1902 was a peak year for Méliès and Smith, with Smith also producing Mary Jane’s Mishap, while Méliès produced his well-remembered and beloved A Trip to the Moon. But by the following year, events were beginning to transpire that would affect the future of not only Méliès, Smith, and Urban, but of filmmaking itself.
Piracy and exploitation had plagued much of Méliès’ career as a filmmaker, and, by 1903, Méliès attempted to take control by opening a branch of his production company, the Star Film Company, in New York, under the guidance of his elder brother, Gaston Méliès. Gaston was charged with not only fostering relationships among American distributers and boosting sales but was also expected to reduce the losses Star Films was facing due to piracy and exploitation.
As the Star Film Company’s international distributor, Charles Urban placed himself in a prime position to exploit the company and Méliès, basically acting as a scalper and reselling the Star Film Company’s prints at an inflated value and keeping the money for himself. As a preferred vendor, Urban was able to purchase prints of films directly from the Star Film Company for a low cost. Instead of connecting directly with distributors, Urban then inflated the cost of the prints, and sold them to Biograph, while keeping for himself any royalties owed to the Star Film Company. Biograph was then able to keep all the distribution and exhibition receipts, while the Star Film Company received nothing but what Urban had originally paid—again, at a lower cost, as Urban was a preferred vendor. Such dubious sales and financial transactions related to their films were not discovered by the Star Film Company until Gaston’s arrival in New York.
Though unscrupulous, at least Urban dealt with film prints that were legitimately purchased. The Lubin Manufacturing Company, founded by Siegmund Lubin, and Thomas Edison’s Edison Manufacturing Company, among others, brazenly circulated pirated prints of Méliès’s films, often advertising these films on their own bills. Edison’s thefts included Méliès’ The Astronomer’s Dream and his masterpiece, A Trip to the Moon. This type of behavior was simply business-as-usual during this period, as ubiquitous as it was unethical. Like in the days of the Wild West, laws and protections did not yet exist, or exist in an enforceable manner, in the early pioneering years of cinema.
But, as we all know from watching years of ABC Afternoon Specials, just because everybody’s doing it, doesn’t mean that it’s right. Gaston Méliès aimed to stop the theft, announcing that “we are prepared and determined energetically to pursue all counterfeiters and pirates. We will not speak twice. We will act!” Unfortunately for the Méliès Brothers and other filmmakers, the law was not on their side and motion pictures were not afforded the protection of copyright until 1912. (McCormick, 1931)
Copyright for film and photography hadn’t really progressed past when it had been originally afforded the protection of copyright. In 1865, an amendment to copyright law allowed its protection to extend to photographs and negatives. This was challenged in 1884, when the Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. created 85,000 prints of Napoleon Sarony’s copyrighted photograph of Oscar Wilde without permission. Having copyrighted the photograph in 1882, Sarony sued the Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. for copyright infringement. The Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. attempted to argue that photographs were merely products of a mechanical process, without any singularity, distinction, or artistry that would create an original work of authorship; however, according to Copyright.gov, the Supreme Court upheld the photograph’s copyright, “finding that photographs are “writings” as the term is used in the Constitution’s copyright clause and that Sarony’s photograph embodied creative expression.” (U.S. Copyright Office, 2022)
Though Edison pirated others’ films, he did his best to protect his own. To circumvent the lack of copyright protection afforded under law, many filmmakers submitted paper contact prints to the copyright office to qualify under existing copyright law. This process required light-sensitive paper that was the same width and length as the film to be developed as a still photograph. Intensifying the process, Edison and Biograph printed every frame of their films onto a long strip of paper, (Library of Congress, 2022) following registration protocols intended for photographs. (Holmstrom, 2020)
Nonetheless, the Lubin Manufacturing Company pirated Edison’s film of Kaiser Wilhem’s yacht, for which Edison had exclusive access. Edison sued Lubin for copyright infringement, and, in late 1902, Edison v. Lubin was heard in the United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In January of 1903, the court ruled in favor of Lubin. Not one to be deterred, Edison appealed, and three months later, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling in favor of Edison. The Federal Court determined that a series of scenes could be copyrighted as a photograph if there was a continuity throughout them. (McCormick, 1931) Such a continuity could be established and, therefore, copyrighted, by following the process Edison had used with the film of King Wilhelm’s yacht. (Holmstrom, 2020)
Regardless, piracy continued, with the Lubin Manufacturing Company being one of the main offenders. Later that year, Biograph also sued Lubin over its copying of its 1902 film, Shut Up!, which Lubin released the following year under its own title, How to Shut Up a Quarrelsome Wife. The film is about a drunk husband whose arrival home wakes his wife, who was asleep in a Murphy bed, which is a type of bed that folds up into the wall. As soon as he arrives home, he is nagged incessantly by his wife. The drunk man responds by folding the bed in which his wife is lying up into the wall. It is a feminist classic.
