The Cricklewood Greats

As a child, I suffered from anxiety-related eczema.

Such a child is not always a popular one.

"Too needy," said my mother,

adding that it was no wonder I had no friends.

But I did have friends.

They were right here -

in that flickering blue box that smelled of valves and unsafe wiring.

'Viewers of a nervous disposition

'might find the next programme disturbing.'

And when I was old enough to go to the cinema,

I realised that any of my friends came from the same place.

FANFARE

What enchanted place was this,

that filled my head with dreams and sometimes nightmares?

SHE GROWLS

Cricklewood Studios, I discovered,

was a film studio in north London which, for almost 100 years,

was at the forefront of the British film industry.

What is it that captures me still about the dancing illuminations...

Threepenny return to Cricklewood, please.

..that touched the highest standards of British acting...

Satisfaction guaranteed.

..and became a byword for film-making excellence?

Well, when I got off at Cricklewood, he went for me melons!

I hope that with this programme I might be able

to find the answer, as I embark upon my own very personal journey

to discover the history of Cricklewood Studios

and of some of the stars who walked through its gates.

Stars who, as far as I'm concerned,

can only be described as The Cricklewood Greats.

MUSIC: "Shining Light" by Ash

Tim! Hi.

'This is Tim Dempsey.

'He's the founder of the Cricklewood Studios Appreciation Society

'and the owner of the biggest collection

'of Cricklewood artefacts around. He holds a number of key items

'which shine a light on to the beginnings of Cricklewood Studios.'

So, this is a lifetime's worth of collecting? Yes.

Yes, it is. It's been probably now 30 years in the making, and...

Now, I believe - a little bird has told me -

that you have got some material pertaining to the person

we might call the first of the Cricklewood Greats?

Indeed. The man who started it all.

The unforgettable Arthur Sim.

'In 1902, Arthur Sim, a failed magician from Morecambe,

'inspected the fire-damaged premises

'of the former Cricklewood Crumpet Company

'and decided they would suit him down to the ground.

'All he had to his name

'was his moving picto-cameragraph-oscopic machine

'and a dream. He wanted to make

'moving pictures. And he did.

'His magical story of a large pie served at a Blackpool function,

'brought to life by a mischievous imp, astonished and enthralled

'hungry audiences all over Britain

'and became a runaway success.

'Arthur not only created these early films,

'he acted in them, too,

'taking the delicious title role here for himself.'

'The Flying Pie convinced Arthur that the sky was the limit

'and he swiftly moved with the times,

'creating Britain's first lasting comedy character.

'Harold the Hobo was what Arthur called him,

'but audiences came to know him by another more affectionate name -

'The Little Drunk.'

'Arthur's heavyweight sparring partner here

'is Carlisle's own Chuckles Milroy.'

'Chuckles performed with Arthur for many years,

'before his career was cut short by suspected brain damage.'

'But Arthur continued to make an impression

'that resonates even today.'

Goodness me.

Look at that. That's amazing.

This is actually one of Arthur's eyebrows. It is indeed.

Incredible, isn't it?

When you think of just such a little piece of hair

giving so much pleasure.

To so many people. It's quite coarse, isn't it?

And it's bigger than I thought.

That looks like it would be quite happy chomping on a bit of lettuce.

'At the height of his fame, in 1922,

'Arthur's eyebrows were insured for over ?100.

'Arthur established Cricklewood Studios as the place to go

'to shoot them fast and shoot them cheap.

'But his story was to come to an untimely end

'when a comedy stunt took a tragic turn.'

This is... This is the bowler hat

that he wore when the stunt went wrong.

Yes. His last film.

Steamroller Joe.

Look at that.

Is that blood?

It's tissue of some sort.

'Arthur will be remembered for ever as the sadly absent father

'of Cricklewood Studios.

'But, by the end of the '20s, the film business was electrified

'by a colossal advance in technology which would change everything -

'the advent of sound...' BANG

'..which saw the arrival

'of the loudest Cricklewood Great of all.'

Leave me be, Tommy. I'm having me beauty sleep.

Mr Accrington's having a fit!

The foghorn's broke!

Let's be having you!

'For a time in the 1930s,

'the Cricklewood capers of a simple northern lass

'called Florrie Fontaine

'made her the biggest home-grown star in Britain.

