Mill girl, movie star

THE lovely Alma Taylor was one of Britain's first film stars and such a big box-office draw that pioneer producer Cecil Hepworth paid her a staggering £60 a week -- six times more than her regular leading man, former stage matine idol Stewart Rome.

But who can remember the early cinema's sweetheart running four looms in a Blackburn weaving shed?

By all accounts, she made a passable job of playing Lancashire mill girl Mary on the silent screen three generations ago -- even though the plot frequently required her to drop her weft can for trysts with Joe, the foreman, played by the handsome Stewart.

Yet, if Alma's portrayal did not stretch reality too much, that of the mill manager -- in real life, normally a dour character only a little elevated above the working-class folk on the shed floor -- was so far-fetched that roars of laughter rocked the cinema when the film was first shown in Blackburn.

Many of the scenes were shot at Prospect Mill in Walter Street, Audley -- up to which the manager, played by William Felton, rolled in a glossy limousine, clad in a top hat and a morning coat.

All these snapshots of the long-gone movie were recalled decades later in the January 1948 issue of the mill's newsletter, Brocade, a copy of which a reader sends to Looking Back -- in an article written so long afterwards that the author had forgotten the film's name. But Alma's acting -- and romantic antics -- proved memorable enough. For, wrote the reminiscer "RHP": "Alma, on four looms, would have got plenty of 'black looks' from genuine workmates for the way in which Stewart would keep taking time off to make love to her. But she seemed to make a pretty fair job of weaving -- Stewart permitting -- and the producer did have the good sense to give her a little neat home where a weaver might conceivably have lived."

But, he recalled, the most popular part of the picture with workers at Prospect Mill was the clip featuring the "bell hour," or lunch break, in which many of them appeared as momentary stars.

"It was a novelty to 'see yourself' in those days and many familiar faces could be seen ogling the camera in an attempt to steal the picture," RHP added.

The big drama of the film, it seems, was when hero Stewart was lashed to the giant flywheel of the mill's engine. And even though it did not go round, it put the wind up the star. Said RHP: "Engine-tenter Jack Fishwick told me that Stewart was scared stiff -- and who'd blame him, the way those engines can get temperamental?"

The film was one of hundreds churned out by Hepworth's company in the first two decades of the last century before he went bankrupt in 1924. But what was it called?

Looking Back thought that Hepworth's 1922 work Strangling Threads had an apt title for a screen story tied to textiles, but Blackburn cinema historian Robin Whalley tells me that was about a millionaire being blackmailed by his Mexican wife. But, together, we tracked down the Taylor-Rome film A Lancashire Lass that Hepworth and director Frank Wilson reeled off in January, 1915. According to the British Film Catalogue, it was a crime flick shot in Blackburn, with the plot having foreman Joe framed for stealing the mill's holiday fund before breaking out of jail and freeing crooked manager Felton from the flywheel. This differs from RHP's account of it being Joe who was strapped to it, but the passing years seem also to have blurred his memory over where the film was shown in Blackburn.

He said it was at the Exchange Hall -- today's Apollo 5 cinema complex -- but it seems it was the Star Picture Palace at Little Harwood and the Empire Electric Theatre at Ewood which shared the privilege of staging the home-town premire of A Lancashire Lass in the second week of February, 1915.

"This is the finest picture of factory life ever portrayed," said the Star's advertisement in the Northern Daily Telegraph. And making the point that some of the scenes were shot at Prospect Mill, it stated that it "should appeal to all mill hands."

But, strangely -- but perhaps because so much space was given over to news of the First World War, then only six months old -- neither of Blackburn's newspapers made much fuss about the picture, despite the town having played host to the two top British film stars of the day.

The NDT's brief review seemed to be based on a publicity blurb rather than actual viewing of the film. For apart from telling that it illustrated the "temptation and triumphs of a mill girl who became successful as a singer, but was much annoyed by the unwelcome attentions of an employee in authority," its only reference to its Blackburn locations was that "it gains additional interest from the fact that some of the scenes were taken in a local mill."

The review of the Empire's showing was even briefer, but revealed a little more of the plot by telling that mill girl Mary "leaves home and wanders to London."

The old Blackburn Times' report was similarly short, but told that, at the Star, the film was "exhibited to large audiences."

It added: "The play was partially photographed and enacted in Blackburn and the atmosphere of local colour was very acceptable."

And of the Empire's version, it said "everything is true to life."

Alas, historian Robin can find no record of A Lancashire Lass surviving in the National Film Archive.

"It would be wonderful for Blackburn's heritage if a copy of the film or still photographs from it could be found," he said.

But does any reader still have a souvenir from all that time ago -- of when Alma kissed a shuttle in t'shed as well as Stewart?