OTD in early British television: 20 February 1937
John Wyver writes: Frustration reigned at AP on the afternoon of Saturday 20 February 1937 as it proved impossible to get the vision system working and between the sound-only transmission of records director of television Gerald Cock had to make two audio apologies for the breakdown. By the evening all was well, and act 2 scene 3 of Twelfth Night was played before a variety bill with entertainers Flotsam and Jetsam and acrobats Blum and Blum.
After which the studio was graced by a visit from Flora Robson, who was then filming Fire Over England at Denham (above, as Elizabeth I with – I think – Leslie Banks as the Earl of Leicester). Sitting alongside the actor for a transmission titled Stars and their Directors was not in fact William K. Howard, the film’s director, but Erich Pommer, one of the producers, together with Alexander Korda, .
A series with this title had begun four weeks before with Victoria Hopper and her husband and director Basil Dean, who was 21 years her senior. A friend of director of television Gerald Cock, Dean later facilitated the first OB of a West End play, when he welcomed BBC cameras to his production of When We are Married in the autumn of 1938.
A fortnight earlier, Lilli Palmer had appeared with Milton Rosmer to promote The Great Barrier, and an interview with Anna Lee and Robert Stevenson was billed but not transmitted. This clutch of promotional programmes, all celebrating Gaumont-British films, was one of of the modest results from what had been envisaged as a much more sweeping tie-up between the Television service and the film conglomerate.
From the moment Cock was appointed director of television in early 1935, he was convinced he needed a deal for the supply of feature films and newsreels, as well as access to stars for interviews, trailers and other – as he saw it – mutually beneficial elements.
So began a lengthy and at times fractious negotiation with Gaumont-British which was only concluded weeks before the AP service began. The film company expected a very high fee for their newsreel and prevaricated for months before providing a list of titles that could be licenced.
Cock eventually out-manoeuvred them by arranging for the supply at an affordable price of a rival newsreel, which led to Gaumont-British reluctantly agreeing that their newsreel could be shown for the same cost. Cock also rejected what he saw as a very poor list of feature films, and the two parties finally agreed to the licensing of some educational shorts and, presumably, the somewhat half-hearted Stars and their Directors.
The full – and to me, fascinating – story of this negotiation is related in my forthcoming book, Magic Rays of Light: The Beginnings of British Television (and yes, we have settled on a new subtitle).
Cock meanwhile continued to try to woo a sceptical film industry by stressing the promotional value of his new medium, including with a series of ambitious OBs from the main studios in the autumn of 1937 (which we will get to in good time). But all of the British and American companies kept their distince, refusing even to permit television to screen their theatrical trailers.
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