'But Florrie was to become the centre of a puzzle

'that saw her almost wiped from history.

'One person who still remembers her fondly is her younger sister Agnes,

'now 98 years of age.'

Florrie were me big sister who looked after me. Me mum didn't.

She wasn't right, Mum.

'The family were extremely poor.

'So poor they lived under a fish and chip shop.

'With her mother keen to be rid of her,

'Florrie was married off to a music hall performer

'called Albert Ibbotson.

'On stage, he portrayed the part of Old Granny Flannery -

'an old washerwoman of a kind common in the north.

'In fact, common anywhere you took her.

'Florrie was soon brought into the act

'to play Old Granny Flannery's daughter.'

Because he used to dress up as a poor old soul on stage,

folks thought that he were.

But he wasn't? He was not!

He were a monster.

He treated my sister like hell.

Threw her down the stairs.

He threw her UP the stairs once.

When he died, it were an over-fried chip went the wrong way

and it cut his throat from the inside.

And that were too good for him.

'Florrie took to the stage with an act of her own

'which caused such a stir

'that she was placed under contract to Cricklewood Studios,

'making her film debut in a threadbare revue

'called Clog Capers of 1932.'

I'll park my tent where I like. And I won't be harangued

by the likes of you who haven't got nowt better to do

than go around issuing haranguings to lassies

who doesn't deserve haranguing, you orangutan.

'Audiences took to Florrie

'and so did Cricklewood producers looking to make a bob or two.

'In the 1930s, she made 141 films in eight years.

Not a banger in sight. Not a banger in sight.

Give us a hand, Tony.

Oi! They're the bangers. Make for the hills!

Florrie Takes The Biscuit, Florrie And The Poacher's Egg,

Florrie Drives A Lorry and many, many, many more.

She was so popular, she even became a comic strip.

'But poor health and exhaustion began to take their toll.

'As the '30s wore on, Florrie seemed to lose her fizz.

'Then, a stroke of luck occurred -

'World War II.'

'And a song from Florrie's 1938 picture, Nobs And All,

'began to take a grip.'

What he's really saying is

she doesn't have a carer. Come on, Mam.

# Give us a grin Though your heart is breaking

# Give us a grin Although you're not all there

# You don't need your wits for dancin'

# Or romancin' Or having a care... #

'The song became an anthem for British forces.

'And Florrie herself seemed to become a symbol of the very land

'that men and women now found themselves fighting for.

'Florrie had never been more famous.

'But, as the lights went out all over Europe,

'she was nowhere to be found.

'Busy with the war, few would ask where she was.

'The truth, when it emerged, would shock everyone.'

Here's Tim.

'Tim Dempsey has secured us permission

'to visit Cricklewood Studios themselves.

'I've never been on the site before,

'but, though they're not what they were, there's still a lump in my throat as I arrive.'

So, this is it. This is it, this is it.

This is where the studio actually stood. Well, the car park was here.

The gates were just over there and this is the studio.

Shall we... I'd love to.

'It's a moment on my journey more powerful

'than I could ever have imagined.'

So, yes, this is it. This is the main building.

PHONE RINGS LOUDLY

In fact, in this area, they had... TROLLEY GETS LOUDER

So, they were drawing a lot of energy. PHONE RINGS

This here, in fact, off the floor plans,

if you measure from there across to here,

you've got exactly the same valency for where their entrance was.

Down there, you had casting, you had finance.

The in-house functions were across there. The canteen would've been?

'They air in the old place

is still heavy with the sense of things past.'

In the 1930s, all catering off-site that way.

It's amazing, the whole place here, because there's a real...

There's an atmosphere. Yes. This sounds crazy.

It's going to sound crazy because we're surrounded by tiles.

But there's an energy here. It's coming off the tiles, as you say.

And, in fact, if you look over there, where they have their lighting -

and this is uncanny, really - because where they had

their lighting department, the studio actually...

That is on the same site as the studio's own lighting department.

Still here. The whole thing's still got it.

It's still going. And, in fact, just over here is the main soundstage.

And many, many things were filmed here.

'A history such as Cricklewood is not easily extinguished.'

So, I should. That's almost like a flat.

