Thursday 23 February
Kinematograph Weekly announces that Poole Street has been taken over by International Artists Film Company, for the production of a film titled Lark’s Gate, under the direction of John Gliddon, a casting manager and occasional actor. The production was scheduled to last five weeks.
British FP-L had still not made a formal announcement of the fact, and it was not mentioned in The Times, but evidently by mid-February Poole Street was being offered as a rental facility. International Artists had been established less than a year earlier, and was like many British companies – including the equally short-lived Bird Film Company – a small outfit geared to making a film at a time, in a market that demanded either volume production or real distinction.
Lark’s Gate was not a cheap film. Gliddon appears to have wealthy and inexperienced backers. He had brought over a ‘Ziegfield Girl’, Doris Eaton, to star, and almost as soon as she arrived the company set sail for Egypt to shoot exteriors. It was announced that Gliddon planned to shoot other scenes in France and the US as well.
It is unclear when the five-week period at Poole Street was meant to begin. On 18 February Motion Picture Studio had reported that Gliddon had left the country the day before for ‘at least’ two months – a fact which is pertinent to the question of when Number Thirteen was shot.