by Stephen Vagg
The “lost decade”
Our previous piece in this series discussed how in 1968 the Rank Organisation announced that it was scaling back its production. However, it did not abandon investment entirely – Rank was still open to putting in funds if it felt that the downside was low enough and the package sufficiently attractive.
Producer Ned Sherrin wrote in his memoirs that around this time, Rank would invest in a film or two a year as “an indulgence”. In actual fact, Rank would make more than that – not a huge amount more, and numbers certainly weren’t where they once were (certainly not as high as EMI Films), but this output, Rank’s lost decade of film investment, is still worthy of study.
From 1968 to around 1977, Rank had money in the following movies (NB this list isn’t exhaustive, it’s what we’ve been able to confirm):
– films from the team of producer Betty Thomas and director Ralph Thomas (The High Commissioner, Some Girls Do, Doctor in Trouble);
– the Carry On franchise, produced by Peter Rogers (Carry On Up the Khyber, Carry On Camping, Carry On Again Doctor, Carry On Up the Jungle, Carry On Loving, Carry On Henry, Carry On at Your Convenience, Carry on Aboard, Carry On Matron, Carry On Girls, Carry On Dick, Carry On Behind, Carry on England, That’s Carry On);
– Peter Rogers’ non-Carry On films (Assault, Quest for Love, Revenge, All Coppers Are);
– some Julian Wintle films (The Belstone Fox, The Firechasers, Mister Jerico);
– Hammer horrors (Countess Dracula, Hands of the Ripper, Twins of Evil, Vampire Circus) and some Peter Sasdy-directed non-Hammer horror (Nothing But the Night, I Don’t Want to be Born);
– low budget comedies (Rentadick, Go for a Take, Don’t Just Lie There Say Something!, To See Such Fun) including adaptations of sitcoms (Please Sir, Bless This House, That’s Your Funeral, Father Dear Father);
– bigger budgeted comedies (Soft Beds Hard Battles, That Lucky Touch);
– animal movies (Ring in Bright Water, the aforementioned The Belstone Fox);
– random mid-budget Euro thrillers/adventure movies (Subterfuge, Caravan to Vaccares, What Changed Charlie Farthing?);
– random “literary” movies (Royal Hunt of the Sun, Anthony and Cleopatra, Romantic Englishwoman, Kidnapped);
– musicals (Tomorrow, Alice’s Adventures in wonderland, Bugsy Malone);
– Canadian movies (Ragtime Summer, The Uncanny).
During this period, it appears that Rank didn’t have a formal head of film production – the decision about how much to invest seems to have laid with the distribution department, although chairman John Davis still held ultimate power.
Let’s look at these movies.
First, there were the efforts from the team of Betty Box and Ralph Thomas, Rank’s most reliable producers of hits since the 1950s. The High Commissioner was a co-production with Americans based on Jon Cleary’s best-selling novel starring Australia’s Rod Taylor – it was a poor adaptation of a fine book, the tail end of Rank’s mid-‘60s Eurospy cycle. Some Girls Do and Doctor in Trouble both killed off franchises – the former was a Bulldog Drummond movie, a sequel to Deadlier Than the Male, but far less fun; Doctor in Trouble was the last “doctor movie” – and the worst: tired and dull.
These two efforts might have been why Rank refused to finance the next Box-Thomas movie: Percy, about a man who has a penis transplant (of course, the subject matter didn’t scream “Rank Organisation”). Box and Thomas took this project to Nat Cohen at EMI Films, whose support was rewarded with one of the biggest hits of the year (leading to Percy’s Progress). It was typical of the Rank Organisation – they backed the flops and turned down the hits.
Box and Thomas came close to making other films for Rank (notably The Red Hot Ferrari) although they never did, as a team at least – thus Doctor in Love ended what had been a very mutually beneficial relationship. Indeed, without Box-Thomas (and Norman Wisdom), Rank might have gotten out of filmmaking a lot sooner.
Rank’s surest bet in the early ‘70s was the Carry On films, produced by Box’s husband Peter Rogers and directed by Thomas’ brother Gerald. These remained artistically and financially strong until the mid ‘70s, when the series wobbled (Carry On Girls, Carry on England) and then died after Carry on Emmanuelle (which came out in 1978 and was financed by Hemdale – Rank bailed after That’s Carry On). This was sad but not surprising – the actors were getting on and it was hard to find new angles. However, some of those late ‘60s/early ‘70s entries such as Carry On Up the Khyber and Carry On Matron are among the best ever in the series.
Peter Rogers’ contract with Rank enabled him to make four non-Carry On Films, all dramas. One was directed by Ralph Thomas, Quest for Love, a sweet science fiction love story about Tom Bell trying to find Joan Collins (who’s excellent) in another timeline. The other three were directed by the under-rated Sidney Hayers. Revenge was a terrific vigilante film about a suburban family kidnapping someone that they believe is a killer, then having doubts. Assault was a procedural about the investigation of who attacked a girl; it’s the sort of movie that feels as though it wants to be a slasher/giallo and should have been that, but didn’t go through with it. All the Coppers… had a terrific idea – 48 hours in the life of a cop – but though there are some interesting bits, doesn’t live up to its premise, going off into detours.
