The Life Story of David Lloyd George

The Life Story of David Lloyd George originally titled The Man Who Saved The Empire is a 1918 British silent biopic film directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Norman Page, Alma Reville and Ernest Thesiger. The film is thought to be the first feature length biopic of a contemporary living politician. Finished in 1918, it wasnt shown publicly until 1996.

The films release was much anticipated, and the film press carried impressive advertisements for it in late 1918. However, in December 1918, all the advertisement stopped, following an attack in the influential paper John Bull by its owner, the infamous MP Horatio Bottomley, who claimed that the Rowsons, because they had changed their last name and had employed some foreignborn extras to play soldiers in the films war scenes, had less than patriotic motives for making the film. The Rowsons started the process of suing him for libel, but were shortly afterwards informed that Lloyd George, who initially had supported the production of the film, no longer wanted it shown. Solicitors, presumably acting for the government or for Lloyd Georges Liberal party, visited the film company, paid 20,000 in cash a very high figure at the time, and walked away with the negative and the only print. The reason why Lloyd George took this action is still unknown, but is the subject for much speculation.Long believed destroyed, the film was rediscovered in the Lloyd George family archives in 1994 by the Wales Film and Television Archive, later the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales within the National Library of Wales. The film had its world premiere in Cardiff in 1996. ........

Source: Wikipedia