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Historical Journal of Film, Radio and
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Film Finances: The First Years
Charles Drazin
Published online: 14 Feb 2014.
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To cite this article: Charles Drazin (2014) Film Finances: The First Years, Historical Journal of Film,
Radio and Television, 34:1, 2-22, DOI: 10.1080/01439685.2014.878999
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Vol. 34, No. 1, 2–22, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2014.878999
FILM FINANCES: THE FIRST YEARS
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Charles Drazin
This article gives an account of the formative years of Film Finances, describing the
principles behind its operation as well as the contributions of the individuals who
built the company. A key element in its success lay in the fact that, as well as
offering a guarantor’s financial protection against the unforeseen, it helped producers to make the most of available resources through proactive advice at all stages of
a production from concept to delivery. During the 1950s, Film Finances’ guarantee
became the lynchpin of a new system of state-supported financing that brought
together the National Film Finance Corporation, the distributors and the banks.
But it also provided the Hollywood studios with an effective means of supervising
independent producers making films in Britain for worldwide distribution. As the
decade progressed, the balance of financing for British films shifted from indigenous
to American sources of funding. When Film Finances joined a consortium of
investors in the early 1960s to set up a distribution company called Garrick Film
Distributors, the venture had been intended to harness British sources of funding,
but in practice served as a case study in the serious limitations of such finance,
setting the scene for Hollywood’s renewed domination.
With the completion guarantee, Film Finances pioneered an immensely valuable
tool that facilitated the growth of independent production after the war—first in
Britain but then around the world. Although it started out as a very British company, conceived to address the problems of a British industry, ultimately its longterm future lay in building a relationship with the English-language film industries
beyond Britain—in Canada, in Australia and in America. The global presence of
the company today has its origins in the founders’ realization 50 years ago that the
British film industry, which they had helped to save from collapse, suffered a
chronic limitation in the lack of any reliable source of funding that was not from
the government. The following account explores the first years of the company
that led up to this discovery.
Correspondence: Charles Drazin, Department of History, Queen Mary College, University of
London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK. E-mail: c.b.drazin@qmul.ac.uk
Ó 2014 IAMHIST & Taylor & Francis
FILM FINANCES
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Origins and early history
Behind an outward appearance of a renaissance, the British film industry during the
late 1940s was in a state of near-terminal crisis. With production costs spiralling
out of control and box-office revenue failing to match the often extravagant expectations of their producers, the banks had become increasingly reluctant to fund
British production. By 1948, it was clear that the industry would collapse without
government intervention. A National Film Finance Company was established in
September 1948, primarily to prop up British-Lion, which was perceived to be the
prime source of funding for independent producers. A few months later, it was
transformed into the National Film Finance Corporation with a remit to provide
loans to independent producers on a continuing basis. The measure was partly necessary because government legislation required the British film industry to meet a
45% quota (later lowered to 40%) for British films.
The announcement in November 1949 that the Rank film empire—alone
responsible for half the country’s production—had sustained a production loss of
£3,350,000 intensified the sense of emergency. When Parliament gathered a month
later to debate two reports commissioned to inquire into the industry’s troubles,
Harold Wilson, the minister responsible for film policy, used the occasion to
summarize the chief causes for the mess:
[U]ndue hopes of world market revenues for any production that was set in
hand, fantastic extravagance on the part of certain individual producers, the
loss of financial disciplinary control, the desire to produce prestige films no
matter what the cost, the growth of harmful restrictive practices on both sides
of the industry—all these things piled up costs, and gave rise to an attitude on
costs from which the industry has not recovered.1
The imperative of 1949 was to re-engineer the British film industry to be capable
of viable, economic production. It coincided with a fundamental change in policy
of the two main combines, Rank and ABPC. In response to their severe losses,
both began drastically to limit their investment in production, but also to change
the method of financing to shift the risk from themselves to independent producers. During 1949/50, for example, the Rank Organisation provided 100% financing for 10 of the 20 films on its programme, partially financed another five, and
gave distribution guarantees to independent producers for the remainder. In the
following year, 1950/51, of 18 films on its programme, it provided 100% financing to only one film, partially financed seven, and gave distribution guarantees to
independent producers for the remaining 10.2 In the years that followed, it would
directly finance only those films that seemed to offer the most certainty of
box-office success, whether the ‘Doctor’ comedies or such celebrations of British
wartime valour as Above Us the Waves (1955) and Carve Her Name With Pride (1958).
