early cinema || smith versus melbourne-cooper: history and counter-history

Smith versus Melbourne-Cooper: History and Counter-HistoryAuthor(s): Frank GraySource: Film History, Vol. 11, No. 3, Early Cinema (1999), pp. 246-261Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3815201 .

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Film History, Volume 11, pp. 246-261, 1999. Copyright C John Libbey & Company ISSN: 0892-2160. Printed in Malaysia

Smith versus Melbourne-Cooper: History and Counter-History Frank Gray

T his article is an attemptto resolve a dispute over the authorship of a number of films made in England between 1900 and 1 902. Dominant history-'official' history

- has always identified these seven films - Grandma's Reading Glass (1900), As Seen Through the Telescope (1900), The Old Maid's Valentine (1900), The House That Jack Built (1900), The Little Doctor (1901), The Sick Kitten (1 901) - a short version of The Little Doctor- and At Last! That Awful Tooth (1 902) - as the work of George Albert Smith of Hove. However, an alter- native interpretation has developed since 1955. In that year at an exhibition in London on film history, Audrey Wadowska, the daughter of Arthur Melbourne-Cooper, identified members of her family in frame stills from films labelled by the exhibition's curators as the work of Smith.1 This discovery set her on a mission to have her father recognised as the producer of these films and for this to be acknowledged by organisations like the British Film Institute and by the community of early film historians.

In 1978, Wadowska attended the Brighton FIAF Congress to advance her cause but met only indifference. She would find a true champion in the Dutch journalist, Tjitte de Vries. To this day, he has promoted the Melbourne-Cooper claim, arguing that this filmmaker has been, 'wronged by film history'. So far, their campaign has achieved one very prominent success. The Museum of Modern Art Film Archive in New York records Grandma's Read- ing Glass, number 9890, as the product of the

Alpha Trading Company and its producer, Arthur Melbourne-Cooper. Eileen Bowser, the eminent early film historian and archivist, acknowledged this re-attribution by introducing the film as the work of Melbourne-Cooper at the 1994 Domitor Con- ference in New York. She did this, she told me, because no one had challenged the Wadowska/de Vries version of history.

Only one print of Grandma's Reading Glass is extant. Itwas discovered in Denmark in 1 960 and duplicates of it have been acquired by a number of archives, including the Museum of Modern Art and the National Film & Television Archive at the British Film Institute. At the NFTVA, however, the film is attributed to Smith. It is conceivable that both Mel- bourne-Cooper and Smith each made their own version of this film. If so, whose film has survived?

Grandma's Reading Glass is a very significant early film as it is central to the evolution of film form. Only 88 feet of the advertised original film length of 100 feet has survived, but it contains 11 separate shots and all the action described in contemporary catalogues. As Grandmother sews, her grandson examines a number of objects with her reading, or magnifying, glass. These five objects, in their order

Frank Gray is Curator of the South East Film & Video Archive at the University of Brighton, Eng- land. His research is devoted to pre-cinema and early cinema in Sussex. Please address corre- spondence to University of Brighton, Grand Pa- rade, Brighton, BN2 2JY, England. E-mail: [email protected]



Smith versus Melbourne-Cooper 247

of appearance in the film, are a newspaper, the mechanism of a pocket watch, a canary in a bird cage, Grandma's eye and a tabby cat's head. Each object is depicted within a circular matte. What makes this film so important is its demonstration of a new concept of film editing. Each object was effectively shot in close-up and positioned within a mastershot depicting the interactions of the Grand- mother and Grandson. Each time the boy selects an object to view with her glass, an edit occurs to reveal his point-of-view and, accordingly, the object of his gaze. These logical transitions from the master shot - an objective point-of-view shot - to the close-up-a subjective point-of-view shot- and back to the master shot were the product of an innovatory understanding of continuity editing. This film renounced the conventions of a theatrical perspective - the fixed view from the stalls - which had been the dominant model for film production up to 1 900. In its place was a filmic understanding of space and time which could reveal a new sub- jectivity. We share in the vicarious pleasure of en- tering into this fictional world. Grandma's Reading Glass, in effect, expressed a revolutionary newform of visual representation because of its embrace of multiple perspective within a comprehensible lin- ear narrative. As Seen Through the Telescope, The House That Jack Built, The Little Doctor and At Last! That Awful Tooth also possess the same interpola- tive use of close-ups. To identify positively the author of Grandma's Reading Glass, is to acknow- ledge one of the great pioneers of the cinema.

The Wadowska/de Vries case The Wadowska/de Vries case for Melbourne- Cooper is outlined in three editions of KINtop, the German early film journal.2 In the major article, Arthur Melbourne-Cooper, Film Pioneer. Wronged by Film History, de Vries sets out a numberof claims, largely based on interviews with family and friends and photographic evidence. Except for a single photograph of the filmmaker's mother and brief extracts from the interviews, none of this evidence has been published either in KIN- top or elsewhere. I have not had access to this material. No reference is made by deVries to either contemporary business records or publications from 1 900 to 1 903 which can validate their case.

