William Bowden

(b. Manchester, **/**/1874 - d. **/**/****). Cameraman, scriptwriter, director. In September 1916 it was announced that William Weston Bowden, photographer to Lucoque Ltd, had accepted a contract with African Film Productions. It is known for certain that he had filmed Beau Brocade (1916) for Thomas Bentley, which Lucoque had produced in England, and it is entirely possible that he was also responsible for She (1916) and Tatterly (1916), both directed by H. Lisle Lucoque, before he came out to South Africa on board the Walmer Castle. What he did before that is less certain, though in issues of the Jewish Chronicle of 1913/1914 there are references to a William Weston-Bowden having produced plays for an amateur dramatic society, including Pinero’s His House in Order.

He is said to have been one of the contributing cameramen on Harold M. Shaw's De Voortrekkers (1916) and then shot Zulutown Rink (1917) and Zulutown Races (1917) for Dick Cruikshanks. Together with J.L. Humphrey, he filmed Cruikshanks's The Symbol of Sacrifice (1918), and when Lucoque came out to South Africa to shoot King Solomon's Mines (1918) and Allan Quatermain (1919), it was only natural that he should team up with his old cameraman. He then shot a “scenic” of Mont-aux-Sources and the Drakensberg (1919). The partnership with Cruikshanks continued with The Madcap of the Veld (1920), The Vulture's Prey (1922) and The Blue Lagoon (1923), all of which he shot as well as co-directed. In addition he was credited with contributing to the script of The Madcap of the Veld and The Blue Lagoon, and made at least one acting appearance, playing a cryptologist who is strangled by a pet gorilla in The Vulture's Prey.

After 1923 we lose track of him, though in October 1925 William Bowden, “cinema artist”, sailed from Cherbourg to the United States. He gives the name of his sister, Constance Moore, as his nearest relative and she lived in Southport, England. From 1929 onwards a William Bowden is identified as the chief electrician/technician at Nettleton Studios at Walton-on-Thames, working with Walter Forde on The Silent House (1929) and Red Pearls (1930). Both these films starred Arthur Pusey, with whom Bowden had worked on The Blue Lagoon. (FO)

Sources

le Roux, André I. & Fourie, Lilla - Filmverlede: geskiedenis van die Suid-Afrikaanse speelfilm

Low, Rachel - The history of the British film 1914-1918

Stage & Cinema, 5 May 1917

Stage & Cinema, 7 July 1917

S.A. Pictorial, 29 April 1922

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