Shepperton Babylon

by Matthew Sweet

This is a wonderful secret history of British movies that includes the scandals, the suicides, the immolations and the contract killings - the product of thousands of conversations with veteran film-makers. Here you'll meet, among many others, 20s film idols snorting cocaine from an illuminated glass dance floor on the bank of the Thames, the model who escaped Soho's gangsters to become the queen of the nudie flicks, and the genteel Scottish comedienne who, at the age of fifty-five, reinvented herself as a star of exploitation cinema, and fondly remembers 'the one where I drilled in people's heads and ate their brains.' Welcome to the lost worlds of British cinema.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, History, Media Tie In

400 pages, Paperback

First published February 16, 2006

About the author

Matthew Sweet is an English journalist, broadcaster, author, and cultural historian. A graduate of the University of Oxford, where he earned a doctorate on Wilkie Collins, he has contributed to The Oxford Companion to English Literature and served as a film and television critic for The Independent on Sunday.
Sweet has written extensively on British cinema, most notably in Shepperton Babylon: The Lost Worlds of British Cinema (2005), a history of Shepperton Studios and the early British film industry, which was later adapted into a television documentary. His other books include Inventing the Victorians (2001), which challenges common misconceptions about the Victorian era, and The West End Front (2011), a history of London’s grand hotels during World War II. He has also explored Cold War intrigue in Operation Chaos (2018).
A prominent broadcaster, Sweet has presented numerous BBC television and radio programmes, including Silent Britain, Checking into History, and British Film Forever. He is the host of BBC Radio 3’s Sound of Cinema, which examines film scores and composers, and has been a regular presenter on Free Thinking (formerly Night Waves). His BBC Radio 4 series The Philosopher's Arms explores philosophical themes before a live audience.
A lifelong Doctor Who fan, Sweet has written several audio dramas and short stories set in the Doctor Who universe and has presented numerous documentaries on the series, including Me, You and Doctor Who for the 50th anniversary. He has also conducted in-depth interviews with key figures from the show for its DVD and Blu-ray releases.

Reviews

[GoldGato · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the title of this book would infer that the main subject is Shepperton Studios (one of Britain's film production sites), it's really a general history of British film with an emphasis on the silents and the mid-century golden age. The majority of silent movies produced by the British film industry are gone forever with few remembering the stars and directors who made them. Since I knew next to nothing about these (with the exception of the Hitchcock silents), the reading was most interesting.

The stories show excellent research and several in-person interviews with some of the centenarians (now gone). And as with the notorious stories of the Hollywood Silent Era, there were equal amounts of tragedy across the pond. John Marlborough East was voted the "Greatest British Film Player" in 1916, yet just eight years later he was forgotten and died an agonizing gangrenous death after stepping on a rusty nail. Anita Fay Tipping was a background dancer who was sitting in Donald Calthrop's dressing room when she accidentally set herself on fire and died after ten hours of burnt pain. Others died in alcoholic misery, either all alone or in small nursing homes, completely forgotten by filmgoers.

This was engrossing throughout, but not always for the right reasons, which is why I deducted one star from my rating. There are errors (Marion Davies was NOT Hearst's wife) and the crude snarky comments exhibited against some folks come across as plain mean.

Richard Attenborough was born for sleaze and terror.
Dirk Bogarde was a sullen, savage, unpredictable entity.
John Mills was Britain's universal grandfather.
J. Arthur Rank was acting on instructions from God.

Others are derided for their height or age. Not a good look, no matter how dedicated the author is to his subject matter. However, there were always fascinating tidbits to learn. Having always wondered how the ODEON movie theatres were named, I learned it was an acronym for 'Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation'. And then there was the tale of the film crew that drank all the booze from a local pub in Turville. Since it happened during WWII and war restrictions prevented the landlord from replenishing his supply, he ended up committing suicide rather than face the anger of the thirsty locals.

Thanks to this book I have already started to watch some old British flicks, so something good did pop out from these pages.

