Denham Studios Biography

The summer or 1938 was fine and sunny although all of Europe was becoming increasingly concerned about Germany's threat to peace. But in Hollywood, United Artists were more concerned that Korda's films (which they distributed) were not making much profit and they asked for an independent report about the 'goings on' at Denham. This highlighted the fact that the Prudential had already advanced Korda £2 million, in addition to which there was the 20,000 weekly payroll. If the money supply stopped now the whole studio would shut down overnight. Alex was well aware of this and spent all his days closeted with the men from the Pru. But by this time the Prudential had had enough and they took control of the studio, placing one of their accountants in charge, as well as their own studio manager. An agreement was reached whereby Alex could continue with his film making but only as a tenant, and at his own expense.

Instead of being downcast, Alex was greatly relieved. He could now concentrate on being a full time producer and leave the Pru to sort out Denham's financial problems. I was quite unaware of this management drama at the time, until things started to change.

Amalgamation
The men from the Pru acted very swiftly and immediately went to Alex's rivals at Pinewood who included Charles Boot and J. Arthur Rank, offering them Denham as a going concern if they wished to acquire more floor space. In the event a merger was proposed and a new company formed called Denham and Pinewood Studios Ltd. This meant that Pinewood's financial liabilities were added to those of Denham. It was 1944 before Rank was in a position to repay the outstanding debts and buy out the Prudential. It's doubtful that Korda would have been able to do this.

The amalgamation signalled the end of pre-war filming at Pinewood as it was decided to confine all productions to Denham in an effort to balance the books. Denham was swamped with productions all being made on a very strict budget. Producers included several American companies such as MGM, Columbia, Fox, Paramount, also Herbert Wilcox. The hours of work became more regular; whereas Alex liked to commence filming at around midday and continue well into the night, we were now enjoying a lifestyle of 8.30 until 6.30 with overtime paid after 60 hours per week.

Alex was now able to concentrate all his energy into completing The Four Feathers. Having finished what was a prolonged and difficult dubbing session he went to Hollywood with a rough print of the film. Fortunately for him it was well received and on the strength of a single studio screening he was offered a loan of $4 million. The Four Feathers turned out to be a box office success on both sides of the Atlantic and is probably the best remembered London Film. It was remade as Storm Over The Nile in 1955 using much of the earlier location footage.

Thief Of Bagdad
Alex was a movie genius once more with enough money in the bank to continue filming. Whilst in Hollywood he was impressed with Mervyn Leroy's Wizard Of Oz and decided to launch an Arabian fantasy called The Thief Of Bagdad which turned out to be his most expensive film venture at Denham. Alex's old friend Lajos Biro wrote the original scenario which contained a lot of special effects. These included a huge genie growing out of a small bottle, and a magic carpet which flew across the world. These were difficult to achieve in TechniColour in 1939 but the genie was filmed flying through the air nearly 40 years before Superman!

This was the first time that the Blue Backing system of double image photography was used at Denham, gaining the film an Oscar. The cast included Sabu, Conrad Veight, John Justin and June Duprez. Vincent constructed some very large sets on the 'City Square' lot, so called because Everytown City was built there for Things To Come. The Iraqi port of Basra took shape with a large Arab sailing ship on wheels (the harbour water was only a few inches deep) pulled into the harbour by tractor. Vincent had used this idea before during Sanders Of The River.

When shooting commenced with director Ludwig Berger, Alex was in the South of France where he had gone to marry Merle Oberon. Upon learning of the worsening international situation, he came back to Denham straight away. Berger had turned the film into a musical operetta, adding the artistes voices into prescored music. Alex dismissed Berger and engaged Michael Powell with instructions to make a 'proper' film. So on 3rd September 1939 (which was a Sunday) a large unit was at work on the Basra set. When Alex heard that war had been declared, he stopped all shooting and put the extras to work filling sandbags to protect the studio entrance against expected air assault - which did not materialise.

Wartime Denham
One of the first actions the Government took was to close all places of entertainment. Since Rank owned about 600 cinemas at the time, it caused him financial hardship. Although the closure was short lived, the supply of new American films was severely curtailed. Alex hastily put together a low budget film with a patriotic theme called The Lion Has Wings, financing it himself by cashing in life assurance policies. The film extolled the virtues of the Royal Air Force and was in the cinemas only eight weeks after shooting began. Made without any Government support it was an instant success. Churchill praised it as an excellent morale booster. Hitler threatened to bomb the studio which made it but told Goering to see the film to show him what his Luftwaffe was up against.

This was Alex's last appearance at Denham, having decided to complete Thief Of Bagdad in Hollywood. Vincent went ahead to prepare all the sets and Zoli was given the task of completing the film as Alex had grown tired of it. Whilst in Hollywood Alex made That Hamilton Woman with Vivien Leigh as Lady Hamilton and Laurence Olivier as Lord Nelson. It was a successful film on both sides of the Atlantic, and was the first non-Soviet film to be given general distribution in Russia. In Leningrad audiences queued for hours.

Alex's departure for America was ostensibly to continue film production and ensure that London Films were earning dollars to pay for American imports. But Churchill, who by then was Prime Minister of the new coalition Government, suggested that Alex use his offices in New York and Los Angeles as a cover to house secret agents who were finding it difficult working in neutral America. This would give Churchill an independent source of information on American policy, with perhaps Alex himself as courier. Alex nervously agreed, although he was worried in case his activities were uncovered by the FBI and then deported for espionage.

