Centenary of the Cinema 1895 to 1995

TED COUBRAY, CINEMA PIONEER (1900 - 1997)

GORDON LAWRENCE

Edwin "Ted" Coubray is the last living link with the pioneer days of New Zealand film making. Now in his mid 90's Ted lives in Sydney having outlive two wives. I spoke to him by phone in October 1994 and found him sounding fit and alert - just as I remember him from 40 years ago. He was still saddened by the recent death of his second wife. I regret that during my limited hours in Sydney I was not able to fit a visit in.

When I knew Ted and his first wife, he was the projectionist at Lower Hutt's De Luxe cinema and I was not quite a teenager. At that time I was a regular visitor to the projection box - similar in many ways to the young lad in Cinema Paradiso. There was a mystery and magical excitement about the projection box. The marvellous precision of the whirling projectors, the sputtering of the carbon arcs and the change over between projectors at the end of the reel. It always seemed so obvious in the projection box - but never in the audience. Only the cue marks gave it away to those in the know.

I always felt welcome on my many visits to the "box". Ted seemed happy to give the time to answer my many questions and to generously share his knowledge. He would keep frames for me from films he repaired for breaks or damaged sprocket holes. Sometimes he took out a couple of extra frames so that I had good samples. At one time he gave me several strips from Chaplin's Limelight. On another occasion he gave me samples of Truecolour. Unusually this process had emulsion on both sides of the film base. It was one of several two colour processes use by Hollywood at the time. Ted had carefully scraped the emulsion on both sides so I could see the different dye layers.

I kept my frames collection for many years until it was lost during a house shift. Most of it would have been nitrate stock and would not have last indefinitely. I was especially proud of my title frames which included most of the Hollywood and English studios of the time. I especially liked Republic's eagle logo.

He had a good knowledge about current movies and gave me much interesting information. For instance, it was Ted who first drew my attention to Alfred Hitchcock's walk on roles in each of his movies. He told me where to look in the first Hitchcock that I remember watching. It was Stranger on a Train and Hitchcock was spotted alighting from the carriage carrying a double bass case. Now I point him out to my seventh formers during our Hitchcock studies.

I also called to the Coubray's High Street flat to deliver the Evening Post each day, before taking my sales place outside the King George Cinema. It was a personal courtesy, rather than a requirement of the job.

Ted and Mrs Coubray were quite happy to talk about his past film making in the early days. I knew for instance that he had worked with director Rudall Hayward on the making of the feature Rewi's Last Stand. I have always assumed that he meant the 1930's remake rather than the earlier silent original. Ramai Te Mihi, the female lead of the sound version latter married the director and lives today in Howick.

He described how a piece of smoked glass was placed in front of the camera lens to create the appearance of fog. However, on a pan, the glass moved with the camera and the fog moved too, giving the show away.

Ted had helped with the camera work. The film had at one stage been sent to England to be re-edited or shortened and to have work done on the sound track. Ted was disappointed to find the sound effects included English bird sounds which were completely out of context for the film's historical setting. I understand that it had a British release as second feature to help maintain the required local film quotas - an attempt to protect British film making in the face of American industry dominance. Commonwealth films apparently qualified as quota. Around 1952 or 53, it had a New Zealand re-release at the Princess Cinema in Wellington, which is when I first saw it. I remember carefully looking for all the points Ted had told me about. I later screened it several times to high school classes as a 16mm print was held in the National Film Library.

Later, Ted had been contracted to do some news filming for one of the two Australian newsreel companies either Fox Aussie - Movietone or Cinesound. Now Ted's camera was hand cranked and the frames per second speed could be varied by the cranking rate. He was contracted to film a boxing or wrestling contest in Petone but realised he did not have enough film to give a full coverage. So he undercranked, ie filmed at a slower rate and included a message to the newsreel editor to step print it and thereby lengthen the footage and restore it to normal speed. This was a fairly straight foreward process and had been used in the silent days. The newsreel company used the footage as shot and the result on screen was a speed up fight. He was not impressed and felt that his reputation had been ruined! I have the impression that the bout included Lofty Blomfield.

At one stage in the early 1950's Ted got his camera out and filmed the children in the De Luxe matinee queue. Then during the first half we all went outside to a empty section and he filmed the whole group from a high platform. Next week the results were screened at the matinee, complete with a live commentary and background music over the theatre sound system. There was great excitement to see ourselves fleeting across the screen just like the Hollywood stars. Of course the whole event had been well advertised over previous weeks to build up the numbers.

