A. V. Bramble

Early period

In 1917 he joined Cecil Hepworth’s studio,^[19] for which he directed a succession of films, notably casting himself in the title role in The Laughing Cavalier.^[20] In 1918 his direction, for Master Films, of Bonnie Mary attracted particular praise; filmed in the Scottish Highlands, the quality of its scenic photography was complimented as “hardly ever equalled, certainly never surpassed”.^[21] By 1919 his previous six films had been based on scenarios created by Eliot Stannard, and early that year the two men worked together on the first production for British Lion Films, which had just obtained studios at Borehamwood.^[22]

This film, an adaptation of a novel by Roy Horniman, was favourably reviewed by the trade press. Described in Kinematograph Weekly as “a credit to the kinema industry of this country”,^[23] its success was declared in The Bioscope to be “almost wholly due” to Bramble “who shows that he possesses a quality that is very near genius. So strongly does one feel the producer’s guiding and creative influence throughout the film that the acting, as such, takes rather a second place”.^[24] Originally released as A Nonconformist Parson, the film was retitled Heart and Soul by Moss Empires when they acquired the distribution rights.^[25] It attracted little notice outside the trade press.

At this time Bramble’s work for the production companies behind his films involved as much general project management as artistic direction, and his overall responsibility was frequently acknowledged by the formula “Production under the direction of A. V. Bramble”. Until he later worked in association with Harry Bruce Woolfe, his films generally billed him as their producer, and he was commonly spoken of as such even though his direction was and remains his most visible legacy.

With Ideal Films

British Lion was in financial difficulties by mid-1919, resulting in the Borehamwood facility and Bramble’s services as a producer being taken over by Ideal Films.^[26]

Over the course of the next three years he made eleven films for Ideal^[27] including, in 1920, the first screen version of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. In this endeavour, again working to a Stannard scenario, he was judged to have captured the intensity of the novel, and praise for his achievement and his “unusual perception of scenic values”^[28] was not confined to the trade press. The Times’s critic pronounced it “one if the best pieces of work that has yet come out of a British studio”,^[29] and at least one cinema showing the film promoted it as “Produced by A. V. Bramble, England’s Greatest Producer”..^[30]

In 1922 he returned to the Brontë Country for the making of Shirley.^[31] This was his last film for Ideal.^[32]

War films

In 1923 he joined with Harry Bruce Woolfe to produce, for British Instructional Films, a dramatic reconstruction of Viscount Allenby’s campaign in Palestine, released under the title Armageddon.^[33] In this he directed the live action sequences, as he did in the following year when with Woolf he produced Zeebrugge - a re-enactment of the 1918 raid on the U-boat base in the Bruges Canal.^[34] His younger brother, Commander Frank Bramble, DSO, had been on board the cruiser HMS Vindictive during the raid and was among the participants able to advise on the accuracy of the reconstruction.^[35]

Mid-career

In 1923 Bramble played Henry II in Becket, a screen adaptation of Alfred Tennyson’s play in which Sir Frank Benson made his first appearance on film. Bramble’s performance was described as “dynamic” and “vivid” and the interaction between him and Benson was said to be “staged with a real sense of dramatic value”.^[36] The film was produced by Stoll Pictures which Bramble joined in 1924.^[37]

In 1925 he resumed stage appearances, acting in a revival of Edward Knoblock’s Kismet at the New Oxford and in Barbara Cartland’s first play Blood Money (which had previously been banned by the Lord Chamberlain) at the Q Theatre.^[38] In 1926 he acted in Graham Cutts’s film The Rolling Road^[39] and in 1927 collaborated with Anthony Asquith in the making of Shooting Stars, a film essentially about the world of film. He was originally announced as the director of this drama devised and scripted by Asquith but later press coverage suggested the pair co-directed the film. In 1968 The Times’s obituary of Asquith referred to Bramble’s “supervision” of Asquith’s direction but this was subsequently corrected to state that Bramble was actually the director.^[40]

Final years as a director

In 1928 he directed Chick, the first in a series of adaptations of Edgar Wallace mystery novels, and he followed this with The Man Who Changed His Name, both productions for the reformed British Lion Films, now chaired by Wallace himself.^[41] These silent films enjoyed limited box-office success at a time when “talkies” were quickly taking over the cinematic world, and after directing The Veteran of Waterloo and Mrs Dane's Defence Bramble retired from directing in 1933.

Director

Actor