When Alex next returned to wartime England he leaned that Churchill had placed his name on the King's Birthday Honours list for a Knighthood. So much to the astonishment of the rest of the film industry he became Sir Alexander Korda in September 1942 - no doubt in recognition of his clandestine activities rather than his prestige as a dollar earning film producer.

Meanwhile the new Ministry of Aircraft Production was looking for suitable premises to requisition for the assembling of fighter aircraft. Denham Studios looked extremely promising. However Hungarian producer Gabriel Pascal was in the middle of making a film version of George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara so the studios won a reprieve. Not so Pinewood which was taken over as an emergency food supply centre. The Army and Air Force film units also moved in together with the Crown Film Unit which was formed from the old GPO Film Unit. The Royal Mint also invaded Pinewood, setting up a plant for producing copper coins.

A large number of memorable films were made at Denham during the war including One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing and 49th Parallel by Powell and Pressburger. Production was no longer dominated by American companies. MGM's Goodbye Mr. Chips in 1939 was the last, and new British companies were formed to augment Rank's production programme. A refugee from Mussolini called Philippo Del Giudice formed Two Cities Films (referring to London and Rome), his recipe for success being to spend money. He went to Noel Coward and persuaded him to make a film about HMS Kelly, Mountbatten's destroyer which had been sunk off Crete. Coward agreed providing he retained artistic control and played the lead. The result was a black and white production called In Which We Serve, one of the most successful British war films. It took over $2 million in America alone. Del Giudice went on to make This Happy Breed and Blithe Spirit in TechniColour from Coward's novels and in 1944 produced Shakespeare's Henry V with Laurence Olivier. It cost 475,000 to make but it earned it all back and more.

Another production company, Cineguild, made the well remembered Dickensian film Great Expectations in black and white. One must remember that there were only four TechniColour three-strip cameras in the country. Cineguild also produced Brief Encounter which was one of the most popular British films at the time, with people queuing for hours. Gabriel Pascal was engaged in making Caesar and Cleopatra which cost a staggering 1,400,000. This included the building of ancient Alexandria on lot and location shooting in Egypt. It was even rumoured that Pascal had English sand transported to Egypt so that the colour would match! The last wartime film made at Denham was Powell and Pressburger's A Matter Of Life And Death (known in the US as Stairway To Heaven). It was given a Royal Premiere in 1946, the first of what was to become an annual event.

Finale
Herbert Smith had been previously working at Beaconsfield Studios for some time when in 1945 he accepted an offer from Two Cities Films to join them at Denham. He was Executive in charge of productions with a splendid office on the first floor overlooking the entrance. Herbert Smith, who was the brother of the late Sam Smith, founder of British Lion Films, was a well known figure in the British film industry with which he has been connected for many years. Smith continued to control productions at Denham till it closed in 1950. (©Barrie Smith)

The end of the war allowed Pinewood to be de-requisitioned and the studios re-opened for film making in April 1946. Rank now had more floor space than he could possible use, together with increased overheads. After producing several films including Green For Danger, Black Narcissus and Red Shoes, it soon became clear that Pinewood's production costs were lower than those at Denham. This was put down to the fact that Pinewood was compact design with stages grouped around a central construction area. Denham was a long line of stages with all the workshops located at one end. It was fortunate at this time that some of the money earned in England by American films was frozen and so production companies like Disney and 20th Century Fox returned to make films at Denham. Alexander Korda had also returned to organise a large production programme for MGM, not at Denham but at Amalgamated Studios in Borehamwood which MGM had recently purchased. But Alex fell out with his MGM bosses even before the studio was opened.

J. Arthur Rank was having serious financial problems with his organisation and was anxious to be rid of Denham entirely. Films no longer needed the huge studios. They could be made just as easily on location as equipment became more portable. It was only a matter of time before Denham was shut down for feature film production. The stages became neglected and the offices the home of Rank Xerox. The only film making tenant was Anvil Films, a company forged out of the disbanded Crown Film Unit, who installed cutting rooms and a dubbing theatre. They also used one of the stages as a music recording studio.

But Alex's star was still shining. He was enjoying his knighthood which he had received from King George VI, and was about to pull off yet another financial coup. He sold his shares in United Artists for $1 million (they had cost him nothing), bought back his earlier films from the Prudential, re-constituted London Films with a government loan of 2 million, and went into production at Shepperton where he had acquired a controlling interest in British Lion. He also bought a mansion in Piccadilly near Hyde Park Corner, which had belonged to King George VI when he was Duke Of York, for use as London offices. A post war Rolls Royce was parked outside. After a further injection of cash from the National Film Finance Board, using taxpayer's money, the all too familiar pattern of huge losses occurred, This was in spite of some successful films like The Third Man, The Sound Barrier, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Anna Karenina.

But Alex's health had been failing for some time and he collapsed at a Hollywood dinner party in 1946. He died of a massive heart attack in January 1956 at the age of only 63 years.

Epilogue
Denham was finally sold to a developer in the late 1970s who then processed to demolish the entire studios. The scene resembled some wartime carnage with twisted steel girders and piles of rubble. The wreckers had achieved in peace time what Hitler had threatened many years earlier, and Alex's dream film factory now lay in ruins. Today there is no visible sign of the Korda empire in bricks and mortor; the famous offices at 144-146 Picadilly were pulled down years ago in the redevelopment of Hyde Park Corner. It was as if the Korda's had never been.

Copyright© John Aldred FBKS. Association of Motion Picture Sound.