The Better 'Ole 1918

This website is owned and maintained by Mark Warby

mark@brucebairnsfather.org.uk

In October 1917, two friends had gone to the Oxford Theatre to see C. B. Cochran’s production of The Better ‘Ole—an outing which was to bring about a turning point in both their lives. The two men were film makers Thomas A. Welsh and George Pearson, who, within six months of their evening at the Oxford Theatre, would present their screen version of The Better ‘Ole to audiences worldwide.

Thomas Arthur Welsh had been General Manager at Gaumont Films in London until July 1916, when he had gone to work for the Ministry of Information “showing News-Reels of the war to important cinemas in provincial France.” George Pearson had originally trained as a teacher and had been Head of three schools before he became fascinated by cinema and the fledgling film production industry. He entered the film world in 1913, as a Producer for Pathé Films. In 1915 he joined Gaumont, and there met Thomas Welsh, with whom he forged a strong friendship.The

visit to the Oxford Theatre came shortly after Welsh returned from his Ministry of Information job in France. He was keen to form his own film company, and had already invited Pearson to join him. Pearson was undecided, but after seeing The Better ‘Ole Welsh told him he had taken an option on the film rights to the Bairnsfather play, and asked him to join him in making the film. “That prospect decided me” wrote Pearson, “Whatever risks there might be, financial or otherwise, I could not reject the opportunity to capture on the cinema screen the inspiring symbolism of The Better ’Ole.”

On 31st October 1917, Thomas Welsh signed a contract with Charles B. Cochran in which Cochran granted him the exclusive film rights to The Better ‘Ole, for a period of five years from the date of the first public screening of the film. Cochran was paid £1,250 in advance royalties, with his share set at 15% on UK/Ireland sales up to £5,000 and 20% on all sales thereafter, 331/3 % on sales to America/Canada and 15% on sales to the rest of the world.

The contract stipulated that no public exhibition of Welsh’s proposed film could be given until The Better ‘Ole had ended its run at the Oxford Theatre—however if the play was still running at 31st March 1918, the film could be screened—but for one week only at not more than four cinemas within a 1¼ mile radius of the Oxford—between 31st March and 30th June 1918. The provincial screenings were also limited by the contract—the film could not be shown until two weeks after the touring stage production of The Better ‘Ole had played at any given town—although Welsh was free to show the film anywhere after 30th June 1918.

On 31st December 1917 George Pearson left Gaumont, and in January 1918 the new company, Welsh, Pearson & Co. Limited was legally formed. They had capital of only £6,000—with around £5,000 of this earmarked as the budget for their first film. Shareholders of the new company included Alderman Heron, owner of the Kinematograph Weekly (the main cinema trade journal of the period), Brooke Williams (later Secretary to the British Board of Film Censors) and Herbert Ponting—famous as the photographer on Scott’s ill-fated South Pole expedition.

As January 1918 progressed, Pearson worked on his script adaption, and on 30th January he and Welsh met with Charles B. Cochran and Bruce Bairnsfather, who both gave it their approval. Production could now begin.

Under the contract with Cochran, Thomas Welsh was allowed to approach Arthur Bourchier and the other members of the cast from the Oxford Theatre, should he wish to engage them to appear in the film production. But he and Pearson had already signed up actors for the main roles—Charles Rock (Old Bill), Arthur Cleave (Bert), Hugh E. Wright (Alf), Mary Dibley (Maggie) and Lilian Hall-Davis (Lil—Old Bill’s daughter).

With no studio of their own, Welsh-Pearson rented floor space at the London Film Company’s studio at St Margarets, Twickenham. For one month from 1st February they had use of a third of the studio floor—where Edward Collins was filming God and the Man, and at the other end Meyrick Milton was directing Red Pottage. Mary Dibley—playing Maggie in The Better ‘Ole—also had a starring role in Red Pottage, so must have been dashing from one end of the studio to the other during filming!

Some scenes required the presence of uniformed soldiers, and local Army training depots readily loaned squads of men for this purpose. One wonders how many of these Tommies survived the war and were able to share stories of being “extras” in the film with their families.