The new landscape of small production companies with only nominal capital
reliant on securing loans from distributors and banks created the need for guarantees of completion. While the government was prepared through the National Film
Finance Corporation to offer significant financial support, it worked on the
assumption that commercial banks would provide ‘front money’ or the cost against
a distribution guarantee of up to about 75% of the budget.3 But before the private
3
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banks would begin lending again, they needed to be protected against the risk that
a film might fail to be completed or exceed its original budget, thus requiring
them to increase their loans to protect their investment.
The situation created the circumstances in which Film Finances came into
being. Its leading figure was film producer Robert Garrett, who in the late 1940s
was a director of the independent production company Constellation Films. His
business partner was Anthony Havelock-Allan, then best known for having produced the early films of David Lean.
A Film Finances brochure from the early 1960s provides this account of the
company’s genesis:
It was during this period that Robert Garrett, who was producing films in
association with Anthony Havelock-Allan, met Peter Hope, an insurance
underwriter and broker, who was arranging the insurances on one of Robert
Garrett’s films. During the course of their meetings, Robert Garrett mentioned to Peter Hope that the greatest need from the producer’s angle was for
some source of guarantee of completion. Peter Hope investigated the possibilities of arranging this through some form of insurance policy, but this was not
possible. However, Robert Garrett had been obtaining guarantees of completion for his own films from Bill Cullen and one or two associates of Cullen’s,
and he introduced Peter Hope to Cullen. As a result of this, the idea of forming a company to give guarantees of completion came into being, the original
board of directors being Bill Cullen as Chairman, Robert Garrett as Managing
Director, and Peter Hope.4
We can speculate that the reason why Peter Hope’s idea of an insurance policy
proved impossible was because of the pattern of unpredictable, spiralling costs that
had characterized 1940s film production. Robert Garrett would later reflect that
Film Finances were ‘pioneering in a field that most reputable finance regarded as
insane.’5 When Variety announced the founding of the company in its weekly
edition dated 8 March 1950, it reported that the new outfit aimed ‘to regularize
the business of completion guarantees and by technical advice to assist independents to limit budget excesses.’ Such expert assessment of the production
challenges was the key to creating the necessary confidence that a simple insurance
policy could not achieve.
The need for financiers to have some guarantee of completion was not new.
The practice had previously been for producers to approach business associates or
insurance brokers to undertake such a guarantee. Indeed, Robert Garrett’s uncle,
Edward Bowring-Skimming, had been one of the pioneers of such business, when
in the early 1930s his firm C.T. Bowring & Co, of which he was the chairman,
agreed to guarantee a loan from Lloyds Bank to Alexander Korda’s London Film
Productions. According to Bowring’s records, the company was, as security, ‘to
issue a policy of insurance to the Bank underwritten by various insurers guaranteeing the return of the loans with interest at the due dates unconditionally, the due
dates being at fixed periods after the production and distribution of the films
insured.’6 The spectacular growth that London Film Productions went on to enjoy
with such worldwide successes as The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and The
Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) led other insurance brokers to join the market. But 20 years
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FILM FINANCES
on, with successive financial crises causing investors to question the fundamental
profitability of the British film industry, the market had catastrophically contracted.
What made Film Finances different was its specialized, in-depth knowledge of
film production and the fact that its sole purpose was to provide such guarantees.
It was able to offer the film industry a continuity of operation and an expertise
that in 1950 seemed essential to gain a handle on an industry that was widely perceived as having run out of control.
Of its three founding directors, the most active in shaping the character and
future development of Film Finances was Robert Garrett.7 Born in 1910, he came
from a privileged background. On his mother’s side, there was the immensely
wealthy Bowring family, while his father, Henry Grimshaw Garrett, who was
Senior Registar in the Court of Chancery, belonged to the Anglo-Irish landed gentry. The Bowrings would come to play the more influential role in his upbringing
after the death of his father in April 1923 when he was only 12. Ten years later,
in May 1933, his mother (née Janet Skimming) died, too, leaving him to come into
a large inheritance.
