Mayflower Productions

Mayflower Productions was a British-based film production company of the 1930s and 1950s.

Mayflower Pictures

Mayflower Pictures was formed in 1937 by German-born film producer Erich Pommer and British actor Charles Laughton.[1][2]

The company produced three films starring Laughton — Vessel of Wrath (1938), St. Martin's Lane (1938) and Jamaica Inn (1939). Jamaica Inn was the last film directed by Alfred Hitchcock before he left for America and marking the star debut of Maureen O'Hara, who was put under contract to the company.[3]

They were also going to film The Admirable Crichton.[4] However the disappointing financial performance of the films saw the company lose its main backer, John Maxwell. Laughton went to the US to appear in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Pommer went with him to negotiate US distribution rights for the films; after this, war broke out, and as a German passport holder, Pommer was unable to return to England. O'Hara, Pommer and Laughton all went to work for RKO.[5][6]

Mayflower Productions

The company was re-activated in the late 1940s as "Mayflower Productions", the company of Maxwell Setton and Aubrey Baring.[7] It made seven films, mostly action stories, before the company was dissolved.[8]

Filmography

Mayflower Pictures

Mayflower Productions

References

  1. ↑ "Laughton On Himself". Daily News. 1 (231). New South Wales, Australia. 28 August 1939. p. 7. Retrieved 21 November 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  2. ↑ "FILM WORLD". The West Australian. 53 (15, 964). Western Australia. 27 August 1937. p. 4. Retrieved 21 November 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ↑ "FLINDERS RANGE FILM WILL SUIT MAUREEN OHARA". Sunday Times (2741). Perth. 10 September 1950. p. 21 (Sporting Section). Retrieved 21 November 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. ↑ "Hollywood News". The Sydney Morning Herald (31, 637). 25 May 1939. p. 28. Retrieved 21 November 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. ↑ Hardt, Ursula (1996). From Caligari to California: Erich Pommer's Life in the International Film Wars. Berghahn Books. p. 154.
  6. ↑ "THE DIARY OF A TALKIE TOURIST". Truth (2613). Sydney. 4 February 1940. p. 40. Retrieved 21 November 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  7. ↑ "British Company At Work Again". Weekly Times (4180). Victoria, Australia. 3 August 1949. p. 48. Retrieved 21 November 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ↑ Harper, Sue; Porter, Vincent (2003). British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of Deference. Oxford University Press. pp. 178–180.


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