MANCUNIAN FILMS

DEDICATED | John Blakeley invested in studio equipment

Mancunian Film Studios, based in Rusholme, was known as Manchester’s piece of Hollywood.

A new project is aiming to bring those films back to the North West.

The Mancunian Film Studio was created by John E. Blakeley in 1947. He was a director and film distributor who wanted to bring films to the North West and capture the popular music hall performers from the region on celluloid.

John invested around £70,000 into creating the best state of the art film studio outside of London. It really put Manchester on the movie map.

From 1948 to 1953 John created some of the best Lancashire comedy films on record.

Unfortunately, the studio’s entire archive was lost when a fire swept through Kay Laboratories in 1980.

Restoration

John’s grandson, Mike Blakeley, is now working on a valuable project in his grandfather’s memory.

As an award winning cameraman himself, Mike has plenty of experience in film making.

Mike is working to gather together all the old films created by the Mancunian Film Studios, and those by his grandfather before he set up the studios.

Mike hopes to repatriate them back to the North West with the help of the Northwest Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University.

So far, Mike has retrieved films from such varied sources as private collectors, the British Film Institute, and even Paramount Studios in the USA.

The collection is not yet complete but Mike is hoping it will grow over time. To find out more about Mancunian studios, see the weblinks below.

If you have information on any of the films, click here to contact the project.