Editing Mitchell and Kenyon (section)

=="We take them and make them." ==
[[Sagar Mitchell]] and [[James Kenyon (cinematographer)|James Kenyon]] founded the firm of ''Mitchell & Kenyon'' in 1897. Under the trade name of ''Norden'', the company was one of the largest film producers in the United Kingdom in the 1900s, with the slogans of "Local Films For Local People" and "We take them and make them", they operated initially from their respective business premises at 40 Northgate and 21 King Street, [[Blackburn]].

The first reported showing of a Mitchell & Kenyon film was a film of Blackburn Market, shown at 40 Northgate, in Blackburn, on 27 November 1897. The company produced films either on their own initiative or as commissioned by local businesses. In April 1899 the travelling showman [[George Green (businessman)|George Green]] commissioned them to film workers leaving factories, to be shown at the Easter fair, thus beginning the showing of their films by a network of showmen.

[[Image:A view of a crowd and some turn of the century postadside for Fred Karno's trouers in Wigan, 1902.jpg|thumb|right|200px|1902 Street scene in Wigan: Includes a broadside poster for [[Fred Karno]]'s company and an "Animated Photo" show]]

Three ''Norden'' fiction films released in September 1899 – ''The Tramp's Surprise'', ''The Tramps and the Artist'', and ''[[Kidnapping by Indians]]'' – brought them to national attention. The success of their early films encouraged Mitchell to give up his shop and in September 1901 Mitchell & Kenyon moved into premises in Clayton Street, [[Blackburn]], to concentrate on film production. Fiction production was not as extensive as their production of "topicals", but by 1903 the company had an outdoor studio at its premises at 22 Clayton Street, Blackburn, which was used in addition to outside locations. [[The Cinema Museum]] in London currently preserves 65 ''Norden'' fiction films.

The showmen became self-publicising travelling cinematograph operators. Films taken during the day were shown on the same evening in fairground tents or local meeting halls and music halls with slogans like ''"see yourselves as others see you"''. Dramas took a while to catch on and the non-fiction actuality films were more popular. A typical two-hour programme would show drama, comedy, live actors and then the main attraction, local "topicals", with a brass band and the showman's commentary during the silent films, plus occasional sound effects from guns and members of the audience paid to scream and faint to add to the excitement.

===Topicals===
[[File:0794 Glasgow Trams c1902.theora.ogv|thumb|[[Glasgow Corporation Tramways|Glasgow trams]], filmed by the Mitchell & Kenyon film company in 1901 or 1902<ref>{{cite web |url=http://scotlandonscreen.org.uk/database/record.php?usi=007-000-000-133-C |title=Glasgow Trams c1902 – Phantom rides on trams around the city |work=Scotland on Screen |accessdate=26 April 2012 |publisher=Creative Scotland, National Library of Scotland and Education Scotland}}</ref>]]
As well as workers streaming out of factory gates, Mitchell & Kenyon filmed street scenes, parades, marches, walking out on Sunday and the fairgrounds. Charmingly, as the crowds pass by there are usually a few who come up and stare or wave at the camera, in a way that nowadays annoys news presenters. The street scenes are busy with pedestrians wandering across in front of the slow horse-drawn carts and trams, some horse-drawn as well as the new electric trams, and Mitchell & Kenyon added variety by filming from moving trams. Bicycles abound, and they also showed the novel rarity, a motor car. Warships and [[steamboat]]s are shown, and at the [[Liverpool]] docks emigrants are shown boarding ships such as the [[Cunard Steamship Lines|Cunarder]] {{RMS|Saxonia|1899|6}} bound for [[Boston]], the films having been developed on the same day for relatives to see that night.

Workers now had one week's holiday each year, albeit unpaid, and films were made in the thriving holiday resorts including [[Blackpool]] and [[Morecambe Bay]]. Leisure activities shown include boating on rivers, promenading in pleasure gardens and rolling Easter eggs.

The parades and processions include carnivals with participants blacking up and doing '[[golliwog]]' dance routines, and men dressed as both Dutch men and women doing a clog dance. Others show religious processions, carnival processions, charity parades and marches, and [[Temperance movement|Temperance]] parades featuring their children's section, ''The Band of Hope''. Military marches and parades were featured, as well as marches by the [[Boys' Brigade]] and the Church Lads' Brigade.