Comparison between Biograph's original film, Shut Up! (1902) and the pirated film by Lubin, How to Shut Up a Quarrelsome Wife (c. 1902-1903). You can see the action doesn't line up as the films progress probably due to missing or deleted frames. Video from The Unwritten Record blog on the National Archives website.
According to Heidi Holstrom, a motion picture preservationist in the National Archives and Records Administration: “Lubin would have created his master negative off of a used projection print from which some frames had been removed (likely due to damage). … Even though [Biograph and Lubin’s] films don’t play out at the same pace, if you look closely, you can tell that the two images are identical and small bits of missing footage create the differences in action.” (Holmstrom, 2020) The effects of such piracy were devastating for filmmakers, especially those with smaller operations, like Méliès, contributing to his 1910 bankruptcy. (King, 2011)
As I said earlier, 1903 was also a significant year for Urban and Smith. In July of that year, Urban left the Warwick Trading Company and formed his own film and film equipment production company, the Charles Urban Trading Company. Urban took several employees with him, including George Albert Smith, who joined the board of the new company, along with engineer and inventor Alfred Darling—though Smith resigns as a director a little more than a month later. Smith’s focus had been turned toward furthering the experiments began by the late Edward Raymond Turner, who died that March at the age of 29. (Fisher, Brighton & Hove from the dawn of the cinema, 2012)
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Edward Raymond Turner was born in Somerset, and by the age of 15 was already working as a photographer. Only three years later, in 1891, Turner was working in the first London studio to produce color photographs; and, at some point, decided to apply color to the new popular craze in film: moving pictures. With the help of financier, Frederick Marshall Lee, a successful cricket player, (Hughes, 2012) who would eventually die at the age of 43 in a lunatic asylum, (Carlaw, 2022) Turner began attempting to develop the first three-color system for motion pictures.
In 1899, Turner and Lee received a patent for their color system. (Fisher, Cinema-by-Sea: Film and Cinema in Brighton & Hove Since 1896, 2012) In Lee & Turner’s additive three-color process, “[r]ecords were made in a camera with a single lens equipped with rotating filters of red, green, and blue. Projection was attempted with three lenses vertically disposed.” (Cornwell-Clyne, 1951) “Their projector […] used three lenses and a special filter wheel which enabled every frame of the film to be projected three times in succession through the appropriate filter as it passed through the triple frame projector aperture.” (Coote, 1994) Not only was this process rather cumbersome, but it proved to be impractical. Because neither the camera or projector were meant for the high frame rate required for the process, it was impossible to keep the records in register and properly aligned. (Flueckiger, 2012)
Intrigued by the advances Turner was making, Charles Urban came on board as an investor, eventually buying Frederick Marshall’s Lee’s interest in the color system. (Fisher, Brighton & Hove from the dawn of the cinema, 2012) Urban then brought on his associates—Alfred Darling was hired to build the prototype camera and projector, per Turner’s specifications; and the film was processed by G.A. Smith’s lab in St. Ann’s Well Gardens. The test shots Turner made between 1901-1902 are considered the earliest example of natural color moving film. (Hughes, Stories Behind the Discovery of the First Colour Moving Pictures, 2012)
But then, in 1903, tragedy struck when Edward Turner suddenly died of a heart attack. (Fisher, Cinema-by-Sea: Film and Cinema in Brighton & Hove Since 1896, 2012) Not wanting his investment wasted, and with a pledge to Edward Turner’s widow, Edith, that she would receive royalties if anything came from continuing her husband’s work, Urban bought Turner and Lee’s patent and presented George Albert Smith with an offer to continue Turner’s experiments. (Hughes, Stories Behind the Discovery of the First Colour Moving Pictures, 2012) Smith and his wife, Laura Bayley’s, careers in filmmaking basically ended at this moment. Becoming an immediate obsession for Smith, only a month after Urban formed his new company, the Charles Urban Trading Company, where Smith had been on the board, Smith resigned from the board and gave up his studio and pleasure garden. Turner had only died in March 1903, and, yet, by August, Smith had already left St. Ann’s Well Gardens and moved to a property he called “laboratory lodge,” to focus exclusively on advancing the natural color system. (Fisher, Brighton & Hove from the dawn of the cinema, 2012)
Smith viewed this as a partnership with Urban, writing to Urban in 1904 in a letter now held in the British Film Institute’s collection: “I should like to arrange a co-operative scheme—you to keep me posted & supply your new perfected machinery & I to adapt my colour methods to it. Under this suggested arrange-ment your company would handle the results of my method, & the advantage would be mutual.” (Fisher, Cinema-by-Sea: Film and Cinema in Brighton & Hove Since 1896, 2012)
