ABSTRACT
Elstree has never been the real centre of English production, for while there are more studios there than in any other area, British production has always been dispersed around the suburbs of London. Film production had started at Ealing in 1902, when Will Barker began work almost on the site of the later Ealing Studios. In both America and Europe many ambitious young men were giving up their businesses to enter the new and still slightly despised film industry. The Folly Films were topical, drawing their subjects from life and from current film and stage successes. By 1914 the one-reel comedy was an established favourite, and in addition to Folly Films there were many companies in Britain which specialized in making ‘comics’. ‘Whimsical Walker’ was of course an old man when he started filming, but Lupino Lane, Jack Edge, Billy Merson, and Fred Evans, were quite young.