There are seven specific claims devoted to the identification of the cast in some of these films. These are derived from photographic evidence and reminiscences from Melbourne-Cooper and some of the cast.

i. the Grandmother in Grandma's Reading Glass was played by Bertha Cooper, the filmmaker's sister 3

ii. the Grandmother's eye was the eye of Mrs. Thomas Cooper, the filmmaker's mother4

iii. the boy in the film was Albert Massey5

iv. in The House that Jack Built, the children are played by Mary and Ralph Massey6

v. in The Little Doctor, as in The Sick Kitten, the children are played by Beatrice Massey and George Barnes7

vi. in The Old Maid's Valentine, 'The actor (playing in drag, as was the custom) was hired from a London agent'.8

vii. the Melbourne-Cooper family's Manx kit- tens appear in Grandma's Reading Glass, The Little Doctor and The Sick Kitten9

The use of the same folding screen, the filmmakers' statements and the Smith negative from Grandma's Reading Glass are further 'proofs' for Wadowska/de Vries. The folding screen appears in Grandma's Reading Glass, The House that Jack Built and The Old Maid's Valentine.'0 This fact is important because it points, very clearly, to the films being made in one place and by the same producer. De Vries informs us that in interviews with Melbourne-Cooper, he states that he made Grandma's Reading Glass 1 whereas Smith could not recollect his production of it when interviewed by Sadoul12 and that the film, along with the other six in 'dispute', are not mentioned in Smith's Cash Book.'3 De Vries, finally, directs us to what is claimed to be, as he calls it, 'the actual negative' of Smith's Grandma's Reading Glass, held in the Cinema Museum, London. It depicts an improperly framed eye within a circular matte.'4 If this was correct, it would attest to the technical superiority of Melbourne-Cooper and Smith's incompetence. Equally plausible is that this was a failed attempt at taking, what was at the time, a difficult shot.




248 Frank Gray

The film catalogues The 'correct' interpretation of the relevant film catalogues from 1900 to 1903 is an important aspect of the Wadowska/de Vries understanding of this history. The group of seven films are described by de Vries in this fashion:

The film [Grandma's Reading Glass] was listed for the first time in the Warwick Trading Com- pany's catalogue of 1901, along with a group of other remarkable films, some of which have the same folding screen for a backdrop as used in Grandma's Reading Glass. In addition to Grandma's Reading Glass, these films consist of The Old Maid's Valentine (also released as the Valentine), As Seen Through the Tele- scope (Melbourne-Cooper's original title: What the Farmer Saw; also released as What the Professor Saw), The House That Jack Built (original and more correct AMC title: The Cas- tle of Bricks) The Little Doctor (also released as The Kitten Nursery; AMC title: The Sick Kitten, released with this title in an abridged version) and At Last! That Awful Tooth.'5

The surviving publicity evidence reveals a more complex picture than that stated by de Vries. This material enables us to understand how these films entered the commercial domain. The press launch of four of these films in late 1900 and the subsequent catalogue entries for all seven reveals a consistent pattern of listing and numbering. The seven films did not appear together in the 1901 Warwick Catalogue, as de Vries claims. Their commercial release took place from 1 900 to 1902 and only in 1903 are they found together in the same publication.

Four of the named films (Grandma's Reading Glass, As Seen Through the Telescope, The Old Maid's Valentine and The House That Jack Built) together with an additional film, A Bad Cigar, appear in a number of publications from 1900 to 1 905, always in the same order but with two different sets of catalogue numbers for each respective distribution company. John Barnes draws our attention to the fact that these five films were first advertised on 20 October 1900 in an advertise- ment placed by the Warwick Trading Company in the music hall weekly newspaper, The Era. They appear as Grandma's Reading Glass, No. 5784,

As Seen Through the Telescope, No. 5785, The Old Maid's Valentine, No. 5786, The Bad Cigar, No. 5787, and The House That Jack Built, No. 5788. Having been produced in the summer of 1900, this was the first public announcement of their availability as prints for purchase.16

Their second appearance, in print, was within the Warwick Trading Company Catalogue Supple- ment of November/December 1 900. The films are listed in the same order and with the same numbers as found in The Era. The accompanying catalogue descriptions match the content of the film prints of Grandma's Reading Glass, As Seen Through the Telescope, The Old Maid's Valentine and The House ThatJack Built held by the NFTVA. This cannot be said forA Bad Cigar as it has not survived. Grandma's Reading Glass is identified by the catalogue as a Warwick production. 'This, the first of a series of unique pictures, was conceived and in- vented by us.'17 The Warwick catalogue of April 1901 would repeat these catalogue entries in an identical fashion.18

The last three films in the de Vries list were released separately overthe nexttwo years. The two kitten films first appear in the Warwick Trading Company's Catalogue Supplement of 1901. The Kitten Nursery is entered as number 61 87a and the longerversion of the same subject, The Little Doctor and the Sick Kitten as number 61 88a.19 Oh! That Awful Tooth (the original title of At Last! That Awful Tooth), Warwick number 6851, will not be introduced until the next year.20 Only The Little Doctor and the Sick Kitten has survived.

Smith joined Charles Urban when Urban left the Warwick Trading Company to create his own business in 1903. As a result, those films usually identified as by Smith were withdrawn from War- wick and placed in the Charles Urban Trading Company's first catalogue. It's here, in a prominent section entitled, 'G.A.S. Film Subjects. Arranged and Photographed by G. Albert Smith, F.R.A.S.', that all seven films are listed but renumbered and with some retitling. The films of 1901/02 are grouped together in this 1903 publication as, The Little Doctor, No. 3511 (the retitled The Little Doctor and the Sick Kitten), The Sick Kitten, No. 3512 (the retitled The Kitten Nursery ) and At Last! That Awful Tooth, No. 3513 (the retitled Oh! That Awful Truth).2' The 1900 films then follow as Grandma's

248 Frank Gray




Reading Glass, No. 351 7,As Seen Through a Tele- scope, No. 3518, (the retitled, As Seen Through the Telescope), The Valentine, No. 3519 (the retitled, The Old Maid's Valentine), The Bad Cigar, No. 3520 and The House That Jack Built, No. 3521.22 The 1905 Charles Urban Trading Com- pany Catalogue lists all of these films in an identical fashion.23 All of the films in the G.A.S. sections of these Urban Catalogues fall within the 3000 range of numbers. This is significant as this numbering system had previously been employed in the 1899 Warwick Trading Company Catalogue in order to specifically identify films made by Smith.