Smith deviated from Turner’s process, instead proposing a process that substituted three colors for two. A filter wheel with alternating green and red filters was placed in front of the lens. This process, which required twice the number of frames per second, 32 instead of 16, would eventually be commercialized as Kinemacolor. While this alteration was an improvement on the three-color process, “the reduction to only two colors failed to reproduce the whole color spectrum. The two-color system was not able to render blue to violet hues and whites were tending to have a yellowish tinge. To compensate for this problem, George Albert Smith proposed to add blue-violet filters to the projection light. Depending on the color temperature of the projection lamp the green filter had to be adjusted to produce a satisfying result.” (Flueckiger, 2012)
In 1906, Smith completed the first successful tests of his color film system and applied for a patent for what Smith calls Kinemacolor. Only two years later, Smith had come full circle: little more than a decade prior had Smith seen the Lumiere Brothers’ exhibition of the first commercial theatrical showings of a projected film by the Lumiere Brothers in Leicester Square; now, it was Smith’s groundbreaking invention that was being demonstrated, with the Lumiere Brothers in attendance.
In December of 1908, a demonstration at the Royal Society for the Arts was held in London for the upper echelons of society. According to film historian, Dr. Luke McKernan, this was part of Urban’s marketing strategy to whet the public’s appetite:
"Urban was working to a calculated strategy of approval by esteemed sections of society. Most important in this strategy was the lecture that Smith gave before the Royal Society of Arts on 9 December 1908. Smith presented a paper, ‘Animated Photographs in Natural Colours’, in which he gave an account of the development of his work in colour cinematography from the time that he took over the work left by Edward Turner, and described the particular problems and their effective resolutions presented by Kinemacolor (though it was still not named as such). Smith concluded by saying that so far the films could only be taken in bright sunlight, pending the discovery of still more sensitive emulsions than they had so far discovered, and he invited all those who were interested in photography, bioscope manufacture and lens manufacture, to come together to advance further this particular invention. Then came the films themselves. “The Bioscope reported: Round after round of applause greeted the appearance of each picture as it appeared on the screen. Many of the films portrayed the colours of nature in a remarkably life-like manner. Some of the colours appeared to be intensified; that is, the reds appeared redder than necessary, the greens greener and the blues bluer. But this defect should in time be remedied. The two last pictures, however – the march past of the Lancers at Aldershot and a red-coated soldier with a monkey on his shoulder – were marvellously true representations. These were the result of their latest experiments, and deservedly gained the heartiest applause of the evening.” (McKernan, 2003)
Shortly after a demonstration at the Royal Society for the Arts in London, the first public exhibitions of Kinemacolor are held. Smith’s film, A Visit to the Seaside, which is simply a demonstration of Kinemacolor showing the different happenings in Brighton, is considered the first color film to be exhibited publicly. (Fisher, Brighton & Hove from the dawn of the cinema, 2012)
Kinemacolor became a success for most of those involved. Though back in 1903, Charles Urban had written to Edward Turner’s widow, Edith, that her financial interest was “more sacred to me than any of my own investment”, by 1907, Urban would not even personally respond to her. When Edith Turner read a newspaper article discussing Smith’s work and its commercial viability, she attempted to contact Urban. Urban, through his office manager, responded, “Regarding your late husband’s colour photographic scheme, this was not brought to a sufficient practical point, and Mr. Smith’s idea is somewhat of a different nature.” Edward Turner’s widow never received any monies related to her husband’s experiments or contributions to the film color system and was forced to support her children by teaching piano lessons. (Hughes, Stories Behind the Discovery of the First Colour Moving Pictures, 2012)
But interrupting Smith’s many successes in 1908 with Kinemacolor was Douglas Blackburn, who published the first of his contentious confessions that year. Stating that he believed everyone involved to have died, and, therefore, believing that no one could be harmed by any revelations, Blackburn confessed that he and Smith had been cheats and had duped the public and the leading members of the Society for Psychical Research. Of course, not only was Smith still alive, but so was Frank Podmore, the last surviving of the three individuals Blackburn claimed to have been directly victimized and duped by himself and Smith. The other two individuals Blackburn claimed to have victimized were Edmund Gurney, whose controversial death we discussed Episode 3, and Frederic W.H. Myers, who had died of natural causes in 1901. As both Smith and Podmore were highly visible figures, I find it hard to believe that Blackburn did not know that these two were still living.
