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The Life Story of David Lloyd George
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Wikipedia article
'The Life Story of David Lloyd George' (originally titled 'The Man Who Saved The Empire')[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=r7I7CCd-A9cC&pg=PA8&dq=%22The+Man+Who+Saved+The+Empire%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=np0JVZvYJsbpaNiKgLgC&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Man%20Who%20Saved%20The%20Empire%22&f=false Sarah Barrow, John White: 'Fifty Key British Films', Routledge 2012, page 8] Linked 2015-03-18[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dVHaAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=%22The+Man+Who+Saved+The+Empire%22&source=bl&ots=1l6id4SE1W&sig=IoFK3T8jXfxIJDFsbaTS1bmKjHE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Q5sJVc-pF8PKaO3RgLgH&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Man%20Who%20Saved%20The%20Empire%22&f=false Rachael Low: 'The History of British Film (Volume 3): The History of the British Film 1914 - 1918', Routledge 2013, page 93] Linked 2015-03-18[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=spOxzrifZjcC&pg=PA831&lpg=PA831&dq=%22The+Man+Who+Saved+The+Empire%22&source=bl&ots=C7Isw_Z9JA&sig=WoW-9UPNWSj5EuT5xfdGxDjoJq0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Q5sJVc-pF8PKaO3RgLgH&ved=0CDIQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Man%20Who%20Saved%20The%20Empire%22&f=false William D. Rubinstein: 'The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History', Palgrave Macmillan 2011, page 831] Linked 2015-03-18 is a 1918 British silent biopic film directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Norman Page, Alma Reville and Ernest Thesiger. The film "is thought to be the first feature length biopic of a contemporary living politician"."[http://www.unesco.org.uk/2010_uk_memory_of_the_world_register 2010 UK Memory of the World Register]", United Kingdom National Commission for UNESCO, 2010. Accessed 4 June 2011. Finished in 1918, it was not shown publicly until 1996.
Production background
'The Life Story of David Lloyd George' is about David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister from 1916 to 1922. It was written by Sidney Low, directed by Maurice Elvey, and stars Norman Page as Lloyd George. Other actors who appear are Ernest Thesiger, Alma Reville, and Douglas Munro. The film was produced by the Ideal Film Company, which had been started around 1910 by two Jewish Manchester-born brothers, Harry Moses and Simon Rowson (born Rosenbaum).
The film's release was much anticipated, and the film press carried impressive advertisements for it in late 1918. However, in December 1918, all the advertisement stopped, following an attack in the influential paper 'John Bull' by its owner, the MP Horatio Bottomley, who claimed that the Rowsons, because they had changed their last name and had employed some foreign-born extras to play soldiers in the film's war scenes, had less than patriotic motives for making the film. The Rowsons started the process of suing him for libel, but were shortly afterwards informed that Lloyd George, who initially had supported the production of the film, no longer wanted it shown. Solicitors, presumably acting for the government or for Lloyd George's Liberal Party, visited the film company, paid 20,000 in cash (a very high figure at the time), and walked away with the negative and the only print. The reason why Lloyd George took this action is still unknown, but is the subject of much speculation.[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sXpZAAAAMAAJ&q=David+Lloyd+George:+The+Movie+Mystery&dq=David+Lloyd+George:+The+Movie+Mystery&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gqwJVdikLIO3PYmHgOAE&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAA David Berry, Simon Horrocks: 'David Lloyd George: The Movie Mystery', University of Wales Press, 1998] Linked 2015-03-18
Preservation status
Long believed destroyed, the film was rediscovered in the Lloyd George family archives in 1994 by the Wales Film and Television Archive (later the National Library of Wales' National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales). When fully restored, the film had its world premiere in Cardiff in 1996.[https://web.archive.org/web/20110430190050/http://www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=1514&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=2185&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=2&cHash=2ca482db2d National Library of Wales press release, 6 March 2009]
In 2009, the film was released on DVD[https://siop.llgc.org.uk/products/the-life-story-of-david-lloyd-george-the-life-story-of-david-lloyd-george 'The Life Story of David Lloyd George' DVD, National Library of Wales. Accessed 16 March 2018.] and in 2010 was inscribed in UNESCO's UK Memory of the World Register.
Further reading
*Dave Berry and Simon Horrocks, eds, 'David Lloyd George: the Movie Mystery.' Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998. .
References
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