Gainsborough Pictures was a Britishfilm studio based on the south bank of theRegent's Canal, in Poole Street,Hoxton,London.Gainsborough Studios was active between 1924 and 1951. The company was initially based atIslington Studios, which were built as apower station for theGreat Northern & City Railway and later converted to studios.
Other films were made atLime Grove andPinewood Studios. The former Islington studio was converted to flats in 2004 and aLondon Borough of Hackney historical plaque is attached to the building.[1] The studio is best remembered for theGainsborough melodramas it produced in the 1940s.
Gainsborough Pictures is now owned byGregory Motton.[2]
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Gainsborough was founded in 1924 byMichael Balcon with Graham Cutts with a capital of £100. He obtained financial backing from the Bromhead brothers of Gaumont Company off the success ofWoman to Woman.[3]
From 1927, it was a sister company to theGaumont British, with Balcon as Director of Production for both studios. Whilst Gaumont-British, based atLime Grove Studios inShepherd's Bush, produced the "quality" pictures, Gainsborough mainly produced 'B' movies and melodramas at itsIslington Studios. Both studios used continental film practices, especially those fromGermany, withAlfred Hitchcock being encouraged by Balcon — who had links withUFA — to study there and make multilingual co-production films with UFA, beforeWorld War II. In the 1930s, actorsElisabeth Bergner andConrad Veidt, art directorAlfred Junge, cinematographerMutz Greenbaum and screenwriter/directorBerthold Viertel, along with others, joined the two studios.[4]
The studio's opening logo, of a lady (Celia Bird thenGlennis Lorimer) in aGeorgian era period costume, sitting in an ornate frame, and turning and smiling, was based on the 1785 paintingPortrait of Sarah Siddons byThomas Gainsborough. The short piece of music was written byLouis Levy and called the "Gainsborough Minuet".[citation needed]
After the departure of Balcon toMGM-British, theRank Organisation gained an interest in Gainsborough and the studio made such popular films asOh, Mr Porter! (1937) andHitchcock'sThe Lady Vanishes (1938). By 1937, Gaumont-British was in financial crisis, and closed its Lime Grove studios, moving all production to the Islington Poole Street studio. However, the tall factory chimney on the site was considered dangerous in the event of bombing during World War II, and so Gainsborough Studios was evacuated to Lime Grove for the duration of hostilities.[5] Heads of the studio were Edward Black and Maurice Ostrer.[6]
From 1943 to 1946, Gainsborough produced a series of studio-bound costumemelodramas for the domestic market, which became known collectively as theGainsborough melodramas. They were mostly based on recent popular books by female novelists. Prominent titles includedThe Man in Grey (1943),Madonna of the Seven Moons (1944),Fanny by Gaslight (1944),The Wicked Lady (1945) andCaravan (1946). The films featured a stable of leading British actors, among themMargaret Lockwood,James Mason,Stewart Granger andPatricia Roc. The studio also made modern-dress comedies and melodramas such asLove Story (1944),Two Thousand Women (1944),Time Flies (starringTommy Handley, 1944),Bees in Paradise (withArthur Askey directed byVal Guest, 1944),They Were Sisters (1945), andEasy Money (1948).
Subsequent productions, overseen byBetty Box (who at the time was the only female producer in British cinema), included the neo-realistHoliday Camp (1947),Miranda (1948) and theHuggett family series, withJack Warner,Kathleen Harrison, andPetula Clark, who had been introduced inHoliday Camp.
In late 1947Kinematograph Weekly called Gainsbrough the British film studio of the year.[7]
However many of the films lost money. Unhappy with the performance of the studio, Rank closed it down in early 1949.[8] Production was concentrated atPinewood Studios. Although films continued to be made there under the Gainsborough banner, that quickly ceased, and no further Gainsborough films were released after 1951. It was revived in 1987 and made thetelevision film,A Hazard of Hearts.[citation needed]
The original Lime Grove site was taken over by theBBC in 1949 and remained in use until it was closed in 1991. The buildings were demolished in the early 1990s, and have been since replaced with housing presently called Gaumont Terrace and Gainsborough Court.
The former Islington Studios, in Poole Street, remained largely derelict after their closure in 1949 apart from occasional art performances, including two epic Shakespearean productions by theAlmeida Theatre Company, April–July 2000, directed byJonathan Kent and starringRalph Fiennes, and a closing Hitchcock season in October 2003.[9]
The buildings began to be cleared in 2002, and apartments named Gainsborough Studios were built on the site in 2004 by architects Munkenbeck and Marshall.[10]
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