| Helen of Four Gates | |
|---|---|
 Alma Taylor screenshot | |
| Directed by | Cecil Hepworth |
| Written by | Ethel Carnie Holdsworth (novel) |
| Starring | Alma Taylor James Carew Gerald Ames |
Production company | |
Release date |
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Running time | 64 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
Helen of Four Gates is a 1920 British silent melodrama film directed by cinema pioneer Cecil Hepworth and starring Alma Taylor (in a dual role as mother and daughter), James Carew, and Gerald Ames.
The film was adapted from a popular novel of the same name by Ethel Carnie Holdsworth and was shot on location on the Pennine moors around Heptonstall and Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, which Holdsworth had used as the setting for her novel. The film's intertitles were written in the original Yorkshire dialect of the novel.
For over 80 years Helen of Four Gates was believed to be irretrievably lost, until an original 35mm print was discovered in a film vault in Canada in 2007. [1]
Helen (Taylor) marries a young man who has poisoned her mind against her other suitor Abel Mason (Carew) by convincing her that there is hereditary madness in the Mason family. Within two years Helen's husband is dead and she is dying. She entrusts her baby daughter to Abel to bring up, as she has no family to call on. Abel agrees to take the baby, but Helen does not realise that it is out of desire to gain revenge on her for rejecting him rather than through any altruistic motive.
The baby (also called Helen) grows up believing Abel to be her father, and subject to his bullying and cruelty. As a young woman she meets Martin Scott (George Dewhurst), a student working as seasonal labour on a local farm. The pair fall in love, but Abel now tells Martin of the supposed madness in the Mason blood and Martin breaks off the engagement as a result. The despairing Helen tries without success to follow him over the moors. She is waylaid by Fielding Day (John MacAndrews), an itinerant acquaintance of Abel, who has entered into an agreement with Abel to marry Helen and make her as unhappy as possible, in return for a share in Abel's farm. Helen reluctantly agrees to the marriage as a means of stopping local gossip about how she was jilted by Martin.
A year passes and Helen finds herself trapped in a nightmare marriage while now also having to care for Abel, who has been paralysed by a stroke. She finally discovers that Abel is not her natural father, and in despair tries to drown herself but is rescued by a local farmer. At his home she finds Martin, who has returned to the area unable to forget her. They renew their courtship, but are seen together by Fielding, who beats Helen severely as punishment. Helen escapes from the house and takes flight with Martin onto the moors. Fielding pursues them and tries to shoot them, but is prevented from doing so by a local farm worker who has witnessed the scene and harbours a previous grudge against Fielding. A struggle ensues, during which Fielding falls from a rock and breaks his neck. Helen determines to leave Abel alone to his fate, as she and Martin start to make plans for their future.
On its release Helen of Four Gates was a big success both with cinemagoers and critics, with the evocative and brooding Pennine landscapes being particularly praised, and Taylor's status as the biggest female box-office draw in British cinema confirmed. At this time Hepworth's ambition was growing and he was taking risks, which in retrospect were deemed imprudent, to expand his studio set-up at Walton-on-Thames. By 1924 he had over-reached himself financially and, unable to meet the demands of creditors, was declared bankrupt. Administrators who were called in to wind up the company's affairs, and realise whatever assets they could, took the step of seizing all of Hepworth's film stock and melting it down to release its marketable silver nitrate content. [2]
Almost all of Hepworth's feature film output of the 1910s and early 1920s has for many decades been assumed to be lost forever, but searches and appeals to cinema archive facilities and private collectors worldwide continue to be made, notably by the British Film Institute National Archive. In the case of Helen of Four Gates, this finally bore fruit in 2007 when an original print was found in the vaults of the Cinémathèque québécoise in Montreal. A clip and a panorama of stills were shown to an audience in Hebden Bridge in August 2008, the first known public screening of any of the material since the 1920s. [3] The first showing of the entire film took place in June 2010, again in Hebden Bridge, followed by a screening by the BFI in London in August 2010. The print is now held in the BFI National Archive. [2]
A critical evaluation of the film from a 21st-century perspective by Bryony Dixon notes: "Hepworth's penchant for the British picturesque and the location shooting and composition are the film's strongest points. The scenes on the hilltops are stunning, composed with receding skylines in deep focus in the best tradition of Victorian photography." However she also observes: "the film feels slightly old fashioned due to Hepworth's unusual editing style which had not followed what was by then the accepted standards of film grammar. The continuity is occasionally spoiled by Hepworth's refusal to cut on action...despite sterling efforts by Alma Taylor and particularly James Carew, the performers are left floundering and resort to a gestural melodramatic manner on occasions." [4]
Hebden Bridge is a market town in the Calderdale district of West Yorkshire, England. It is in the Upper Calder Valley, 8 miles (13 km) west of Halifax and 14 miles (21 km) north-east of Rochdale, at the confluence of the River Calder and the Hebden Water. The town is the largest settlement in the civil parish of Hebden Royd.
Cecil Milton Hepworth 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 went into receivership.
Ethel Holdsworth was a working-class British writer, feminist, and socialist activist from Lancashire. A poet, journalist, children's writer and author, she was the first working-class woman in Britain to publish a novel and is a rare example of a female working-class novelist. She published at least ten novels during her lifetime.
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.
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Tansy is a 1921 British silent drama film directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Alma Taylor, Gerald Ames and James Carew. The film was based on a popular rural novel of the time by Tickner Edwardes, and was filmed largely on location on the Sussex Downs.
Lily of the Alley is a 1924 British silent film drama directed by Henry Edwards, who also starred in the film with his wife Chrissie White. Lily of the Alley was filmed in 1922 and given trade showings in early 1923, but its general release to cinemas was delayed until February 1924 due to various problems within the British film industry at the time.
The Baby on the Barge is a 1915 British silent film drama directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Alma Taylor and Stewart Rome. No print of the film is known to survive and it is presumed lost.
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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.
The House of Marney is a 1927 British silent crime film directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Alma Taylor, John Longden and James Carew. It was based on a novel by John Goodwin.
The Forest on the Hill is a 1919 British silent crime film directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Alma Taylor, James Carew and Gerald Ames. It was based on a novel by Eden Phillpotts.
Eileen Dennes was an Irish-born actress of the silent era.
Mist in the Valley is a 1923 British silent crime film directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Alma Taylor, G. H. Mulcaster and James Carew. It was based on a novel by Dorin Craig.
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.
Alf's Button is a 1920 British silent fantasy comedy film directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Leslie Henson, Alma Taylor and Gerald Ames. It was based on the 1920 novel Alf's Button by William Darlington. The film is about a British soldier who discovers a magic coat button which summons a genie to grant his various wishes. It was remade as a sound film in 1930.
Sheba is a 1919 British silent drama film directed by Cecil M. Hepworth and starring Alma Taylor, Gerald Ames and James Carew. The film is notable for an early appearance of Ronald Colman in a small part. It was made by Hepworth Pictures at Walton Studios.
The Nature of the Beast is a 1919 British silent drama film directed by Cecil M. Hepworth and starring Alma Taylor, Gerald Ames and James Carew. The screenplay concerns a Belgian refugee who marries a British aircraft manufacturer. It was based on a 1918 novel of the same title by E. Temple Thurston.
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