Book Season = Spring (downpours and bright spells)

[Isidore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book and discard forever the idea that the denizens of British cinema were in any way less colourful or bizarre than their Hollywood counterparts. Sweet doles out gossip, hard fact, and criticism in judicious proportions. His writing is delightful, whether he is describing movies as "a window into the lives of the dead", or sketching an unforgettable portrait of J. Arthur Rank ("He was a tall, bulky man whose crumpled face and pendulous nose gave him the appearance of a proboscis monkey emerging from an old paper bag."). His interviews with film-makers from as far back as the early 1920s preserve insights which would otherwise have been lost.

However, since his subject is "the LOST worlds of British cinema," he intentionally scants the very familiar in favour of the obscure: for example, there is little here on the Ealing comedies, and much on forgotten exploitation movies of the 1960s and 70s. Nevertheless, I can scarcely imagine a more entertaining introduction to the history of British film.

[Rick Burin · Rating 5 out of 5]

In which Dr Sweet essays British cinema from the silent days to the late ‘70s, waging war on received wisdom (and, for that matter, Norman Wisdom).

At its heart it’s an oral history, the author touring Britain in the early noughties so as to bother the wrinkled remnants of our cinema’s glory days before their stories are lost forever. As a guide, Sweet is superb: deeply knowledgeable, effortlessly witty, and with a loyalty only to his theses – not his subjects – meaning that though he’ll turn up with flowers on the doorstep of some forgotten former ingenue, he’ll be brutally frank about their career when it comes to the writing. He’s also a glutton for gossip; I’d naively imagined that the book’s title (riffing amusingly on Kenneth Anger’s scurrilous Hollywood Babylon) was a joke about our film industry’s fundamental innocence, but absolutely not – this book is as rich in scandal as Anger’s, if rather better sourced.

Across 10 roughly chronological chapters, focusing on phenomena like Gainsborough pictures’ heroines, Michael Balcon, and Rank’s decade of dominance, Sweet’s passion is for rescuing figures from wrongful obscurity (a hello to weird, profligate ‘30s impresario Basil Dean), and correcting myths about our homegrown cinema, some redressed since it was published in 2004, but others enduring. He repeatedly assails the idea that British film is dull, staid or disposable, instead celebrating the sheer strangeness of our cinema – born equally of artistic cravings and commercial expediency – and realising that genre films invariably tell us much more about our times than so-called ‘prestige’ pictures.

His mini-essays on Dickie Attenborough (celebrated as our screen’s finest monster and most unbearable hypocrite), George Formby (a blackface comic without the make-up) and Kenneth More (his cockiness only bearable when it is crumbling) are just about definitive, and if I don’t quite buy the summations of Dirk Bogarde and Johnny Mills’ careers, they are at least agreeably provocative. In fact, the only time he lost me was with some scattershot barbs elsewhere about bulimia and scoliosis.

This is the most I’ve learnt from a film book in a long time, and the most I’ve laughed along with one too, though the final chapter proper – dealing with British sex comedies, and narrated in part by a pimp – is suitably but quite remarkably unpleasant.

[Belle · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're looking for a serious history of British Film-making then I wouldn't recommend this book but if you already have some knowledge and you're more interested in the gossip then you would probably enjoy it. This was a book club choice and therefore not something that I would have chosen myself, however, I did look forward to reading it. The problem for me was that the author assumed the reader had more than a basic knowledge already and I didn't.

There's lots of interesting information, lots of people, names, anecdotes, gossip and titilation. Just because of the sheer volume of people mentioned you do need to concentrate to remember who was who. Whilst I enjoyed the author's humour, sometimes I did find his writing style a little heavy going with many very long sentences. I got fed up having to frequently look up words, so I stopped doing it, which I wish I had done sooner, as it was no longer such a slog once I was able to make unfettered progress.

The author was very forthright in his criticism, opinions and praise. He wasn't afraid to be honest or disagree with others. His research was thorough and he did point out that he had watched all of the movies available. I thought some of his personal comments about people were unnecessary and sometimes came across a little mean. I'm no Norman Wisdom fan but his interview was just such an example. On a positive he did interview many forgotten stars from the silent movie era, who have since died, so that their memories were recorded. I found much of the book (particularly the interviews) a bit sad to be honest but fascinating in that people haven't really changed. The quest for fame (and coping with the loss of it), exploitation, gossip, drugs, alcohol, nepotism and media manipulation are still the same issues a hundred years later.