Ooh! So this location, then,

was... Suffered terribly?

Yes, during the war, this suffered a direct hit.

A bomb went off, the place was pretty much razed to the ground.

Interestingly, Dilys Powell - if you remember,

she was the doyenne of British film criticism at the time.

She said this was the first hit the studio had had for many years.

That was uncalled for.

When the bomb hit, they were filming the light comedy, Lavender Mansions.

Lavender Mansions. Richard Glasser, Katherine Curtis.

Both of whom perished that night in the blast,

in the inferno.

Two stars who burned very brightly.

Yes, yes, they would have that night, certainly.

And you can imagine the scene.

If you imagine the inferno. You would have had

red-hot debris, embedding itself in walls, in skin.

But someone who was conspicuous by her absence from Cricklewood

was Florrie Fontaine.

Her war, it seemed,

was spent among dubious company.

Florrie had been travelling to Germany since the early '30s, for medical reasons...

..and found herself befriended by the Nazi high command.

Astonishingly, she accepted Goebbels' invitation

to make some films in Germany.

The results make chilling viewing.

"I speak as I find," she later said, "and they were grand company."

SHE SINGS IN GERMAN

In 1945, the Nazis were defeated.

Florrie returned to Britain...

to find she was no longer welcome.

She seemed to enjoy the company of,

frankly, the Nazi high command and seemed to prefer,

some would say, living the high life on the Continent, wearing culottes

and all sorts of things.

Was that... How did people at home react,

people who had been through the war here? How did they react?

Oh, they were definitely angry. Yes.

Yes, yes. And you see, they knew our house.

They used to throw dachshunds through the window.

And the anger boiled over during a concert at the Hackney Palladium.

Florrie gave as good as she got to a hostile audience,

who finally succeeded in booing her off of the stage.

Her career was over. There was nothing left for her,

but to retire.

Defiant to the end,

Florrie opened a bierkeller in Benidorm,

which she managed until her death in 1992.

The war was won, but shattered Britain needed binding together.

And what better way, thought the powers that be, than with a film?

And here at Cricklewood Studios,

they set about to make just such a film -

a film to unite the people.

It was a rip-roaring historical spectacle that would make everyone

proud of the country that they, unlike Florrie Fontaine,

had fought for - Johnny Puff.

CHEERING

Are you not a-feared, young Lord Johnny?

No, I'm not a-feared, Scrubber...

because I know there is a better place than this.

A place that holds me still.

Our land, Scrubber.

Not full of mud like this, but full of our own mud.

A land of mountains and glens,

of tiny hamlets and great cities,

where chimneys spout with ceaseless industry and children proudly cough.

In this place, this simple place, there is another...

A place of dreams,

where fancies are coddled.

A place where all of us might, upon a winter's night,

draw around the fireside and tell a tale or two.

A place whose name will live for ever.

The blitzkrieged British public recognised it for what it was -

a gigantic bomb -

and kept well away.

It lost a fortune and Cricklewood Studios found itself sinking fast.

But in a dramatic twist, of the sort that Johnny Puff lacked,

Cricklewood would be saved by the most unlikely of sources,

and it's one that I have the greatest of affection for,

which would be born here,

St Paul's Cathedral in London. It's amazing.

Hitler threw everything he had at it and it survived,

but Cricklewood Studios succeeded where the Third Reich didn't.

The movie was Dr Worm and it heralded the explosion

of British horror movies that came to Cricklewood

with the arrival of Acton Films and one of the greatest

of the Cricklewood greats, "The King of Horror", Lionel Crisp.

The common-or-garden, worm - basilicas wormbilious.

Just an ordinary worm, Doc.

Ordinary, Vince?

Well, if you think burrowing your way through

the equivalent of a concrete block every morning "ordinary".

If reproducing, entirely on their own, being both male and female,

sounds "ordinary".

If having a brain the size of a pinhead,

yet outliving the hairy mammoth is "ordinary", then, yes,

yes, I suppose they are.

Why, if our ribbed cousins were not so tiny

they might rule the world.

Perhaps they already do.

At the British Centre for Cosmic Research at Bishop's Stortford,

the doctor is bitten by a radioactive worm

and finds himself mutating into a worm man.

