by Stephen Vagg
In our previous piece for this series, we discussed how Rank made one last big attempt at filmmaking in 1978-81, eventually winding up after the failure of its movies such as Riddle of the Sands.
Rank was, it seemed, done.
Yes, but also no… because just like in the early 1960s and throughout the 1980s, Rank found itself unable to move away from investing in films completely. Indeed, the Rank Organisation kept putting money into films up until the moment that Rank sold off its filmmaking division altogether in 1997.
There were several reasons for this. Rank Film Distributors found it was short of new product, so secured some funds to invest in movies. Also, Rank still owned a distribution chain, studio and cinemas.
During the 1980s, Rank had funds in the following British movies (this list is not exclusive, they are titles that we have been able to confirm):
– Joan Collins’ attempt to repeat the success of The Bitch and The Stud only without Jackie (The Nutcracker);
– an attempt to launch a new comedy team (The Boys in Blue with Cannon and Ball) using a road-tested story (it was a remake of an old Will Hay vehicle) and old hands (directed by Val Guest);
– two Lewis Gilbert films based on plays (Educating Rita, Not Quite Jerusalem);
– two Merchant Ivory dramas based on novels (Heat and Dust, The Bostonians);
– an attempt to repeat the success of Gregory’s Girl i.e. a Scottish romcom (The Girl in the Picture);
– an attempt to repeat the success of Wall Street, i.e. sex and morality amongst money people (Dealers);
– an attempt to repeat the success of The Wild Geese (Who Dares Wins);
– low budget comedy/dramas that were probably better suited for television (The Chain, Secret Places);
– some decently budgeted thrillers (Defence of the Realm, The Fourth Protocol).
And you know something? This was a decent bunch of films – some turkeys, yes, but with some successes. All movies had a reason to be made.
In particular, Rank had a big hit with Educating Rita, which used a formula that the Organisation should have employed more often: old star (Michael Caine), new star (Julie Walters), hit play (from Willy Russell), decent director (Lewis Gilbert), low-ish budget (it was basically a two hander). Gilbert couldn’t make lightning strike twice with Not Only Jerusalem (which lacked someone of Caine’s presence).
The Merchant Ivory movies were great – again, an established team, making road tested material, using a combination of old and new stars. These were movies to be proud of.
Also great were Defence of the Realm (some Thatcher era conspiracy) and The Fourth Protocol (written and produced by Frederick Forsyth), though we’re not sure how they did commercially. Greta Scacchi, who’d been launched in Heat and Dust was also in Realm.
Who Dares Wins – co-starring Australia’s own Judy Davis, playing a Vanessa Redgrave type – made money locally; it might’ve done more and launched Lewis Collins as the action star that he should have been, had it not been so sloppily written (producer Euan Lloyd wanted to put Collins in Battle for the Falklands and Macau but neither were made).
The intentions of all these movies were good, even the duds. Why not try to turn Canon and Ball into movie stars (maybe they could have used a younger director)? Why not try for a new Gregory’s Girl? Why not make a thriller based on the Iraq embassy siege? Why not try a new Joan Collins sex movie?
It’s just that the execution of some of these movies struggled. Which happens. But some were very good. The overall quality of Rank’s 1980s movies does not get enough credit. All the good press from this period went to other British companies – Channel Four, Goldcrest, HandMade, Palace, Virgin. We feel obliged to point out that they all, except Channel Four, went bust and wound-up operations. Filmmaking is a harsh game.
Towards the end of the 1980s, the Rank Organisation shifted its policy to increasingly invest in American films – not broad studio pictures but more offbeat fare. In this, it was similar to how HandMade films shifted its operations to America in the late 1980s. Some of the Rank films included:
– Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills from Paul Bartel;
– Welcome Home, the last movie from Franklin Schaffner;
– To Die For, a hit with Gus Van Sant and Nickers Kidman;
– Fried Green Tomatoes, a blockbuster arthouse hit with Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy;
– Under Suspicion, a film noir with Liam Neeson;
– Eight Heads in a Duffle Bag, a black comedy with Joe Pesci.
