In 1911, William G. Barker, together with Cecil Hepworth, spearheaded a determined drive to improve the standing of British cinema around the world.   In a bid to demonstrate the industry’s ability to produce films of a quality comparable to those produced by the Americans, French and Italians, Barker decided to film a number of scenes from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII.   The play had frequently been staged in the three hundred years since it was written, and in 1910 Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree staged a lavish production at Her Majesty’s Haymarket Theatre which featured a cast of 172 and which was still in production when Barker decided to bring high art to British cinema screens.

 As film was still looked down upon as a form of frivolous entertainment by stage actors, Barker had to come up with a highly tempting offer to persuade Sir Herbert to lower himself to perform in the medium.   The sum that finally enticed the reluctant actor to appear before Barker’s camera was the stupendous figure of £1,000 for five hours work.    The film impresario also had to pay for the sets from Tree’s stage production to be transported from the theatre to his film studio at Ealing.   In addition to the distinguished Sir Herbert, Barker also commissioned composer Edward German to write music specifically for the film.

 Understandably, Barker made much of the scale of the film and the amount of money that had been spent on its production (including Sir Herbert’s wage).   He declared that the film was so costly that no single dealer or exhibitor could afford to buy it outright, and he therefore planned to offer the rental rights to only one distributor (at a time when films were still generally bought outright).   In addition to this, he announced that all twenty copies of the film would be burned after twenty-eight days to ensure that Sir Herbert’s first performance on celluloid would only ever be seen in pristine condition.

The film, which ran for approximately 25 minutes and was comprised of five scenes from Shakespeare’s play, was released on 27^th February 1911.   A promotional campaign from the time trumpeted the film as ‘an epoch-making picture of Henry VIII, as given by Sir Herbert Tree at His Majesty’s Haymarket Theatre.’

 It appears that Barker, uncaring or ignorant of the significance of what he had recorded, remained true to his word and destroyed all copies of the film after the specified period of time; none have resurfaced since they played in cinemas for that brief period early in 1911.

Sources:  Shakespeare on Screen : an International Filmography and Videography by Kenneth S. Rothwell and Annabelle Henkin Melzer. ©1990 Kenneth S. Rothwell; screenonline.org.uk; The Oxford History of World Cinema. Contributors: Geoffrey Nowell-Smith - editor. Publisher: Oxford University Press. Place of Publication: Oxford. Publication Year: 1997. Page Number: 38; The Dream That Kicks: The Prehistory and Early Years of Cinema in Britain. Contributors: Michael Chanan - author. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 200.

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