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Charles Laughton's New Venture

100 Years of Elstree Studios - Part Ten

In 1937 Charles Laughton was filming I, Claudius at Denham for Alexander Korda when the filming was cancelled, and he was free to explore a new venture with producer Eric Pommer. Laughton and Korda had had a huge worldwide hit in 1933 with The Private Life Of Henry VIII which was filmed in the B & D studios at Elstree, and Laughton won the Oscar for his performance.  But now, Laughton and Pommer formed Mayflower Pictures to create three films for ABPC, Vessel of Wrath, St. Martin's Lane and Jamaica Inn.

The Registered Films List from mid-1937 from The Paul Welsh Archive proudly advertises this new collaboration. Laughton was on a high from successes in The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Les Miserables, and Mutiny on the Bounty with Clark Gable, and these three new films seemed a natural fit. Unfortunately they weren't as successful as his previous films, and Mayflower was declared bankrupt a couple of years later. Laughton was rescued by RKO who gave him the role of Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1939. ("The bells, the bells"). Then the war intervened.

Laughton remembered his time at Elstree : "I always think of Elstree as the great taking off place, the starting point for all of us who were to make contact with the films in the British industry, and then go on from there to other work elsewhere.  How could one list all those one remembers from Elstree, Joe Grossman and the rest? Or even just those who got their starts there? One of the latter was Maureen O'Hara, to whom I had occasion to give her first day's film work in Jamaica Inn, and a cold and snowy day it was, as I recall..."