Twickenham Film Studios is a film studio located in St Margarets, London, England used by many motion picture and television companies. It was established in 1913 by Dr. Ralph Jupp on the site of a former ice-rink. At the time of its original construction, it was the largest film studio in the United Kingdom.[1]
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During the 1930s the studio was run by Julius Hagen. Hagen built up his business making Quota quickies for major American studios who were required by law to produce a certain number of British films each year in order to be allowed to release their expensive Hollywood pictures into the lucrative British market. Hagen became very efficient at producing large numbers of these quickies of varying quality. He often filmed all day, and then brought in different crews and actors to work through the night.[2]
In the wake of the success of Alexander Korda's The Private Life of Henry VIII Hagen became interested in producing films which could be released in America. Twickenham took on more quality work such as the 1933 Gracie Fields vehicle This Week of Grace. This ultimately led Hagen to stop making quickies entirely and focus entirely on quality productions. He began to make more expensive films such as Seymour Hicks's Scrooge (1935) and Spy of Napoleon which he hoped to gain both a national and international market for. Hagen spent £100,000 rebuilding Twickenham Studios and acquired studios in other parts of London. He also broke with his established distributors and attempted to distribute his own films. This proved a mistake, the major American studios blocked his entry into their market, while his films failed to gain access in the British market. In 1937 Hagen's company went bankrupt as part of a wider slump in British filmkaing that year bringing an end to his reign at Twickenham.
In 1946 Alfred Shipman formed Alliance Film Studios Limited, controlling Riverside, Southall and Twickenham Film Studios. After his death in 1956 his two sons: Gerald (father of Piers Flint-Shipman) and Kenneth Shipman took contol of the studios with Kenneth later going on to form Alliance Film Distributors. [3]
Numerous films have been made at Twickenham since the end of Hagen's tenure including Carol Reed's The Stars Look Down in 1939, In the 1960s classic films such as Alfie starring Michael Caine, The Italian Job in 1969 with Noel Coward, Roman Polanski's first English language film in 1965 Repulsion; Be My Guest in 1965, featured Jerry Lee Lewis an early appearance by the young actor Steve Marriott and The Nashville Teens. In 1969, The Beatles used the studios while rehearsing music for their album Let It Be. A film was made of some of the sessions, and both the film and the album were released in 1970. The Beatles had previously used Twickenham for their films A Hard Day's Night and Help! and for their promotional film for Hey Jude. In the 1980s, the studio was used for The Mirror Crack'd, An American Werewolf in London, A Fish Called Wanda, Blade Runner, and Brother Sun, Sister Moon. Later films include The Others, Layer Cake, The Crucible, Interview with the Vampire, and Sweet Revenge.