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After he has made the agreement, usually verbal, to spend hundreds of thousands or millions, he has little more to do with a picture until it is ready for distribution. But then his problems begin. He is, in effect, Britain's movie censor, and as such often gets into brangles with Hollywood's Johnston Office. On one of these occasions, when there was too much "cleavage" for the Johnston Office in a Rank film, he spluttered in bewilderment: "But in England, bosoms aren't sexy!"
It is the creative immunity of its artists that is the chief hope of the British cinema. Most of it has been enjoyed—and most of the fine films have been made—by a small group of artists, "The Independents." There are four sets of Independents: The Archers, the Cineguild, Individual Productions, and Wessex Productions. Two Cities Films, Ltd. and occasional guest artists such as Laurence Olivier, Gabriel Pascal or Carol Reed (Odd Man Out) also do fine work.
Out of the 30 pictures Rank produced in the last year, only 15 were considered good enough to compete in the U.S. By inflicting what Hollywood technically calls the "stinkers" on Britons only, he has shrewdly created the impression in the U.S. that most British movies are up to or better than Hollywood's best, which they are not. But in competing for a bigger share of the world market Rank will have to turn out more & more movies. Mass-production may force him to use ready-made patterns. It is still a question whether he can keep the Bond Street cut that so many of his films now have.
Deals within Deals. Rank thinks he can. But the main Rank operation in the U.S. is more broadly based. Rank began laying the base in 1936, when he picked up a 25% interest in the then failing Universal Films, Inc. (now merged into Universal-International), thus buying a top U.S. distributor for his movies. Since then, Rank has made deals with Universal-International and Robert R. Young's Eagle-Lion (TIME, Dec. 10, 1945) to distribute at least 19 Rank films a year in the U.S. And this week he announced plans to buy or build theaters in 50 big U.S. cities, as "show windows for British films." Rank has made certain that a good picture will get distributed, a guarantee British pictures never had before.
Proposal of Marriage. Rank has still another ace in the hole. If Hollywood should not give him all he feels he is entitled to, the Board of Trade might conceivably cut the quota of U.S. pictures allowed in Britain (now a fat 80% of all pictures shown). At this prospect, Hollywood shudders. The U.S. movie industry last year made $75 million—at least 35% of its income and almost all of its profits—in the British market. Without that market, Hollywood could not afford to spend the millions it does on a single picture. For his part, Rank made only $8,000,000 in the U.S.