The cumulative picture from these documents is one which clearly presents Smith as the author of these films. De Vries disagrees. The reason, ad- vanced by Wadowska/de Vries, for the seven films appearing under Smith's name in the Urban catalogue, is that Melbourne-Cooper sold these films to Urban. In an extract from an audio interview, de Vries quotes Wadowska as saying, 'My father was a youngster. He sold his films. They came underthe names of Williamson or whoever it was. And that was it. My supposition is, Smith worked then in the office and it was his job to compile these catalogues. He found these films of an older date, 1903, old stock, and these ones he puts under his name, and those others he puts under his pal's, Williamson's, name.'24

De Vries reinforces this interpretation of events by drawing attention to the manuscript, Portrait in Celluloid, by John Grisdale. It is a biography of Melbourne-Cooper commissioned by Wadowska and undertaken in the period 1 958-60. In the copy I viewed at St. Albans Museum, we find the same explanation for the films appearing in the Urban catalogue but positioned within a broader context.

Many of the Melbourne-Cooper films have appeared in other filmmaker's catalogues as being their's and with the titles changed such could be artfully camouflaged - some of Birt Acres' films have also suffered the same fate. Melbourne-Cooper's films Twin's Tea Party, the forerunnerof a long series of'facial expres- sion' films, of considerable technical value, has been credited to R. W. Paul, and G. A. Smith has been given the honours for being the pioneer originator of the close-up tech-

nique with the Alpha film Grandma's Reading Glass, The Little Doctor andAt Last! ThatAwful Tooth, all of which were conceived and manu- factured by Arthur Melbourne-Cooper.25

Grisdale refers directly to Grandma's Reading Glass. in another passage.

An Alpha film made between May and August, 1900 was unique insofar as it introduced a new technique of filming, that of close-up shots, this being yet another innovation of Mel- bourne-Cooper. The film was entitled Grand- ma's Reading Glass and was one hundred feet in length.26

No references are attached to these two crucial sections from the Grisdale manuscript. Like the Wadowska statement, they assert the counter-history without citing any documentary evidence, and names not only Smith but also Williamson and Paul as benefiting from the exploitation of the work of both Melbourne-Cooper and Acres.

Melbourne-Cooper and dominant history From the perspective of the Wadowska/de Vries campaign, their biggest difficulty has been the cul- tural power of 'official history'. The major works on early British film history all disregard Mel- bourne-Cooper when they address cinema's first decade- 1895-1905. De Vries pinpoints the very moment when this dominant history began to chart, what he would call, its incorrect path. In the 1 940s Georges Sadoul became interested in the early British filmmakers, and between 1946 and 1948 he visited Brighton and Hove and interviewed Smith. His investigation resulted in a number of publications which introduced the work of Smith and Williamson and drew attention to their significant contribution to the development of film editing.27 He called them, 'The Brighton School'. In the historiography of early cinema, Sadoul's work was the first to focus properly on their achievements. It is this history which de Vries challenges. Sadoul, in his opinion, made a false deduction and thereby attributed key films to Smith and others.

The French film writer made a study of early British film catalogues. Without questioning




Frank Gray

Fig. 1. The irregular frame line. The first edit in Grandma's Reading Glass (1900). [NFTVA/SEFVA].

the information he found, he attributed all the film titles in these catalogues to the distributors who in many cases were tradesmen primarily, such as the Williamsons ... the film salesmen who published these catalogues were seen by Sadoul to be the makers of every oublished film title ... That is how Grandma's Reading Glass accidentally became accredited to George Al- bert Smith of Brighton, and, 'the legend of the Brighton School was born'. 28

To accept de Vries' explanation, sweeps away Sadoul's creation of the Brighton School. Smith and Williamson become mere 'tradesmen'. In their place rises the true innovator - Melbourne- Cooper.

This counter-history is at odds with Smith's position within the dominant version of early English film history constructed first by Sadoul and then by Low and Barnes. In 1 946, to mark the fiftieth anni- versary of the cinema in Britain, the British Film Institute established its History Research Commit- tee. Under its Chair, Cecil Hepworth, this Commit-

tee undertook a programme of work designed to, 'initiate and guide research into the authentic history of the British Cinema both as an art and as an industry'.29 The first major outcome of this project was the publication in 1948 of the volume, The

History of the British Film, 1896-1 906 . Its author, Rachael Low, was a member of the Committee and had access to the the surviving documentation which chronicled this first decade of the cinema. The preface describes her endeavour. 'Miss Low has interviewed a large number of pioneers in all

aspects of the development of the British film, has collected documents, catalogues, periodicals, and

photographs of the period under review and has been responsible for writing and compiling the text of this book.'30 One of the pioneers interviewed was G. Albert Smith.