This book isn't a complete history, as it ends in the early 1980's. Some movies are mentioned in passing but not discussed at all, in particular those of the 1960's; A Taste of Honey and Kes for example I had heard of but were both brushed aside. Cathy Come Home wasn't even mentioned. Compared to the earlier decades I found the author's appraisal of the 60's (and to a lesser extent the 70's) far less documented which was disappointing.

[Graceann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned so much from this deeply researched, interesting primer on the heyday of British film (with a chapter or two thrown in about its decline). I often got lost, given that I'm almost completely illiterate on this specific subject matter (and because I'm more used to a linear storytelling method, which this isn't), but I'm sure I'll be dipping back into this when I want to remind myself of specific information.

Matthew Sweet writes in such an engaging, often amusing, style. I found myself jotting random quotes of his into my book journal, just because they made me laugh. He suggests that one of his interviews felt more like he was in a hostage situation, and he worried that perhaps his later affection for his interviewee might be more a symptom of Stockholm Syndrome than of the person becoming nicer or more interesting.

So many fun tidbits to be found here - for instance, did you know that ODEON is an acronym for "Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation?" Me neither. I also learned that people in the age group I was in when this book was released, look down their noses at Ealing comedies (as it happens, I quite like them, but I don't know if that's because I'm a contrarian, or because I was born in the States). There is a lot to be said for the cultural lens through which we view film (or any other media, for that matter).

Get the book, invest in lots of post-its (or a book journal) so you can point yourself to the more interesting/engaging bits of information, and maybe set your DVR for movies featuring Donald Cathrop, or early James Mason. Once you've read what Matthew Sweet has to say about these folks (and many others), you may find yourself watching these with new, or renewed, interest.

[Andrea Pryke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long ridiculed as being insignificant by the rest of the film making world, Matthew Sweets investigates this history of British film, the majority of which very few remain and the silent stars, unlike some of their American counterparts are sadly completely forgotten.
Shepperton Babylon, unlike Hollywood Babylon (Kenneth Anger) is not full of over blown and made up scandal, of course there is scandal but it is dealt with in a matter of fact and responsible way.
Sweet talked to those who were still living that remembered those days or when they were no longer living, their descendent.
It is an interesting look at British cinema from the early days to the early 80s sexplotation industry that took over from the film making of the 50s.
Today British film is stronger than it has ever been and it is a shame that many of these films are lost and the stars forgotten.
Although very interesting the book is very dense and sweet skips over perhaps one of the most famous British Actresses – Diana Dors, but focuses mainly on the male stars, which is a shame and bemusing as she was the glamour movie star of 50s Britain.
Interesting read but the definitive book on British Cinema has yet to be written
 

[Alex Sarll]

A heartbreaking, hilarious, scandalous, deeply researched history of British cinema. The first time I really registered Matthew Sweet was when he co-presented a documentary on 007 with Mark Gatiss, and became probably the highest-profile person I've ever seen to correctly identify Timothy Dalton as the best Bond, but I've listened to a few more things he's done since and have always been impressed by his ability to dig out the odd but illuminating detail, the unbelievable interviewee - the other day I was listening to an Archive On 4 where he met the voice of Madeleine the Rag Doll from Bagpuss, sat in the room where she has the actual owl cushion from the shop, and got her to sing the songs from the show to him! But if there's one thing better than a documentary, it's a book, especially when, if I'm honest, I do find Sweet's voice slightly annoying*. And such a book, with such interviewees! He laments, quite correctly, that the project should have been undertaken much sooner, but even between interviews and publication, many of those to whom he spoke passed away, and 18 years on, precious few remain. Especially in its earliest chapters, this is a recording of the last voices of an era passing out of living memory.