After Shrewsbury School, he had read history at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Intending to join the Foreign Office, he went on to study at the Sorbonne
and then Bonn University, but he quickly abandoned a diplomatic career for the
film business. We can speculate that he must have invested a significant amount of
his family fortune in this venture. While most young men might have expected to
have to work their way up, Garrett was able to start at the top. With Otto Klement, who had worked in Hollywood, he formed the independent production
company Garrett–Klement Pictures. ‘Together Messrs Garrett and Klement intend
to make six pictures costing approximately £60,000 each,’ announced the Kinematograph Weekly in July 1935. ‘Each of them will feature world-famous stars, either
English, American or Continental, and will be directed by well-known producers
for a world market.’8
The industry was still riding the wave of confidence that had begun with the
worldwide success of Korda’s London Films. New studios were being built,
production companies starting up, and the City was investing in the dream of a
Hollywood in Britain. A beneficiary of these boom years, Garrett–Klement
quickly embarked on the production of two A-class movies. A Woman Alone
(1936) was a romance set in the time of Imperial Russia. Its star Anna Sten had
made several films in Hollywood for Sam Goldwyn, who had hoped to build her
into a second Garbo. The next Garrett–Klement production, The Amazing Quest of
Mr Bliss (1936), featured Cary Grant as a rich socialite who makes a wager with
his doctor that he can set out with only £5 and earn his own living for a year
without relying on his inherited wealth. It was a polished romantic comedy with
a dark edge that did not flinch from exploring some of the inequalities of 1930s
British society.
It was an impressive start. But as the industry entered a severe slump in
1937, the company was unable to find the finance to continue the promised slate
of pictures. When the Second World War began, Garrett joined the Royal Air
Force Volunteer Reserve and, rising to the rank of wing commander, worked in
intelligence at the Government Code School at Bletchley Park. War service
meant that Garrett missed the British film industry’s most buoyant years. When
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HISTORICAL JOURNAL OF FILM, RADIO AND TELEVISION
he returned, it was weathering yet another crisis. If his early hopes had been
blighted by one slump, he now risked becoming the casualty of another. Reviving
Garrett–Klement Pictures in 1947, the following year he found a new business
partner in Anthony Havelock-Allan. A founder of the production company Cineguild, responsible for such Lean classics as This Happy Breed (1944), Brief Encounter
(1945) and Great Expectations (1946), Havelock-Allan left the company at the
point that its corporate owner, the Rank Organisation, began to curb its
independence.
Progress for the two partners turned out to be a struggle. When the name of
the company was changed to Constellation, the idea was to suggest stars, recalled
Havelock-Allan, ‘although we were never likely to have any.’9 Constellation began
with a modest success, The Small Voice (1948). In the leading role was a then
unknown American actor Howard Keel. The film’s favourable reception won him
the attention of MGM, who bought his contract for £15,000. Such was the reality
of the cash-strapped post-war industry in Britain, where, just to keep going, assets
had to be sold rather than developed.
‘[The Small Voice] got very good notices and a lot of help,’ recalled HavelockAllan. ‘But it didn’t make any real money. It made a few thousand, but the few
thousand goes out of the window very quickly if you’ve got the rent of an office in
Hanover Square and three or four employees. But not only that. In order to get
started again you had to pay for rights. You had to pay for beginning scripts,
because people were saying, “If we’re going to put up money, we want to see what
the script is.” And so it was a very difficult thing.’10
Garrett’s precarious existence as an independent producer was the seed out of
which the idea for Film Finances grew. A likely spur to his thinking were the
negotiations in spring 1949 with the newly established National Film Finance
Corporation, which gave Constellation a loan for The Interrupted Journey (1949),11 a
thriller starring Richard Todd and Anthony Havelock-Allan’s then wife Valerie
Hobson. It was an opportunity to learn the concerns of a government whose stated
hope was that ‘temporary assistance from public funds, by way of loan not subsidy,
would carry the independent producers until the confidence of private investors
was restored.’12 At any rate, it was only a few months later that Garrett sketched
out some notes on a ‘proposed scheme to set up a company for the purpose of
giving guarantees of completion to selected film producers.’ Dated 3 August 1949,
these notes offer a blueprint for the company that Garrett would found with Peter
Hope and Bill Cullen early the following year.13
For the first six months of the company’s existence, the three founders
worked out of the offices of their other businesses. Garrett operated out of Constellation’s office at 5 Hanover Street. Bill Cullen was a director of charted
accountancy firm Billsons, Cullen & Broome in Regent Street, and Peter Hope
worked in the City for insurance broker Tufnell, Satterthwaite & Co, which
underwrote Film Finances’ guarantees through the Lloyd’s insurance market. But
having successfully established itself, Film Finances moved, on 16 October 1950,
into its own premises at 34 South Molton Street, Mayfair.
