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]

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

Synopsis: 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.

 

[Submitted by Michael Ferguson]