The Arcadians

BFI Most Wanted: the hunt for Britain's missing films

Directed by Victor Saville, 1927

Victor Saville's solo directorial debut: a silent adaptation of the stage musical. 'Pastoral masterpiece' or woeful mistake?

The shepherd Simplicitas (Ben Blue) with his Arcadian nymph escort

Credits

Director Production Company Source (Play) Photography	Victor Saville Gaumont-British Picture Corporation Mark Ambient, Alexander M. Thompson Percival Strong, Basil Emmott
Cast: Ben Blue (Smith/Simplicitas); Jeanne de Casalis (Mrs Smith); Vesta Sylva (Eileen Cavanugh); John Longden (Jack Meadows); Humberstone Wright (Sir George Paddock); Gibb McLoughlin (Peter Doody); Cyril McLaglen (The Crook); Doris Bromsgrove (Sombra); Nancy Rigg (Chrysea)
7,000 feet, silent, black & white.

Why are we so keen to find it?

It's the first feature film directed by the versatile Victor Saville, already a successful producer and associated as a director in the 1930s with hugely popular vehicles for Jessie Matthews (The Good Companions, 1933; Evergreen, 1934; First a Girl, 1935) and Jack Hulbert (Sunshine Susie, 1931; Love on Wheels, 1932), before relocating to Hollywood in 1940.

Shot in August 1927, The Arcadians was the first film produced at Gaumont's Shepherd's Bush studio. There is also much of interest on screen with rare appearances by several popular stage entertainers of the period: Teddy Brown, Ivor Vintor, Lola and Luis, Tracey and Haye, Balliol and Merton, the Donovan Sisters and the Tiller Girls. It has also been suggested that the film includes uncredited appearances by both pulp novelist Peter W. Batten and actor and 'Gainsborough girl' Phyllis Calvert (aged 12).

The play it is based upon, 'The Arcadians: A Fantastic Musical Play in Three Acts', was a success on stage and radio (it was one of the West End's longest running shows and played across the English speaking world, enjoying several revivals and becoming a popular text for amateur dramatics societies).

What's it about?

It's the fantastic story of the adventures of a London nightclub owner called Smith, who escapes form the licensing authorities by plane and parachute s into the forgotten realm of Arcady, land of truth and beauty. The inhabitants of Arcady are shocked by Smith's vulgarity and his capacity for lying, and decide to purify him in their Pool of Truth. After being purified, Smith returns to the capital as the shepherd 'Simplicitas' and heads a crusade of truth to convert wicked Londoners to the simple life, assisted by an Arcadian nymph escort. A series of strange situations ensue, leading to Simplicitas riding in a horse race at Askwood. Here he reveals his true identity and is reunited with his unsuspecting wife.

Last seen?

The film had a trade screening at London's Hippodrome on 21 November 1927, followed in the next two weeks with trade screenings in Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff, Bristol and Belfast. Its theatrical release was scheduled for 7 May 1928.

An incomplete and deteriorating nitrate print (from a private collector?) was apparently viewed prior to July 2008 by independent film scholar F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre.

What else do we know about it?

In the book 'Evergreen: Victor Saville in his Own Words', Saville recounts that The Arcadians was nearly the 'first' sound film, as one Mr Baird was making a British experimental sound film in the same Lime Grove studios (Mr Baird is probably John Logie Baird, the television pioneer whose company was shortly to be absorbed by Gaumont-British). Saville apparently tried to convince Gaumont's owner A.C. Bromhead to let him record some musical numbers for his film but was foiled by the difficulty of synching sound to film shot at the silent speed of 18 frames per second.

Does anything survive?

The BFI Stills, Posters and Designs collection holds eleven photographs related to the film, eight of which appear to be production stills, with the remaining being publicity shots of the cast in costume. There are also images from the film in journals The Bioscope, Close-up and The Picturegoer. In her 'History of British Film', Rachael Low describes the film as "a woeful version of the musical comedy", although it's not clear what, if anything, she had seen of it.

BFI Special Collections holds a publicity brochure for the film and the film is also featured in a Gaumont-British brochure of 'The Pick of the Pictures', 1928.

Reviews

The Bioscope reviewer found that it was "pictorially striking and acted by a very clever company" giving it considerable entertainment value and "wide appeal". The lascivious eye was evidently well served: "undoubtedly the extraordinary number of beautiful girls included in the cast is one of the picture's chief assets". The same reviewer added, however, that "the picture suffers from prolongation, interest waning towards the close". The main problem it identifies is the adaptation of stage musical to silent screen and it suggests that "adequate orchestral accompaniment is a sine qua non". The Picturegoer offered blankly that "musical comedy themes have often provided material for excellent screen subjects, and this new Gaumont production is no exception". Close-up described it, perhaps ironically, as "Gaumont's pastoral masterpiece".

James Piers Taylor, Film Historian

You can find more about Victor Saville's work - including entries on each of his surviving films and video clips for users in UK schools, colleges, universities and public libraries, at BFI Screenonline.