Cecil Milton Hepworth (19 March 1874 – 9 February 1953) was a British film director, producer and screenwriter. He was among the founders of the British film industry and continued making films into the 1920s at his Hepworth Studios. In 1923 his company

Hepworth Picture Plays Hepworth Picture Plays was a British film production company active during the silent era. Founded in 1897 by the cinema pioneer Cecil Hepworth, it was based at Walton Studios west of London. In February 1909 the company took part in the Paris Fi ...

went into

receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver—a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights"—especially in c ...

. His works include '' Alice in Wonderland'' (1903), the first film adaptation of

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

's children's book ''

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creature ...

''.

History

Hepworth was born in Lambeth, in present-day South London. His father, Thomas Cradock Hepworth, was a famous

magic lantern The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that used pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light source. Because a si ...

showman and author. Cecil Hepworth became involved in the early stages of British filmmaking, working for both

Birt Acres Birt Acres (23 July 1854 – 27 December 1918) was an American and British photographer and film pioneer. Among his contributions to the early film industry are the first working 35 mm camera in Britain (Wales), and ''Birtac'', the firs ...

and

Charles Urban Charles Urban (April 15, 1867 – August 29, 1942) was an Anglo-American film producer and distributor, and one of the most significant figures in British cinema before the First World War. He was a pioneer of the documentary, educational, propa ...

, and wrote the first British book on the subject in 1897. With his cousin Monty Wicks he set up the production company Hepworth and Co. (also known as "Hepwix" after the word mark in its trade logo), which was later renamed the Hepworth Manufacturing Company (officially: Hepworth Film Manufacturing Company), and then

. In 1899 they built a small film studio in

Walton-on-Thames Walton-on-Thames, locally known as Walton, is a market town on the south bank of the Thames in the Elmbridge borough of Surrey, England. Walton forms part of the Greater London built-up area, within the KT postcode and is served by a wide ran ...

, Hepworth Studios. The company produced about three films a week, sometimes with Hepworth directing. He was associated with Percy Stow from 1901-1903 who specialized in trick films. His film '' Rescued by Rover'' (1905), co-directed with Lewin Fitzhamon and starring a

collie Collies form a distinctive type of herding dogs, including many related landraces and standardized breeds. The type originated in Scotland and Northern England. Collies are medium-sized, fairly lightly-built dogs, with pointed snouts. Man ...

in the title role, was a huge financial success. The film is now regarded as an important development in film grammar, with shots being effectively combined to emphasize the action. Hepworth was also one of the first to recognize the potential of film stars, both animal and human, with several recurring characters appearing in his films. By 1910, Hepworth was also the inventor of Vivaphone, an early sound on disk system for adding sound to motion pictures. The device used phonograph records to record and play back the sound. Hepworth's vivaphone was distributed in Britain and also in the United States and Canada. The company continued making popular films into the 1920s, despite Hepworth's now unchanging and increasingly old-fashioned film style. Boosted by the international success of ''Alf's Button'' (1919), the company went

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...

to fund a large studio development. He failed to raise the necessary capital and, also suffering the box office failure of '' Comin' Thro the Rye'' (1923), the company went into

the next year. All of the original film negatives in Hepworth's possession were melted down by the receiver in order to sell the silver, and his feature films have been considered lost for many decades. However, an original 35mm. print of his 1920 film '' Helen of Four Gates'' was located in a film archive in

Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pe ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in 2008."''Helen of Four Gates'' to get screening after 80-year hiatus"
''The Guardian'', 31-05-2010. Retrieved 26-08-2010.

Selected filmography

* ''The Egg-Laying Man'' (1897) * ''

The Beggar's Deceit ''The Beggar's Deceit'' is a 1900 British short film directed by Cecil Hepworth Cecil Milton Hepworth (19 March 1874 – 9 February 1953) was a British film director, producer and screenwriter. He was among the founders of the British ...

