Lewin Fitzhamon

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Lewin Fitzhamon (born June 5, 1869 in Aldingham , Cumbria , England , † October 10, 1961 in England) was a British film director . Between 1900 and 1914 Fitzhamon directed around 400 short films . His best-known directorial work was the film Rescued by Rover, produced by Cecil Hepworth in 1905 .

Life

Lewin Fitzhamon, who was born in Aldingham, Cumbria in 1869, had already had a career as an artist in the British Music Halls when he was recruited by Robert W. Paul for his film productions in 1900 . Fitzhamon was an actor in Paul's films and also directed a number of films, such as the 1900 war film Briton vs. Boer .

In early 1905 Fitzhamon moved to the Hepworth Manufacturing Company founded by Cecil Hepworth , where he worked as a stage manager both in front of the camera and behind the scenes as a director and screenwriter . Fitzhamon made films from all genres popular at the beginning of the 20th century - in addition to stop-trick films such as That Fatal Sneeze from 1907 and filmed car chases such as A New Hat for Nothing from 1910, there are comedies , melodramas , westerns , fantasy films and documentary recordings . Together with Hepworth, Fitzhamon founded the Pictorial Politics Association in 1905 , which established political film in the United Kingdom.

Fitzhamon's greatest success was the short film Rescued by Rover in 1905 , which is considered to be the high point of early British film history . The entire Hepworth family, including the family dog ​​Blair, was involved in the production of the story of a kidnapped baby who is found and rescued by the Collie Rover. The demand for the film was so great that Fitzhamon had to re-shoot it twice. The production costs were extremely low at just over seven pounds , while the profit of 395 copies sold at ten pounds each was very lucrative. Due to the great popularity of the animal hero, Fitzhamon made other films with animals in the following years, including The Dog Outwits the Kidnappers from 1908, in which Rover also demonstrated his driving skills, and an adaptation of Anna Sewell's Black Beauty in the Fitzhamons in 1906 own horse performed.

Fitzhamon's specialty was film comedies, which he not only directed, but also helped develop the scenarios . In 1910 he invented the character Tilly the Tomboy for Hepworth , who would appear in numerous short films until 1915. Actresses Chrissie White and Alma Taylor became the first nationally known film stars in Great Britain thanks to the Tilly series.

In 1912 Lewin Fitzhamon left the Hepworth Manufacturing Company and founded his own film production company, Fitz Films . Fitzhamon tried to follow up with the child actors Roy and Marie Royston on his Tilly films, but was unsuccessful. In the same year he had to close Fitz Films again.

Until 1914 only a few directorial work for other studios followed, after which Fitzhamon withdrew completely from the film business. Fitzhamon, who had published two novels in 1904 and 1915, appeared as a columnist in the following years , but remained largely unnoticed by the public in the decades up to his death in 1961.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1900: Briton vs. Boer
  • 1904: A Race for a Kiss
  • 1905: Over the Hedge
  • 1905: Rescued by Rover
  • 1905: What the Curate Really Did
  • 1906: Black Beauty
  • 1906: The Squatter's Daughter
  • 1906: A Tragedy of the Sawmills
  • 1907: That Fatal Sneeze
  • 1908: The Dog Outwits the Kidnapper
  • 1908: Father's Lesson
  • 1908: The Man and His Bottle
  • 1908: The Tell-Tale Kinematograph
  • 1909: A Plucky Little Girl
  • 1909: The Miser and the Child
  • 1910: A New Hat for Nothing
  • 1910: Tilly the Tomboy Visits the Poor
  • 1911: A Happy Event in the Poorluck Family
  • 1911: Rover the Peacemaker
  • 1911: Tilly and the Fire Engines
  • 1912: A Day in the Country
  • 1912: Children of the Forest
  • 1914: A Footballer's Honor

literature

  • Robert Murphy (Ed.): Directors in British and Irish Cinema . British Film Institute, London 2006, ISBN 1-84457-126-2 , p. 195.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alan Burton: Early Political Film in Britain . In: Vanessa Toulmin, Simon Popple (eds.): Visual delights - two: Exhibition and Reception . John Libbey, Eastleigh 2005, ISBN 0-86196-657-0 , pp. 136ff.
  2. ^ John Hawkridge: British Cinema from Hepworth to Hitchcock . In: Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (Ed.): The Oxford History of World Cinema . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1996. ISBN 0-19-874242-8 , p. 130.
  3. ^ Jörg Helbig: History of British Film . JB Metzler, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-476-01510-6 , p. 7.
  4. ^ Sarah Street: British National Cinema . Routledge, London 1997, ISBN 0-415-06735-9 , p. 120.
  5. ^ Alan Burton, Laraine Porter: Pimple, Pranks & Pratfalls: British Film Comedy before 1930 . Flicks Books, Trowbridge 2000, ISBN 1-86236-010-3 , p. 11.
personal data
SURNAME Fitzhamon, Lewin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British film director
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Aldingham , Cumbria, England, UK
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 1961
Place of death England , UK