Isleworth Studios - The forgotten Hollywood

Isleworth Studios has an intriguing history and linkages to early film-making in Britain during the 20th century:

• Originally constructed in around 1919, Isleworth Studios was one of the first purpose-built film studios established in the UK during the silent era.
• Its facilities included one large open air stage and a smaller enclosed studio space fitted with early film technologies, which could be rented by production crews.
• Isleworth Studios provided filming locations to some of the British film industry's pioneering producers like Cecil Hepworth, whose classic 1921 silent film Comin' Thro the Rye was shot there.
• The studios also hosted shooting for Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 silent thriller Blackmail, with the young director honing his craft at Isleworth's flexible filming accommodations.
• Isleworth Studios' proximity to London and reliable transport access via the Thames and railways made it an affordable alternative to central London studios in the 1920s.
• The facilities provided vital infrastructure in Isleworth to sustain Britain's rapidly growing movie industry in the years before huge studios like Pinewood were built.

So while perhaps not as famous as other studios, Isleworth Studios played an important role nurturing British film-making's early development and talent like Hitchcock in the early 20th century silent period. Its place in cinema history is assured!