This is a story from the early days of British film. It is October 1935, and we are in Elstree Studios in Borehamwood Hertfordshire.
.jpg)
Douglas Fairbanks, father and son
The American actor Douglas Fairbanks, was known as ‘The King of Hollywood’ from his career in the silent era. He was famous for his adventure films such as The Mark of Zorro (1920), The Three Musketeers (1921) and Robin Hood (1922).
As a means of gaining control over their films, in 1919, he set up United Artists with Charlie Chaplin, the director D.W. Griffiths and Mary Pickford, whom he married the following year.
%20WikiCommons.jpg)
From the left: D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks.
Fairbanks had been impressed by Alexander Korda’s production of ‘The Private Life of Henry VIII’ (1933), starring Charles Laughton. The film had been funded and distributed by United Artists and was a huge success.
His son, Donald Fairbanks junior had been given his first contract with Paramount when he was aged only 13 at $1,000 a week for three years. Through the 1920s and early 30s he worked for other studios like MGM and Warner Brothers, and became a star. But in 1934 Warner Brothers asked its stars to take a 50% pay cut because of the Depression. Fairbanks Jr. refused and was sacked. He was offered jobs in Britain by Alexander Korda and spent the next few years here.
.jpg)
By 1934 both father and son had separated from their wives: Fairbanks senior from Mary Pickford and Douglas Jr. had divorced Joan Crawford.
Criterion Films and The Amateur Gentleman
At a party in the Savoy Hotel on 3 October 1935, Douglas junior announced that with partners, he had set up his own company called Criterion Film Productions Ltd. He said he was working on their first film called ‘The Amateur Gentleman’, based on a 1913 novel by Jeffery Farnol set in Regency England. Two previous silent films of the story had been made in 1920 and 1926. The new version was a talkie directed by the American Thornton Freeland, with a lavish production and a strong cast of British actors, including a young Margaret Lockwood. Elissa Landi the popular Austrian-American actress, played the romantic lead with Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
The cameraman was Vienna-born Gunther Krampf, who had learned his craft in the 1920s working with famous directors in Germany such as Murnau and Pabst. He came to England in 1931 and made six films for Gaumont British between 1932 and 1936. He later worked with Hitchcock and the Boulting Brothers. From 1947 until his death in 1950, he lived at 10 Langford Court in Abbey Road.
.jpg)
The focus of our story is a young actress with the stage name Peggy Crawford. In 1935 Peggy was 26, and had been on the stage since she was 15. In the last two years she had been engaged in film work on 20 productions.
She appeared with 200 other uncredited actors in the ballroom scene of The Amateur Gentleman. Criterion Films had hired the studios of British Internation Pictures in Elstree.
On 29 and 30 October 1935 they were shooting the large crowd scenes, where Peggy and the other extras were being paid a guinea a day (today worth about £85), for their 10 hours work. At the time, very powerful lights were needed to provide sufficient light for the film cameras.
Returning home after the filming Peggy said that the lights had hurt her eyes and produced a burning sensation. The top and back of her head also gave her pain and she had an irritation on her shoulders and arms. She was worried she was going blind, and her husband took her to a specialist.
The Court Case
The following year, Peggy Crawford under her real name Mrs Florence Amelia Russell, took out a court case for personal injuries against Criterion Films of Brook Street, and Gunter Krampf of Valencia Road Stanmore. The case began at the High Court on 21 October 1936 under Judge Porter. The Times gave a detailed coverage of the case which we have used here.
Sir Duncan Watson, an electrical engineer with considerable experience of film lighting, said he had examined the Elstree studio lights and found they were 5 kilowatt gas filled lamps which gave a much more intense light than the usual 2 kilowatt ones. They were not screened and had powerful reflectors, so exposure to the light for a period of time was very dangerous. He said the company should have limited the time the actors were working with the lights.
Dr W. Dunlop was the eye specialist who examined Peggy Crawford after the second day’s filming. In court he said her eyes were bloodshot, and suffering from acute inflammation which he attributed to the studio lights.
Alan N. Taylor a film artist of 117 West End Lane West Hampstead, said he had worked in the film industry for two and a half years. He was one of the people in the ballroom scene and said that his eyes felt sore during the first day’s filming and became very bad indeed the following day. He was blinded by the lights and had to grope his way about. His sister found him in the studio corridor and took him home. He heard other performers say ‘Kill those arcs, put out those lights’, but nothing was done. The next day they were given smoked glasses and eye shades.