I remember the camera as hand cranked, made from wood and gleaming brass. It had a single lens and a viewfinder. There was a wooden tripod. At the time I remember Ted complaining about the price of film stock - about 30/- per 100 feet for the camera negative, plus processing and printing. I have the impression that the cinema failed to pay his costs for what was really a cinema promotion. Half price tickets to the matinees were 6d.

Today I have seen examples of similar "film the audience" activities done before the war. There are some samples in the NZ Film Archives. What Ted Coubray did that Saturday may well have been a repeat of something he had done years before.

I remember him telling me about the number of silent film studios in Auckland and describing the location of Hayward's studio near K Rd. It later became a ballroom or even a cinema I think.

When sound came, local production did not have the financial ability to buy in overseas systems. Ted Coubray developed a local sound on film process. It did need more time and money to complete its development up to really commercial standards. Examples still exist today of early Coubraytone sound tests. A contemporary photograph which appears in books on the history of New Zealand film making, shows Ted and his brother Fred standing on the top of an old Model T type enclosed truck. On the side is the caption "New Zealand Radio Films, Coubray tone News, Sound Truck".

As a young person it always seemed unbelievable that the local projectionist, standing at his flat door, could have been able to actually invent a sound movie system!

As a result of working for American Alexander Markey on Hei Tiki Ted Coubray lost his money and went into debt. This was the years of the Depression. so the Coubraytone system was sold to a Dunedin film maker, Jack Welsh, who finally perfected Ted's invention. The Hei Tiki cast included some of the parents and grandparents of students I was later to teach in Turangi while doing country service.

I do not recall Ted or Mrs Coubray talking about Markey. If they did it wasn't a name that meant anything to me and I did not retain it. As part of earning a living after that Ted worked for a while as a street photographer in Auckland. My understanding is that he largely moved out of film making from that point. As has been so often the case in the international history of the cinema, local film making and film makers, were disadvantaged or forced out of production through the influences of "Hollywood".

I do not know anything about his life from 1940 until I first meet him around 1950. At that time he would have been in his fifties.

Thinking back, I sense that Ted and Mrs Coubray had a certain sadness about the way his film making had ended. If he had been able to continue to make films, to develop his sound system, would our film making history have been much more productive during the 1940s and 50s?

Although Geoff Steven interviewed Ted Coubray in his 1980's documentary on the making of Hei Tiki, and Sam Edwards of Waikato University has done some interviewing , I do not believe we have documented Ted's life well enough. The public needs to be aware of his life and activities.

In 1992, Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Arts presented "Headlands: Thinking Through New Zealand Art". As part of that exhibition, a 13 week series of Film Images from New Zealand was screened. One whole 70 minute programme consisted of "The Films Of Edwin Coubray". To my knowledge, this collection has never been re-screened in New Zealand. The film series did not screen with the Headlands exhibition when it was later mounted at the National Museum in Wellington.

During the silent period a number of busy film makers produced low budget productions, often at grass roots local level which all stopped when sound on film movies developed. Not until the 1980's did New Zealand film making again become as active as in the silent days.

Ted Coubray's life spans the whole of the 20th Century so far. He is almost as old as the cinema itself. When he was born, halfway through Cinema's first decade, films were still short - just a few minutes footage per title. The first filming in New Zealand had happen just two years earlier. The Great Train Robbery had yet to be made. D W Griffith would not enter the film industry for another eight years. The inventors of cinema were still alive. The cinema's codes and conventions were still being formulated. He began his film making career as Chaplin was making The Pilgrim - The Gold Rush was still to come. Chaplin kept making films, Ted ended his career projecting them e.g. Limelight, The King In New York.

I feel privileged to have had contact with such a pioneer of New Zealand cinema. This is my tribute to him.

April 1998 Addition.

Ted Coubray, the last of New Zealand's first generation of film makers, has died at the age of 97. All his surviving films, together with his original papers, photographs and posters, are preserved by the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington.

A Partial History.

"During his long career [ Ted Coubray] is ... producer, director, cameraman, sound film pioneer, inventor, and projectionist .... Coubray explores the potential of this new medium with considerable zest and ingenuity" Jonathan Dennis.

The above listing is partly culled from Film In Aotearoa New Zealand by Jonathan Dennis and Jan Bieringa. It does not detail the short films made by Ted [or his brother Fred]. An example of the type of short subject they did is Luna Park which is included in the NZ Film Archives. The Archives also hold The Coubray Collection.

© Gordon Lawrence 1995, Updated 1 August 2002

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