Frank Podmore, as you may remember from the previous episode, had been a founding member of the Fabian Society and a prominent member of the Society for Psychical Research and published many scientific papers. It was Podmore who had discovered Blackburn and Smith and brought them into the Society for Psychical Research. Though spending much of his efforts disproving various mediums and spiritualists as frauds, Podmore genuinely believed in telepathy, which was defined by the society as sensory channels that existed outside the scope of the accepted norm.
Podmore was in the middle of mounting personal troubles when Blackburn published his first confession. Two years later, around the time of Blackburn’s second published confession, Podmore was dead under mysterious circumstances.
In 1891, about a year after G.A. Smith quit his work at the Society for Psychical Research, Podmore married Eleanor Oliver Bramwell, the sister of John Milne Bramwell, a physician who specialized in the use of hypnotism. (Bramwell, 1910) John Milne Bramwell had also been associated with the Society for Psychical Research, for whom he lectured and published articles. Almost a decade younger than her brother, Eleanor may have met Podmore through her brother’s work with the Society.
Their acquaintance, the writer Ernest Rhys, later wrote of Eleanor:
“Eleanor Podmore was a witty hostess, and something more. She had Highland blood in her, and her father was a physician said to have the “healing touch,” while she herself possessed a faculty akin to second sight. Into her dark face, under coils of black hair, came at times a gleam of mischief that wonderfully became her, and when you least expected it, when you did not think she was listening, she would surprise you by an apt rejoinder. … [As] Eleanor Podmore [had] become godmother to our small boy, Brian, every Christmas [the Podmores] devised gifts, surprise visits, and pantomimes for him and his small sister Megan. Indeed, there was something of the fairy godmother about her.” (Rhys, 1931)
Of Frank Podmore, Rhys said:
“An excellent person to be an investigator, for he was unimaginative and practical to a degree, but cultured and full of intellectual curiosity. Heavily bush-bearded, grave, and a parson’s son, you would have said no ghost could exist in his presence. … He was an impartial judge and kept an open mind.” (Rhys, 1931)
It is difficult to know the truth regarding the reality of the Podmores’ marriage. Many writers assume that Frank Podmore was gay since he was attracted to members of his own sex. But this feels a bit old-fashioned and limiting, as though these writers needed to categorize Podmore. There’s no reason to assume that just because Frank Podmore was attracted to men, didn’t mean that he couldn’t also be attracted to women. There may have been a period when the marriage was a genuine romantic partnership, or perhaps it was always a sham. It’s impossible to know, as the evidence is limited. Regardless, Eleanor Podmore was a partner to her husband, as in her letters, held in the University of Strathclyde Archives and Special Collections in the United Kingdom, she discusses her work on her husband’s behalf. (University of Strathclyde Archives and Special Collections, 2022) Furthermore, her intuitive nature, one that Ernest Rhys claimed to be “akin to second sight”, would have been of interest both professionally and personally to Podmore and a benefit to his work.
