Torquay's other history: Torquay on Film

By Kevin Dixon, on Tuesday, August 10, 2010

During the early years of silent British cinema, Torbay was home to two production companies: Raleigh-King Productions/Cairns Torquay Films and Torquay and Paignton Photoplay Productions.

Raleigh-King Productions was based at Watcombe Hall. It was established for actor, director, producer Dallas Cairns who was already making films at Ealing.

Two films were made in 1922, Creation and The Island of Romance. However, it appears as if no prints have survived.

Based in a drill hall in Paignton, Torquay and Paignton Photoplay Productions produced The Great London Mystery (1920), a 12-episode serial starring stage conjurer Davis Devant.

Though not filmed in The Bay, The Man They Couldn’t Hang (1921) was a silent film about Babbacombe John Lee.

Claude Friese-Greene (1898-1943) was a British cinema technician, filmmaker, and cinematographer, making more than 60 films between 1923 and 1943.

From The Open Road, a film of his road trip from Land’s End to John o’Groats, here’s Torre Abbey Sands and Cockington in 1924, re-edited and digitally restored by the BFI National Archive. This was Britain seen in colour for the first time:

More up to date, this is from Cops with Cameras (2008) and features the police arresting a dealer in the Temperance Street multi-storey car park

“Underneath its pleasant facade, there’s a major drugs problem…”

Come and enjoy Devon – book a hotel and get away!

Torquay’s other history: The System and That Summer Torquay has been the backdrop to a number of films,...

Doc

...& from the Torquay Times of September 26 1919

Another Torquay Film Production Company. Headquarters at Watcombe

Further proof of the popularity of Torquay as a film-producing centre is forthcoming this week by the news that another new company, with comparatively speaking, an entirely local directorate, has been formed for the purpose of manufacturing photoplays around Torbay, and will get to business almost immediately. The headquarters will be situated at Watcombe... where a suitable property, with extensive grounds, has, we understand, been purchased. Messrs. Stoll made Watcombe the centre for the production of 'God's Good Man', 'The Keeper of the Door' and 'The Rocks of Valpre' and Mr. F Dallas Cairns, who was formerly air director to Messrs. Stoll, and who worked with Mr. Maurice Elvey in the taking of the pictures is at the head of the new concern as producer. The company will be known as the Cairns Torquay Film Company. Mr. Cairns... also took acting parts in the successful films 'Comrades of the Great War' and 'The Princess of Happy Chance'... When the necessary preliminaries are completed, and a start is made upon the production of films, the company will have first call upon the services of several well-known British artistes, camera-men, and others who have made a name in the kinema industry.

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Just came across the following in Chips Barber's 'The Torbay Book' (1984):

The large masses of rocks (in the Valley of Rocks) help to create the atmosphere of a fairy woodland, something which may have prompted early film makers to make a film there called 'Where the Rainbow Ends'. In this the story of how George slew the dragon is told in most dramatic style. The great prefabricated studio had the facility to open up completely at the south end to allow maximum sunlight in. In 1921 another film called 'Unrest' was made by the 'Cairns Torquay Film Company' and heralded headlines such as 'Torquay - Los Angeles of England'.

Nevertheless, the Studio at Watcombe Hall did not last long and the industry moved to Elstree and artificial backcloths. The House and the Studio was later bought by sir Bertram MacKennal, an Australian who was a famous sculptor. He designed the coronation medal of George V and also the obverse design of coins from that time. If you look carefully at King George coins you may just be able to discern his initials, BM, on the nape of the King's neck...

phil smith (Crab Man)

Kevin,

I think 'Where The Rainbow Ends' may have been filmed at Watcome in 1926. This was a proto Narnia story - a theatre play that was big at Christmas time for some years.

Phil

Kevin

Hi Marc,

There doesn't seem to be very much on the Watcombe Studios. The bits and pieces I found all seem to come from the same source.

I was told that a lot of filming took place in the Valley of Rocks. Torquay was chosen as we had longer hours of good quality natural light, apparently.

I've done a search on the Library database and nothing came up, though it's being updated all the time. When I have a few hours spare I want to go through the 1920s copies of the Torquay Times in the Library to see whether they have any coverage of making movies in the Bay.

Watcombe Hall - where the studios was based - has long been a health facility so I guess there won't be any records left there.

If you - or any other local historian - do find anything on the early days of film in Torquay, I'm sure that there would be a great deal of interest both locally and nationally.

MARC

Does anybody happen to have any photos or more detailed references to the film studio that was based on Watcombe beach hill.
I am a resident with a keen interest in local history and this particular studio was I believe very close to where we live !
Thank you very much !

Hi Phil,

I can't seem to find anything about the filming location of the 1935 British crime film 'The Rocks of Valpre'. It was directed by Henry Edwards and starred John Garrick, Winifred Shotter and Leslie Perrins.

However, it was based on the novel 'The Rocks of Valpre' by Ethel M Dell. The novel begins in a "Magic Cave" on a "rocky coast" so it would certainly have been appropriate to use Corbyn Head as a location.

This may mean a research trip down to the Library to see if the 1935 newspapers covered the movie!