Waste Celluloid

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 68, 11 June 1927, Page 23 (Supplement)

Waste Celluloid

British Film Romance BROTHERS’ £400,000 CONCERN

HUGE AMALGAMATION V\ T HO says that romance is ** dead? A recent film amalgamation in Great Britain revealed how two young men utilising “waste celluloid,” eventually placed themselves in the millionaire class. How the original capital of a British film concern developed from a borrowed £IOO to £400,000 between 1907 and 1927, was revealed by Mr. Harry Rowson and Mr. Simeon Rowson, joint directors of Ideal Films, Ltd., whose £2,500,000 amalgamation with the Gau-

mont Film Co., W. and F. Film Service, Ltd., the Davis and the Biocolour circuit of cinemas was recently announced. Mr. Harry Rowson, a young man in search of a fortune in New York 20 | years ago, borrowed a small sum to I go into business as a dealer in “junk” [ or scrap film celluloid. Three years | later he returned to London and set up | as d renter. In those days, film was bought at 4d a foot, there were no exclusive rights in pictures and every renter offered the same films for hire. Capital of £5,000 1 Mr. Simeon Rowson .vho was until | then adviser to the Unionist Party, on * economics, took over the New York

“waste celluloid” business, and in 1912 the two brothers and some of their relatives formed a little British company, Ideal Films. Ltd., with a capital of £5,000. While continuing as renters, they also decided to go in for film production in England. They first brought to the screen such famous actors as Sir John Hare, Miss Ellen Terry, Sir Gerald du Maurier, Sir George Alexander, Mr. H. B. Irving, and Albert Chevalier. The firm, too, acquired the then almost valueless film rights of Pinero’s and Galsworthy’s plays, made films from them, and years later sold to American firms for thousands of pounds the rights which had cost them only hundreds. Conditions very different from those of to-day ruled when, in 1915, this firm produced “Florence Nightingale,” a big success, in three days and three nights, with Miss Elizabeth Risdon in the name-role. It was being shown in the cinemas within two weeks of being begun. Out of Royalties One day Sir Johnston ForbesRobertson and Mr. Cyril Maude asked the Rowsons to make a film for the Society of Dramatic Art. This, under the title of “Masks and Faces," was produced in 1917, and starred most of the theatrical celebrities of the day, including Sir Barrie, Mr. Bernard Shaw, and Mr. Nigel Playfair. The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. with the royalties they received from the successful exploitation of the picture, built the theatre adjoining their premises in Gower Street. Conditions arising largely out of the war, and following upon the domination of the world market by American film firms, made the production of British films on an adequate scale, in the opinion of the directors of Ideal Films, no longer a profitable undertaking, and their studios at Elstree. Hertfordshire, have been inoperative since 1923.

Prospects of legislation making conditions again favourable, the firm will enter the field of production again very shortly.