Nonetheless, whether or not he was bisexual or gay, a relationship with a woman was certainly the only way Frank Podmore could have any type of publicly acceptable romantic relationship. As you probably know, homosexuality was not only socially ostracizing at this time, but also illegal in Britain—and would continue to be until 1967. (UK Parliament, 2022)
A famous example of the types of abuse and indignities suffered by those attracted to members of their own sex during this period is Oscar Wilde’s two-year imprisonment for “gross public indecency”. Regarding Wilde’s treatment in prison and by the public, writer and historian Ian Buruma writes:
“Wilde was in fact already a broken man when he arrived in Reading in 1895. The worst time of his imprisonment came in the first few months in London, first in Pentonville and then Wandsworth prison. Sleepless nights on a wooden plank, awful sanitary conditions, and barely edible food wrecked his health. He lost twenty-eight pounds in three months. And months of isolation, with nothing but the Bible to read, and the forced task of picking tar from used rope, which left his fingers blackened and bloody, drove him half mad. While being transferred to Reading, Wilde, shackled and dressed in prison garb, was spat upon at Clapham Common station when he was recognized by a jeering mob. (Buruma, 2016)
By 1907, the Podmores’ marriage had lasted 16 years. Frank Podmore had just published his biography of social reformer and spiritualist Robert Owen, which is still in print and is considered an important work on the subject. (Creative Media Partners, LLC, 2018) Beyond assisting her husband, Eleanor was involved in many social and intellectual pursuits, discussing with her close friend, the sociologist and urban planner Patrick Geddes, plans for the preparations of maps for a sociological survey. (University of Strathclyde Archives and Special Collections, 2022)
“Then”, as Ernest Rhys would write, “came a mysterious change”.
While riding a career high with the publication of his biography of Robert Owen, Frank Podmore was unexpectedly dealt a fierce blow. That same year, Podmore lost his position in the higher division clerkship in the secretary’s department of the Post Office, forced to resign without his pension after 28 years of service. (Kunitz & Haycraft, 1942)
According to Rhys, the allegations, which became public knowledge, were that Podmore was “suddenly dismissed from the Post Office because of his sadistic propensities”. Then, providing illumination on what exactly constituted Podmore’s “sadistic propensities”, Rhys complains of the cruelty with which a shared acquaintance, George Braham, spoke of Podmore: “Who’d have thought him a pervert? Such aberrations seem grotesque; if we treated them as lunacy or used the ugly word of the man in the street, there wouldn’t be any more Oscars or Eulenburgs, for they could bear to be thought ridiculous.” (Rhys, 1931)
”Oscars” in that statement refers to Oscar Wilde, while “Eulenburgs” refers to Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg and Hertefeld (pronounced HEHR-teh-felt), who was a close friend of and unofficial advisor to Kaiser Wilhelm II. Another example of the climate of the time for those who were gay or bisexual, Eulenburg was facing his own public scandal during that same period involving “unnatural sexual proclivities”—or in other words, homosexuality. The allegations had been used as blackmail by political ally-turned-opponent, Freidrich von Holstein, who finally decided to intentionally destroy Eulenburg’s reputation by outing him to journalist and critic Maximilien Harden. The scandal resulted in at least one suicide and a series of trials beginning in late 1907. (Domeier; D. Lucas, trans.; B. Niven, ed., 2015)
After 16 years of marriage, Frank and Eleanor Podmore separated. As the separation also occurred in 1907, one could reasonably assume that it was because of the nature of the allegations and the resulting public scandal. Whether or not their marriage had been a genuine romantic relationship, the public embarrassment would have been a difficult strain on any couple. Because of the sustained bitterness between them following the separation, and her years of work in support of her husband prior to the scandal, I am inclined to believe that the relationship had been genuine at some point, at least on her part. That Eleanor did not even attend Frank Podmore’s funeral three years later, nor send a wreath, speaks to a deep sense of resentment.
While fortunate not to have faced any legal consequences because of the scandal, Podmore found himself humiliated and socially ostracized. Having lost his job of 28 years, his wife of 16 years, his pension, his friends, and his social standing, Podmore moved to stay with his brother, Claude Podmore, who was the rector of Broughton (Gauld, Alan. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
The following year, in 1908, Douglas Blackburn published the first of his confessions. For a man famed for exposing psychic frauds and charlatans, such a revelation must have been greatly embarrassing to Podmore. Podmore had been professionally defined by his skepticism and his devotion to following science and facts—now, the man that Podmore himself had discovered in Brighton and brought into contact with the Society for Psychical Research was claiming it was all a fraud. As Podmore had worked alongside George Albert Smith during Smith’s years at the Society, it must have seemed a betrayal. Podmore had now been made a fool professionally, on top of the scandalous allegations concerning his personal life. Most concerning, Blackburn’s confessions had the possibility of invalidating the years of research that had been conducted with the assistance of Smith and, more briefly, Blackburn.
