THE BARGAIN-1921 silent film

THE BARGAIN-1921

Starring: Henry Edwards, Chrissie White, Rex McDougall, Mary Dibley, James Annand, John East, John MacAndrews and Henry Vibart. Produced by Cecil M. Hepworth. Directed by Henry Edwards. Photography by Stanley Faithfull.

Synopsis: A crime drama where a rescued man takes the place of a convicted heir, who later blackmails him. Based on a play by Edward Irwin.

Cecil Hepworth was a pioneer in early British cinema, being a film director, producer and screenwriter. He was among the founders of the British film industry and continued making films into the 1920s at his Walton-on-Thames Studio. Hepworth was also the inventor of the ‘Vivaphone’ which was an early recording system for adding sound to motion pictures. The company produced sometimes three films a week, in total nearly 2000 different titles from 1898 to 1924.

There is very little information regarding this film in existence, it is thought to have been destroyed along with most of the films and negatives in the Hepworth company archives in 1924. The only additional information we have is that the film was distributed by Hepworth and was released in cinemas across the UK in November 1921. The duration was measured not in time but in length, this title was 1,879.2 meters on 6 reels of film.

Researched from:

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0315804/

BFI: http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b6f1d312e

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bargain_(1921_film)

All were photographed by Stanley Faithfull who was head of the stills department at Hepworth Picture Play, along his his brother Geoffrey Faithfull (Chief Cameraman) and Tom White who produced the negatives. Stanley began working with Cecil Hepworth in 1906 as a technician then later moving on processing the film printing.

These stills have been professionally scanned at very high resolution with digital restoration, some after nearly 100 years since they were first taken. They have been captured using a colour scanning process rather than standard black and white. This gives the images a warm hugh, similar to sepia colour and more accurately preserves tones, colours and fine details.

These are now available to purchase as large format prints using the link below.

http://www.vintagenegatives.com/hepworth-the-bargain