None of the films were hits: Rogers blamed distribution, but they were probably too close to what you could see on television. Rogers also produced the big screen version of Bless This House for Rank.
Rank gave finance to one of its old favourites, producer Julian Wintle, for a series of movies. The Firechasers and Mister Jericho were for US television, but The Belstone Fox was an old-school family film about animals from the director of Born Free, James Hill. However, it didn’t have anywhere near that movie’s success (lovingly made, it’s a little austere). Neither did another picture partly paid for by Rank, Ring of Bright Water, despite having the same stars as Born Free, Bill Travers and Virigina McKenna. (Side note: Ring was based on a book by Gavin Maxwell, a gay former secret agent turned naturalist who died of cancer, after a female poet who was desperately in love with him put a curse on him. True story, look it up.)
Rank invested in some low budget comedies, typically but not always adaptations of sitcoms. The studio was far too conservative to sink money in something as exciting as Monty Python and the Holy Grail – but it did invest in Rentadick, written by John Cleese and Graham Chapman… who quit the project when their chosen director (Charles Crichton) wasn’t approved, and took their names off the film when their script was rewritten. (The final movie featured old Rank contract player Donald Sinden.) Thus, Rank had once again, as it had with Peter Sellers after The Naked Truth, let slip an opportunity to work with the biggest comedy star (or stars, rather – Monty Python) of the decade.
The studio had a decent size hit with the big screen adaptation of Please Sir!, which is quite fun – but interestingly, none of Rank’s sitcom adaptations reached the commercial heights of those at EMI such as Up Pompeii, Steptoe and Son and On the Buses, all of which led to sequels (none of the Rank adaptations did). Reg Varney had been huge in his Buses films at EMI, but his movie for Rank, Go for Take, flopped. Don’t Just Lie There Say Something was a Brian Rix farce that Rix claims was “big in South Africa”. We’re sure it was. Rank also made two cheap compilation films inspired by the success of That’s Entertainment (1974) – That’s Carry On, with clips of Carry On movies, and To See Such Fun, a compilation of old Rank comedies. Neither did that well – the latter premiered on television, not in theatres.
Rank did invest in some bigger budgeted comedies: Soft Beds Hard Battles (1974), which reunited Peter Sellers with the Boulting Brothers but was a big flop, helping kill off the Boultings’ career (Sellers was on one of the all time great cold streaks during this period, rescued only by Return of the Pink Panther). That Lucky Touch, from director Christopher Miles (who had a bit of a vogue in the early ‘70s), was also a disaster, despite (or because) of Roger Moore and Susannah York.
Hammer Films did a deal with Rank to help finance some of its early ‘70s efforts (they did likewise with EMI Films). These included some of the most iconic ‘70s Hammer horrors: the Ingrid Pitt vehicle Countess Dracula; the quasi-slasher Hands of the Ripper; the hugely fun Twins of Evil with Peter Cushing and the Collinson sisters; and Vampire Circus, nihilistic, full-on and gloriously imaginative, perhaps Hammer’s greatest ‘70s horror, an indication of what happened when the studio backed fresh, exciting talent.
In 1971, John Davis declared in Rank’s Annual Report: “Unfortunately, I have to reiterate what I have said on many occasions, that a considerable number of films produced today do not contain the entertainment ingredients which the public will pay to see; frequently they contain ingredients which the public will not tolerate, in particular excessive violence. Many producers continue to ignore the disciplines of the marketplace, with disastrous results. I find it difficult to understand why many financial institutions continue to support types of film production which it has been proven are not acceptable at the Box Office, making it well nigh impossible to recover the financial investment.”
This was a galling comment from the head of a company that (a) had consistently displayed an inability to produce box office winners (b) was at that very moment making Vampire Circus and (c) Vampire Circus would be one of its best movies of the 1970s. In fairness to Davis, none of the Hammer-Rank movies were huge at the box office on release, although in criticism of Davis, they all would have had long lives and become highly profitable, unlike his other “family friendly” efforts.
Peter Sasdy directed Countess Dracula and Hands of the Ripper and Rank invested in two of his non-Hammer horror/thrillers. Nothing But the Night starred Christoper Lee and Peter Cushing, made for Lee’s own production company, but it flopped at the box office (Lee then went and made The Wicker Man for British Lion, one of the many many classics from this decade that Rank had nothing to do with). I Don’t Want to be Born had Joan Collins giving birth to a devil spawn; like so many Rank efforts it tried to copy an earlier success (The Exorcist) and had no luck.
