Cinemonopoly

For the first time since Britain's first "jumpy" was shown in 1896, the British cinema industry is in a position to command the commercial respect of Hollywood. There are two reasons: 1) Britain has been turning out enough four-bell films so that U.S. movie fans do not automatically look the other way when a British label turns up; 2) a tall, dark, retiring Briton named Joseph Arthur Rank. Tycoon Rank is 55, well preserved, and lives as simple a life as any man can with a 48,000-acre estate--Sutton Manor, in Hampshire--and another home in Surrey.

The Methodist. Though J. Arthur Rank is a director of some 60 British companies, he sums up his accomplishments in twelve lines in the British Who's Who. In this respect he is just four times as expansive as his fabled father, "England's Richest Man," Joseph ("Old Joe") Rank, who parlayed a tiny flour mill into a -L-20-30,000,000 milling fortune, and died at 89 last month (TIME, Nov. 22). Besides his millions and his milling business, Old Joe handed down his passion for the Methodist faith and a shrewd and tidy sense of how to piece together an indus trial empire.

His Methodist inheritance was the one that got J. Arthur Rank into the movies. Some 15 years ago he became concerned about the low and meager state of religious cinema, and organized the Religious Film Society, Ltd. He began making movies for Methodists. (He still teaches Sunday school in Reigate.)

The "Monopoly." Unlike the U.S. cinema industry, Britain's movie business has never been a cut-&-dried, Big-Five or Big-Seven operation: stars and producers float around from studio to studio; some of the biggest producing companies have no studios of their own; some of the biggest studio owners have virtually no production under their own trademarks. This intricate, fluid setup was a natural for a man with J. Arthur Rank's wealth and financial acumen. Until he descended upon the British cinema industry, this setup had also been a natural for the big U.S. producers, who made almost all the good pictures anyway. The U.S. had maintained a stranglehold on the British market with out difficulty, despite British Government attempts to keep some of it in local hands.

U.S. film companies still distribute some 75% of all the pictures shown in England. But more & more J. Arthur Rank distributes the rest. One way or another, he now owns, controls or chairmans:

>Some 600 cinema theaters, worth -L-24,000,000. This is less than 15% of the British total, but since they include Gaumont-British's 275, and Odeon's 300 cinemas and supercinemas, they cater to almost one-third of Britain's 23,000,000 weekly cinemaddicts.

>The best British studios (notably Denham and Pinewood), responsible for turning out--for Rank or for Rank-financed independents--some 75% of whatever British production is worth mentioning.

>G.B.-Kalee Ltd., manufacturer of 90% of the cinema and production equipment made in Britain.

>General Film Distributors, a subsidiary of General Film Finance--Rank's favorite vehicle for expanding his stake in British cinema--which distributes more films than any other single U.S. or British company.

Rank's 24 cinema companies are also variously hooked up with big U.S. producers. M.G.M. and Fox own 49% of his Gaumont-British Pictures; United Artists has an important interest in Odeon; General Film distributes all of Universal's pictures in Britain. So far as the rest of British production is concerned, just about all Rank lacks of a complete cinemonopoly is the -L-15,000,000 Associated British Pictures which has some 500 theaters.

Enter Ernst. The English are two-minded about such monopolies. Britain fears the stultifying effects of one-man control as much as it fears too much Government control. But the British want a united front powerful enough to challenge the near-monopoly of her own film markets by Hollywood pictures.

The U.S. film companies' annual gross in Britain now runs to around $50,000,000--less than 10% of their gross at home, but perhaps 20 times what British films have ever made in a year in the U.S. Besides that, British earnings in the U.S. are taxed much more heavily than the U.S. companies' gross in Britain. J. Arthur's passion is to exact something nearer to an eye for an eye.

Last week a U.S. citizen clippered home from a four-weeks' London powwow with Rank bigshots, full of plans for a British blitz on Hollywood. The man: Manhattan's suave, swart lawyer Morris Ernst. New Dealish Ernst--who was also in Britain to carry out an esoteric "cultural" U.S.-British mission--had persuaded his clients that, to win over the U.S. market, British films must be distributed by the Big Five U.S. producers.

Knowing these views, U.S. cinema gossip columns blackened with rumors of Rank deals with Paramount, with United Artists, with R.K.O., with everyone & anyone who might listen to smooth talk from Morris Ernst.

But no deal has yet been made: the U.S. giants still righteously maintain that the only thing that keeps them from showing more British pictures is that there are not enough worth showing. Up to now, the cock-of-the-walk U.S. industry has had no reason to be cartel-minded, because it has had no really formidable international competition. But as Morris Ernst puts it: "Develop a giant to deal with a giant." If & when he can produce the pictures, J. Arthur Rank looks like a likely giant.

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