But it is Lionel Crisp's performance,

as a man clinging to the last remnants of his humanity,

that elevates another run-of-the-mill British horror movie

into something much, much more.

'What people don't realise about Lionel Crisp is that he was

'a trained classical actor.

'We're off to meet someone now who is as big a fan

'of Lionel Crisp as I am and knew the man,

'actress Marcia Warren.'

You could hear every word, every consonant, every breath.

His epiglottis, it was highly developed.

It was like a little fist and he could punch peanuts out of his mouth

with it. But, you know, they all could.

But where did they learn these extraordinary skills?

A fierce apprenticeship with the leading provincial

classical actor of his day,

Cedric - later, Sir Cedric - Bermondsey.

Sir Cedric gave spartan instruction in diction,

including reading verse with unsprung mouse traps

placed on the tongue.

Lionel auditioned for Sir Cedric's Buttercup Players a number of times,

but it was only when the company found themselves short of a man -

after an incident in a Newcastle public lavatory -

he was invited to join.

Here, Lionel met a young actress called Elspeth Bruce

and her dog, Muriel, with whom he settled down.

But this rosy idyll ended when Lionel found himself dropped

by the company to which he was so loyal.

Loyalty means very little in companies, I'm afraid.

Look at the RSC. Hmm. Oh, yes.

One fish-finger commercial too many and you're out.

After the war, in which he served with distinction

in the Queen's Light Tragedians,

he found himself unemployed, with a wife and a dog to support.

He took work as a waiter in the actors' pub

The Cravat and Fedora in Cheapside, where he ran into an old army chum,

Dennis Acton, now a producer,

who had set up a small production company called Acton Films.

He was looking for a respectable, and cheap, actor

to take the lead role in his new production. Lionel fitted the bill.

MUFFLED: Help me.

MUFFLED: Help me!

Cricklewood finally had a hit.

Horror was where it was at.

And the film ushered in a series of blood-soaked pictures

that put the studios finances back into the red.

Argh! Argh!

These films would demand every ounce of Lionel's classical training.

These blood-soaked fables would keep the wolf from the door

of both Cricklewood and its new star, Lionel Crisp.

They weren't always the greatest of movies,

but it's a measure of the man, and the actor,

that until his death in 1996, he consistently brought class

to movies that didn't always deserve it,

from the highs of Dance of the Undead

to the lows of Dr Jekyll and Matron Hyde,

Breasts of a Vampire and The Devil's Chutney.

MUFFLED: I..am...not..a monster!

MUFFLED: I...am...a...

GUNSHOT MUFFLED: ..a man!

GUNSHOT MUFFLED: I...am...a...man!

EXPLOSION

He was what we actors call "a proper actor", and he's buried here,

in the Actors' Graveyard, Hampton Wick,

interred here with the remains of his wife Elspeth

and four generations of gundog called Muriel.

It seems somehow apt that Dr Worm is returned to the worms.

I have a lot of Lionel's bits and pieces.

You've got his slippers, haven't you? Mm.

And an early pair of tights.

But knowing Lionel as I did, I think he would be very happy

to know I was passing this to you.

It's the original part of Lionel's Dr Worm costume.

It's Dr Worm's foot.

I think it's his arm.

I've watched this movie so many times. Yes, yes.

Just to hold, in my own hands, Dr Worm's hand...

You know all the gestures, I expect, that thumb made. Yes.

Marcia, thank you so much.

Oh...

Look at that. Incredible.

It sounds daft, but I really find this quite moving. Why is that?

How is it that we feel such affection for still pictures

projected at 24 frames per second? One of the mysteries of cinema -

like what it is they put in the hot dogs.

Of course, we all remember the stars of Cricklewood with great affection,

but as I grew up, I began to notice other faces on the screen -

performers who maybe hadn't exactly "made it",

but still did something for me.

And as the '60s started swinging, someone appeared who would haunt

my teenage years.

Why exactly, I don't know.

Her name was Jenny Driscoll...

..and she had something about her.

She wasn't a star and she never would be,

but I was always delighted to see her...

Oh! Have you had it off recently? Just before I come in.

Goodness me! Nurse?

Yes, Dr Riddle.

..and I would seek her out, from her debut in Thumbs Up, Matron...

