By The Shortest Of Heads on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
''By the Shortest of Heads'' was a 1915 British film starring George Formby as a stableboy who outwits a gang of villains. It was Formby's first film; he was aged ten at the time. The film is now considered
George Formby Snr was worried that his son, George Formby, would watch him on stage and begin a career on stage; he was against the boy following in his footsteps, saying "one fool in the family is enough". After a year of Formby working at a stables in Middleham, he was apprenticed to Thomas Scourfield at Epsom, where he ran his first professional races at the age of 10, when he weighed less than . In 1915 Formby Snr allowed his son to appear on screen, taking the lead in ''By the Shortest of Heads''. After completing the filming, Formby Jnr was sent to Ireland to continue his jockey training, as were the five horses Formby had purchased that year, which joined others he had previously bought.
The film is now considered
lost
Lost may refer to getting lost, or to:
Geography
*Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland
* Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US
History
*Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...
, with the last-known copy having been destroyed in 1940.
Plot
Formby played a stable boy who outwits a gang of villains and wins a £10,000 prize when he comes first in a horse race.Cast
* George Formby as Tony Dawson * Jack Tessier as Eric Dawson *Moore Marriott
George Thomas Moore Marriott (14 September 1885 – 11 December 1949) was an English character actor best remembered for the series of films he made with Will Hay. His first appearance with Hay was in the film '' Dandy Dick'' (1935), but he w ...
as Captain Fields
* Jack Hulcup as Geoffrey Warrington
* Percy Manton as Squire Markham
Background
George Formby Snr was worried that his son, George Formby, would watch him on stage and begin a career on stage; he was against the boy following in his footsteps, saying "one fool in the family is enough". After a year of Formby working at a stables in Middleham, he was apprenticed to Thomas Scourfield at Epsom, where he ran his first professional races at the age of 10, when he weighed less than . In 1915 Formby Snr allowed his son to appear on screen, taking the lead in ''By the Shortest of Heads''. After completing the filming, Formby Jnr was sent to Ireland to continue his jockey training, as were the five horses Formby had purchased that year, which joined others he had previously bought.
The film is now considered lost
Lost may refer to getting lost, or to:
Geography
*Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland
* Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US
History
*Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...
, with the last-known copy having been destroyed in 1940.
References
Sources
* * *External links
* 1915 films British silent feature films British comedy films Films directed by Bert Haldane 1915 comedy films British black-and-white films Lost British films 1915 lost films Lost comedy films 1910s English-language films 1910s British films Silent comedy films {{UK-silent-comedy-film-stub