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Roland Davies – The Forgotten Animator

Roland Davies’ contribution to the world of animation could easily be overlooked as his brief, and not entirely unsuccessful, career as a cartoon mogul lasted for only six films but spanned nearly three years. Born in Kidderminster in Hereford on the 22nd July 1904, where his father was in a travelling band as a violinist, the young Roland was always being uprooted at short notice until finally he settled down in Ipswich, Suffolk, where he attended the local penny-a-week school.

By 1919, at the age of fifteen, Roland had left school and was attending a two year full time course at the Ipswich Art School. After completion, he moved to West Drayton in Middlesex where he started a four-year apprenticeship as a trainee lithographer with a company who specialised in printing cinema posters; it was here that his love of films was born.

After completing his apprenticeship at the age of twenty-one, Roland set himself up as a freelance illustrator and began the task of finding work. But within a fortnight he had forsaken the insecurities of self-employment and found himself being taken on as a staff artist with Temple Press, illustrating in Autocar and Motorcycling for several years.

As time went by, Roland met up with a writer who had ideas for a cartoon strip for a Sunday newspaper, for which Roland supplied the drawings. This commission gave him the financial security to come back to Ipswich and get married. As time went on, Roland felt confident enough to approach other newspapers with an idea for a cartoon strip about a carthorse call Steve.

Unknown to Roland, the Sunday Express were looking to replace an American strip with a British alternative. Roland was signed up for fifteen pounds a week and ‘Steve the Horse’ was born. The title of the strip, ‘Come on Steve’, was taken from the cries of punters cheering the famous jockey of that time, Steve Donoghue, winner of six Derby’s, on to win,

The first strip appeared on the 6th March 1932. After a few years passed, the cartoons became so popular it prompted Roland to consider making a short animated film of his character. With no knowledge of film-making, or how to make a carthorse appear to move, he bought himself a ten-shilling stop-frame camera and, with a small sum of money from his father-in-law, set about learning the basics of cartoon animation from a book.

A few weeks passed before a tiny room, over a teashop in Ipswich, was rented out as a studio and a friend of his brother was enlisted to clean up the drawings that Roland made. After beginning shooting in October 1934, with no previous experience of film-making, Roland had finished his first film ‘Steve Steps Out’ in August 1935.

The film, which was shot in black and white, lasted eight minutes, requiring over 5,500 separate drawings and a soundtrack that would be added after the animation was completed. Roland was now quantifiable as a filmmaker and had a product to show when it came to raising finance for future projects.

Steve Steps Out (1935)

In November 1935, Roland approached Frank Butcher, of Butcher’s Film Services Ltd., who distributed British-made films to cinemas throughout the country. Butcher refused to take his film, but Roland harangued him all afternoon until he relented and offered to part-finance an initial run of five more Steve films in exchange for sole distribution rights and a percentage of the profits.

Roland Davies Cartoon Films, 3 Museum Street, Ipswich

On the 1st December 1935, the Roland Davies Cartoon Film Co. Ltd was formed in new premises at 3 Museum Street, Ipswich. The job of recruitment for the next production began, first signing up seven experienced animators and a young artist, by the name of Carl Giles, who would later become a famed cartoonist simply named GILES, as well as four artists from Ipswich Art School.

Animation studio, Ipswich, 1937, Carl Giles far right, Roland Davies second from right

Animators at work

Camera room

Pre-production work began on the 3rd January 1936, with the second film ‘Steve’s Treasure Hunt’. Meanwhile, the first film ‘Steve Steps Out’, still needed a soundtrack and Roland enlisted a friend to do the voices and the John Reynders Film Orchestra to provide the music. It was premiered on Sunday 17th May 1936 at the Central Cinema in Princes Street, Ipswich to an audience of 230, comprised of members of the newly established Ipswich Film Society and staff from the studio.

In June 1936, ‘Steve’s Treasure Hunt’ opened to excellent reviews. It was finished in four months, compared to the first film taking a year to make. Work began on the third film, ‘Steve’s Cannon Crackers’ in July 1936, and the number of people working for the studio had risen to more than forty-three.

‘Steve’s Cannon Crackers’ was premiered on the 10th January 1937, to promising reviews, followed by ‘Steve of the River’ in April of the same year. But Roland began to feel the first rumblings of disenchantment with his distributor; the revenue from the cartoons was less than 50% of the agreed hire charge for each film.

The fifth film in the series, ‘Steve in Bohemia’, went into production in May 1937, and Roland was worried at the lack of revenue coming in and the alarming rate the company’s reserves were diminishing in order to meet the wage bill. The release of ‘Steve in Bohemia’ in December 1937 met with bad reviews.

The remaining cartoons in the series, ‘Steve Cinderella’, proved to be the final film, while ‘Steve Goes to London’, which was to be made in colour, was never put into production. Roland accused the distributor of making little effort to promote his films and the distributor responded that audiences no longer wished to see black & white animated short films about horses.

‘Steve Cinderella’ was premiered in May 1938, and on general release for only three weeks before being withdrawn by Roland and sold along with the other five films to Pathescope for use in the 9.5mm home projection market. The animation studio closed down in May 1938, brought about by the lack of technology and resources. But the studio did produce one other cartoon, an advert for Ford Tractors, starring Steve.

Looking back to comments he had made to the local newspaper, the East Anglian Daily Times on the 4th January 1936. “My idea was to make a British film cartoon; for which I choose my “Steve” as the character. It would at least become a close rival to the American productions; it is a unique industry so far as the British Isles are concerned. I believe there are not more than four concerns in the whole country interested in this particular aspect of the film industry.” – alas, now there were only three.

Sadly Roland Davies passed away on the 10th December 1993 at the age of 89; he had consigned his films to virtual obscurity.

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