MIST IN THE VALLEY CECIL M. HEPWORTH, UNITED KINGDOM, 1923 Screening: Saturday 21st April, 9am including the first screen adaptation of Alice In Wonderland (1903), which has CAST been beautifully restored, with original tinting, by the British Film Institute, and Alma Taylor ... his famous 1905 short film, Rescued By Rover – a film that was so successful that Margaret Yeoland Hepworth had to produce two shot-by- shot remakes to replace the negatives G.H. Mulcaster ... that had been played out. Denis Marlow Hepworth was very much a picturesque James Carew ... film director who often used imagery of the countryside and the rural landscape Justin Courtney in his films, with Mist in the Valley no ex- ception; the Kinematograph Weekly re- Esme Hubbard ... Director Cecil M. Hepworth view of the film (March 8th, 1923) Nurse Merrion points out the ‘excellent camerawork’, Mist in the Valley, trade-shown in March ‘ingenious direction’, clever acting’ and John MacAndrews ... 1923, is one of the last films of Cecil ‘a great deal of picturesque scenery’ as Job Pennyquick Hepworth’s illustrious career in cinema. the key points of Mist in the Valley’s ap- The multi-talented Hepworth – director, peal. The film stars one of British silent Gwynne Herbert ... writer, inventor, producer, and early cinema’s most celebrated actresses, Alma film theorist – directed a further four Taylor, who was a regular collaborator of Mrs. Grick films after Mist in the Valley before retir- Cecil Hepworth’s. Alma Taylor also ap- ing after the release of The House of pears in Tansy and Helen of Four Gates, as Marney in 1926. His ‘retirement’, how- well as taking star billing in Hepworth’s ever, was probably more to do with the penultimate film, Comin’ Thro the Rye, in fact that his production company, Hep- 1923. worth Picture Plays, had gone bankrupt in 1924. Following the 1924 bankruptcy, Mist in the Valley’s plot is typical Hep- his original negatives and prints were worth melodrama – upon leaving a con- melted down by Hepworth’s receivers in vent, Alma Taylor’s character, Heather, order to retrieve their silver content, and runs away from her alcoholic father to many of his films are believed to be lost. avoid a proposal of marriage to which he assents. Meeting and falling in love with a His oeuvre includes last year’s British man she meets on the moors, she is later Silent Film Festival opener, Helen of Four accused of the murder of her father, who Gates (1920), and Tansy (1921), screened was found dead on the night she ran as part of yesterday’s Festival pro- away. Part courtroom drama, part moors gramme. His directorial career took melodrama, the film is remarkable for its shape in the early experimental years of beautiful art direction and attention to cinema; the majority of his films were scenic detail. shorts, made between 1896 and 1916, Programme notes by Alex Rock, Programme Design and Layout by Molly Cotterill and Emma Jezard .