Two years later, Garrett wrote an article for the trade paper Kinematograph
Weekly that gave a succinct explanation of the company’s approach:
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FILM FINANCES
The basis of operation is a thorough investigation of the original script, budget
and schedule, with a view to seeing that the last two are adequate for the first;
and account is also taken of the principal personalities involved. This latter
point does not mean that we express preferences for or against any individuals,
but that we do consider, for instance, the length of a shooting schedule in
relation to the usual speed of working of a director or lighting cameraman,
and the problems they will have to encounter … After having undertaken a
guarantee of completion, it is the company’s object so far as possible not to
interfere with the film. It does, however, maintain both by means of progress
reports and visits to the studios its contact with all productions under
guarantee, and its agreement with the production company provides for some
measure of control if matters appear to be getting out of hand. However, this
again it endeavors to avoid.14
The thorough investigation of the script was almost from the outset entrusted to
one of the most experienced production executives in the British film industry.
John Croydon had started out in the early days of sound at Edgar Wallace’s studios
at Beaconsfield. After a period at Gaumont-British, he went on to work as a production manager and associate producer at Ealing during the 1940s, and briefly ran
Rank’s second-feature studio at Highbury. Film Finances also hired a ‘checking
clerk’ to monitor the progress of films once they were in production.15 A former
accountant, Maurice Foster had previously worked as an assistant to John Croydon
at Ealing Studios, where his chief responsibility had been costing and scheduling
productions.
Garrett took the decision on whether to guarantee a film on the basis of
Croydon’s report, but as significantly formed a view of specific risks to address in
negotiating the terms for such guarantees. Anthony Asquith’s The Woman in Question
(1950) was the first film to receive guarantees from Film Finances, which were
issued to the two principal financiers: Lloyds Bank lent Asquith’s newly formed
production company Javelin Films £91,000 (70% of the budget on the strength of
a distribution guarantee from the Rank Organisation); and the National Film
Finance Corporation advanced £26,500. The split was typical for the films in which
the NFFC was involved, the 70% bank advance representing the ‘first money’ to
be repaid out of the receipts. In providing the ‘end money,’ the NFFC was in
effect shouldering the risk that private enterprise had not been prepared to take.
It was perhaps some measure of the degree to which the government had
become involved in the film industry that, at the time Film Finances was being
formed, Robert Garrett suggested to the NFFC that it take a financial stake in the
company and help develop its policy. The NFFC’s managing director James Lawrie
declined on the basis that it had to be even-handed and did not want to be in a position where it would be expected to finance other completion guarantors that might
subsequently come into existence.16 But the two organizations remained in close
contact. In what was a kind of ‘year zero’ for the British film industry they were
together the prime architects behind a new system of carefully planned production.
The essential basis of the completion guarantee lay in the parties’ respect for a
previously agreed budget, schedule and script. The responsibility of the guarantor
was to meet any unforeseen cost, not to fund a change of artistic conception.
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In its annual report at the end of September 1950, the Rank Organisation
confirmed the new pattern of film-making that was the foundation of Film
Finances’ business: it would fulfil its production requirements through the provision of distribution guarantees to independent producers. The other large vertically
integrated company, Associated British Picture Corporation, which was equally
reluctant to take a direct part in production, pursued the same policy.17 Over the
next 10 years, the predominant model for production in Britain was of independent producers clustered around the big distributors, financing their films through
the twin sources of NFFC finance and a bank loan secured on a distribution contract. Overnight, with only a few exceptions, producers who had once operated
within a quasi-studio system had to take direct responsibility for the financing of
their productions.
A new system of film financing
The early files of Film Finances convey well the radical change of mindset that the
transition required. The fourth film to be guaranteed was called Mrs Christopher
(the title was later changed to Blackmailed), which was directed by the French
director Marc Allégret. It was made for distribution through the Rank Organisation
by Harold Huth, who had previously worked for Rank as a line producer, but
under the new system set up his own independent company, HH Films Ltd. Negotiations to guarantee the film had actually begun before Film Finances had even
been formed, but funding difficulties meant that agreement was not finally reached
until June 1950.
