The World's Best Labels and Studios

Part Three of Elstree then and we’ve already covered Clarendon Road Studios and the studio which eventually bore the name Elstree.  This post is about some of the smaller studios in the areas but which nevertheless we still think of as part of the Elstree group.

Station Road Studios

We’ll start with Station Road Studios, a site which was built in 1928 by Whitehall Films Ltd but which consisted of only one stage.  After Whitehall was wound up in 1930, the site sat empty for five years until Julius Hagen, of Twickenham Studios, took it over and renamed the premises JH Studios.  JH Studios lasted barely seven years before financial problems forced a sell on to MP productions.

Post-war, J. Arthur Rank acquired the site and began to make religious films under the Gate Studios name.  In 1957, production ceased completely when the cinema screen manufacturer, Harkness Screens, took over the site and retained ownership until 2004.  The site is now a housing development renamed Gate Studios.

Station Road/Gate Studios

British and Dominion Studios

British and Dominion were a reasonably substantial player in the early days of British film production and they were involved in Elstree also, albeit in a small way.  The company acquired three sound stages from British International Pictures Ltd in 1930 at their Elstree site but these were estroyed in a fire in 1936.

Following the fire, British and Dominion moved production to Iver Heath in Buckinghamshire and invested in Pinewood Studios there.

Elstree Way Studios, Borehamwood

Another of the studios carrying the Elstree name, this was a large studio built by Amalgamated Studios Ltd between 1935 and 1937.  Increasing costs ensured a sell out to J. Arthur Rank who sold it on again in 1944 to Metro Goldwyn Mayor (MGM).  MGM expanded the facility to include seven studios but eventually left the site in 1970 to join EMI at their nearby Shenley Rd facility.  The site was subsequently redeveloped for commercial and housing uses.

Danziger Studios, Elstree

Constructed by the Danziger Brothers in 1956, it never made any money when in use as a television production venue and closed in 1962.

Millenium Studios, Elstree

The most recent development, this studio was constructed in 1993 for film and television production purposes.  It relocated to Bedfordshire in 2010 and continues production at that location.

We mentioned in the previous article how the name Elstree refers to the entire area occupied by seven film and television studios.  However, since 2000 there has been one studio actually known as Elstree.

The story of this particular studio however starts way back in 1925 when British National Pictures Ltd bought fifty acres of land near Borehamwood.  Two film stage were constructed to facilitate the production and release of Madame Pompadour in 1927.  The first British movie featuring sound – Blackmail – was produced there in 1929 and by the early 1930s ownership of the studio, which now featured six ‘sound’ stages had transferred to two separate owners, the Associated British Picture Corporation Ltd (ABPC) and the British and Dominion Films Corporation.  Both organisation controlled three stages each.

The studio largely avoided being requisitioned by the government during the Second World War and post-war, Warner Brothers effectively took over ABPC Ltd, upgrading the studios before producing Man on the Run and The Hasty Heart in 1948.  In 1968, Electrical and Musical Industries (EMI) took over the site and it became the EMI Studios.  After the parent company merged with Thorn Electrical Industries, the company (and the studios) became known as Thorn EMI in 1979.

The studio never really fitted in with Thorn’s ambitions and the studio was sold on again in 1986 to the Herron-Cannon group.  Despite the problems facing the group at this time, all three of the original Star Wars films were produced here, as well as the first three Indiana Jones films.  In 1988 ownership transferred to the property group, Brent Walker Ltd, who began to sell off bits of the studio.  Local alarm bells were raised and a campaign got underway which ended with the purchase of the studio by Hertsmere Borough Council in 1996.  The studio finally gained its current name in 2000 when a management company called Elstree Film & Television Studios Ltd.

Filming resumed shortly afterwards with much of the production of blockbusters such as the new Star Wars trio taking place there.  It’s also the home of British television programmes such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Big Brother.

Elstree Studios is, like Pinewood Studios, one of the iconic names in British film history.  Elstree actually refers to seven different television and movie studios locates in Hertfordshire, a county just to the North of London and an ideal spot in which to locate a business such as this.  Borehamwood is now the biggest town in the area but at the time of studio development, Elstree was the larger, hence the reference to Elstree Studios.  The different studios are:

British and Dominion Studios

Clarendon Road Studios

Danziger Studios

Elstree Studios

Elstree Way Studios

Millenium Studios

Station Road Studios.

Although listed above in alphabetical order, we’ll discuss each in the order in which they were built, the first being the Clarendon Film Company.

Clarendon Film Company

The Clarendon Film Company was developed in 1914 by the Neptune Film Company.  To begin with it features just a ‘dark stage’.  That is a windowless room entirely lit by artificial light – in 1914 it was gas powered.  Ownership changed to the Ideal Film Company in 1917 and remained that way until 1924 when activity at the site ceased.

The studio was purchased by the German, Ludwig Blattner, in 1928 and the gas powered lighting was replaced by mains electricity.  Audio technology was also upgraded.  In 1936, Joe Rock Productions acquired the site and began to expand the facilities, adding four new stages.  Director Michael Powell made his first feature film The Edge of the World during this period in 1937.

Movie Poster

Ownership of the studio moved on again in 1939 and this time it was bought by British National Films Ltd.  Like other studios in wartime however, much of the available production facilities were used for government purposes, propaganda films and the like.

Associated Television acquired the site in 1962 and shows such as The Muppets and The Saint were produced there.  During television license re-negotiations in the early 1980s, the Independent Broadcasting Authority required that more of their shows were produced in the Midlands and away from London.  Production at the facility was scaled down considerably and the BBC bought it in 1984, mainly for the production of their new soap opera, Eastenders, which was due to air the following year.  The BBC still owns the site today.