From B-movies into b roads

A couple of my friends have just moved into Danziger Way on the old MGM Studio estate. It is strange to visit their flat, which I guess was built in the mid- 1980s, and I recall walking the same site in 1970 when it was the backlot of MGM.

No doubt they wondered why the road has such an apparently strange name.

For my sins, I helped name the streets on that estate once Hertsmere Borough Council agreed to give them a film theme.

Danziger was named after the short-lived New Elstree Studios that Harry and Ed Danziger built near Aldenham Resevoir in Elstree. They were enterprising brothers from America who knew how to duck and dive. They spotted a vacant aircraft engine testing facility and the need by American television for vast amounts of programmes.

There was also still a market for cheap B-movies as support features to the main film in cinemas. In 1956 they built the studio and in the next six years turned out about 350 television episodes and about 60 films.

The emphasis was strictly on quantity rather than quality, with a television programme made in a couple of days and a film in perhaps seven days.

Although many actors would later play down any roles they had on their CV made at the studio, it proved an invaluable source of work and training for newcomers.

Christopher Lee recalled: "If you could make a film under that pressure then you could work anywhere. They never worried whether you were right for the role, just whether you were available and worked cheap."

Pete Murray, then an actor and later a disc jockey, told me: "They once phoned me on a Friday and asked if I would like to star in a film for £250.

"I was young and new, so I said yes, and they said fine, we start Monday'. I remember we shot a gangster movie which involved a gun-shooting sequence which we filmed in Watford High Street. I wondered why they were in such a rush to film it on the day.

"Later I found out they had no permission from the council or the police so the real life shoppers had no idea it was not real."

They filmed a successful period series called Richard The Lionheart and an even more successful television private eye series called Mark Saber.

It was about a one-armed detective played by Donald Gray, who in real life only had one arm, which may be why he got the part.

His co-star, Robert Arden, later said: "In some scenes Donald would be driving a Porsche very fast, and when I was a passenger I was terrified as he used to steer with his knees when changing gear."

Donald himself later regretted having taken the role, as he could not escape typecasting which badly damaged his subsequent career.

Director Ernie Morris told me: "It was all about shooting fast and you were told off if you wasted film on more than one take for each scene.

"The actors were told if they forgot a line to ad lib and it would be put right in the editing stage. Once I was a day behind schedule and Harry Danziger arrived on set. He picked up the script and tore out some pages and said, you are now back on schedule, improvise'.

"It was difficult to get jobs after working for them as many producers thought you were only fit to produce poverty row' material."

The studio gave employment to hundreds of people, but by 1961 the market for such cheap output was rapidly diminishing and support features were also dying off.

The Danzigers closed the studio, which remained empty until RTZ bought it as a storage facility.

Many years later I remember watching it being demolished to make way for the Waterfront industrial park and in the 1990s Sir Sydney Samuelson, then British Film Commissioner, unveiled one of the town council plaques at the entrance gates to remember the once thriving studio.

I am not sure how much of the output has survived, and of course most would be in black and white, but it would be fun to watch some of it on television and spot the likes of a young Dennis Waterman or Christopher Lee.