In August, the company’s new checking clerk Maurice Foster sent a report to
Robert Garrett and John Croydon that summarized the latest progress. Soon after
shooting had begun, the original script was re-written to change the characterizations of the star roles. Although changes were being made daily, no revised script
was available, but the production manager, Norman Spencer, had issued a new
schedule estimating that shooting would require three extra days. Foster concluded
If the present plan is kept, there does not appear much danger of the film
going over-budget, but as there is no actual script for the remainder of the
film, no really accurate assessment can be made … I have arranged to keep in
close touch with Norman Spencer on the progress, and he has promised to let
me know if anything arises that will alter their present plan of campaign.18
Foster’s comments contained some of the casual insouciance that had characterized
the past practice of the British film industry, which had seen budgets escalate many
times over through the boom years of the war. But Croydon’s swift response, in a
circulated memorandum, helped to wake everyone up to the fact that Film
Finances’ survival lay in respecting the cost-saving imperatives of the new order.
‘There is something seriously wrong here,’ he commented. ‘We have not been
advised either that the major changes are to be made or that the distributor has
agreed to them. Although I cannot recall the exact terms of the appropriate clause,
I believe that the producing company has thereby broken their covenant under the
Guarantee. I do not think this should be treated lightly.’19
FILM FINANCES
The next day Robert Garrett wrote the following stiff letter to Harold Huth
Productions to demand observance of the guarantee agreement:
Mrs Christopher
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As a result of the enquiries which we have made ourselves we understand that
substantial alterations have been made, and are proposed to be made in the
shooting script of this film, and that major alterations in the casting of certain
leading roles have also been effected.
As you are aware the Guarantees of Completion which we have given for this
film are based on the Distribution Agreement with General Film Distributors
and in turn upon the production details agreed and approved by us before
production commenced.
Our information is that the proposed alterations in the script will increase the
original shooting schedule submitted to us and the other interested parties
before the commencement of production by at least three days.
We must emphasise most strongly that no major alterations in the script,
shooting schedule, casting or of the approved production details generally
should have been made, or should in future be made, without our prior
knowledge and consent, as it is essential that we should be assured that
changes of this nature are made with the full knowledge and approval of the
Distributors and of those providing finance for the film to whom our Guarantees of Completion have been given. The daily reports submitted to us on the
progress of production should have been supplemented by information that
these changes were proposed as soon as the decisions to effect them had been
made. You will appreciate that it is quite wrong that information about these
matters should only have reached us as a result of our own enquiries and that
to obtain that information it was necessary for us to send a representative to
the studios for the purpose.
Will you please, therefore, confirm to us in writing that the alterations to the
script, shooting schedule and casting made and proposed have been approved
by the Distributors, the National Film Finance Corporation and Lloyds Bank
Limited. In the circumstances we also wish to have your assurance that no
alterations of this nature in the production details for the film will in future be
made without prior reference to us.20
The letter expressed the essential necessity of sticking to an agreed plan. But
Garrett, who brought to the job of completion guarantor the skills of someone
who had once aspired to be a diplomat, appreciated that such a stern ultimatum
required a compensating touch of human understanding. So he wrote not only to
Harold Huth Productions, but also personally to Harold Huth:
Dear Harold,
The company have had to write today to HH Productions on ‘Mrs
Christopher’ and I attach a copy of this letter. I am writing you personally this
letter of explanation as I do not want to increase unnecessarily your worries
on what I am sure is a very difficult production.
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Frankly, at this stage, we are not unduly worried about the ultimate outcome
as we have faith in your personal ability as a producer. What does concern us,
however, is your legal position vis-à-vis GFD. (although I understand that Earl
St John has been privy to all the new arrangements made to date) and we are
also concerned on the matter of principle.
We want, as far as possible, not to stick our noses into a production—we prefer to remain at a distance relying on the various reports to keep us in touch
with its progress. Recently on ‘Mrs Christopher’ the weekly report told us
one story, the progress reports another, and our own crossplot—so far as we
were able to keep it—a third. Some subsequent investigations have shown that
the script was not merely undergoing dialogue changes but was in fact being
radically altered, and that such schedule as existed could not be related to any
scene numbers. Further there was some trouble with the editing and in consequence, a danger of retakes. I am sure there is a good reason for all this, but I
feel we should have been told something about it if only to avoid the possibility of an unnecessary scare.21
Garrett also sent copies of both letters to James Lawrie, at the National Film
Finance Corporation:
I think the letters are in themselves self-explanatory but our two main grumbles are that by these alterations Huth may in some way be prejudicing his
agreement with GFD and our feeling that although the production may not be
in danger at the moment, Huth should have kept us more fully informed than
he has done of the developments, if only to avoid creating a “flap”.22
In establishing firm boundaries for Harold Huth Productions, Garrett was also
working to build a framework of disciplined production for the film industry as a
whole.
