H LUSCOMBE TOMS & COMPANY LTD

(1922-1929)

The slide-maker Henry Luscombe Toms had traded as H. Luscombe Toms since 1893, but H. Luscombe Toms and Company Ltd was incorporated in 1922 to accommodate the production of advertising films, and artist Laurie Price was employed to provide artwork and animation. Meanwhile, the slide-making side of the business adopted the trade name The Slide House.

In 1925 Luscombe Toms arranged that the newly-formed Publicity Pictures would employ Price, with H. Luscombe Toms and Co subcontracting further animation work to them. It would seem Luscombe Toms was plannning to retire. The slide business would continue to exist under the trade name The Slide House, while H. Luscombe Toms & Co would retain the business debts and eventually go into voluntary liquidation (which subsequently took place in September 1928).

There are no available records of Luscombe Tom's advertising films, but in 1927 the company was approached by the distributor Pioneer Film Agency Ltd to produce a series of sing-along films. This was in response to a revival in the popularity of community singing, and to Pathé's promotion, in 1925, of Max Fleischer's Song Car-Tune series from the US (the original "follow the bouncing ball" cartoons) which prompted other UK distributors to commission similar series.

[Although a few of the Fleischer Car-Tunes were made with soundtracks, using the earlier Lee DeForest Phonofilm system, these films predate the introduction of sound and would be shown silent with musical accompaniment.]

Pioneer presumably approached Luscombe because of their experience with sing-along slide presentations. Luscombe then subcontracted the work to Price at Publicity Pictures. Price created a conductor character he named Orpheus to lead the audience through the lyrics. The Community Song series consisted of 26 films.

H. Luscombe Toms and Company Ltd went into liquidation in September 1928, and was signed off in 1929.

Filmography

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