Early British Comedy

Lupino Lane

World War I was the beginning of the end to this growth spurt in British comedy. Will P. Kellino and Billy Merson’s Homeland Films Syndicate were still turning out quality two and three reelers, made over the Boathouse Hotel in Kew. They featured the popular Merson himself, the Egbert brothers and Lupino Lane who had also worked for the John Bull Film Company in his earliest screen appearances.

Lupino Lane (1892-1959) was born Henry George Lupino in London England, was a member of the extensive and multi-generation Lupino family of circus performers, acrobats and actors. Lane made his stage debut in 1896 and was well known in London’s West End by 1913. A phenomenal acrobat rivalling Buster Keaton, he made many comedy shorts in the UK, Lane’s family nickname for him was Nip, short for Nipper, and this was how he was sometimes billed on stage. He also used the name for one of his British film characters ‘Little Nipper’.

Lane’s film career reached a larger audience after he temporarily moved to the US in 1922 with his brother Wallace Lupino, here they made shorts for Fox. Lane returned to London to appear in some more stage work and then went back to the US in 1924 where he made Isn’t Life Wonderful for Griffith and a series of comedies for Educational Pictures. Lane returned to England in the thirties and continued with his stage career. Best known on stage for Me And My Girl which he starred in for many years both at the Victoria Palace and on tour. The Homeland Films venture was curtailed by Kellino and Lane’s departure for America who, like other music hall artists before them, notably Chaplin and Stan Laurel, embarked on film careers there.