Book on the Northern film company that made George Formby a movie star is re-released

To commemorate the occasion and to mark the 21st anniversary of the first publication of their book, Hooray for Jollywood, HOYD Publishing has reissued a limited edition of the volume.

Hooray for Jollywood tells the rags-to-riches story of John E Blakeley’s lifetime in the film industry and of a devoted family man.

It also looks behind the scenes of filmmaking for Blakeley’s Mancunian Film Corporation, both in London and Manchester.

You wouldn’t have seen his name alongside the likes of Alexander Korda or Alfred Hitchcock-but John E. Blakeley deserves his own niche in the history of film-making.

When Hollywood was the place to be in the 1930s and 1940s, Blakeley was hard at it here in Lancashire.

He was the first to spot the film potential of Wigan’s George Formby, putting him in his first two films, Boots! Boots!! and Off the Dole.

Shortly after, Formby was snapped up by the Ealing film studio.

Others in Blakeley’s stable were northern comic favourites Norman Evans, famous for his Over the Garden Wall sketches, Sandy Powell, Harry Korris, Jimmy James, and Nat Jackley, along with a host of others.

However, undoubtably Blakeley's biggest star and money-spinner was Frank Randle, who, like Formby, was a native of Wigan.

Films like School for Randle and It's A Grand Life gave the lecherous Frank Randle the opportunity to adapt from a stage career to the silver screen, and, as time went by, Blakeley introduced a host of other starlets who were to become household names over the years—Diana Dors and Lancashire’s own Jimmy Clitheroe among them.

When the Hollywood moguls were spending millions, Blakeley was churning out movies at a few thousand pounds at a time-occasionally running into five figures.

He would often direct as well as produce, simply asking his stars to be funny.

The formula proved a huge success in the North West, but the films did not travel well.

London-based critics slammed them, saying that they were not released, but allowed to escape. Nonetheless, full of Lancashire humour and thinly disguised double entendres, none of Blakeley's 25 films lost any money, so whatever he was doing, he was doing right.

According to the book Hooray for Jollywood the studio became known locally as the Fun Factory or Jollywood due to the amount of comedy produced there.

On its closure in 1953, the studio was taken over by the BBC to become their first regional TV studio.

On the death of John E Blakeley in 1958, George Formby said of him: "He found a lot of talent; he never produced any epics, but he did a lot for British films.

"John made people laugh when they needed it most.”

The book was originally published in 2001. It has now been revised with expanded text and extra photographs to commemorate the opening 75 years ago of Film Studios Manchester.

This edition also carries the original foreword by the late Mike Craig writer and producer of more than 1,200 comedy shows for radio and television, including Ken Dodd, Roy Castle and Morecambe and Wise.

Hooray for Jollywood is a 9" x 6" paperback with over 280 pages, including many photos and illustrations, and can be ordered through local bookshops (ISBN 9781916022515) priced at £15.

However, the publishers are offering a special price of only £12 for readers of Wigan Today and the Wigan Observer with free postage (normally £3).

Send a cheque payable to PM Williams, 15 Welbeck House, Welbeck Street South, Ashton-under-Lyne, OL6 7TB.

Payment can also be made by Paypal. The publishers can be contacted by email at [email protected] or visit www.hoydpublishing.co.uk