The next year, Podmore resigned from the Society for Psychical Research, where he had been a member for 27 years and devoted most of his life’s work. (Hooper, 2009)
Only one year following his resignation, Podmore was found drowned in a reservoir in Malvern, a village in Worcestershire, England. Podmore had gone to stay in Malvern Wells on holiday on the 10th of August 1910—a Wednesday, where for the three days, Podmore played golf. On Sunday, Podmore brought with him a male acquaintance for dinner at the cottage where he was staying. They then went out again that night, around 9 p.m., but Podmore returned shortly later because it was raining, though I can’t discern if Podmore was alone or with his guest. About an hour and a half later, after the storm let up, Podmore went back out for the final time, supposedly for a breath of fresh air. He was never seen alive again. (Beard, 2019)
Podmore’s body wasn’t found until the following Friday, waterlogged in New Pool, a reservoir in Malvern. Podmore was 54 years old. An inquest was held. Curiously, the male acquaintance who was with Podmore on the evening of his death was never identified. The jury reported an open verdict of “found drowned.” (Hooper, 2009)
A writer from Gloucestershire explains that on the evening of Podmore’s death, he had been writing a letter to his mother while waiting for the rain to let up, before leaving a final time that night. The letter was never completed. Additionally, it was claimed that Podmore’s watch stopped at precisely 11:23 p.m., less than an hour after he left the cottage. Furthermore, there was seemingly no evidence as to how Podmore came to be in the reservoir. However, I’ve not been able to identify and/or verify this writer’s sources.
It is curious that Podmore left the house at such a late hour, with his death occurring a short time thereafter. I very much doubt that a village like Malvern had much of a nightlife, especially on a Sunday night—and if it did, for what reason would Podmore be at a reservoir near midnight? It is also curious that Podmore’s male companion was never able to be identified, nor ever came forward to identify himself at the inquest. For these reasons, I believe that Frank Podmore was murdered.
I speculate that the male acquaintance with Podmore that evening was there for reasons related to a romantic and/or sexual experience, and that this was why he kept disappearing from the cottage that night. Being near the lake so late at night probably offered seclusion; after all, Podmore couldn’t possibly have such a relationship at the cottage, where it would be noticed. As he could obviously not openly pursue males, he may have been forced to find partners of questionable character through questionable means, such as prostitution. Perhaps the sexual experience was simply a ruse to steal from the famous Podmore, who was then killed in a botched robbery. Or perhaps the acquaintance was offended by Podmore’s attention and murdered him when he openly expressed sexual interest.
Though I can’t verify the source’s veracity, it’s been claimed that few of those once close to Podmore attended his funeral, neither his estranged wife; nor his brother, Claude Podmore, with whom Frank Podmore stayed after separating from his wife; nor any member of the Society for Psychical Research. (Pearsall, 1973)
While many of Podmore’s primary associates from the Society for Psychical Research had died by this point, it seems odd to me that no one in his professional circle, nor many of his family, would attend his funeral, especially as Podmore had remained a member of the Society after the scandal occurred—indeed, until the year preceding his death. After all, Oscar Wilde’s formal lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, with whom Wilde had a strained relationship at the end of his life, was chief mourner at Wilde’s funeral, for which Douglas also paid. (Stratford, 1999) If the information regarding the attendance at Podmore’s funeral is true, this response to Podmore’s death by those once close to him seems extreme and makes me question whether there weren’t issues beyond the homosexual allegations of 1907 involved in the estrangement.
Regardless, Podmore’s death marked the end of the tragedies that plagued the early members of the Society for Psychical Research. All three members of the Society who Blackburn claimed were directly victimized by his and Smith’s fraud died in or suffered from unfortunate circumstances. While obviously only one member of the group was probably murdered, they did seem to have more than their share of bad luck. Again, Gurney died suddenly, probably of an accidental overdose. Though Myers died of natural causes, his pregnant girlfriend, whose death we briefly discussed in Episode 3; his brother, Arthur, whose death we also briefly discussed in Episode 3; and his son, the novelist Leo Myers, all committed suicide.
Additionally, these series of tragedies even seemed to extend to those tangentially related to the Society. For example, Léon Marillier, who I mentioned at the beginning of Episode 4 as having collaborated with Henry Sidgwick and the American philosopher William James on a study creating a census on hallucinations, died in a yachting accident in the English Channel. This accident would also claim the lives of 14 other people, including Marillier’s parents and siblings. (Conrad, Leon Marillier, 1902)
Of course, regardless of what Trevor H. Hall claimed regarding Gurney’s death, Smith had no actual connection to any of the tragedies related to the Society; but he did seem to have a Jessica Fletcher-type effect when he encountered the members.