Huth’s eventual reply brought out some of the problems inherent in such a
collaborative and unpredictable medium: ‘The accusations you make about the
script are, unfortunately, completely true, but I am afraid that on occasions these
conditions do arise even in the best regulated families.’23 His main difficulty had
been to accommodate the suggestions of ‘an extremely sensitive and psychological
director’ for improving the characterizations in the film, but also he had to address
‘the insistence by Mr St John that we should in every way possible increase the
importance of the character of “Stephen” played by Dirk Bogarde. His view was
that Dirk Bogarde is now in a very strong Box Office position and, in consequence, every possible exploitation of this facet should be considered.’ In the event
the film was successfully completed without any overcost, but Garrett’s letter had
presumably helped to concentrate minds. Both the producer and the distributor,
who had previously operated within the same vertically integrated company, had
to adjust to the fact that they were now independent parties, whose relations were
regulated by written agreements. Film Finances was the referee overseeing this
new system.
Harold Huth’s production manager on Blackmailed, Norman Spencer, was well
placed to witness the profound change that had occurred. During the 1940s, he
had worked as a production manager for Cineguild, which as one of the Rank
FILM FINANCES
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Organisation’s ‘Independent Producers,’ had received 100% financing. After
Cineguild folded in 1949, Spencer followed David Lean to Alexander Korda’s London Film Productions, where he went on to work as an associate producer on the
Lean films The Sound Barrier (1950), Hobson’s Choice (1954) and Summertime (1955).
But there was a brief gap in between, when Lean had gone off abroad, during
which Spencer was required to work out the remainder of his contract with Rank.
Suddenly they brought in a new chief of production at Pinewood Studios called
Arthur Alcott, who had been the chief of production at Shepherd’s Bush Studios, and he brought in a new regime where people who were on the payroll
—rather like the old days of Hollywood—had to do something. “So Norman
Spencer is an associate producer and production manager. We’ve got a film
coming up called Mrs Christopher, or Blackmailed, and he’s available. Right, we’ll
put that round peg into that square slot.” I did the job. It was a very unpleasant job to do. Then when David came back from wherever it was he had
gone, we teamed up again, and I thought, “Thank God, I’ve got out of
that!”24
In the struggle to restore the Rank Organisation to a sound financial footing,
Rank’s managing director John Davis imposed cost controls that were a severe
shock to those who had known the lavish years of the wartime boom.
The character of Pinewood Studios, which had been artistically free, had changed into being a rather strict factory of films … You couldn’t make a creative
picture there because John Davis was clearly a financial tyrant, who was not
the slightest bit interested in the quality of the film, but just in whether it was
made on time and on budget … So Pinewood changed its character completely from a film outfit into a financial outfit.25
Film Finances was an indispensable part of the new climate. As Spencer recalled,
Many of the small films like Blackmailed couldn’t have been made without Film
Finances. At the time we were all terribly aware of it. Film Finances was the
flag that flew when the whole of the Rank Organisation turned away from the
benevolent J. Arthur, who said to producers and directors, “I’ll deal with that,
you just make the good films.”26
Money for art’s sake
In its 1952 annual report, the NFFC commented on the importance of the completion guarantee for controlling budgets and cited by name Film Finances, ‘which has
rendered useful service to producers.’27 It was a tribute that acknowledged the fact
that, after only two years of existence, Film Finances had established itself as an
immensely effective support to independent production. In notes for the company’s
annual general meeting of 1952, Garrett remarked with satisfaction that the banks
had indicated that they would prefer that a guarantee of completion be obtained
from Film Finances rather than the non-specialist financial institutions or private
individuals who had previously provided such guarantees. ‘Above all they like the
knowledge that a proposition has been properly inspected by us.’28
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The challenge for the company now was to prove that it was much more than
just an instrument of financial control. It was natural for film-makers who had
benefited from the largesse of the past to associate Film Finances with the often
narrow and stifling attitude of the distributors. But it had the potential to play a
hugely positive role in the creative process.
