Filmophone

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Records

Filmophone

Records

British Dance Bands

Filmophone Records Limited was set up in September 1930. It was a subsidiary of Filmophone Limited, which had started in 1928 to develop a mechanism for synchronising disc recordings with films. Filmophone Records' offices were at Broadmead House, 21, Panton Place, London, SW1. The factory was at 12, Oval Road, Regent's Park, London NW1. The factory not only pressed the records, but also made the blank wax recording discs, and it may be that the recording rooms were there too. The managing director was Frank Green.

Filmophone records were made of a flexible celluloid material available in various single colours and were in the shops by Christmas 1930, priced at 2/6, which was reduced to 1/6 by February 1931. The catalogue started at No. 101 and the first 60 records all used masters from other companies, thought to have been obtained from the Dominion Record Company, which had gone bankrupt earlier in the year. Certainly, many Dominion recordings were amongst those first issues, along with other masters which Dominion may have had access to.

From No. 161, Filmophone's own recordings started to be issued. Their masters started at F-1001, probably recorded in early February 1931. The earliest issued ones are on Filmophone 164, special recordings made by Sir Malcolm Campbell, describing his account of setting the new world land speed record, which had taken place on February 5, 1931. The record was likely to have been made later that month, after Campbell's knighthood on February 21st. Unfortunately, no documentation about Filmophone Records is in existence, so no recording dates are known, and neither is any information about the recording technicians or equipment.

A report in "Rhythm" magazine, February 1931 states that pianist, arranger & bandleader Nat Lewin had been appointed Musical Director to Filmophone Records and was in the process of rehearsing a dance band for making records at Filmophone. [It should be noted that the February issue of Rhythm was published in January. ] The matrix numbers of the first issued sides show they are a bit later than the Malcolm Campbell ones, and probably date from the end of February and the first half of March, probabaly the result of a number of quite intensive sessions made to fill the catalogue. After another session probably in early May, Lewin disappears from the scene and most of the subsequent dance band records were probably directed either by Dave Frost or Arthur Lally.

Another series of matrix numbers, starting at G-1001, signify recordings from other companies and are always dubbed masters. It has been speculated this was done to make both sides of the record the same physical length, to avoid the strange visual effect of seeing the run-out groove from the other side running backwards while playing the record. This seems a rather convoluted and expensive way to deal with a fairly non-existent problem, in my opinion!
It may be that having two different sets of master numbers in the same numeric range was confusing for the factory, as the G-series dropped the first two digits after about G-1062 and became (for instance) G-65 and onwards. The policy of dubbing masters was dropped not long after, and the highest ones traced are G-104 & G-105 on Filmophohne 262.

To gain greater publicity, Filmophone records had their own radio programme "The Filmophone Hour" which was broadcast to Britain by Radio Normandie from December 1931, with additional broadcasting of Filmophones by Radio Dublin. The company reported that sales of Filmophones greatly increased following these broadcasts.

On March 25, 1932, Filmophone opened new recording rooms at 245, Marylebone Road, NW1 (now Old Marylebone Road), which was an old school. The school was refurbished for recording and a film studio was also installed. The manufacturing was still carried out at Oval Road, it is believed. It was at this point that the matrix number prefix changed from F- to BT-, though the significance of the letters BT are not known. The number series continued as before; the changeover from F- to BT- was at about 1940. A small Wurlitzer organ was installed in the new studios, believed to be the first recording studio in Britain (and possibly the world) to have a cinema or theatre organ installed. As a result, quite a number of organ solo recordings were made, something that was very popular at the time.
After Filmophone's demise, the organ was purchased by Crystalate and was then moved to their studio in Broadhurst Gardens, which later became Decca's recording studios.

By June 1932, the company was in great financial difficulty; the last issue of Filmophone was made in late May or early June. The highest catalogue number issued was 480 and most of the later Filmophones were only available in black celluloid, probably because it was saved money. It was a difficult period for all businesses, with the great depression at its height in Britain and many small record companies failed. Even the mighty Gramophone Company had had to swallow its pride and merge with Columbia in Spring 1931 in order to survive. In July 1932, Filmophone Flexible Records started winding-up proceedings.

Some use was made of Filmophone's masters after the company closed down. They can be found on Hudson Records, which sourced recordings from many defunct record companies, as well as making their own recordings.
Another, quite obscure company was Music Master records. These seems to be exclusively pressed using old Fimophone masters and were manufactured by British Homophone. Some of the Filmophone masters found on these two labels had never actually been issued on Filmophone.

Filmophone had aimed at the popular music market, with most issues being dance bands, popular vocal, brass bands, the aformentioned organ solos and light music. Unfortunately time has not been kind to the material used for making these records. They are invariably found to be warped, sometimes being completely unplayable and no-one had yet found a way of flattening warped celluloid records. It is not known how soon after manufacture this warping started.

Research based on published details by Frank Andrews and Arthur Badrock and also information gathered by myself over many years. ©Mike Thomas April 2023

Please e-mail me if you can help me fill in the gaps in any of these series.
This listing is based on the one published by Arthur Badrock (which included much research by Steve Walker) some years ago, which is no longer available, hence my reason for putting it up here.