No, and I've had a look at his particulars.

..until the end...

Mr Biggun was just saying he hasn't been feeling himself recently.

'Ere, you said that was our little secret.

I think you need a painkiller.

Nurse, could you give him one? Oh, yes, I'll give him one right way.

..through a colourful career, best described as "varied".

Jenny Driscoll's story began in humble circumstances,

when she was born here, a spit away from Petticoat Lane Market.

She was a London girl,

with all the verve and energy of that great city.

There's been a market on this site since Roman times,

trading fruit, veg and dodgy Calvin Kleins.

Jenny would have grown up to the sound of this place -

the caterwauling, the bustle.

At 15, her father got her a job in a fish and chip shop.

But in a characteristic move, Jenny was having none of it.

She told him plainly, she wasn't frittering HER life away.

Jenny wanted more.

Beauty contests provided the route.

She just missed out on being Miss Isle of Dogs

and came second as Miss Jumbo Saveloy two years running.

But it was enough to catch the attention

of the Thumbs Up producers,

who quickly found work for Jenny in their movies.

Jenny was a useful addition to the Thumbs Up girls

and soon found herself befriended by one of the stars,

Gerry Pollock.

Gerry was a complex character, as his diaries revealed.

He writes of Jenny...

"A new girl turned up at Cricklewood today. Very sweet and innocent.

"Not yet diseased by the tartiness of the others,

"who clucked and cawed around her, like the rouged, syphilitic

"old brothel-keepers they are. Bags!

"Oh, what another bucket of faecal matter this picture is.

"The new child's name is Jenny. I love her.

"Had to stop filming cos I literally had a pain in the arse.

"Discovered my knickers had gone right up my crack.

"We both screamed with laughter, until it occurred to me

"it may be bowel cancer.

"Maudlin all day. Jenny brought me a Toblerone. How thoughtful.

"I sucked it off, lasciviously,

"then went home and wept with self loathing."

Perhaps Gerry saw something he envied in Jenny -

a restless desire for more,

that chimed with the spirit of the age.

For a time in the '60s,

this doorway led to the most happening club in London.

It was hotter than Lord Snowdon's hair dryer,

so cool it didn't have a name.

But if it did have a name, it would have been The Hokey Cokey Club,

because if you were in, you were in.

Jenny came here one night in 1967 and met a young man

who would have a profound effect upon her...

Paulo DeMarco.

The passionate young painter from Naples, with his love of ideas

and pockets full of olives, was everything she was not.

She fell for him.

Paulo, equally enchanted by Jenny,

suggested she should improve herself.

But his advice would lead to trouble

on the set of Thumbs Up Marie Antoinette.

"Almost fell off me perch this morning when I saw Madam with a book.

"What you reading?" I queried.

"Wuthering Heights," came the bold reply.

"Well, dear, I never thought I'd see you

"with your nose stuck in a Bronte sister.

"Actually" says she, "I've been reading a lot recently.

"My favourite is Dickens". "Dickens?!" I exclaimed.

"A Tale of Two Titties, was it?

"What next, Nickerless Nickelby?", et cetera, et cetera.

"I belittled her mercilessly,

"then went home for a long soak in the bath.

"Toyed with the idea of dropping the electric fire into it."

But something had changed in Jenny.

And in 1967, she shocked the Thumbs Up crowd, when she turned down

the chance to appear in Thumbs Up Her Majesty's Pleasure.

Paulo had got his hands on a movie camera

and he asked Jenny to appear in his movie.

It wasn't being made at Cricklewood,

it was being made here.

It was a slice of art house, which was,

possibly like himself,

too thick for everyone's taste.

He called it, simply,

Three Birds and a Brolly, though the budget ran to only one of each.

CAMERA REPEATEDLY CLICKS

The movie was not a success...

which was hard enough for Jenny to take,

but it also became something of a joke to the Thumbs Up gang,

which, some might say, was more than they ever were.

Bubbly star Dottie Barnes, in particular, made her feelings clear.

Jenny could take it no longer and let rip.

Paulo, tormented by the investors in Three Birds And A Brolly,

found the pressure too much and returned to Italy...without Jenny.

She was heartbroken, but soldiered on.

Work was difficult to find.

