Hepworth Pictures
Hepworth Picture Plays was a British film production company active during the silent era. Founded in 1897 by the cinema pioneer Cecil Hepworth, it was based at Walton Studios west of London.
In February 1909 the company took part in the Paris Film Congress, a failed attempt by leading European producers to form an organisation similar to the MPPC cartel recently established in the United States.
Around the time of the First World War, the company gradually switched from traditional short films to the feature films that increasingly dominated the world market. It also developed many early stars of British cinema, including Alma Taylor, Stewart Rome, Violet Hopson, Chrissie White, Henry Edwards and Gerald Ames.
The company attempted to expand after the war, as part of a wider boom in the British industry. Many of the company's most popular works were directed by Edwards, who starred in many of them. In 1923 the company went bankrupt and Hepworth retired from filmmaking. The studios were sold off and used by other producers.
Filmography
Feature films
David Copperfield Hamlet The Old Curiosity Shop The Heart of Midlothian Justice Shopgirls The Murdoch Trial The Bottle Her Boy The White Hope The Golden Pavement The Nightbirds of London The Man Who Stayed at Home Barnaby Rudge Sweet Lavender Annie Laurie Iris A Fallen Star Comin' Thro' the Rye A Bunch of Violets Sowing the Wind The House of Fortescue Molly Bawn Doorsteps The Grand Babylon Hotel The Marriage of William Ashe Trelawny of the Wells The American Heiress Broken Threads The Touch of a Child The Blindness of Fortune The Cobweb Her Marriage Lines The Man Behind 'The Times' The Eternal Triangle Merely Mrs. Stubbs The Failure Nearer My God to Thee- A Grain of Sand The Hanging Judge Towards the Light Boundary House His Dearest Possession The Nature of the Beast Broken in the Wars Sheba The Kinsman Sunken Rocks Possession The Forest on the Hill The City of Beautiful Nonsense Alf's Button Once Aboard the Lugger A Temporary Vagabond Aylwin The Amazing Quest of Mr. Ernest Bliss Helen of Four Gates John Forrest Finds Himself Mrs. Erricker's Reputation The Lunatic at Large The Narrow Valley Dollars in Surrey Wild Heather The Bargain Tansy The Tinted Venus Mr. Justice Raffles Tit for Tat Simple Simon Strangling Threads The Naked Man The Pipes of Pan Boden's Boy Lily of the Alley Comin' Thro the Rye Mist in the Valley
- ''The World of Wonderful Reality''
Selected short films
Explosion of a Motor Car Alice in Wonderland Rescued by Rover Oliver Twist The Cloister and the Hearth David Garrick Shadows of a Great City The Vicar of Wakefield- ''The Chimes''