Denham Studios

[monica]

The greatest film studios in England and in whole Europe, funded by Alexander Korda in 1936, were completely destroyed in the 70s, after being left for almost 20 years in ruin. Nobody cared to look after the tons of materials that were left behind - all the movies produced by Korda's company, including the scenes that were cut during the editing process! Everything was altered by the bad weather and by the lack of interest of those business monsters who didn't care for the movies.
So, we will never see the deleted scenes from Dark Journey, The Spy in Black, The Thief of Bagdad and many, many others (just to name Connie's own movies made for Korda). After Korda died in 1956, everything changed dramatically and later everything disappeared as if there hadn't been a magnificent land of dreams, of pure art and of celebrities, that were gone, too...
Here you have a map of the colossal Denham Studios, the greatest in Europe and one of the most impressive film studios in the world, together with MGM (another great studio demolished forever).

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[Mary Ellen Byrne]

Damn, Monica! That is tragic! My father was a great aficionado for history and I've inherited that from him. I am heartbroken any time a piece of history is lost to us and especially this. In modern time with all our advanced preservation technology, loses like that are so unnecessary!

I find it amazing people just closed up the studio, walked away and left the material sitting there! Seriously, do you people WANT to go into the dust of complete oblivion. At least I have hired a studio historian or something to gather up all the scenes and kept them in safe storage. I'd have loved to see the outtakes from these films. I think outtakes are hysterical!

It is so sad.

[monica]

There was a documentary about Korda broadcast by BBC in 1968, which showed the unpleasant images.

My mother is optimistic and she thinks that most of the materials were taken/stolen by a cinema collector who didn't want to be involved in a scandal, so he together with others (perhaps the television itself) made it look as if the movies were lost or in bad shape, when in reality it could have been exactly the opposite. After all, would it be that hard to replace the masterpieces with some ordinary films, that may not even have anything to do with the Korda productions? The negative is the same for any movie, no matter if it is made at the studios or at home.