Film Weekly was one of the leading popular film magazines published in the United Kingdom during the late 1920s and 1930s.
Film Weekly was one of the leading popular film magazines published in the United Kingdom during the late 1920s and 1930s.
Launched in 1928, the magazine became known for its gossipy interest in contemporary film stars. Columnist Nerina Shute became known for her "sweetly poisonous copy". [1]
Film Weekly attracted a number of lawsuits from film professionals displeased at their portrayal by the magazine. The director Dinah Shurey sued for libel after her film The Last Post (1929) was not only panned in review but followed by an article by Shute questioning whether women were capable of directing films at all. [2] Shurey won the action. The actress Alma Taylor also sued and won when Film Weekly said in 1932 that her career as an actress was over. [3]
In 1930 the magazine sponsored a pair of film acting scholarships. The two winners (Cyril Butcher and Aileen Despard) went on to appear in the now lost Alfred Hitchcock short An Elastic Affair but did not subsequently enjoy lengthy careers, despite being placed under contract by British International Pictures.
Film Weekly merged with fan magazine Picturegoer in 1939. [4] For much of its life it was edited by Herbert Thompson.
The magazine held an annual reader ballot to determine the best film of the year and the best performance by an actor or actress in a British film. For 1936 these were won by The Ghost Goes West and Nova Pilbeam (for Tudor Rose ) respectively. [5]
Film Weekly features in the establishing shots of the film Rome Express (1932). [6]
Beryl Ingham was the wife and manager of singer/actor George Formby, as well as being a variety performer and champion clogdancer.
Mabel Lilian Poulton was an English film actress, popular in Britain during the era of silent films.
Hugh Anthony Glanmor Williams was a British actor and dramatist of Welsh descent.
Victoria Hopper was a Canadian-born British stage and film actress and singer.
Frederick Penrose "Pen" Tennyson was a British film director whose promising career was cut short when he died in a plane crash. Tennyson gained experience as an assistant director to Alfred Hitchcock in several of his British films during the 1930s. Tennyson directed three films between 1939 and his death in 1941.
Matthew Sweet is an English journalist, broadcaster, author, and cultural historian. A graduate of the University of Oxford, he has been interviewed on many documentaries about television for the BBC and Channel 4.
Nerina Shute was an English writer and journalist, described by the Sunday Times as "the amazingly colourful, brilliant and bisexual film critic".
Thomas Bentley was a British film director. He directed 68 films between 1912 and 1941. He directed three films in the early DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process, The Man in the Street (1926), The Antidote (1927), and Acci-Dental Treatment (1928).
Sally in Our Alley is a 1931 British romantic comedy drama film directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Gracie Fields, Ian Hunter, and Florence Desmond. It is based on the 1923 West End play The Likes of Her by Charles McEvoy.
The Last Post is a lost 1929 British silent drama film directed by Dinah Shurey and starring John Longden, Frank Vosper and Alf Goddard. The film was the first solo directorial venture by Shurey, who was the only female producer and director working in the British film industry at the time. It also became the main source of a libel action launched by Shurey against the magazine Film Weekly. A sound version was release in January 1930. While the sound version had no audible dialog except for an newly filmed epilogue, it featured a synchronized musical score with sound effects
Renee Gertrude Gadd was an Argentine-born British film actress. She acted mostly in British films.
White Face is a 1932 British crime film directed by T. Hayes Hunter and starring Hugh Williams, Gordon Harker and Renee Gadd. The film is based on a play by Edgar Wallace.
Margherita Cecilia Brigida Lucia Maria Albanesi was a British stage and film actress.
Autumn Crocus is a 1931 play by the British writer Dodie Smith. It was Smith's first play written under the pseudonym of C.L. Anthony. It follows a single schoolteacher who goes on holiday to the Tyrol and falls in love with the married owner of the hotel in which she is staying.
John Marlborough East (1860–1924) was a British stage and film actor. He was an early film star who received over 3,000 votes in Picturegoer magazine's 1916 contest to establish the "Greatest British Film Player". He was a founder of the Neptune Studios in Borehamwood, which is today the site of Elstree Studios. However, his career rapidly declined. He made his final picture Owd Bob in 1924, and died the same year.
Mr. Wu is a 1919 British drama film directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Matheson Lang, Roy Royston, Lillah McCarthy and Meggie Albanesi. It was based on a 1913 play Mr. Wu by Maurice Vernon and Harold Owen. During the filming Albanesi became infatuated with Lang. The picture was made by Stoll Pictures, and was one of their first major successes. Lon Chaney played the title role in a 1927 remake. The screenplay concerns a Chinese Mandarin who murders his daughter.
Cocaine is a 1922 British crime film directed by Graham Cutts and starring Hilda Bayley, Flora Le Breton, Ward McAllister and Cyril Raymond. It depicts the distribution of cocaine by gangsters through a series of London nightclubs and the revenge a man seeks after his daughter's death.
Violet Hopson was an actress and producer who achieved fame on the British stage and in British silent films. She was born Elma Kate Victoria Karkeek in Port Augusta, South Australia on 16 December 1887. Violet Hopson was her stage name, while in childhood she was known as Kate or Kitty to her family.
Spanish Eyes is a 1930 British musical film directed by G. B. Samuelson and starring Anthony Ireland, Donald Calthrop and Dennis Noble. It had a gypsy theme and was made at Twickenham Studios in West London. The film was made at night, to allow other more important productions to use the studio in the daytime - a common practice at Twickenham during the era.
Dinah Shurey was a British film producer and director of the late 1920s. She is most famously known for her 1929 film The Last Post. Additional credits to her name include Afraid of Love (1925), Second to None (1926), Every Mother's Son (1926), Carry On (1927). Shurey often calls upon themes surrounding the British war within her films, tending to take on a more melodramatic narrative style.
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