William Boyd - The New Confessions

I changed trains at Earl’s Court and waited for a nonstopper Inner Circle Line to King’s Cross. I was still with Superb-Imperial, now one of two senior cameramen, and Raymond Maude had promised me that I should direct my first film “soon.” As I recalled this assurance, I frowned. This was one of the few irritants that were marring the banal placidity of my life. Maude had rejected my last four outlines for films. “Simply not Superb-Imperial,” he had said regretfully. He meant it. I knew he was fond of me. “Look what Harry’s doing,” Maude always said. “Take your lead from him.” And that was another irritant. Life did not seem so placid after all. “Harry” was Harold Faithfull, Maude’s — and Superb-Imperial’s — most successful director.…

I cracked open my paper. “Viscount Curzon said that the government only had nine flying aeroplanes in contrast to eighty-five possessed by the United States government.” I was going to present Maude with another idea today, one of Sonia’s. “Be sensible,” she had said. She was right. Her idea, the film I was going to propose, was called — I could hardly bring myself to utter the title— Wee MacGregor Wins the Sweepstakes .

Sonia … Sonia Todd, née Shorrold. I can see her now as she was then, with her short black hair held in place by clasps, parted like a curtain to reveal her oval face. The faintly puzzled expression that her round tortoiseshell spectacles gave her. The enigmatic expression was misleading. Sonia in those days had a certainty of intent and a clearness of purpose that I found immensely reassuring.

We had both started at Superb-Imperial in the same week. Her father sold chemicals to the film-developing labs there and managed to get her a job in the film-perforating department. She was bright and dexterous and was shortly moved to the editing rooms, where she became a film joiner. Our status as new employees brought us together. Soon, once or twice a week, we would go for a meal at the grill rooms round the corner from the studio.

Sonia was my age, a month or two younger. In those days she was quite a big girl, still soft, it seemed, with pubertal puppy fat. She was small-breasted with heavy hips and legs, but was always neat and tidy and dressed thoughtfully in dark colors, greens and blues. Her central parting was white and straight; her hair fell away from it in glossy brown waves. She was not pretty, exactly, but there was a quality about her I found alluring. Perhaps it was the spectacles, which she was obliged to wear for her work and reading. She reminded me of a spruced-up Huguette. And it was that association that encouraged me to ask her out one evening. We went to see Secrets at the Comedy Theatre, which she much enjoyed. I took her home to her parents’ house in Fulham, and so our relationship progressed in its utterly conventional and inevitable way.

I left the train at King’s Cross and took the Piccadilly Line one stop to York Road. She loved the theater, did Sonia, and the cinema. She was deeply affected by what she saw on stage and screen, wholly engrossed in the drama. I do not think I have ever observed such an eager, total and committed suspension of disbelief. Which was why, I suppose, she became so good at her job. She quit the editing department and was appointed a title writer for Superb-Imperial’s two-reelers. She was very good. She had an instinctive feel for the exact clichéd expression that was unsurpassed. She had to leave her job when her pregnancy advanced, but Maude told her she could have it back whenever she was ready.

Superb-Imperial’s studios were off the Caledonian Road in a converted automobile engineering works. There were two large stages, where the old workshops had been, and where the corrugated asbestos roofing had been replaced by glass. In an alley at the back were the darkrooms, printing and chemical labs, carpenters’ workshops, scenery docks, dressing rooms, a buffet, a greenroom, and the clerical and accounting offices. Everything required for the production of films.

I arrived at Superb-Imperial in its heyday. Raymond Maude had started making films before the war (backed by investments from his wife, Rosita). He had made his money and reputation on a stream of two-reelers, two series of which proved inexhaustibly successful. These were the Anna series — Anna the Milkmaid, Anna Goes on Holiday, Anna Falls in Love , etc., etc. — and the Fido series, about, naturally, a dog— Fido Saves Baby, Fido at Sea, Fido Falls in Love , etc., etc. It is impossible for me to convey just how truly deplorable these films were. It seems to me now quite inconceivable that anyone should actually pay money to see them, but they did, in their droves, and Maude and Superb Films prospered. In 1918 he bought Imperial films for its studio space and Superb-Imperial was born. Maude still churned out two-reelers, but he had ambitions to make feature-length films. He was a shrewd enough man, was Maude. After the war he hired Harold Faithfull (at five thousand pounds a year) and bought a lot of film stock from the WOCC — hence his connection with Donald Verulam — and produced a seven-reel action-adventure war film called Steady the Buffs . Eighteen months later, when I joined, it was still playing in cinemas up and down the country. Emboldened by this success, Maude created a stock company of actors and started making longer versions of his two-reelers. Gertie Royston, who had played Anna for years, became a real star. Faithfull directed her in Summer Skies , a ghastly sentimental tale about Anna on holiday saving some drowning lad who turns out to be Lord Fortesque’s son and … I cannot bear to go on. In any event, you will understand why my own suggestions were being turned down. Maude was not cynical: he was immensely proud of his company of actors. (You will have heard of some of them: Warwick Sheffield, Alma Urban, Alec Neame and Flora de Solla were the most celebrated. There were others. For the record: Harry Bliss, Violet Scott-Brown, Ivo Keene, and a dreadful old soak called Elwin Hulcup, a has-been music hall comedian who was tolerated because he owned Fido, the famous dog.)

The first film I shot — Maude himself directing — was a Fido two-reeler called Fido at the Wheel . It was shamefully dire, but I did not care. I was thrilled, excited, intensely grateful to be working. I loved the Islington studio. I was in awe of the actors and actresses. I gawped at Warwick Sheffield’s sophistication; I thought Alma Urban the most sensuously beautiful woman I had ever seen. To be allowed to mingle with these luminaries was a fabulous privilege. It did not last. When I heard Harry Bliss’s anecdotes for the third time it took a massive effort to keep the smile pasted on my face. It was not long before I detected a faint but unmistakable West Country burr beneath Flora de Solla’s “French” accent. Warwick Sheffield borrowed five pounds from me one evening after filming and never paid me back.… No matter. For a year or so I was entranced. I filmed Anna Learns to Fly, Anna Triumphant! and Fido’s Fortune and many more. Then Maude teamed me up with Faithfull and we made two 7-reelers: Sanctuary with Alec Neame and Alma Urban, and Taboo starring Reggie Fitzhamon, Flora de Solla and Ivy Pridelle. I learned my trade. Panorams, Akeley shots. How to deploy effectively the electric lights when London fogs made daylight filming difficult: the mercury vapor lamps, the sunlight arcs, the tilts, toplights and spotlights. I was happy; not even Faithfull could disturb me.

Of course Faithfull had not been pleased at my arrival. “We wondered what had become of you, Todd,” he said. His attitude was always cool, though we worked well enough together as a team. But when I saw how complacently Faithfull directed (he was at the height of his renown in the years immediately following the war), I began to have ambitions to direct myself. I went regularly to the cinema, to American and European films, and I soon realized how deficient Superb-Imperial’s product was in almost every area. I worked out a story about a young officer returning from prisoner-of-war camp to find that his fiancée has married his best friend. He tries to be brave and cope with the shocking disappointment, but, to their dismay, the two ex-lovers find their passion renewing itself. The hero ends up with two choices: kill his best friend or himself. He opts for suicide to preserve his fiancée’s happiness. I called it Love’s Sacrifice .