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ABSTRACT
The Land of Mystery (1920) was a melodrama movie based on a fictionalized life of Vladimir Lenin, made by the American filmmaker Harold Marvin Shaw. Shaw had previously made drama films with wartime propaganda content in Britain and South Africa. The Land of Mystery was financed by Russian exile Boris Said, and the story was written by Basil Thomson, Britain’s Director of Intelligence. It was partly filmed in a rush on location in war-torn Lithuania, as well as in a London studio. When it was exhibited, The Land of Mystery (1920) was described in The Bioscope trade journal as having ‘caused more discussion than any British film of the last five years’. However, no copy of the film survives. This article reconstructs the circumstances in which the film was made, and suggests that Shaw was compromised by the prejudices of Thomson and Said.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Stage and Cinema (Johannesburg), 15 April 1916, 10.
2. Stage and Cinema, 20 May 1916, 6.
3. Pictures and the Picturegoer (London), 29 April 1916, 104.
4. Sanders (Citation1975), David (Citation2017), McKernan (Citation2013, 12, 129–147), Reeves (Citation1986, 7 2,b 116–117), Monger (Citation2012, 24 & 30).
5. You! (1916, 1313 ft, copy in BFI National Archive). See Hiley (Citation1985), Urbanora [Luke McKernan] Citation2008).
6. National Archives of the United Kingdom (Kew): CO 551/77, CO 55/98 & DO 35/451/2; South African National Archives (Pretoria), series GG 141/3/2002 & GG 141/3/2125.
7. Hiley (Citation1985, 169–73), Urbanora [Luke McKernan] Citation2008), Parsons (Citation2013).
8. Pictures and the Picturegoer, 30 November 1918, 531.
9. Daily Herald, 1 November 1919, 2; The Bioscope, 6 November 1919, 98–99.
10. Motion Picture Studio, 19 November 1921, 11; Burrows (Citation2017, 203).
11. Hiley (Citation1986), Brownlow (Citation1990, 371), Stafford (Citation2000, 102–108), Andrew (Citation2010, 52, 98, 106–109, 116–117), Wilson and Adams (Citation2015). Basil Thomson’s main autobiographical works are Queer People (Citation1922) and The Scene Changes (Citation1939).
12. Carter (Citation1920, 217–219), Borovsky (Citation2001, 245, 315–316, 463–464), Derby Daily Telegraph, 24 July 1919, 2; The Times, 12 June 1920, 5; Sheffield Independent, 15 June 1920, 5; Brownlow (Citation1990, 541 n.223).
13. Pictures and The Picturegoer, 1 January 1924, 6.
14. Kinematograph Weekly, 8 July 1920, 97.
15. The Bioscope, 22 January 1920, 6.
16. Gloucester Citizen,18 February 1914, 14; Pall Mall Gazette,13 February 1920, 9; The Era, 18 February 1920, 14; Liverpool Echo, 27 February 1920,1; The Observer, 14 March 1920, 10. See Phyllis Bedells, My Dancing Days (London: Phoenix House, Citation1954), 106–107.
17. Daily Express review by G. Atkinson quoted in The Bioscope, 8 July 1920, 31.
18. Kinematograph Weekly, 8 July 1920, 8b-8c double-page advert naming H. and W.H. Howse; Rodwell named and photographed in Brownlow (Citation1990, 372–73), The Bioscope, 26 August 1920, 71; The Times, 29 March 1920, 12.
19. Weekly Despatch, 25 January 1920, 6, & 28 March 1920, 6; The Film Renter & Moving Picture News, 24 July 1920, 4; Evening News (London), 7 August 1920, 4; Die Rose von Rhodesia (1918, 5-reel copy at EYE Nederlands Filmmuseum).
20. Lawrence Napper – personal communication.
21. Pictures and The Picturegoer, 3 April 1920, 335.
22. Evening News, 22 May 1920, 4; Pictures and The Picturegoer, 24 July 1920, 107.
23. Pictures and The Picturegoer, 24 July 1920, 107.
24. The Bioscope, 8 July 1920, 59.
25. Pictures and The Picturegoer, 3 May 1920, 475 & 24 July 1920, 107.
26. East (Citation1967, 317–328), should be taken with a grain of salt, e.g. the March 1920 coup mistaken for the Spartacist rising of January 1919, and sixteen hours of darkness and 20 degrees below zero experienced around the Spring Equinox at a latitude of 55° N.