Low was unequivocal on her view of Smith's contribution to early cinema, '... it seems certain

that Smith, working quietly in the English seaside town, was ahead of the rest of the world in film

technique, and even used the interpolated close-up as early as 1 900.'31 Obviously sharing the Sadoul

250




Fig. 3. The irregular frame line. The first edit in As Seen Through the Telescope, negative (1900).

interpretation of Smith's role, she drew attention to the significance of Grandma's Reading Glass, placing it within the context of his filmmaking ac- tivities in that year. 'The most highly developed use of the close-up is to be found in the work of G.A. Smith. In the summer of 1900 he began the production of a series of short films in which the close- up was extended from its already popular use in the "facials" to a stage which is of extraordinary significance in the history of cinema technique. These films did not consist of just a single shot, as in the case of facials, but a general view into which was cut a close-up of some particular object.'32

Low's book is a very generalised overview of the period but, as the first of its kind, it was a land- mark text and would provide an important point of reference for John Barnes and all subsequent early film historians. It also confirmed the significance of Grandma's Reading Glass and that of its producer -Smith. There is no mention of Melbourne-Cooper and his Alpha Studio in Low's text. Why is this? My conclusion is simply that Melbourne-Cooper did not figure in Low's history, a history which was effectively sanctioned by the History Committee,

Fig. 4. The irregular frame line. Let Me Dream Again (1901). [NFTVA/SEFVA].

because the Committee did not uncover the information required to warrant a reference to Mel- bourne-Cooper. John Barnes has acted in a similar fashion. In his exploration of Victorian cinema, conducted from the early 1970s to this day and resulting in his five volume history, Melbourne- Cooper, again, is never mentioned.33 His name is absent because he is missing from the established sources of historical information (e.g. patents, catalogues, trade periodicals, newspapers, business records).

Could there have been a plot, as de Vries contends, to keep Melbourne-Cooper 'out of history'? De Vries would have us believe that having championed 'Sir' George Albert Smith, the British Film Institute refused to countenance any other in-

terpretation of history. This is nonsense as is the invention of Smith's knighthood. If Melbourne- Cooper had been a significant British film pioneer, neitherSmith nor Low nor Barnes northe British Film Institute could have suppressed this fact.34 Indeed, Melbourne-Cooper's laterachievements in the period 1 905-1908 are widely acknowledged.


L...



252 Frank Gray

Fig. 5. Master Smith and Miss Smith. Master Smith in Grandma's Reading Glass (1900). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

The case for Smith: the visual evidence

As the Wadowska/de Vries case is built partly upon the existence of photographs which can confirm, allegedly, the identity of cast members, I have focussed my attention on the primary visual evidence: the disputed films. In November of 1 998, with the permission of the National Film & Televi- sion Archive, I made frame stills of all the surviving films in this Collection which are relevant to this case. This visual material, when augmented by various other documents, reveals important information which, I believe, confirms the original attribution. I am convinced that all of the disputed fi I ms, exceptAt Last!ThatAwful Tooth, are by Smith.

Outside the frame

Harold Brown, when Film Preservation Officer at the NFTVA in the 1960s, prepared for FIAF his paper, Notes on Film Identification by the Exami- nation of Film Copies. Here he states, '... in the earlier years of the industry there was no precise standardisation and the exact shape and size of the aperture varied from makerto maker and from userto user'.35 It is because of this, that it is possible to identify a film producer by recognising the distinctive shape of the aperture of either the camera or the printer. Brown notes, 'the Hepworth and Warwick companies used printers which left deeply rounded transparent corners to the frame,

Fig. 6. Master Smith and Miss Smith. Master Smith and Miss Smith in The House That Jack Built (1 900). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

and transparent frame line spaces between the frames'.36 This was the product of frame-by-frame (or step) printing.

This is the case with three of the disputed films, not only in this general respect but also in a specific detail. Grandma's Reading Glass (Fig. 1), The House That Jack Built (Fig. 2) and As Seen Through the Telescope (Fig. 3) all possess this distinctive Warwick step printing signature as well as an irregular frame-line at the top of each frame. This is the product of a step printer with a distinctively cut aperture plate. In the top right-hand corner of the frame in the NFTVA's print of Grandma's Reading Glass, (Fig. 1), and in the other two films, there is a small bulge. This irregularity is particularly notice- able because of the pronounced gap between each contiguous frame. The top left-hand corner is also distinctive because it is actually a straight edge instead of a curve. These two very different top corners are both unlike the more regularly curved corners found at the bottom of the frame. Another feature, common to all three films, is that the frame line runs through the perforation. What is significant is that the undisputed Smith film of 1 901, Let Me Dream Again (Fig. 4), also possesses these features. This external evidence, as found outside of the frame, confirms that the same step printer was used to produce these prints - a printer most certainly located at Smith's 'film factory', his film processing works at StAnn's Well Gardens in Hove. However, despite the temptation, this information

252 Frank Gray



Smith versus Melbourne-Cooper253

'?'??i??e:aiU 4

Fig. 7. Master Smith and Miss Smith. Master Smith and Miss Smith in Santa Claus, (1898). [NFTVA/SEFVA].

Fig. 9. Master Smith and Miss Smith. Miss Smith, taken c. 1910. [BFI]

alone does not reveal the producer of the negatives of these three disputed films.