Rank invested in some random mid-budget European “international thrillers” in addition to the aforementioned The High Commissioner. There was Subterfuge with Gene Barry and Joan Collins, from director Peter Graham Scott. Caravan to Vaccares was an adaptation of an Alistair Maclean novel with the most perfect Maclean heroine (Charlotte Rampling, who is beautiful, brave, feisty, exotic and mysterious) and the most miscast Maclean hero (David Birney, who plays a tough, sexy adventurer like a sitcom TV cop.). What Changed Charlie Farthing? was a dreadful attempt at The African Queen with Doug McClure and Hayley Mills (sporting a career-killing haircut) and Spain standing in for the Caribbean. The incompetence of these last two movies in particular was infuriating.
The Canadian government introduced tax breaks in the 1970s to help its film industry, unleashing a flood of famously dull co-productions with Rank leading the charge. They had money in Ragtime Summer (1977), a love story with Honor Blackman and… David Warner (who was going to see that? No one as it turned out). They also invested in the all-star anthology The Uncanny, from Milton Subotsky of Amicus – this has its moments and its fans, though it isn’t up to Amicus at their peak.
Rank had a little more luck in the musicals that it invested in. Admittedly, Toomorrow, “the world’s first sci fi musical” from producer Harry Saltzmann and director Val Guest, was a notorious flop (it helped push Saltzman towards the bankruptcy that resulted in him having to relinquish his involvement in the James Bond franchise). However, there was a warm reception for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a 1972 all-star adaptation of the classic story directed by Australian William Sterling (who made many television plays in Australia but kind of vanished after this movie). And, of course, Bugsy Malone was a wonderful movie, a glorious kids gangster musical from the dream team of Alan Parker and David Puttnam. (Wonderfully cast too, and the actors turned out like you can imagine their characters turning out – in real life, Bugsy became toxic MAGA, Fat Sam went to prison for paying bribes, Tallulah turned into an Oscar winning legend, top director and queer icon, Blousey joined the air force).
From the sounds of it though, the fact that the movie got through the system at Rank was a miracle. Puttnam said “From start to finish [Rank] was a nightmare. Not interfering, so much as moaning and groaning and being totally negative, and the money was always late.”
Puttnam was the most talented British producer of his generation, who had already proved his bona fides at EMI (Stardust, That’ll Be the Day) and is exactly the sort of person Rank should have nurtured. But it didn’t. Because it was Rank.
Lastly, there were Rank’s “classy” films. The Organisation had funds in Phil Yordan’s adaptation of Peter Schaffer’s play The Royal Hunt of the Sun, and Charlton Heston’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra – both were genuinely good tries (Orson Welles turned down the chance to direct Anthony and Cleopatra… what a missed opportunity!).
Rank had some money in Kidnapped, from the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson – it was the last of a series of literary adaptations from director Delbert Mann, and they ran out of money during production; the film is worth seeing for Caine’s Alan Breck. Caine was also in The Romantic Englishwoman (1975), from some old Rank hands, director Joseph Losey and producer Daniel Angel, with Glenda Jackson. We’ve read that this film was a flop and also that it made a profit, so we’re not sure how it did – it’s not among Losey’s most highly regarded works, but it certainly stands out among Rank’s output from this time.
John Davis stepped down from being chairman of the Rank Organisation in 1974, replaced by his hand-picked successor, Graham Dowson. However, Davis, like a lot of CEOs, found it hard to leave, and the following year arranged for Dowson to be fired – in part, because Dowson refused to marry his fiancee, who was good friends with Davis’ then girlfriend and future wife (we’re not making this up, this was reported in the papers). We sense that the real reason was that Davis had trouble giving up power. Davis hung around until the early 1980s as president, like a bad smell, until the afterglow of investing in Xerox eventually wore off and he was punted. It wasn’t directly Davis’ fault that Rank made so many mediocre films during his reign – but he did create an environment in which mediocrity flourished, and excellence was punished. On the other hand, his frugality kept Rank alive while other British filmmaking companies (British Lion, Hammer) went to the wall.
Rank’s film making record during the years 1968-77 was a mixed one. Such a weird time. Financially, some years it made a small profit, others a small loss. They accidentally invested in some terrific movies (Bugsy Malone, Vampire Circus, Revenge) and some really fun ones (Twins of Evil, the better Carry Ons, The Belstone Fox, Ring Round Bright Water, the better sitcom movies) plus a bunch of brave tries (Anthony and Cleopatra, Quest for Love).
However, Rank made far too many movies that should have been good – strong stories, cast – but were either mediocre (The High Commissioner, the bad Carry Ons, Some Girls Do) or downright terrible (Rentadick, What now Charlie Farthing, Caravan to Vaccares, Soft Beds Hard Battles, That Lucky Touch). It blew chances to make Percy and Monty Python comedies. It seemed to find it very hard to make decent thrillers or light comedies or decent collaborations with Hollywood. The British film industry of the 1970s was a really interesting time with all sorts of fascinating movies coming out. Very few came from Rank.
Yet Rank still had one last big roll of the dice to come….
