Item #70-0122 Tom Walls. 20th Century Photographer.
[20th Century Photographer].

Tom Walls.

London: Gaumont-British, [Ca. 1930s]. Original B&W photograph issued as a postcard. 5.5 x 3.5 inches. Very Good. Minor wear on surface. Printed in England by Raphael Tuck & Son's; No. 43. Scarce.

Thomas Kirby Walls (18 February 1883 – 27 November 1949), known as Tom Walls, was an English stage and film actor, producer and director, best known for presenting and co-starring in the Aldwych farces in the 1920s and for starring in and directing the film adaptations of those plays in the 1930s. In addition to his work in the theatre, Walls directed and acted in more than forty films between 1930 and 1949. Some of these were screen versions of the successful stage plays, others were specially-written comedies on similar lines, and there were also serious films, particularly later in Walls's career. Away from acting, Walls's passion was horse racing. He set up stables at his home in Surrey and trained about 150 winners, including April the Fifth, his 1932 Derby winner.

Gaumont-British was founded in 1898 as the British subsidiary of the French Gaumont Film Company. It became independent of its French parent in 1922 when Isidore Ostrer acquired control of Gaumont-British. In 1927 a leading silent film maker, the Ideal Film Company, merged with Gaumont. The company's Lime Grove Studios was used for film productions including Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of The 39 Steps (1935), while its Islington Studios made Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938). In the 1930s, the company employed 16,000 people. In the United States, Gaumont-British had its own distribution operation for its films until December 1938, when it outsourced distribution to 20th Century Fox. In 1941 the Rank Organisation bought Gaumont-British and its sister company Gainsborough Pictures. Item #70-0122

Price: $50.00

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