J. Arthur Rank and the British Film IndustryPresiding over the "golden era" of the British Film Industry from the mid to late 1940s, J. Arthur Rank financed movies such as Oliver Twist, The Red Shoes, Brief Encounter, Caesar and Cleopatra and Black Narcissus. Never before, and never since, has the industry risen to such heights. J. Arthur Rank charts every aspect of the robust film culture that Rank helped to create. Having started out with relatively little knowledge of the cinema, Rank's sponsorship was to bring about astounding progress within the industry. He bought the Odeon and Gaumont-British chains, made inroads into the American market and founded the Rank "Charm School" to create a British star system. He invested millions in a radical new technique, "Independent Frame", commissioned newsreels and children's film and set up a "B" Feature training studio. He opened an animation department to rival Disney and even acquired a meteorological company so that he could predict the weather during shoots. By establishing an organization comparable in size to any of the major Hollywood studios, Rank briefly managed to reconcile and consolidate the competing demands of "art" and "business"--An achievement very much absent from today's diminished and fragmented film industry. Macnab goes on to explain the eventual collapse of the Rank experiment amidst the economic and political maelstrom of post-war Britain, highlighting the problems still facing the industry today. Meshing archival research with interviews with Rank's contemporaries and members of his family, this definitive study firmly restores Rank to his rightful place at the hub of British film history. |
Contents
ON THE WAY TO AN EMPIRE | 17 |
WAR AND MONOPOLY | 35 |
TILTING AT THE WORLD MARKET | 51 |
RANK AND HIS PRODUCERS | 82 |
RESEARCH AND INNOVATION | 121 |
THE BOGART OR BACON DEBATE | 162 |
ET | 188 |
RETRENCHMENT AND ECONOMY | 199 |
RANK AND THE 1950s | 214 |
Glossary SOME RANK FIGURES | 231 |
258 | |
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actors Alexander Korda American film American market Anthony Havelock-Allan Arthur Rank Attlee audiences Betty Box Board of Trade box-office Britain British cinema British film history British film industry British filmmakers British industry British pictures British production budget Caesar and Cleopatra cartoons Charm School cinemagoers comedy creative critics David Denham director Distributors documentary Eagle-Lion Ealing entertainment tax exhibitors feature film film production finance Gainsborough Gaumont Gaumont-British Giudice Hollywood ibid Independent Frame Independent Producers Ltd John Davis journalists Kinematograph Weekly Korda London magnate managed Methodist Michael Balcon million Motion Picture Herald Norman Wisdom Odeon Ostrer outfit Palache Pascal Picturegoer Piffle Pinewood Studios post-war Powell and Pressburger prestige profits programme quota quoted in Kinematograph Rank Organization Rank's Rawnsley Rawnsley's renters screen seemed September 1991 showmen Sidney Cole Sidney Gilliat stars success Sydney Box technicians television theatres United Artists wartime Woolf