'' (1900) * '' How It Feels to Be Run Over'' (1900) * '' Explosion of a Motor Car'' (1900) * Rough Sea (1900) * '' Alice in Wonderland'' (1903) * '' A Day in the Hayfields'' (1904) * '' Rescued by Rover'' (1905) * ''

Baby's Toilet ''Baby's Toilet'' is a 1905 British short film directed by Cecil Hepworth. The film features Hepworth's baby daughter Elizabeth being bathed and dressed by her nurse, and was categorised by Hepworth as a "Domestic Scene". In the film Hepworth ...

'' (1905) * '' The Jewel Thieves Outwitted'' (1913) * ''

David Copperfield ''David Copperfield'' Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work, see is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from inf ...

'' (1913) * '' The Cloister and the Hearth'' (1913) * '' Dr. Trimball's Verdict'' (1913) * '' The Baby on the Barge'' (1915) * '' The Man Who Stayed at Home'' (1915) * ''

Annie Laurie "Annie Laurie" is an old Scottish song based on a poem said to have been written by William Douglas (1682?–1748) of Dumfriesshire, about his romance with Annie Laurie (1682–1764). The words were modified and the tune was added by Alicia Sco ...

'' (1916) * '' Molly Bawn'' (1916) * ''

The Marriage of William Ashe ''The Marriage of William Ashe'' is a novel by Mary Augusta Ward that was the best-selling novel in the United States in 1905.(March 8, 1905)Books of the Day - The Marriage of William Ashe ''Boston Evening Transcript'' Hackett, Alice Payne (194 ...

'' (1916) * '' The Cobweb'' (1917) * ''

The American Heiress ''The American Heiress'' is a 1917 British silent crime film directed by Cecil M. Hepworth and starring Alma Taylor, Violet Hopson and Stewart Rome.Wintour p.173 Cast * Alma Taylor as Bessie * Violet Hopson Violet Hopson (16 December ...

'' (1917) * '' City of Beautiful Nonsense'' (producer) (1919) * '' The Refugee'' (1918) * ''

Broken in the Wars ''Broken in the Wars'' is a 1919 British silent drama film directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Henry Edwards, Chrissie White and Alma Taylor. The Pensions Minister John Hodge appeared in the film to promote the King's Fund, which support ...

'' (1919) * '' The Forest on the Hill'' (1919) * '' Helen of Four Gates'' (1920) * ''

The Narrow Valley ''The Narrow Valley'' is a 1921 British silent drama film directed by Cecil Hepworth. As of August 2010, the film is missing from the BFI National Archive, and is listed as one of the British Film Institute's " 75 Most Wanted" lost films. Cas ...

'' (1921) * ''

Tansy Tansy (''Tanacetum vulgare'') is a perennial, herbaceous flowering plant in the genus ''Tanacetum'' in the aster family, native to temperate Europe and Asia. It has been introduced to other parts of the world, including North America, and in ...

'' (1921) * ''

The Tinted Venus ''The Tinted Venus'' is a 1921 British silent fantasy film directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Alma Taylor, George Dewhurst and Maud Cressall.Palmer p.92 ''The Tinted Venus'' was based on the 1885 novella by F. Anstey (pseudonym of Thom ...

'' (1921) * ''

Wild Heather ''Wild Heather'' is a 1921 British drama film directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Chrissie White, Gerald Ames, James Carew and George Dewhurst. It was based on the 1917 play '' Wild Heather'' by Dorothy Brandon. Cast *Chrissie White as ...

'' (1921) * '' Comin' Thro the Rye'' (1923) * '' Strangling Threads'' (1923) * '' Mist in the Valley'' (1923)

Notes

References

*''Came the Dawn'', Cecil Hepworth. London: Phoenix House, 1951. *''Raising the Flag: Constructing a National Cinema in Britain'', Andrew Higson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995, . Chapter on ''Comin' Thro' The Rye'': pp. 26–97.

External links

Cecil Milton Hepworth
at Victorian-cinema.net * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hepworth, Cecil 1874 births 1953 deaths People from Lambeth English film directors English film producers English male screenwriters British cinema pioneers 20th-century English screenwriters 20th-century English male writers