Except that one has to qualify 'memory' because, given they're mostly closing in on their centuries when he talks to them, many of Sweet's witnesses can offer only fragments, forgetting who he is, or the names of their own husbands (though not their lovers). Some, he suspects he couldn't have trusted to tell the truth even if they'd spoken years earlier; a few flatly contradict each other, at a distance where establishing what actually happened often seems a doomed hope. And the worst of it is that in many cases we haven't even the melancholy consolation of saying that at least we can watch their films, because we can't - they were lost, junked as fire hazards, or simply not considered worth preserving. This is when the book feels most utterly, unfairly tragic: being reminded of mortality is bad enough, but wasn't the idea that at least we could create things that outlive us?

And as well as catching what oral history he could in the last moment when that was possible, this is Sweet's other big project here - overcoming the pervasive disdain in which early British films have been held, both at home and abroad. Some of the work had already been done (Powell & Pressburger were already secure in the canon at the time of writing), and other opinions have shifted since, perhaps in part through Sweet's endeavours: I think his defence of Ealing's range, quality and subversiveness would be pretty broadly accepted nowadays, and many UK horror films he discusses as fascinating obscurities have since found whole new audiences, fancy reissues, even the odd seminar. He's neither a hagiographer nor a contrarian for its own sake, happy to admit - though only after what sounds like pretty punishing research - that we're probably OK without revivals of interest in George Formby, Norman Wisdom, or the 1970s sex comedy. But when necessary he's happy to prod at the overly praised (he's not a fan of Korda; "the sour, plaguey comedies of the Boulting brothers" are dismissed in a single sentence), or draw attention to the underappreciated and outright forgotten (I really want to see some Tod Slaughter now). And, of course, to preserve for posterity the anecdotes which are often pretty tangential to the films, but entertaining in their own right, like Ealing's naval advisor, "whose career as a ladies' man was mysteriously unimpeded by his emasculation by the propeller of a Swordfish bomber". Although of all the revisionist stabs here, the boldest and most delightful is surely the notion that many of the innovations in the language of film routinely attributed to DW Griffiths - initially by DW Griffiths, at that - had already been seen a decade earlier in the British film Rescued By Rover. Who wouldn't rather know the medium to have been advanced by a cheerful adventure for a clever dog than a grandiose paean to the KKK?

*A note on annoying voices: sometimes I judge by them, as with almost everyone on podcasts, YouTube or TikTok, because it seems like an outer expression, sometimes even a deliberate one, of how annoying the speaker is as a person. But in other cases it comes across more as a terrible and unjust affliction. Sweet almost always sounds like he's being slightly sarcastic, but to me that reads closer to The Mary Whitehouse Experience's luckless Ray than arseholes like Collins & Maconie.

[Gareth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in the mid 2000s, this book on the history of British film (and despite the contention of D.W. Griffith, perhaps by extension the history of narrative film full stop) is necessarily rather morbid. It finds any surviving participants in considerable old age. Many of Matthew Sweet’s interviewees died before the book came out and certainly most of them have gone now. I mention it because that tone permeates the book: it’s a downright gloomy march down death row, commiserating films that are gone, or films that were forgotten and so might as well be. I wonder if he wishes he’d written it a decade earlier.

It’s fascinating to watch the progress of film in and out of the silent era, divorced from more famous American efforts. But a lot of Sweet’s interest is in the behind the scenes turmoil, and much of that is lurid to downright horrifying. Rest assured, Hollywood doesn’t have a monopoly on maniacal directors and producers or crazy stars. Unlike film books such as the hero-worshipping Hellraisers, Sweet doesn’t put any of this nonsense on a pedestal, but after a while you do wonder what he actually likes about his subject. His florid-bordering-on-pungent writing style rarely glamourises without a suggestion of twisted irony; I wonder if he wrote most of the interview portions confident that, alive or dead, his subjects wouldn’t bother to read the book. Would Norman Wisdom (who made it to publication at least) thank him for being compared to a hostage taker, and a cloying, insincere one at that?

