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The Dark Ages. Until Rank moved in, the British film industry had spent 35 years in a Dark Age. In spite of fly-by-night stock promoters who fattened on the industry, a few excellent films had been made (The Thirty-Nine Steps, The Private Life of Henry VIII). But almost all British films were "quota quickies"—wretched flicks produced, chiefly with the backing of U.S. companies, to conform to British law that 20% of all movies exhibited in Britain must be made in Britain.
Conservative British capital had been afraid it would dirty its spats in this unlovely puddle. So when Rank decided to wade in, he had little competition. He did have the secret blessing of the Board of Trade. With Rank's money (plus a minority investment by bankers) General Film Distributors, Ltd. was formed.
Like a monopolistic python, Rank swallowed up one company after another, digesting or (as he called it) "rationalizing" the wildly irrational industry. The process, Rankmen say, cost $200 million, but Rank himself is said to have put in a comparatively small amount of his own money. The rest has been supplied by British banks and by public stock issues.
At first, Rank rented films for distribution in his small chain of theaters. But he found that distributors who owned theaters always helped themselves to the best bookings. So Rank bought up enough theaters—first the 354-theater Odeon chain, then the 283-theater Gaumont-British organization—to force them to show his films.
Then, to make doubly sure that he had movies for his theaters, he became a producer. He bought 66% of the British studios. To keep his studios and theaters equipped, he bought out G.B.-Kalee, Ltd. (screens, theater chairs, cameras), Taylor, Taylor, Hobson (lenses), British Acoustic Films, Ltd. (projectors, films) and Britain's largest television firm, Cinema-Television, Ltd. Under General Film Distributors and Manorfield Investments, Ltd., his two top holding corporations, Rank now controls 86 movie companies.
When Britons began to complain of Rank's near monopoly (one critic muttered of this "serpent's egg, which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mischievous"), Lord Brabazon of Tara hinted at the Government's mind: "It is highly inadvisable at present, when a man like Mr. Rank has engaged to fight the American films, to worry him with pinpricks."
The New Day. That put things in a different light. Rank was "let off" with a cooed warning not to take any more big bites for a while. He still had plenty of half-digested companies in him, anyway. Rank already acknowledges a slight bellyache: "They call me a bad organizer, but I will not delegate until I know more than those to whom I delegate. Let me learn and then I will put the thing in shape."