===News and re-enactments ===
The outbreak of the [[Boer War]] in South Africa in October 1899 brought new business opportunities to the company – it turned its attention to the production of war films. Troops were shown marching off to join the war or coming back from the front, past flag waving spectators. Crowds were shown greeting war heroes, in particular Private [[Charles Ward (VC)|Charles Ward]] of Leeds, the last man to receive the [[Victoria Cross]] from [[Queen Victoria]] herself, being interviewed by [[Ralph Pringle]].

Fictionalised scenes from the South African war and the [[Boxer Rebellion]] were filmed in the countryside around Blackburn. These are described as fakes, but the audiences may well have accepted them as dramatic re-enactments. Screenings were enlivened by smoke bombs and guns being fired.

Mitchell & Kenyon's most innovative film was ''The Arrest of Goudie'' in 1901, which is arguably the world's first filmed crime reconstruction – the film incorporates the actual crime locations and depicts the arrest of [[Thomas Goudie]], a [[Bank of Liverpool]] employee who [[embezzled]] £170,000 while involved in a gambling ring. The film was shown at the [[Liverpool Empire Theatre|Prince of Wales Theatre]] in Liverpool only three days after Goudie's arrest. Goudie was subsequently jailed for ten years.  A full detailed history of this film by [[Vanessa Toulmin]] can be found in "An Early Film Crime Rediscovered: Mitchell & Kenyon’s ''Arrest of Goudie'' (1901)", in ''Film History'' volume 16, no 1 (2004): 37–53.

===Sports===
The recent introduction of Saturday afternoons off work had made sporting events into popular mass entertainment. Mitchell & Kenyon filmed these events, taking care to get as many spectators in as possible as well as showing some of the action. They took the first known film of the newly renamed [[Manchester United F.C.|Manchester United]], at the match they played on 6 December 1902 against [[Burnley]] – the film was to have been shown that evening at the [[Burnley Mechanics' Institute]], but the showing was cancelled as Burnley lost 2–0, and the film was never shown until its recent rediscovery. A match between Sheffield United and Bury in September 1902 featured [[William Foulke (footballer)|William "Fatty" Foulke]], one of the most famous players of his day who also played for Bradford City and Chelsea. They also filmed possibly the first football injury to be captured on film, when an Irish striker struck the goalpost in the [[Welsh national football team|Wales]] versus [[Ireland national football team (1882–1950)|Ireland]] international match at [[Wrexham]] in 1906. For further details see Vanessa Toulmin, "Edwardian Sport on Film", ''International Journal of Sport in History'', volume 26, no. 2 (2006).

[[Rugby league]] and cricket matches were also featured, and when A.D. Thomas, who styled himself ''"the picture king, the mastermind of the world"'', heard of a cricketing scandal where the respected [[Lancashire]] bowler [[Arthur Mold]] was repeatedly [[no-ball]]ed by the umpire, [[Jim Phillips (cricketer)|Jim Phillips]], he promptly commissioned a filmed re-enactment of Mold's bowling to prove that his technique was valid – the first action replay, which was a popular success.

Other films featured rowing events, horse trotting, athletics, cycle races and motor tricycle races.

===Comedy ===
As early as 1900 some fiction films included slapstick comedy with blundering policemen, in anticipation of the [[Keystone Cops]] and [[Charlie Chaplin]] more than a decade later. ''Diving Lucy'' of 1903 showed a lady's legs sticking up out of a pond in Blackburn's Queen's Park, and rescuers setting up a plank which a tubby policeman goes out on only to find it a hoax, at which the others let go and he falls in the water. It was an international success, in France and the U.S. where it was billed as "the hit British comedy of the year".

To enliven some street scenes the showmen arranged for mock fights or hosing down a spectator, and slapstick was added to park scenes with male actors dressed as women falling off a donkey or in the water from a boat, revealing their petticoats under the long skirts of the time.

===Decline===
In May 1907 Sagar Mitchell resumed possession of his original business, S. & J. Mitchell, at 40 Northgate, [[Blackburn]]. The volume of film production seems to have tailed off from this date, and from 1909 was increasingly restricted to local events. By the mid-1900s the taste of audiences for seeing themselves was fading, and more structured films were coming into vogue and the company concentrated on their fictional output. The last surviving film dates from 1913. Mitchell was joined in his business by his son John in 1921. His partnership with Kenyon was formally dissolved around 1922 and Kenyon died in 1925. Mitchell carefully stored the film negatives away in the basement of his shop. He lived to the age of 85, and died on 2 October 1952. John continued to run the business until he retired in 1960.