Master Smith and Miss Smith

My uncorroborated belief is that the young boy in Grandma's Reading Glass is Harold Smith, the son of Albert and Laura Smith.37 In the film he wears a wide collared shirt with a waistcoat, tai-

Fig. 8. Master Smith and Miss Smith. Miss Smith and unidentified boy in The Little Doctor (1901).

lored jacket and tie. (Fig. 5) He is in the same costume in The House That Jack Built (Fig. 6), playing alongside the young girl who I believe is his sister. In the undisputed film by Smith of 1 898, Santa Claus, they also appear together (Fig. 7). Her facial features (as revealed in Figs. 6 and 7), with the distinctive high forehead also possessed by her brotherand mother, enable herto be clearly identified as the girl in The Little Doctor of 1901 (Fig. 8). Another photograph of Miss Smith is found on plate 28 of Low's volume of 1 948.38 This frame still is identified as The Little Witness (c. 1 903) by G.A. Smith. Itdepicts both Laura Smith and her daughter. The British Film Institute's De- partment of Stills, Posters and Designs possesses the only identified photograph of Miss Smith, taken c. 1 91 0 (Fig. 9). She has her mother's features and is similar to the young girl found in these films. I still do not have all of the evidence required to cement this identification of the Smith children but what is clear from these photographs is that the Wadowska/de Vries claims do not stand up to any serious scrutiny. The boy in Grandma's Reading Glass is not Albert Massey and the boy in The House thatJack Built is not Ralph Massey. They are quite obviously not two boys but the same boy. Similarly the same little girl is found in The House that Jack Built and The Little Doctor. Whereas de Vries would have us believe that Mary Massey features in the first film and Beatrice Massey in the second.




254 Frank Gray

Fig. 10. Laura Smith. Laura Smith in Grandma's Reading Glass (1900). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

Fig. 11. Laura Smith. Albert and Laura Smith in The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

Laura Smith nee Bayley One woman features consistently in all of Smith's surviving films. This is his wife, Laura. In the 1 960s, Hall uncovered their marriage certificate of 1888.39 They are together in a 1905 photograph of the wedding party held to mark the marriage of James Williamson's daughter.40 This, to my knowl- edge, is the only surviving photograph of the cou- ple. Her films include Hanging Out the Clothes; or, Master, Mistress and Maid (1897), Santa Claus (1898), Cinderella (1898), Dorothy's Dream (1903), and Mary Jane's Mishap; or, Don't Play with the Paraffin (1903). They would appear together in The Kiss in the Tunnel (1 899). Frame stills from lostfilms, published in Low, reveal herto 'star' in many more of Smith's films. It is this accumula- tion of visual evidence which makes it so easy to identify her features, even when she is disguised.

The actress playing the Grandmother in Grandma's Reading Glass sits in profile to the camera at a table, positioned to the right of the frame and looking to the left. The natural light source is also from the right, so that the little boy, behind the table and facing the camera, is in the light whereas his Grandmother has her back to it. Her position is one which keeps her face in shadow, a face further obscured by spectacles and a bonnet with pronounced side flaps. The filmmaker has worked pur- posefully to prevent a clear view of her face, and therefore makes difficult the identification of the actress on screen.

De Vries identifies the Grandmother as that of Arthur Melbourne-Cooper's youngest sister, Ber- tha Melbourne-Cooper. However, my examination of this print has revealed that just before the edit from the master shot to the close-up of the tabby cat, there are a few frames in which the Grand- mother's faces turns about 15 degrees towards the camera as she holds the cat. These frame stills reveal the identity of the Grandmother. Is this Laura Smith? (Fig. 10) Comparisons with frame stills from other Smith films featuring Laura, in particular The Kiss in the Tunnel (Fig. 1 1), appear to confirm this identification.

Grandma's eye For the production of the close-up of the Grand- mother's eye in Grandma's Reading Glass, the

Frank Gray 254

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_^SH^^____ ? '-. ~~!.

.

...pa,,,... ........................].

..i.A ......... ....:::.:::, ....... ! 1 --- --- '.5.KS




Fig. 12. Grandma's Eye. Grandma's Eye in Grandma's Reading Glass (1900). [TVA/SEFVA]

Fig. 14. Grandma's Eye. Tom Green and Laura Smith in Let Me Dream Again (1901). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

filmmaker chose not to use the eye of the actress found in the master shot but to employ the eye of an individual whose plastic and striking features could be used forcomic and dramatic effect. Wad- owska/de Vries identify the Grandmother's eye to be the eye of Mrs. Thomas Cooper, the filmmaker's mother. My contention is that this is the eye of Tom Green. Green was a Brighton-based

Fig. 13. Grandma's Eye. Tom Green in Comic Face (1898) [NFTVA/SEFVA]

Fig. 15. Grandma's Eye. Tom Green in Grandma Threading her Needle (1900). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

comic actor who regularly features in Smith's films from 1897 to 1 900. Two of these films from 1897 have survived, Hanging Out the Clothes and Comic Face. They introduce us to his physical features. We can be certain about these identifica- tions as each film has only one male part and they are supported by Smith's Cash Book, now in the collection of the British Film Institute's Museum of




256 Frank Gray

the Moving Image. It chronicles both the expendi- ture and the income related to his filmmaking ac- tivities from the beginning of January 1897. The entry in the 'Paid' column for 20 September states, 'Mr & Mrs Tom Green (Clothes Line) 10'. [The

Fig. 16. The Tabby Cat. The cat in Grandma's Reading Glass (1900). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

Fig. 17. The Tabby Cat. The cat in The Old Maid's Valentine (1900). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

number is for the amount paid, 1 0 shillings.] This is Hanging Out the Clothes. In the same month there is another entry on 28 September for, 'Tom Green "Comic Face"'. Comic Face was described in the Prestwich Catalogue of 1898 as, 'Old man drinking a glass of beer.'