Blackburn’s supposed “confessions” resulted in one of the final blows dealt to the already beaten Podmore before his mysterious death. George Albert Smith, for his part, publicly disputed the claims in Blackburn’s confessions. In a September 1911 interview with the Cadbury family-controlled Daily News and reported in the London Spiritualist’s periodical, Light: A Journal of Psychical, Occult and Mystical Research, Smith argues:
“Let me say at once that Mr. Blackburn’s story is a tissue of errors from beginning to end. I most emphatically deny that I ever in any degree, in any way, when working thirty years ago with Mr. Blackburn, attempted to bamboozle Messrs. Myers, Gurney, and Podmore. Had such a thing been possible, I had too much admiration and respect for them, and too much respect for myself, to try. These gentlemen, long before they met us, had spent years in investigating psychic phenomena, and were aware of every device and dodge for making sham phenomena ; they were on the watch, not only for premeditated trickery, but for unconscious trickery as well. . . They were the best trained and best qualified observers in London, and it makes my blood boil to see them held up to ridicule. Were it not for the teaching of Myers and Gurney on the unreliability of human evidence, Mr. Blackburn could not say what he has said. He is merely repeating … He says I was the most ingenious conjurer he ever met outside the profession, whereas I am the worst conjurer in the world, and cannot even conjure away a serviette ring at the dinner table to amuse my children, oi’ palm a penny, without detection. He says we had a code of signals ; we had not a single one ; we never contemplated the possibility of coding until we learnt it from Mr. Myers and Mr. Gurney themselves. … Mr. Blackburn, by his own showing, has surrendered every claim to attention.” (Light: A Journal of Psychical, Occult, and Mystical Research, 1911)
The article, which clearly favors Smith, then goes on to discuss the discrepancies in Blackburn’s claims and points out that it was Blackburn himself who had first advertised the wonders of Smith’s skills in the periodical, Light, back in 1882, which is what initiated Podmore’s interest in investigating Blackburn and Smith. While I don’t believe that Smith and Podmore legitimately produced the telepathic results Smith claimed, the article certainly makes a case for doubting Blackburn’s character.
But by this time, Smith was suffering from professional setbacks. Two years earlier, the press was suggesting the possibility of Smith, along with Urban, gaining a knighthood. But now, his days with Kinemacolor had mostly come to an end, as Urban had swiftly taken control of the color system and a bitter dispute had formed between the two. According to Dr. Luke Mckernan:
"Urban had a well-thought-out strategy for introducing Kinemacolor by stages and marketing its aesthetic, scientific, educational, and high cultural values. The first crucial decision had been to make Kinemacolor a product exclusive to Charles Urban’s organisation. There would be no marketing to the film industry in general. It would be exploited by a Kinemacolor company (later several Kinemacolor companies), partly on account of the need for special equipment to exhibit the films (a projector with colour filters showing the films at double normal speed), and a consequent concern for quality control. There would be no money to be made from licensing Kinemacolor out to other productions; all revenue would have to come from exhibition, and later from the sale of patents to national territories. That latter stage could only come after the public appetite for Kinemacolor had been sufficiently whetted; indeed, it could only come once Urban became the possessor of the patent rights. (McKernan, 2003)
In 1909, Kinemacolor, as it had now been officially named, was commercially launched at the prestigious Palace Theatre. The Palace Theatre had opened nearly two decades earlier as an opera house, commissioned by Richard D’Oyly Carte, the theatre impresario best known for his partnership with Gilbert and Sullivan, and was later owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber. (Gans, 2012) The theatre housed long runs of The Sound of Music, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Les Miserables, and is currently the home to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. (An Independent Guide to the Palace Theatre, 2020)
Not long after, Smith sold his rights to the patent to Ada Aline Jones, an independently wealthy woman. The following year Jones would become Charles Urban’s wife. When, Urban formed the Natural Color Kinematograph Company the same month as Smith’s sale of the patent, Jones was named as one of three registered directors. She would also be a director in Urban’s subsequent companies. According to Luke McKernon: “One hitherto overlooked feature of the Natural Color Kinematograph Company, therefore, was that it boasted a female director, a thing unheard of in British films (and rare enough in British industry), making Ada Jones the most powerful woman in British film production, indeed probably the only woman of power in British film production at this time.” (McKernan, 2003)
