In 1920, with just one more year to live, Jupp sold Twickenham Studios
to the Alliance Company for £35,000. The newly-formed Alliance
Company then spent a further £23,000 on installing new lighting
equipment. Alliance hired excellent actors including Ivor Novello, Gladys
Cooper, Ellen Terry and C. Aubrey Smith to appear in The Bohemian Girl
(1922). Both this film and the subsequent Carnival (1922) did extremely
well at the box-office, but its success came too late to save Alliance;
the company went out of business in 1922. Between 1923 and 1928, the
studios were leased or rented to various film companies.
There was a further change at Twickenham in 1927. Henry Edwards joined
up with producer Julius Hagen and
together they found their own company; Neo-Art. Hagen and Edwards proceeded
to hire Twickenham Studios and in 1928 formed Twickenham Film Studios
Limited, with Hagen firmly at the helm. Twickenham Film Studios Limited's
first production under the banner of Strand Pictures was a silent comedy,
Ringing The Changes (1929). During the 1930s, Twickenham's output was
dominated by the need to produce the notorious `quota quickies'. Nevertheless,
these low-budget productions provided a valuable training ground for
producers, directors, artists and technicians. Considering that Twickenham
was just a one-stage studio with an outside lot, Hagen produced an amazing
number of films there, many belying the customary low quality associated
with `quota quickies'.
British production went through a particularly difficult period in
the late 1930s, and Twickenham, along with a number of other studios,
found itself on the verge of collapse. Hagen tried hard to save his
studios and the Westminster Bank called in the receivers in January
1937. The studio was sold quickly and perhaps too cheaply to the Studio
Holdings Trust who immediately loaned it back to Hagen. Hagen struggled
to produce a few more films, but he was already in the hands of the
moneylenders and by 1938 the studio was closed. Hagen died a ruined
man one year later.
