RESEARCH:  Tracing our history:  We have started to research how the job of Script Supervisor/ Continuity evolved - see "Continuities" below.
We are also trying to discover who the Script Girl or Continuity Girl was on the film "The Private Life of Henry VIII" (1932) - article below.
If anyone has any further knowledge about the development of our work or the names attached to some of those early films, we would welcome the information. Contact us at: mail@scriptsupervisors.co.uk




1. CONTINUITIES - How did we start?
2.
 "THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII" - Who was the Continuity Script Supervisor on this film?


CONTINUITIES - An initial, brief explanation of how the job of Continuity/Script Supervisor evolved.
(Source: Kevin Brownlow, film historian)

In the early days of feature pictures, scripts were known as continuities.   Yet in America continuity girls were known as script girls, while over here it's the other way around.   Quite a few men 'held script' as it was described in Hollywood, but while their official description was 'script clerk' they still tended to be referred to as script girls!   There used to be columns in the fan magazines called WHY DO THEY DO IT? which demonstrated how alert the audience could be to continuity mistakes.   These were embarrassing for the studios, hence the script girls.
One of the most famous was Dorothy Arzner, who became a major director in the'20's and '30's (and directed a couple of films in the '40s).   Sometimes the girls who 'held script' wound up editing the picture, as did Dorothy Arzner, on such colossal epics as 'The Covered Wagon' (1923) soon to be shown at The Cinema Museum, and 'Old Ironsides' (aka 'Sons of the Sea') (1926)

During the making of 'Old Ironsides' Dorothy Arzner was the only one who noticed that the powder-monkeys - small boys who transported the gunpowder on warships in the 18th Century - had all been placed behind the cannon.   She knew the violence of the recoil of those cannon and she told the director and possibly saved them severe injury.

Dorothy Arzner - Script Continuity / Editor / Director

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"THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII"
As part of our research, it is interesting to explore the crews who worked on some of the well-known films, at a time when very few received a credit.

Does anyone know who the Script Supervisor, or Continuity Girl, was on this 'benchmark' film?




"THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII" was directed by Alexander Korda and shot in London under his London Films banner in about 5 weeks in 1932 and cost around £60,000.    It famously starred Charles Laughton, who won the Oscar for his performance.  

The reason that this film is so interesting is that its great international success gave Alexander Korda enough credibility for the Prudential Insurance Company to back him.  With this finance he purpose-built Denham Studios, which covered a 165 acre site and employed over 2,000 people.  There were 7 stages at this huge studio, but unfortunately it was so badly laid out that people had to walk a long way from a shooting stage to another department, or to the canteen.

Korda recognized that there was no formal training for film crews in Britain at that time, so he imported technicians from the United States and France to this country to work on his films and at the same time to instruct.    In this way people such as David Lean and Charles Crichton, learned their craft in the film business.

Denham Studios was eventually acquired by J. Arthur Rank and merged with Pinewood Studios.   Denham was then renamed London Film Studios and D&G Studios.   In 1952 Disney's "Robin Hood" was the last film to be made at Denham and this production brought down this notable film studio.   In the 1960's the buildings were occupied by Rank-Xerox Company and later converted to warehouses.   The studios have since been demolished.

  

Alexander Korda
   
To update our historical information contact us