Hot News from the Archive: The ‘Lost Film’ found! Peter Cunningham
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n 2009 Homerton Roll News reported Peter Cushing’s dramatic move from Hollywood to Homerton. The Hammer horror film star’s career (minor role in Hollywood’s Man in the Iron Mask, and entertaining wartime troops in Noel Coward’s Private Lives) inched forward in a Crown Film Unit production to support the Ministry of Education’s 1944 recruitment drive attracting teachers for post-war schools. Thanks to Senior Lecturer Robina MacIntyre’s connections, a propaganda film ‘The New Teacher’ (later re-titled ‘The New School’) was shot by Pinewood Studios at Homerton.
‘The New School’ – cast list Note: Music by Ben Frankel and the names of the first two players!
Production Stills (Homerton Roll News 2009) Production stills lay dormant in the College Archive. Thirteen years ago we followed these up in the National Archives, were excited to discover production notes and a script, and went in pursuit of the film. However, the British Film Institute (BFI) apparently had little evidence; Peter Cushing Appreciation Societies (UK and USA) weren’t able to help, and a promising link with the film archive at MOMA New York drew a blank. The general consensus was that no copy of the film existed, and the trail went cold.
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In 2013, archivist Svetlana Paterson arrived at Homerton and was soon enthused by the quest, tenaciously searching from cast-list and credits, through social media, for contacts. With the forensic skill of Miss Marple, she searched the web for key players. She found lead actress Yvonne Rorie (misspelt Dorie in cast list) who died age 52, laid to rest at the Ascension burial ground in Cambridge. Music was by Ben Frankel, and following this lead, Svetlana struck silver in April this year, acquiring from his family a digital copy, not of the whole film but of a substantial sequence of scenes shot in college. Yet even more recently, in May she struck gold making contact with Yvonne Rorie’s children and grandchildren, who agreed to donate to Homerton a family heirloom, perhaps the only extant celluloid copy of ‘The New School’ film. It has recently returned to College restored and digitised. We congratulate Svetlana for her role in all of this.