I wonder if there’s slightly too much here for one book. Ealing comedies - which grace the front cover via The Man In The White Suit, so you’d reasonably expect to feature quite a bit - are largely buried in a chapter about war movies. I wasn’t really sure what to take away from the overall journey, which eventually winds through sexploitation and cheap horror to land on the inevitable death and ruin of it all. From the flickering wonder of forgotten movies to this indignity, I couldn’t help concluding that, on balance, it was all a bit squalid and many of the films were bad. It’s an unexpectedly selective journey and an odd book.

[The Bookish Wombat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd been meaning to read this book for a while as I enjoy books about the history of popular culture. There's lots of information in here so it took me a while to read, and it manages to deal with sometimes shocking and sensational events without resorting to tabloid-style attitudes. It's a good solid look at the history of British film and at the people who worked in the industry. A definite must read for anyone interested in film.

[J Grimsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the stories of the silent film stars and the interviews he found but I did not enjoy his attitude to British films and his avoiding of many areas. He seem to pick the films that backed up his theory's. I also felt for example he sneered at the carry on films. Sex sells books but must be looked down on. Violence is less unacceptable. He seems to follow a traditional view of British Films.

[Ant Koplowitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great job Matthew Sweet has done in bringing so many hidden areas of the British cinema landscape to life. I loved his mix of anecdotes and personal interviews with some British film giants. This is a dense book, packed full of details that many ß won't be aware of. A great read for anyone interested in cultural and social history.

© Koplowitz 2022

[Tim Guest · Rating 1 out of 5]

No sure why he bothered to write this as the contempt he feels for the actors and pretty much everyone else drips from every page.

[Andrewh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The slightly forced title aside (this is a very different book from Ken Anger's archly-cynical romp through the sleazy bywaters of Hollywood lore), this is a wonderful, witty, entertaining book. It is in fact an impassioned defence of British cinema, kicking back against the critical dismissal of the home-produced product championed by both foreign (step forward M. Truffaut!) and domestic critics (Rachel Low is a highlighted as a particular villain here, as the author of the definitive history, which is mainly critical), and making the case for a series of hidden gems, from the silent era onwards through to the exploitation era, though even Sweet struggles to make a case for the 80s. It is also littered with great interviews and anecdotes, with 'stars', producers and directors - the general tone is generally one of warm affection allied to geekish knowledge and sophisticated awareness of the literature and filmography. So, suck it up Francois.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course the subject is inherantly interesting, but what makes this a wonderful book is Matthew Sweet's writing! I listen to him on BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking when ever he presents, and have noticed he's at his best when truffle-hunting the more obscure forests of British pop culture. Listen to the great show on Hitchcock's "Blackmail," or the forays into the squalid film genre of British sit-coms of the 70s transferred to the screen (On the Buses, Steptoe and Son etc). Sweet's a master of the upbeat/downbeat riff: "They brought mayhem to the streets of Walton-on-Thames." There's also something compassionate about his writing, and though many of the characters in the early days of British cinema were frankly venal, he aways gives them their due, as if they just couldn't help themselves.
My favourite story (from many) is the man who needed to film a shipwreck, and so spent two months filling a tank in his backyard in Finchley with water from a tap...eat that, Spielburg!

[Cade Metz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't let the clever title fool you. Yes, it plays off Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon," but this is a serious history of British Cinema. Call me strange, but I love British Cinema. I wouldn't recommend the book unless you already have an interest in Britiish film, but if you're as strange as I am, this is a must-read.

[Simon S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book, if somewhat incomplete as a general reference text on British cinema - no Will Hay, Jack Hulbert, etc? Full of bracing anecdotes and sound stage intrigue. Despite Sweet's attempts to find a social studies value in the glut of low rent 70's sex comedies, the later chapters make for grim reading as the state, quality, and cachet of British cinema decline.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the writing is a bit dull, but this is definitely worth reading, especially the chapter about the 70s doldrums and the tawdry 'comedies' that were made in that era.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting gossipy read, which made me laugh out loud in parts. Not sure critics really appreciate George Formby!

[Angela Reeves · Rating 4 out of 5]

very good full of scandal and gossip

[Lucy · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars really. I wanted to really like it, but I found it hard to stay engaged with the text.