Pearson’s adaption of The Better ‘Ole was much more symbolic than the Bairnsfather-Eliot play. The film opened with a Prologue- “A costumed scene of the Three Musketeers of Dumas’ creation, caught in the act of toasting ‘One for All, All for One’, slowly dissolved into a reproduction of the famous picture of the first singing of the Marseilles by Rouget de L’Isle, and this merged into our three British Tommies in the muddy slime of the front line trenches, modern protagonists of those older enthusiasms.” The final scene in the film carried a simple but powerful message: “a scene of a country lane that rose to its brow outlined against a clear English sky. Far away, nearing the brow, the three Tommies, their seven days’ leave ended, were tramping away to some port of embarkation, silhouetted for a moment, then lost to sight as they crossed the top, with never a glance back, surely the simple message ‘Carry On’...and nothing more.”

Filming finally finished in early March. With no facilities of their own, and less than £400 of their capital remaining, the cutting, editing and titling were completed at Pearson’s home in Ealing and the senior cameraman’s lodgings. Then, “in a borrowed projection theatre Welsh and I sat through the agony of viewing the cutting–copy, utterly depressed, disillusioned, sure we had completely failed. “

The Trade Screening of The Better ‘Ole was set for 3pm on 22nd April 1918, at the Alhambra, Leicester Square (on the site now occupied by the Odeon Cinema, venue for many of todays’ star-studded film premieres). In the four weeks up to the screening, the trade press carried advertisements promoting the film and the symbolic message it carried. The Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly reported that the announcement of the trade show had “created a great stir in the trade” and “many distinguished personages greatly interested in the development of the British film have notified their intention of being present.”

On the afternoon of 22nd April, the Alhambra was packed out. Guardsmen had been invited to fill the front stalls, and as they took their seats the orchestra played “Tipperary.” The auditorium was full to bursting with buyers, renters, exhibitors, critics and the press. A special souvenir booklet, with a foreword written by George Pearson conveying the films overriding message to “Carry On!” and including photographs of three scenes from the film, was distributed to the audience before the screening began.

The Better ‘Ole was a resounding success with its first audience, and the Press were equally generous. The Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly said “Mr Pearson has reason to be proud of his work” while the Evening News called the film “the finest British picture ever produced” and the Referee declared it “A capital production.”

The battle for the UK distribution rights was won by Jury, and the American rights went to the New York based Cinema Distributing Corporation. In the first year total bookings were in excess of £40,000. Under the terms of the agreement made with Welsh in October 1917, Charles B. Cochran received a considerable percentage in royalties, but Welsh-Pearson were “elated” with the success of their first picture. The Better ‘Ole had cost £5,600 to make, but when all royalties and accounts were settled, they were left with a net profit of around £15,000.

Ninety years on, it seems Welsh-Pearson’s film of The Better ‘Ole is lost forever. Despite extensive research and contact with film archives around the world, no copy of the film can be traced. All that survives is a handful of stills from the film (in the collection of the National Film Archive in London) and George Pearson’s recollections of the film, related in his autobiography Flashback, published in 1957. In it he wrote “As I look back with shrewder judgement on that old film, I realise its insignificance in British cinema archives...” - a statement which, sadly, rings true today, with not one print of the film having been preserved for posterity.

Interestingly, an action taken in George Pearson’s absence a decade after The Better ‘Ole was made may go some way to explaining why the film hasn’t survived: From September 1929 to the end of March 1930, Pearson was in Hollywood assisting in the production of the film version of R.C. Sherriff’s great war play Journey’s End. On his return to England he learnt the company he and Welsh had founded was in serious financial trouble, and ultimately they were forced into voluntary liquidation. He also discovered, “to my dismay…that all our own copies of my silent films had been junked to the celluloid merchants, presumably in the bitter realisation that the silent film was a corpse that needed no preservation.” The Better ‘Ole may well have been among the silents “junked to the celluloid merchants” - a very sad end for the film heralded as “the finest British picture ever produced” on its release in 1918.