“The Cowboy Village”

1915, United Kingdom

Aka… Cowboy Village 

Production company: Gaumont British Picture Corporation [A. C. Bromhead]

Distributor: Gaumont British Distributors [A. C. Bromhead] (10/15, UK); Société des Etablissements L. Gaumont [Léon Gaumont] (?)

Director: J.L.V. Leigh [John Louis Victor Leigh]

Running time 607 feet

Cast: J.L.V. Leigh [?]

Syn: UK. Village boys emulate the film cowboys they watch.

Comments: The British branch was established in 1898 as an offshoot of France’s Gaumont Film Company.

Director Leigh was a British filmmaker active in the silent film era, best known for directing and acting in a handful of early 1910s–1919 productions. He worked with such performers as Peggy Hyland & Malcolm Mortimer, who may have appeared in THE COWBOY VILLAGE.

Leigh as an actor had been in the earlier feature length western THE SCAPEGRACE (1913, UK) playing a Mexican.

Producer Alfred Claude Bromhead, who ran Gaumont British, was also an actor and a cameraman, may have done the same here.

Despite the war (1914-18) it is believed that Gaumont France was still involved in decision making within Gaumont British during those years. After the war their films may have been too primitive for audience consumption.

 

By Michael Ferguson