Smith would come to feel cheated by this sale, and a bitterness formed between Smith and Urban. Regarding the sale of the patent, Urban later stated:
“… while I had a certain regard for Smith as a Scientist, I had none for his ability as a businessman. He was prompted by his lawyer to suggest buying out my interests. There was not enough money in Brighton to buy me out, in the mood I was in at the time. I made him a counter proposal to buy him out. … He was ‘tickled to death’ with such easy money.” (McKernan, 2003)
Urban and Smith would not reconcile until 1938, when Urban moved to Brighton. (McKernan, 2017) 1938 was also the year that Smith’s wife, Laura Bayley, died. (Fisher, Brighton & Hove from the dawn of the cinema, 2012)
Unlike many of the pioneers of trick films who worked on stage with magic lantern shows and as magicians, Smith lived long enough to see himself acknowledged for his contributions. In 1957, at the age of 93, Smith was invited to the opening of the National Film Theatre in London. A little less than two years later, Smith died in Hove. (Fisher, Brighton & Hove from the dawn of the cinema, 2012)
Virtually all the filmmakers who began in the early years of cinema lacked the ability to evolve. The formation of monopolies, along with the continuation of piracy, further harmed the independence of filmmakers. Some, like Smith and Williamson, moved into more technical fields related to filmmaking, such as the production of film equipment and color processes.
But Méliès persevered throughout the nickelodeon era. According to the Los Angeles Times: “Though audiences’ tastes changed, Méliès kept making the same kind of film” (King, The Early Journey of a Film Wizard, 2008). Dr. Rémi Fournier-Lanzoni elaborated, “The public grew bored with the repetitive aspect of narration and the immobility of the camera” (Founier-Lanzoni, 2002). Méliès went bankrupt in 1910 (King, The Early Journey of a Film Wizard, 2008).
Risking everything to create further motion pictures, Méliès made a deal with Pathé to finance his films, with Méliès’ house and studio being used as collateral. Unfortunately for Méliès, the films failed. By the time the shadows of war had formed, Smith was forced to sell the Theatre Robert-Houdin (Founier-Lanzoni, 2002), for what magician and author Professor Solomon claims was a “paltry sum” (Professor Solomon. Lives of the Conjurers: Volume Two. Top Hat Press. 2015).
According to Solomon: “… during the war the Army requisitioned the offices of Star Films in Paris; confiscated hundreds of films; and melted them down. The chemicals were used for the manufacture of heels for military boots”. Though Méliès was able to keep his home through WWI because of a moratorium imposed by the war, in 1923, Pathé took possession of his house and studio. (King, ‘Hugo’ revives interest in Georges Melies, 2011) The Theatre Robert-Houdin was also torn down this year. In a moment of bitterness and despair, Melies burned his store of film negatives (Professor Solomon. Lives of the Conjurers: Volume Two. Top Hat Press. 2015).
As shown in the film 2011 Hugo, Méliès was then forced to sell toys and candy in the Gare Montparnasse railway station in a stall owned by his wife, his former mistress, Jeanne D’Arcy, whom Méliès married after the death of his first wife. D’Arcy had appeared in many of Méliès’ films, including A Trip to the Moon, and The House of the Devil, which was the subject of our first episode. Melies would later describe this period as “a true martyrdom” (Professor Solomon. Lives of the Conjurers: Volume Two. Top Hat Press. 2015).
Fortunately for Méliès, he lived long enough to see himself rediscovered. In 1931, at the age of 69, Méliès received the Legion of Honor, France’s highest order of merit. The following year, Méliès, his wife, and his granddaughter were given a retirement home rent-free. (King, The Early Journey of a Film Wizard, 2008) Méliès died six years later, at the age of 76.
George Albert Smith outlived most of his peers. He even outlived James Dean. The year that he died, William Wyler’s Ben Hur; the Doris Day-Rock Hudson vehicle, Pillow Talk; and the Hitchcock film, North by Northwest, were among the top grossing films at the box office. It must have been bittersweet for Smith to know that he was among those early innovators who planted the seeds for these films, and that he was one of the few remaining to see the fruits of their labors.
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