Eventually, she swallowed her pride

and put a call in to the Thumbs Up office.

They asked her back, but at a price.

With audiences waning, the Thumbs Up films were coarsening.

When Jenny walked back into Cricklewood,

it was onto the set of Thumbs Up Uranus

and, for the first time, she was asked to go topless.

Broke and demoralised, she agreed.

In 1970, Jenny Driscoll's story took its strangest turn yet,

with a development that surprised everyone.

Gerry Pollock asked her to marry him.

Jenny and Gerry's marriage lasted months longer than anyone thought.

Then, some would say inevitably, it all went wrong.

Jenny secured a role in the Cricklewood dinosaur flick...

..and fell in love with someone else.

The burly male co-star of the film, Joe Hazlehurst.

Unknown to Jenny, Gerry - also working at Cricklewood -

fell under the spell of the ex-PE teacher.

They both embarked upon affairs with the confused actor.

When they were discovered, all hell broke loose.

After an hysterical fight, they fell exhausted into their separate beds.

Neither was inclined to clean up - an act of slovenliness that had,

as slovenliness often does, tragic consequences.

A fire engulfed the house.

By the time the fire services arrived, it was too late.

Gerry Pollock was dead.

# Softly

# I will leave you... #

Jenny was distraught. Gerry's death was clearly a tragic accident,

but there were those who blamed Jenny.

The Thumbs Up crowd didn't want her around any more.

There was no insurance. Gerry left everything to his nan.

The penniless Jenny had no alternative but to work.

But the parts were becoming fewer and so were the lines.

In Stabs Of The Ripper she said only this.

Hello, Guv'nor.

I bet even a fine gentleman like yourself

needs a little comfort from time to time.

SHE SCREAMS

In the Marquis De Sade biopic Nutters, she said nothing

as a deaf and dumb lunatic who was raped.

And in the thriller Kill All Coppers she not only had no lines,

no clothes, but finally no character.

Who's the dead bint?

And here we lose track of Jenny.

She falls off the radar - no films, no credits, no sign of her.

The story I heard was that she had had enough

and went off to New Zealand to make a new life for herself.

But Tim Dempsey has discovered something

that has made me think again.

We have here from your very fine collection of stills

a photograph of the cast of On The Buses.

Relaxing after work, obviously.

Blakey there. There's Reg, Arthur and of, course, Olive.

What has this got to do with our Jenny Driscoll?

This is an adjunct to this document here, which is a memorandum

from the casting department at On The Buses.

If you look there, you'll see it's a list

of the actress's brought in to audition for the part of Olive.

Can you read that for me?

"2pm - Judi Dench. 2:15pm - Janet Suzman.

"2:30pm - Lulu. 2.35pm Jenny Driscoll."

And so, can you read that?

"12th May 1975." So she's...

She's not in New Zealand?

So, where is she? Where is she?

The film companies that kept Cricklewood alive

had their offices in London's Soho.

To this day, some of the best agents in the world are located here,

as well as my own,

existing cheek by jowl with the seedier kind of film business.

A business that Jenny sank into.

If an actress wouldn't do nudity, a body double would be filmed

and the shots would be edited in later.

Thus Jenny appeared in the film work of Ken Russell,

Nick Rogue and Robin Askwith.

Or at least her body did.

It was money, but it opened a door

that would have been better left closed.

Somewhere along the line,

Jenny began to appear in films that were a little less innocent.

It was one thing being chased around a field by the Thumbs Up gang,

but this was quite another.

Spiralling into depression and debt,

things went from bad to worse for Jenny.

Until, according to Tim Dempsey,

in September 1980, she could take it no more.

Hello. Thanks for letting us in.

So this is where the...

It's quite an atmosphere, isn't it?

Well, it's the curry.

According to the photos,

where this cupboard is, that's where the oven was.

She was down here thus.

Right, OK. She just ran out of luck, didn't she?

Well, she might just have run out of matches.

No, she just... Well, you say that.

The coroner suggested it might just have been homework

for a kitchen oven cleaning commercial

that went tragically wrong.

'In September 1980,

'Jenny Driscoll put her head in the oven and killed herself.'

Jenny's death was one she would never recover from.