Unfortunately, there are no Cash Book entries for 1900 which refer to Grandma's Reading Glass and to Tom Green. All that can be done is to com- pare the frame stills from Grandma's Reading Glass (Fig. 12)Comic Face (Fig. 1 3), LetMe Dream Again (Fig. 14) and Grandma Threading her Nee- dle (Fig. 15). Is it Green's eye in Fig. 12? I believe it is, especially when one examines the similar folds

Fig. 18. The Tabby Cat. The cat in Grandma Threading her Needle (1900). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

Fig. 19. The Tabby Cat. The cat at the bottom of the frame in The Little Doctor (1901). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

Frank Gray 256



Smith versus Melbourne-Cooper

Fig. 20. The Tabby Cat. The kitten with a tail in The Little Doctor (1901). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

Fig. 21. The folding screen. The folding screen in Grandma's Reading Glass (1900). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

of the nostril in each frame still. It is also relevant to note the congruity of Smith casting Green to play the Grandmother in both Grandma films.

The Tabby cat

The same young tabby cat features in two of the disputed films: Grandma's Reading Glass (Fig. 16) and The Old Maid's Valentine (Fig. 1 7). The cat also appears in Grandma Threading Her Nee- dle (Fig. 1 8). This lastwork is an uncontested Smith film of 1900 which features Tom Green. In each of the cat frame stills, there is a chevron or 'V' type pattern of dark fur found along the left-hand side of the cat's head, running from nearto its ear along

Fig. 22. The folding screen. The folding screen in The House That Jack Built (1900). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

Fig. 23.The folding screen. The folding screen in The Old Maid's Valentine (1900). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

to its neck. In each frame still, the cat wears the same ribbon collar. It is also very likely that the same cat features at the start of The Little Doctor. (Fig. 1 9). The chevron pattern is detectable on the cat found in the bottom of the frame between the table and chair. Furthermore, as John Barnes has pointed out, these cannot be the Melbourne-Coo- per's family of manx cats, as such cats of course have no tails, while at least one of the cats in these films certainly has a tail. (Fig. 20).41

The folding screen

Wadowska/de Vries draw attention to the folding screen. This is found in three of the disputed films:

257



258 Frank Gray

Fig. 24. Eva Bayley. Eva Bayley in The Old Maid's Valentine (1900). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

Fig. 25. Eva Bayley. Laura Bayley/Smith in Let Me Dream Again (1901). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

Grandma's Reading Glass (Fig. 21), The House that Jack Built (Fig. 22) and The Old Maid's Val- entine (Fig.23). The material on the screen has an intricate floral pattern, the flower providing a strong horizontal element within an arabesque of leaves and stems. It is similar to the 'Eyebright' printed cotton, designed by William Morris. Reg- istered in 1883, it features bright white flower heads on an indigo ground.42 The screen in these films gives the sets the appearance of being part of a conventional middle class domestic interior. Though of itself, the screen does not provide evidence of Smith's authorship, it is further proof of a common producer for these three films.

Eva Bayley One of the important Wadowska/deVries 'proofs' is the evidence revealed in Smith's Cash Book and Account Book. De Vries states categorically, 'Grandma's Reading Glass is not mentioned in these little books that cover the period of 1 897-1 903. Nor is there any mention of the other films of the Grandma's Reading Glass group.'43 The second statement is not true. In Smith's Cash Book there is an entry found on 22 August 1900 which reads, 'Fee Eva Bayley: "Valentine"'. One pound and one shilling (one guinea) is registered as the sum paid. This is furthersolid evidence tying one of the disputed films, The Old Maid's Valen- tine, to Smith. De Vries's claims that in The Old Maid's Valentine, 'The actor (playing in drag, as was the custom) was hired from a London agent.' Obviously this is not the case.

Eva Bayley was Smith's sister-in-law. With her three sisters, Blanche, Florence and Laura, Eva per- formed regularly in Brighton in the late 1 880s and early 1 890s. For instance, the 'Four Sisters Bayley', astheywere billed, featured in the 1 894 production of 'The Babes in the Wood'. The show's review44 confirms the names of the sisters and when frame stills of Eva (Fig. 24) from The Old Maid's Valentine are compared with an image of Laura (Fig. 25), the family resemblance seems clear. The Old Maid's Valentine also makes use of two features found within this group of films: the tabby cat and the screen.

This is a Smith film madefortheWarwickTrad- ing Company - the latter confirmed by another piece of evidence within the film - the fact that the address written on the valentine card's envelope is Warwick Court, the location of the company's office.