Robert Linderman, a director of a company making film lighting with 16 years’ experience in American studios, was called to give evidence. He said it was well-known in the industry that the powerful arc lamps gave off ultra-violet rays. Experienced performers knew about ‘Klieg Eye’ and avoided looking directly into the lights. But he knew of nobody who had experienced eye-burn when the lamps were shielded by glass. In his opinion both Miss Crawford and Mr Taylor had been exposed to ultra-violet radiation.
Other witnesses from the ballroom scenes said the lights were very powerful and not shielded by glass fronts. One of the carbon arcs had sputtered out and when the electrician used pliers to remove it, the hot carbon rod fell out and a girl’s dress and a curtain caught fire.
The prosecution claimed that 30-40 people received treatment at the first aid station. The extras complained about the lights to an assistant director who said nothing could be done about the intensity.
The barristers for the defendants said this was the first case ever brought, and that Klieg Eye was well-known in the industry. (Most of the press reports mis-spelled it as Kleig Eye). The term came from the Klieg brothers, Anton and Johaan who developed the powerful carbon arc stage and film lights in America in 1911.
The defendants denied responsibility and said that Miss Peggy Crawford and her husband had exaggerated her condition. The defense called a ophthalmic surgeon who had examined Miss Crawford’s eyes and said she was suffering from conjunctivitis which had nothing to do with the filming.
Gunter Krampf said he was a cameraman for 16 years who had been lent by Gaumont-British to Criterion Films. There were 30 arc lamps on the set with 50 electricians responsible to the chief electrician. Most of the day was spent in rehearsals with only 27 minutes shooting using the lights which were switched off between takes. He said the nearest person was about 40 feet away from the lamps which had glass covers. They were the normal lights used in all film studios.
Douglas Fairbanks junior gave evidence that his eyes had suffered through acting under arc lamps. The risk was well-known in the industry, and he avoided looking directly at the lights. He did not consider the lighting was in any way abnormal in the Elstree studio.
After hearing all the evidence over four days, Mr Justice Porter gave his judgement on 16 November. He said the lighting for the ballroom scene was of great brilliance and was intensified by the highly polished floor of the set. He did not accept the statements by the crowd performers that the lamps were unshielded. Conceivably, a screen may have been temporarily removed to replace a carbon arc. He did not think the lights had been kept on unreasonably long and the defendants were not negligent in this respect.
He thought that Miss Crawford and her husband exaggerated to some extent the intensity and duration of the pain she suffered from filming, but substantially he believed her story. The defendants argued that any effects from the lights only lasted about two days. The judge found that although the effects of Klieg Eye were well-known to experienced film actors, they were not known to the crowd performers. He ruled against Criterion Films because the system they used to make a good film had caused the injury to Miss Crawford. But he did not find any case against Mr Krampf as he did not have control of the lighting.
He awarded Peggy Crawford £126 19s (today worth about £10,500) with costs, and he also ordered Criterion Films to pay Gunter Krampf’s costs.
Who was Peggy Crawford?
She was born as Florence Amelia Crawford on 9 November 1909 in Islington. By the time of the 1911 census the family was living in Purves Road Kensal Rise. Her father Edward James Crawford was a porter for the hosiery trade. He joined up when WWI broke out, and sadly he was killed in Flanders in 1917. Her mother, also called Florence Amelia married Walter Davey, a bus conductor, in 1919 and they continued to live at 122 Purves Road.
In April 1925 Florence (Peggy) Crawford, aged 17, married Robert Charles Kennedy Russell. Known as Kenndy Russell he was a successful composer and the musical director of the orchestra at the Capitol Theatre in Haymarket, which opened as a super cinema with 1,550 seats in February 1925. At the time Peggy was working there as a programme seller. At 57 Russell was much older than Peggy and had been married before.
It seems his divorce was not amicable, and one newspaper reported that special police protection was required when he and Peggy married at the St Martin’s register office as there had been threats of a hostile demonstration; but nothing materialised. Five police men held back the crowd in the street to allow the couple to get into a car and drive away. His former wife Ellen May (nee Boult) Kennedy Russell, married Geoffrey Bracey, a solicitor from Great Yarmouth on 25 September 1925 in Hampstead.
Kennedy Russell and Peggy had two daughters and lived at 19 Haslemere Avenue Hendon until the marriage broke down in 1949. The following year Peggy married Cyril Marcus Leuw a motorcar salesman from West Hampstead and they lived at 22 Cholmley Gardens. They divorced and in 1965 Cyril married again.
Kennedy Russell moved to 116 Wood Lane Kingsbury with his daughter, and he died in March 1954. Peggy died in October 1995 in the Mayfield Residential Home in Harrow.
You can watch ‘The Amateur Gentleman’ here on YouTube. The ballroom scenes start at 1 hour 4 mins.
Comments
Post a Comment