Cricklewood not Hollywood

In 2012 the actor Peter Capaldi made a BBC4 film called ‘Cricklewood Greats’ about a fictious film studio. But in fact, for many years there was a real studio in Cricklewood which made silent films.

Sir Oswald Stoll (1866-1942) was born in Melbourne as Oswald Gray, the son of Irish parents. After his father died when he was three years old, Oswald and his mother Adelaide left Australia for Liverpool, where she married John George Stoll, the Danish owner of a small music hall. Oswald left school to help his mother and older brother run the business when his stepfather died in 1880. Oswald showed good business skills; first he purchased a theatre in Cardiff, later expanding to buy theatres in towns up and down the country. In 1899 he merged with his main rivals to form Moss Empires, who controlled most of the theatres in the country. In 1904 Stoll built the Coliseum, still the largest theatre in London.

Oswald Stoll, 1922

Oswald Stoll had over 30-years’ experience of music halls and theatres when he decided to enter the expanding world of cinema. In April 1918 he set up the Stoll Film Company (SFC). The managing director was Jeffrey Bernerd, born in London in 1890 as Siegmund Simon, who had run the Film Booking Office, a major distribution company. He left SFC at the end of 1924, and after a very successful career in the film business, Jeffrey died in Beverley Hills in 1950.

SFC first made films at their studios in Regents House in Surbiton, and the initial plan was to spend £200,000 to expand the 17-acre site but when they were refused planning permission, they quickly looked for new premises.

In November 1916 Samuel Waring the owner of the furniture company Waring and Gillow, set up the Nieuport and General Aircraft Co in Langton Road Cricklewood, to build the French Nieuport fighters under licence to help the war effort.  

In July 1920 Stoll acquired the Nieuport factory which they converted into studios.

Stoll Studios were previously in front and to the left of the white Smiths Clocks office.

 

Stoll Studios in Temple Road

Work on the Stoll Studio progressed well and in September the trade press announced it would be ‘the largest studio in the world’ with a floor 400 feet long, 78 feet wide and 40 feet high. It was ready in February 1921, and the first production was the ‘The Yellow Claw’ directed by Rene Plaissetty from the popular 1915 book by Sax Rohmer.

In the 1920’s when the film industry was dominated by Hollywood, Stoll adopted the clever marketing slogan ‘British films for British theatres.’ Many of the films used popular stars from the music hall like George Robey, Vesta Tilley, Little Titch, Harry Tate and Harry Lauder. But Stoll refused to allow the more risqué Marie Lloyd to appear at his theatres or in his films.

Maurice Elvey directed most of the early Stoll films, some in the Surbiton studio until Cricklewood was ready. Many popular films were made from novels by eminent British authors including Edgar Wallace and H.G. Wells who received record payments of £1,000 for each of his three books.

The most successful Stoll films were the three Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Eille Norwood, and the two Dr Fu-Manchu films with Harry Agar Lyons.

 

One of the leading Stoll actors was Matheson Lang who was paid £1,200 for Dick Turpin (1922) and £2,000 (worth about £115,000 today) for Guy Fawkes the following year.

Matheson Lang in Dick Turpin

 

SFC made over 120 feature films and almost 100 episodes of shorter films during the 10 years it was at Cricklewood.

To off-set costs on the huge site, from 1921 other film companies such as Samuelson, Butchers and Welsh-Pearson rented space in the Stoll studios.

Stoll stopped making their own films in the summer of 1928, and although some earlier productions were re-released, the studios lay dormant from 1928 to 1930 while Oswald Stoll tried to decide whether to equip them for sound. One stage was equipped with Visatone by August 1930, and another sound stage was added in 1933. But by now the studio was out of date and only used by independent film companies. So, for example, Butchers made an Old Mother Riley comedy at Cricklewood in 1937. In September 1938 the Stoll Studios were sold to Hawker Siddeley and once again aircraft were made there until 1948. 

The building was demolished in the 1960s, and today housing and a Matalan store cover the site in Temple Road, with Stoll Close and Oswald Terrace commemorating the name of the studio owner. 

In 2019 a plan was put forward to demolish Matalan and the neighbouring Wickes store to the north, and redevelop it as ‘Stoll Square’, to provide housing with some commercial space along the main road. The first stage was given the go ahead by the Brent planning department on 11 February 2021.

For a more detailed account of Stoll Studios, see Nathalie Morris excellent history in her 2009 Doctorate from the University of East Anglia, ‘An Eminent British Studio’.

More images of the Stoll Studios are here:
https://blog.jeremyhoare.com/hooray-for-cricklewood-not-hollywood/

He mentions the Handley Page aircraft factory, rather than the Nieuport factory which we now believe Stoll took over.

https://www.brentcrosstown.co.uk/2021/02/25/lights-camera-cricklewood