As seen through the telescope De Vries links this film to Melbourne-Cooper through family reminiscences. He offers an anec- dote to support his attribution of As Seen Through the Telescope: '... when their father showed this film in the second half of 1 900 in St. Albans to an audience of Sunday school children, a local church elder put his cap overthe projector lens just before the close-up was projected. This scene was, according to the elder, unfit to be shown to chil-

258 Frank Gray




Fig. 26. As Seen Through the Telescope. the frame still from As Seen Through the Telescope, negative (1900). [NFTVA/SEFVA]

dren.'45 This evidence, which relates entirely to a memory of this film's exhibition, has no relevance to this dispute. A proof of exhibition (even if such oral evidence were reliable) cannot be construed as a proof of production. Furthermore, as concrete proof of Smith's authorship, John Barnes has identified the exact location of the film as the entrance to Smith's pleasure garden in Hove - St Ann's Well.46 This is confirmed by comparing the frame still from the film's negative (Fig. 26) with a contemporary postcard of the entrance house, with its distinctive exterior decoration, roof, roof support and ticket vending machine on the wall. I would also argue that the cast of this film consists of Tom Green and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

At last! That awful tooth It is unfortunate that At Last!That Awful Tooth cannot be subjected to any form of visual analysis as there is no surviving visual information from the film either in the form of a film print or frame stills. Wadowska/de Vries, again, offer only reminiscences to make their case for its authorship. Inter- views with Melbourne-Cooper recalled that the tooth in the film was an ox's molar purchased from a butcher in St. Albans47 and Wadowska is quoted as remembering, 'Father used to say, Urban said it was horrifying because you saw the blood com- ing down his tooth'.48 As mentioned, the film is listed within the G.A.S. section of the 1903 and 1 905 Urban catalogues. The film's catalogue de-

scription suggests that it was formally similar to Grandma's Reading Glass (the tooth, framed within a circular matte, was apparently revealed in close-up at the end of the film). These facts, when placed in the context of the findings of this essay, make a strong case for arguing that Smith is the film's author.

The end of the dispute This article has tried to carefully present the case both forand againstSmith. It revealsthatthe Wad- owska/de Vries case does not hold up to serious investigation. The visual evidence is the determin- ing factor in Smith's favour. The presence of the same cast in both disputed and undisputed Smith films is a key factor as is the indisputable identification of The Old Maid's Valentine as a Smith film through the Cash Book entry for Eva Bayley. To validate the attribution of this film to Smith is of crucial importance for it confirms that Grandma's Reading Glass and The House that Jack Built are by Smith. The visual evidence can be summarised as follows:

i. the surviving prints of Grandma's Reading Glass, The House That Jack Built and As Seen Through the Telescope were all produced on the same step printer, as was the undisputed film, Let Me Dream Again

ii. the presence of the same boy in Santa Claus, Grandma's Reading Glass and The House That Jack Built

iii. the presence of the same girl in Santa Claus, The House That Jack Built, The Sick Kitten and The Little Witness

iv. the probable identification of the Grandma in Grandma's Reading Glass as Laura Bayley

v. the presence of the same cat in Grandma's Reading Glass, The Old Maid's Valentine, Grandma Threading Her Needle and, prob- ably, The Little Doctor

vi. the probable identification of the eye in Grandma's Reading Glass as the eye of Tom Green

vii. the identification of the cat, the folding screen and Eva Bayley in The Old Maid's Val-




260 Frank Gray

entine, along with its mention in Smith's Cash Book

viii. the presence of the same folding screen in Grandma's Reading Glass, The House That Jack Built and The Old Maid's Valentine

ix. the identification of the location of As Seen Through the Telescope as being the entrance to Smith's pleasure garden

Of the seven disputed films, six are clearly by Smith: Grandma's Reading Glass, As Seen Through the Telescope, The Old Maid's Valentine, The House ThatJack Built, The Little Doctorand The Sick Kitten. I hope that the Museum of Modern Art will now alter its catalogue so that Grandma's Reading Glass is known as a film by George Albert Smith. It is likely that Smith madeAt Last! ThatAwful Tooth.

There is no doubt about Melbourne-Cooper's interesting career within the emerging film industry from c. 1 905 to the start of the First World War. He established the Alpha Studio in StAlbans and made a number of films for both national and interna- tional release and, as de Vries believes, attended the 1 909 Paris Congress. The Wadowska/de Vries evidence strongly suggests that Melbourne-Coo- per made versions of some of the films discussed in this article but they have not survived. They could have been made either before or after Smith's production of the six films. The Melbourne-Cooper archive at the St. Albans Museum is the best place for conducting research into his founding role in the development of film in Hertfordshire. However the scholar needs to be cautious when using this material as much of it dates from the late 1950s and is the product of the Wadowska/de Vries campaign.

De Vries expresses the terrible disappointment experienced by Wadowska when the case for Mel- bourne-Cooper was ignored by the British Film In- stitute. 'It is a degrading affair when you see one's own father's true accomplishmenttaken awayfrom him. "Official" history can deprive one also of something which is private and emotional ... As if officialdom, in a Kafkaesque sense, were depriving you of a part of yourself.'49The difficulty in this case is that 'officialdom' was right to dismiss the Mel- bourne-Cooper claims but itdid so before conduct-

ing a proper inquiry. It was necessary to test the evidence both for and against Smith. Simply assert- ing the Sadoul/Low interpretation and drawing attention to the films listed in contemporary catalogues could not adequately address all of the claims supporting the counter-history. Part of the challenge for all historians is to continually interro- gate the, so-called, master narratives. They are there to be tested, especially when we still have so much to discover and to debate on the beginnings of the cinema in Britain. There are still very few dedicated studies in this field. Indeed, Sopocy's 1998 study of Williamson is the first major mono- graph on a British pioneer!50 I look forward to new work on Melbourne-Cooper which will reveal his true place, not his imagined place, in British film history.

Acknowledgement: The author thanks the NFTVA for permission to make the frame stills.