By a strange quirk of fate, Jenny passed away three years,

a fortnight and a bit to the day

that Cricklewood itself began the fight for its very life.

When it faced the greatest peril in its history, Terry Gilliam.

We're trying to... There's several levels to this thing.

It's fairly nasty, fairly silly and it's fairly gory.

It's all sorts of things.

The film was Professor Hypochondria's Magical Odyssey,

which Gilliam began working on after abandoning

Dr Insane's Insanitary Insanatorium as too commercial.

It was kind of an homage to Homer.

One of the things I like about you is you will challenge the audience.

Not just visually, but verbally -

in providing titles that are often quite difficult to say.

It's really a test for myself. Can I say it?

And if I can say it,

then I assume the average cinema-goer can say it.

They had just started a new tax incentive scheme

in the Falkland Islands and we were going to be

the first production to shoot there. Fantastic.

And other people started shooting there instead of us.

Soldiers? Yes, soldiers.

The production was forced to relocate to Cricklewood,

where the familiar fight for finance began.

This time George Harrison passed.

In fact, all of the Merseybeat financers passed.

Freddie And The Dreamers, Gerry And The Pacemakers.

Cilla, did you try her? I wish I'd thought of her at the time.

No-one even mentioned Cilla.

The optimism secured by a fragile funding deal

was torpedoed when filming moved to Cricklewood's elderly water tank.

The water tank burst. 40,000 gallons of water just everywhere.

It was complete chaos.

I think someone even got hit. It was stunning, visually.

Other than that, everything else was a catastrophe.

The problem with the tank was

it hadn't been washed out or cleaned in years.

People started getting sick.

There was trench foot, there was diarrhoea, dysentery.

The continuity girl, she developed this boil on this side of her neck.

Actually, I think it was that side. She would know.

A storm of legal writs engulfed the film, forbidding its release.

As a result, we can't show you any of it.

But in a TV first, we CAN show you Terry showing me some of it.

What do you think? That's amazing. And you've got Brando there.

In a way, it kind of worked against us

because nobody could understand a single word he said.

My mother always had that problem - she didn't know him... No?

You're shooting with Brando, and you have to stop.

That was a problem.

That day there was an ice-cream van outside of the sound stage.

And what? You could hear the chimes?

Yeah, but basically Marlon wanted some ice-cream.

Fair enough.

The film's spectacular historical fight sequences

were a health and safety nightmare.

Was anyone hurt in this?

Um, not fatally.

A lot of horses got killed.

It did lead to a problem.

We had to put a caption on the end of the film

that during the making of this film lots of animals were harmed.

Some might say that this was the film

that put Cricklewood out of business.

It played a part - there is no denying that.

I really felt terrible about it.

I was choked up for two or three days.

Then the money from Brazil came through and then bingo!

Fantastic, just great. That was extraordinary.

Two Oscar nominations, one BAFTA, so what can you say?

In the end I suppose everything turned out OK.

The result of this debacle was fatal for Cricklewood.

Having invested so heavily in a film that couldn't be released,

the only way out was to sell the studio.

The Cricklewood dream was over.

The site was sold and in 1984, the developers moved in.

A palace that had echoed with romance and terror,

laughter and delight was smashed to pieces.

What spirits were unleashed that day?

What angels shuddered?

We have come to the end of our journey.

Have I discovered what spell Cricklewood has cast over me?

I think that I have.

Cricklewood didn't just make films - it made dreams.

Things beyond the actual things that have they made.

Perhaps you don't quite understand what I'm talking about -

I'm not sure that I do. But I think that that's right.

Because a dream can't be grasped.

It dances around us in the dark

like the torch of an usherette having a fit.

At Cricklewood, dreams did come true. But only a little bit.

Cricklewood dreams were shrunken ones,

like Lionel Crisp's head in Zulu Zombies.

Never convincingly life-sized, like Nelson's fleet in Trafalgar.

Dreams that were as slight and fragile

as Jenny Driscoll's "fur-kini" in Woman-Saurus-Rex.

When life turned against these dreams,

the performers' struggles to keep them alive brought magic into ours.

And I don't mean just by the simple enjoyment

of watching the suffering of others, no.

The harder their lives became,

the harder they dreamed their dreams.

And, to me, that made the Cricklewood Greats heroes.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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