Thanks to the following people who have added more information to the listing: Pete Edwards, Peter Grantham, Steven Holzer, Wayne Ivany, Dilwyn Jones, Mike Langridge

Cat No	Master	Title	Artists	Notes
101	1551-2 1552-2	The Riff Song One Alone	Savoy Orpheans	Dominion B-29
102	3601-A 3797-C	Ain't Misbehavin' I'm A Dreamer	Savoy Orpheans (= Grey Gull Studio Band) (some copies are believed to be credited to Palm Beach Orchestra)	Grey Gull 1764 Grey Gull 1815
103	1529-2 1530-2	Cast Thy Burdon There Is No Death	Tom Burke (tenor)	Dominion B-23
104	1308-2 1309-2	God So Loved The World Angels Ever Bright And Fair	Stan Stafford (boy soloist, with organ accmp)	Dominion C-346
105	1627-1 1628-1	Largo - Ombra Mai Fu Invictus	Tom Burke (tenor)	Dominion B-35
106	1444-2 1473-1	Torna A Surriento O Primavera	Oreste De Bernardi (tenor) Tom Burke (tenor)	Dominion B-32
107	1471-3 1472-1	Vesti La Guibba Sea Rapture	Tom Burke (tenor)	Dominion B-15
108	1416-1 ? 1424-2 ?	Recondite Armonie Addio Alla Madre	Oreste De Bernardi (tenor, with orch accmp)	Dominion B-33 ?
109	1410-2 1418-2	E Lucevan Le Stelle La Donna E Mobile	Oreste De Bernardi (tenor, with orch accmp)	Dominion B-16 Dominion B-17
110
111	1407 1411	Dai Campi, Dai Prati Cigno Fedel	Guido Volpi (tenor, with orch accmp)	Dominion B-18
112
113	1421-1 1422-2	L'Anima Stanca Amor Ti Vieta	Guido Volpi (tenor, with orch accmp)	Dominion B-25
114	1261-2 1265-3	Prelude In C Sharp Minor Polonaise In A	Herman Wasserman (piano)	Dominion B-21
115	1264-2 1279-1	Rustle Of Spring Spanish Dance	Herman Wasserman (piano)	Dominion B-14
116	1244-2 1262-1	Liebestraume, No. 3 Melody In F	Herman Wasserman (piano)	Dominion B-26 Dominion B-36
117	1525-2 1526-1	Basque Caprice Legende Of The Forest	Louis Godowsky (violin, with piano accmp)	Dominion B-34
118	1465-2 1466-2	Zigeunerweisen (Gipsy Airs) Souvenir	Louis Godowsky (violin, with piano accmp)	Dominion B-22
119	3727 3728	A Precious Little Thing Called Love After I Took You Into My Heart	Organ Solo ( = Jean de Paye) (rec. c. March 1929)	Dominion A-171 (Cameo 9109)
120	9432 9438	Should I ? What Would I Do Without You ?	Organ Solo (= George Epstein) (rec. Mar 14, 1930)	Dominion C-340 (from Banner) Imperial 2298 (from Banner)
121	2978 3770	Okula Moon If You're In Love, You'll Waltz	Hawaiian Guitars (= South Sea Hawaiians)	Cameo 8192 Dominion C-309 (Grey Gull)
122
123	2490-D 2491-D	Roll On, Silvery Moon Sleep, Baby, Sleep	Frank Kamplain (yodelling, with orch accmp)	Dominion C-308 (G. Gull 4038)
124	3800-A 3801-B	My Fate Is In Your Hands A Little Kiss Each Morning	J. Wilton (= Jack Parker) (with inst. accmp)	Dominion C-304 (Grey Gull) Dominion C-305 (G. Gull 2524)
125	3616-A 3756-B	Little By Little Just You, Just Me	Arthur Fields Jerry White	Dominion C-304 (Grey Gull) Dominion A-249 (Grey Gull)
126	1287-2 3755-B	Huggable Kissable You Singing In The Bath Tub	H. Arnold (= Phil Arnold) Betty Black (= Vaughn de Leath)	Dominion C-315 Dominion C-315 (G Gull 2252)
127
128
129
130	1553-2 1554-2	Stepping Along Too Wonderful For Words	Savoy Orpheans	Dominion B-28
131	2282-3 2283-2	The Stein Song Punch And Judy	Fenton's Rainbows (= Carl Fenton's Orch) Fenton's Rainbows (= George Posnack & his Orch.)	Dominion C-310 (QRS Q-1046)
132	2352-1 3012	Exactly Like You Dancing With Tears In My Eyes (waltz)	Al Shayne's High Steppers (= Carl Fenton's Orch) Al Shayne's High Steppers (= ?)	from QRS Q-1049 continental recording ?
133	269 292	Puttin' On The Ritz Happy Feet	Al Shayne's High-Steppers (= Jack Hart & his Band) Al Shayne's High-Steppers ( = Cecil Norman's Band)	Dominion C-323 (ex Worldecho) Dominion C-322 (ex Worldecho)
134	293 294-x	Crying For The Carolines Singing My Way Round The World	Phil Regent & his Orchestra (= Jack Hart's Band)	Dominion C-313 (ex Worldecho)
135	1634-2 9727	Rio Rita Ro-Ro-Rolling Along	Phil Regent & his Orchestra (= Jay Wilbur's Orch) Phil Regent & his Orchestra (= Harry Reser's Orch)	Dominion A-246 Dominion C-334 (ARC master)
136
137	9716 9756	Every Highway, Every Byway Reminiscing	Manhattan Dance Band (= Adrian Schubert Orch.) Manhattan Dance Band (= Lou Gold's Orch.)	Dominion C-335 (ARC masters)
138	2104-2 9767	The Moon Is Low Kitty From Kansas City	Manhattan Dance Band (= Carl Fenton's Orch) Manhattan Dance Band (= Adrian Schubert Orch.)	Dominion C-337 (QRS Q-1038) Dominion C-333 (Banner)
139	9745 9746	Hail, Pennsylvania The Victors	Boston Military Band (= All Star Collegians)	Dominion C-341 (from ARC)