Studio to King's College
Cambridge. The Crown Film Unit, with many of the staff from the GPO Blackheath
Unit, moved in and the government spent a lavish £146,000 on refurbishing
and equipment.
75 films a year were produced for the Central Office
of Information by filmmakers who included John Grierson, Humphrey Jennings
and Lotte Reiniger. In 1949, Following yet another exhibition crisis in
the UK film industry, the Board of Trade introduced the Eady Levy, a tax
on box office takings that was redistributed to British film producers as
a mechanism to boost British production.
The National Film Finance Corporation had set up Group
3, under chairman Michael
Balcon , to encourage new British talent. They moved into Beaconsfield
in 1953 and out again in 1955 when it was decided that a studio base was
unjustifiable.
Producer Peter Rogers took over Beaconsfield Films
Ltd in 1956 briefly and then moved to Pinewood
to launch the Carry On
series.
Screen Gems leased Beaconsfield in 1957 and 1958 for
their television production. After they finished their productions, Beaconsfield
was used for various independent production work, which slowly came to a
halt in 1966, at which time North Thames Gas Board, used
Beaconsfield as a warehouse.
In 1971, NFTS purchased Beaconsfield from Kings College
with a grant from the Rank
Organisation, making it the only UK film school with its own, purpose-built,
film and TV studios and facilities.
Today, Beaconsfield Studios comprises film and television
stages, animation and production design studios, edit suites, sound post-production
facilities, a music recording studio and a dubbing theatre, all furnished
with new generation digital equipment equivalent to that used at the highest
level in today's film and television industry.
Here is their website: http://www.nftsfilm-tv.ac.uk/
Here's a list of titles on Beaconsfield
Studios from our archive.
Back to British
Studios
