J. Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry

Geoffrey Macnab

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English

Routledge
15 September 1994

Series: Cinema and Society

"Presiding 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 marked and founded the Rank ""Charm School"" to create a genuine 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 achievemen 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 this rightful place at the hub of British film history."

By: Geoffrey Macnab
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 19mm
Weight: 680g
ISBN: 9780415117111
ISBN 10: 0415117119
Series: Cinema and Society
Pages: 324
Publication Date: 15 September 1994
Audience: College/higher education , General/trade , A / AS level , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Geoffrey Macnab

Reviews for J. Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry

`J. Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry I will prove an invaluable source of reference for budding entrepreneurs and tycoons...an excellent portrait of a most unusual man.' - Moira Shearer, Sunday Telegraph `His informative, often witty book illuminates an era and, for its contribution to an understanding of British filmmaking, belongs on the shelf beside Jake Eberts' My Indecision is Final.' - Philip French, The Observer Nominated for the British Film Institute's Michael Powell Award