Notes

1. Sixty Years of Cinema: The Observer Film Exhibition, Trafalgar Square, London, 1955.

2. Tjitte de Vries, 'Arthur Melbourne-Cooper, Film Pio- neer. Wronged by Film History', KINtop 3 (1994), 143-1 60; 'Arthur Melbourne-Cooper: Discussion', KINtop 4 (1995), 177-189 [features responses by John Barnes and Tony Fletcher to the 1994 article and de Vries' counter responses]; 'Arthur Mel- bourne-Cooper: Discussion Continued', KINtop 5 (1996), 1 77-1 89 [features my response to the 1994 article - 'Films by George Albert Smith', de Vries' assertion of the correctness of his position and the weakness of mine - 'House of Cards' and further responses from Geoffrey Donaldson and Anthony Slide].

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

De Vries, 1994, 144.

De Vries, 1994, 144. [The change of surname from Cooper to Melbourne-Cooper was the filmmaker's invention.]

Ibid., 152.

Ibid., 152.

Ibid., 152.

Ibid., 147.

Ibid., 151.

Ibid., 147.

Ibid., 147.

Ibid., 152.

Ibid., 153.

Ibid., 153. I should add that I have not seen this negative.

260 Frank Gray



Smith versus Melbourne-Cooper

15. Ibid., 145.

16. John Barnes, The Beginnings of the Cinema in Eng- land 1894-1901, Volume 5: 1900 (Exeter: Univer- sity of Exeter Press, 1997), 199-201. The fact that several of the disputed films appear as a group implies that they were all from the same maker. Thus if one film can be proved to be Smith's it is likely that they all were.

17. Warwick Trading Company Catalogue Supplement No. 1 (London, November/December, 1900), 164.

18. Warwick Trading Company Catalogue (London, April 1901), 168.

19. Warwick Trading Company Catalogue Supplement (London, 1901), 270.

20. Blue Book of 'Warwick' and 'Star'- Selected Film Subjects (London: Warwick Trading Company, 1902), 137.

21. The Charles Urban Trading Company Catalogue (London, 1903), 105.

22. The Charles Urban Trading Company Catalogue (London, 1903), 107.

23. The Charles Urban Trading Company Catalogue (London, 1905), 311-312.

24. Tjitte de Vries, 'Reaction to Tony Fletcher', KINtop 4 (1995), 179. One of the Williamson films named as the work of Melbourne-Cooper is Stop Thief! (1901). This is an unsound claim as the film features Wil- liamson's two sons - Tom and Stuart - and employs the same row of terraced cottages found in William- son's The Soldier Returns (1902). See de Vries, Alpha Tidings (Vol. 1 No. 2, 1993), 3.

25. John Grisdale, Portrait in Celluloid (unpublished manuscript, 1958/60), 179 [a copy is in the collection of the St. Albans Museum].

26. Ibid., 174-175. [To confirm the date of the production, Wadowska identified the section of newspaper found in Grandma's Reading Glass as that of the Daily Express of 4 July 1900. This fact is useful but it does not advance their case. See de Vries, 1994, 151-152.]

27. Georges Sadoul, 'L'Ecole de Brighton (1900-1905): les origins du montage, du gros plan et de la poursuite', Cinema no. 2, (Paris: IDHEC, 1945); Georges Sadoul, 'Early Film Production in England', Hollywood Quarterly (April 1946); Geor- ges Sadoul, British Creators of Film Technique (Lon- don: British Film Institute), 1948.

achievement see lan Christie's review article in Jour- nal of Popular British Cinema, no. 2 (1998), 136-140.

30. Ibid., 5. Given this statement, it's difficult to ascertain Manvell's role in the production of this text.

31.

32.

Ibid., 19.

Ibid., 76.

33. John Barnes, The Beginnings of the Cinema in Eng- land, 1894-1900, Vols. 1-5 (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1996-1998).

34. De Vries, 1994, 156.

35. Harold Brown, Notes on Film Identification by the Examination of Film Copies (London: British Film Institute, 1967), 10. [from an unpaginated copy held at the NFTVA, BFI]

36. Ibid., 15.

37. Luke Mckernan has recently discovered the name of Smith's son. In a letter from Urban to his solicitor Julius White on 10 April 1913 Urban says of Harold: 'whom we were compelled to discharge some years ago'. Harold clearly worked with G.A.Smith on Kinemacolor, as Urban suspected them both of assisting W.H. Speer of Biocolour.

38. Low & Manvell, 1948, plate 28, as found between pages 80-81.

39. Trevor Hall, The Strange Case of Edmund Gurney (London: Duckworth, 1980), 5.

40. This photograph is in the collection of the Cinema Museum, London.

41. John Barnes, 'G. A. Smith As Seen Through the Telescope', KINtop 4 (1995), 172. Though in his response, de Vries suggests a mongrel manx cat was used.

42. Linda Parry, William Morris Textiles (London: Cres- cent Books, 1994), 156, plate 52.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

De Vries, 1994, 153.

'The Brighton Aquarium', Brighton Herald (29 Sep- tember 1894):3.

De Vries, 1994, 158.

John Barnes, 'G. A. Smith As Seen Through the Telescope', KINtop 4 (1995), 169.

De Vries, 1994, 158.

Tjitte de Vries, 'Reaction to Tony Fletcher', KINtop 4 (1995), 179.

28. De Vries, 1994, 149.

29. Rachael Low & Roger Manvell, The History of the British Film 1896-1906 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1948), 5. For a recent assessment of Low's

49. De Vries, 1994, 144.

50. Martin Sopocy, James Williamson - Studies and Documents of a Pioneer of a Film Narrative (London: Associated University Presses, 1998).

261

