Researching the old newspapers, I was surprised to find that a ‘kinematographer’ had lived briefly in West Hampstead. In this story we look at his career in films.
In March 1915 he was looking for work and put an advert in the section ‘Engagements Wanted’ in the trade magazine The Bioscope. It read:
Alphonso Frenguelli, camera artist, disengaged, eight years experience,
78 Harvard Court, Honeybourne Road, (West Hampstead)
As an important cinematographer and film director at the start of the silent pictures era he was not out of work for long.
He was part of the large Frenguelli family in Rome, where his father was an official artist in the Vatican. Alphonso Goffredo Frenguelli was born there in August 1894. He got into the developing film industry and was the managing director of Celio Films, and then chief cameraman for the famous Cines Co. of Rome. He won the gold medal for cinematography two years in a row at the Italian International film exhibition.
Frenguelli was the lead cameraman on the masterpiece Quo Vadis. Directed by Enrico Guazzoni, with 500 extras and a running time of two hours, it was a worldwide success when it was released in 1913. The film was based on a novel about the Roman Emperor Nero, and it has been filmed numerous times.
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American poster for Quo Vardis (LoC)
To gain further experience, Frenguelli came to England in 1912 and joined the London Film Co. at Twickenham where he worked with producer and director Percy Nash, with whom he went to the Neptune Film Co at Elstree when they were set up in January 1914.
Frenguelli was the cameraman or director of these Neptune films:
Harbour Lights (1914), cinematographer
In the Ranks (1914), cinematographer
Coster Joe (1915), director
The Three Christmasses (1915), director
Christmas Eve (1915), director
Solomon’s Twins, (1916), co-director with Lewis Gilbert
Burglar Bill (1916), co-director with Lewis Gilbert
During an interview in July 1918, Frenguelli told a reporter from Kinematograph Weekly that since the beginning of 1918 he had been working with International Exclusives Ltd making Adam Bede with the well-known director Maurice Elvey. He said he had also worked with Elvey on the film about Admiral Nelson. ‘In that magnificent film the quality attained and the effects I have introduced put everything I have previously done in the shade’.
Maurice Elvey (born in 1887 as William Seward Folkard), had wanted to make a film about Nelson’s life for several years. Eventually, permission was granted by the Admiralty for Elvey and Frenguelli to film aboard HMS Victory in Portsmouth harbour. Elvey had recreated key scenes from Nelson’s naval career. Filming was challenging, but he was delighted to be working on such a large scale with hundreds of extras to achieve his ambition. Towards the end of the project, on the night of Tuesday 18 June, a fire at the printing works of the London Film Company, destroyed key sequences of the film. Elvey, the actors, Frenguelli and the crew rushed back to Portsmouth, and then to the studios, to remake the lost scenes. The silent film was very successful and can be seen on YouTube here.
Nelson: The Story of England’s Immortal Naval Hero (1918).
In 1917, Frenguelli married Enid Millicent Sheather (1899-1979). They had a son Ian Mario Frenguelli, who was born 2 Jan 1918 in Paddington. He worked with his father and by 1939 Ian was an assistant film director. However, Alphonso and Enid divorced, and in 1939 she was living in Hove; she re-married in 1945.
In 1919 Frenguelli set up his own production company called Vanity Films, at 37 King Street, Covent Garden. He was the producer and director. Their first film was Cry For Justice and the second was His Last Defence.
Advert for Vanity Films (1919)
But the company was not successful, and he went into bankruptcy in November 1919 when his address was given as 120 Castellain Mansions in Maida Vale.
By 1921 he had moved again to 15 Clarence Gate Gardens, near Regents Park. In the census that year he said was a cinematographer for Broadwest Films. The company was formed by George Thomas Broadman and Walter West and ran from 1914 to 1925. They had an office at 11 Denman Street.
In the 1920s Frenguelli worked as a cinematographer in Germany and France where he made the following films:
Mrs Worthington’s Perfume (1925), Germany
Somebody’s Son, also called The Farmer from Texas (1925), Germany
Hidden Fires (1925), Germany
The Last Horse Carriage in Berlin (1926), Germany
The Blind Ship (1928), France, co-director with J. Glarany
In the late 20s and 1930s he worked on several silent films in England. By 1929 he was sometimes called Tony or Toni Frenguelli, rather than Alphonso or Alfonso.
Dr Sin Fang, a series of six films from 1928, Victory Films Elstree, director of some of the series
One of the films, Dr Sin Fang: The Adventure of the Torture Cage is available on YouTube. But Frenguelli was not involved in this one.
House of Dreams, Danubia Production Co. (1933)
Chinatown Nights (or The Return of Dr Sin Fang), (1937), Victory Films, director
The Awakening, (1938), Cosmopolitan Films, director
At the time of the 1939 register, Frenguelli was out of work again, and living at 11 Northumberland Place. He managed to get work abroad and during the 1940s directed or filmed in Italy:
L'arcidiavolo (1940), director
The Twentieth Duke (1945)
Trepidazione (1946), director
Aquila Nera (The Black Eagle) (1947)
The Revenge of the Black Eagle (1951)
Passione (1953)
Trieste Cantico d’Amore (1954)
In 1950 he was the cinematographer on Out of Evil directed by Joseph Krumgold, which was made in Israel.
Frenguelli continued to live in England and after a long career, he died in Canterbury aged 72 in 1967.
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