27. The Bioscope, 30 December 1920, 10.
28. Pictures and The Picturegoer, 31 July 1920, 141. If the Bolsheviks had been in Kovno, not Alexandrova Elova, that could explain Flugrath’s ‘we had to get out of the city’.
29. Evening News (London), 31 July 1920, 4.
30. Pall Mall Gazette, 26 June 1920, 3; Northampton Chronicle and Echo, 26 June 1920, 2.
31. The Bioscope, 8 July 1920, 59.
32. Pictures and The Picturegoer, 31 July 1920, 141; The Bioscope, 8 July 1920, 43; Low (Citation1971, 123) states that Flugrath had previously ‘astonished and appalled the critics by taking unsuitable ingénue parts’.
33. The Land of Mystery (1920, 7220 ft); Kinematograph Year Book Diary and Directory 1918, 69 (Gifford Citation2000, 262 no.0667 July 1920).; See also Shaw (Citation2002, 356), Reeves (Citation1999, 44).
34. The Times (London), 2 July 1920: 10.
35. Sheffield Independent, 2 July 1920, 4; Nottingham Journal, 2 July 1920, 4.
36. The Era, 7 July 1920, 17.
37. The Bioscope, 8 July 1920, 30–31 & 59.
38. Film Renter, 10 July 1920, 15.
39. Kinematograph Weekly, 8 July 1920, 91 & 97.
40. Pall Mall Gazette, 10 July 1920, 6.
41. Daily Herald, 12 July 1920, 7; 19 July 1920, 4; 21 July 1920, 1 & 4; 24 July 1920, 7; 3 August 1920, 4.
42. The Times, 10 July 1920, 10; 14 July 1920,10; 2 August 1920, 6; Shaw (Citation2002, 357).
43. Brownlow (Citation1979, 156–158), Film Renter, 28 August 1920, 5; Dave Berry & Simon Horrocks, eds. David Lloyd George: The Movie Mystery (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, Citation1998).
44. The Times, 21 July 1920, 8; Evening News (London), 24 July 1920, 5; The Bioscope, 29 July 1920, 6.
45. The Era, 28 July 1920, 18.
46. The Times 20 July 1920, 17 & 21 August 1920, 6; Dundee Evening Telegraph, 4 August 1920,10.
47. Shaw (Citation2002) n.17—citing Robertson (Citation1985, 25–26), & Bamford (Citation1997, 4–5).
48. Thomson to Beaverbrook, 20 July 1920, quoted in Bamford (Citation1997, 4–5, 177)—citing House of Lords Historical Collection, 184 Beaverbrook
49. The Times, 2 August 1920, 6. Basil Thomson himself (Citation1939, 387) argued that world revolution was being plotted by ‘Muscovite Jews’.
50. The Bioscope, 22 July 1920, 17; Pictures and The Picturegoer, 24 July 1920, 107.
51. The Times, 7 August 1920, 8.
52. Dundee Evening Telegraph, 4 August 1920, 10.
53. The Bioscope, 12 August 1920, 6.
54. The Times, 2 August 1920, 6; Dundee Evening Telegraph, 4 August 1920, 10.
55. The Times, 13 September 1920, 8.
56. Motion Picture Weekly/The Film Daily, 6 October 1920, 593.
57. Richards (Citation1981, 101–102, 110), Pronay (Citation1982, 103–106, 112–113), Robertson (Citation1985, 21–22), Shaw (Citation2002, 357).
58. Nottinghamshire Journal, 6 August 1920, 6.
59. The Times, 2 August 1920, 6.
60. The Bioscope, 1 July 1920, 144; The Bioscope, 26 August 1920, 69; Evening News (London), 7 August 1920, 6; Evening News (London), 4 September 1920, 6. For Harold Shaw’s previous ‘mental breakdown’ in 1913, see Bottomore (Citation2003, 422, 429)
61. See New York Times, 6 June 1941.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Neil Parsons
Neil Parsons is a former professor of history at the University of Botswana. His publications include Black and White Bioscope: Movies Made in Africa 1899 to 1925 (Intellect Books, University of Chicago Press, & Protea Books, 2018) and with Alois S. Mlambo A History of Southern Africa (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019). Previous works include The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa (Heinemann Educational, 1982), Seretse Khama 1921–1980 (Macmillan Boleswa, 1995), King Khama, Emperor Joe and the Great White Queen: Victorian Britain Through African Eyes (University of Chicago Press, 1998), and Clicko the Wild Dancing Bushman (Jacana Media & University of Chicago Press, 2009-10).