In 1948 James Beney formed Walton Sound & Film Services as a mobile film library and he was soon making films himself, mostly travel and general interest titles in the 16mm format. In 1951 Walton entered into glamour film market and “Bikini Girl World Contest” was a big seller over all three film formats of the time – STD 8, 9.5 and 16mm. These films were shot by James Beney himself using young and attractive models willing to appear in his movies.
James Beney soon became friend with Brian Harris and formed a business partnership and in 1953 Walton offered The Coronation in Colour and running at 16fps offering a longer running time.
By the early 1960’s censorship had relaxed a little and Walton released more glamour and nudist titles, which started to appear alongside more travel and Royal interest titles.
The middle 60s saw some Gerry Anderson titles such as Fireball XL5 and Stingray. These titles sold very well and Walton soon expanded their deals releasing some great comedy titles Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Leon Errol and The Chimp comedies. More great titles such as Train films, Danny Kaye, BBC titles and Old Mother Riley comedies were also very popular amongst collectors.
Walton were expanding their catalog by the 1970s and started releasing films on Super 8 and their colour cartoons and releases from the Rank Organisation were very popular and feature films of the time such as Brief Encounter were snapped up by collectors wanting Cinema classics in their home libraries.
The biggest coup for the company came in the early 1970’s when they started releasing cartoon films from Hanna-Barbera and classic Tom & Jerry shorts which were included in many children’s film shows around the country.
By the mid 70s Super 8 had become the main choice for home movie films and Walton discontinued all of their other formats in favour of this new format. Bigger and better films were on the horizon from companies like Tigon, Amicus, EMI and Hammer. In the late 1970s Walton had signed bigger and better deals with Rank and ITC films which released blockbuster titles such as Killerfish, Saturn 3, Capricorn One, etc..
By the early 80s video became the main source of entertainment and Walton adopted the medium releasing some great titles including some classic Hammer titles such as the early Quatermass films and X The Unknown, etc..
The continued there Super 8 side which more classic Tom & Jerry shorts and some great and rare titles such as Round Robin and That’s Carry On.
By 1983 things didn’t look so good for the 8mm market and many film companies when into administration and some of the leading names were no more. Walton was a casualty and after 30 years they closed their doors forever. Their last ever release was Charlie Chaplin’s The Cure which was sold by LGP Cine along with a special booklet as a souvenir of this wonderful company.
© Kevin Wardle 2019
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