Rank’s big success from this period was Fried Green Tomatoes, which it had some money in. The rest of the movies did less well. None of them were particularly British except Under Suspicion, although there may be films that we’re unaware of.
Rank’s last fully financed movie was Lawn Dogs in 1997 from Australia’s own John Duigan, starring a young Sam Rockwell and Mischa Barton – again, a very American story.
Why was it the last movie? Well, by the late 1990s, the Rank Organisation had accrued a lot of debt, so its management decided to reduce this by getting out of the film industry – Rank’s library and distribution arms were sold to Carlton Television in April 1997; in September of that year, Carlton shut down the distribution arm and that was it for Rank and movies. The company still exists, as the Rank Group, with a focus on gambling.
For all Rank’s flaws, it was making a greater contribution to the world when it was in films.
The story of the Rank Organisation is a fascinating one. A behemoth that dominated the British film industry for thirty years, and financed hundreds of films, but never quite got good at it. Rank was strong in areas like acquiring other companies and fiscal responsibility – not so crash hot at encouraging artists and picking hits.
It can’t be stressed enough that most British movie studios collapse – British Lion, Hammer, and so on, all went under. The frustrating thing is that Rank was set up to succeed, if it had better management in its film division, being underpinned by J Arthur Rank’s flour fortune and the diversified nature of Rank, including fortuitous investment in Xerox – not to mention owning its own distribution chain and cinemas. These are priceless. But it never quite seemed to get things to work.
On the filmmaking side, Rank struck a gusher with the “doctor” franchise (via the team of Ralph Thomas and Betty Box) and Norman Wisdom comedies and kept making these as long as it could; it tried to expand its track record in comedy into other areas with some success. It did very well in the area of fact-based war movies and female-driven melodramas in a war setting; those are two types of movies that it should have made more of instead of the “international” adventure stories it was so enamoured with. The company had a knack of discovering stars but not knowing what to do with them.
When it came to films, the Rank Organisation was perennially behind the curve, over-reliant on a few key franchises and philosophies that didn’t necessarily work, reluctant to gamble in an industry that requires it, and unable to pick the odds right when it did gamble.
And yet…
Rank did make a lot of movies, some of them quite good, and some people in the company really knew what they were doing. It certainly was a story interesting enough to inspire this set of articles.
As requested by our editor, we rank the top five films from Rank in different genres. NB this excludes films made by Ealing and is only for the year 1952 onwards.
True life stories
1) A Night to Remember (1959)
2) Reach for the Sky (1956)
3) The One That Got Away (1957)
4) Carve Her Name with Pride (1958)
5) Battle of the River Plate (1956)
Films with a child protagonist
1) The Kidnappers (1953)
2) Tiger Bay (1959)
3) Bugsy Malone (1976)
4) Whistle Down the Wind (1961)
5) Hunted (1952)
Thrillers
1) Victim (1961)
2) Revenge (1971)
3) Hell Drivers (1957)
4) The Ipcress File (1965)
5) Defence of the Realm (1985)
(Honourable mention: the horror movie The Vampire Circus)
Fictional Action/War movies
1) Northwest Frontier (1959)
2) The Wild Geese (1978)
3) Deadlier Than the Male (1967)
4) Dangerous Exile (1957)
5) The Riddle of the Sands (1979)
Fictional melodramas
1) A Town Like Alice (1956)
2) Conspiracy of Hearts (1960)
3) A Tale of Two Cities (1958)
4) The Wind Cannot Read (1958)
5) This Sporting Life (1963)
Comedies
1) Doctor in the House (1954)
2) Genevieve (1953)
3) Educating Rita (1983)
4) They’re a Weird Mob (1966)
5) The Square Peg (1959)
Weird movies we can’t believe Rank invested in
1) The Singer Not the Song (1960)
2) The Ferry to Hong Kong (1960)
3) Bad Timing (1981)
4) Eagle’s Wing (1979)
5) Toomorrow (1970)