When in 1954 the team behind The Red Shoes (1948) approached Film Finances
for a guarantee of completion for their new adaptation of Die Fledermaus, the negotiations got off to a bumpy start. Michael Powell sent a shooting-script, budget
and schedule to Garrett with the comment, ‘We hope you enjoy reading the
script. Everyone else has.’ The tone was of someone writing to his bank manager,
full of a rather patronizing arrogance to which it was difficult not to take exception. ‘We hope you know the music of Die Feldermaus, because the score will be
one of the glories of the film.’29
In the report that he wrote on the material, John Croydon did not trouble to
conceal his irritation: ‘I take it that Powell phrases his letter in his own inimical
childish fashion as he probably thinks that our knowledge of film production is nil,
and feels that he should mount the lecture platform for our benefit.’ Expressing
the view that Film Finances should turn down Powell and Pressburger’s project,
he went on, ‘[I]f we were to enter into this Guarantee of Completion, we should
have egotistical, unpractical and intolerable clients.’30 As regards the script, he did
not hesitate to disappoint Powell’s expectations. ‘I may be in a minority of one
but as we have apparently been asked to express an opinion about the script—I do
not like it. However, it is not our place to express our likes and dislikes.’
Croydon complained that what Powell called a schedule was actually no more
than a list of sets with cast and scene numbers from which it was impossible to
estimate how long the script would take to shoot. The budget was even worse. ‘I
must confess that I am completely baffled by it. It does not seem to bear any comparison with reality. I will give you a few instances …’ He went on to give a long
list. ‘I am sure that having read through the above comments on the budget, you
will agree with me that we enter the realm of fantasy.’
Since Powell and Pressburger had previously relied on either the legendarily
lavish Sir Alexander Korda or Arthur Rank in his benevolent days to foot their
production costs, it was perhaps hoping for too much to expect an Archers budget
to be anything else. The challenge was gently to bring them back down to earth.
Garrett’s instinct was to make the venture work if he possibly could. One couldn’t
so quickly say no to the makers of The Red Shoes (1948), Black Narcissus (1947) and
A Matter of Life and Death (1946). So he asked Maurice Foster to work with Powell
and Pressburger on producing an accurate schedule, crossplot and budget. A month
later Foster submitted these to Croydon on Powell and Pressburger’s behalf. ‘I
would ask you to forget my own association with the project and examine the
papers as a normal proposition put up to us,’ he wrote. ‘I shall certainly not resent
any criticisms that you may have.’31
Although there was of course no shortage of criticisms, Croydon’s overall
response this time was much more positive. Foster had helped Powell to draw up
an excellent working budget.
FILM FINANCES
I hope, therefore, that the Producer will continue his very close collaboration
with us, so that as the picture comes together it will be possible to relate final
arrangements with this budget … The papers are certainly realistic, and do
not in any way indulge in the blunders, indicative of lack of knowledge, which
was prevalent in the first set of papers I considered.32
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A mutual respect now existed between the two parties. Film Finances were
impressed by the energy and time that Powell had put into mastering the budget
and schedule, while Powell offered a generous acknowledgement of their help that
more than compensated for his previous arrogance. Thanking them for the offer of
a completion guarantee, he wrote on behalf of himself and Pressburger:
We would like to say how much we admire the thorough methods of your
representatives, their sympathetic approach to technical problems, their wide
knowledge of the film-business, and their personal interest in quality and personality. In the past we have often found that a so-called “realistic approach”
to schedule and budget was depressing and deadening to the creators of the
film: your representatives’ methods, on the contrary, stimulate and encourage
us.33
Oh, Rosalinda! went into production at the Associated-British studios in Borehamwood on 24 January 1955 at a total budget of £276,328. It may have been less
than half the amount that the Rank Organisation had expended on The Red Shoes,
but Film Finances had taught Powell and Pressburger how to make that money go
much further. The last of the weekly ‘summary of production costs,’ for the week
ending 1 October 1955, shows that the production was about £2,000 under the
estimated cost.
British-Lion and London Films
The original share capital of Film Finances had been a patchwork of small investments from the founders and their family and friends. By the end of 1954, when
Garrett was preparing a rough brief for the company’s annual general meeting, he
thought it worth noting that ‘for the first time a number of our shareholders will
be film producers.’34 It was a sign of how well the company had established itself
at the heart of the industry. The new investors included such prominent independent producers as Herbert Wilcox, John Woolf and Sidney Box. From their own
experience of negotiating completion guarantees, they were able to appreciate the
constructive role that Film Finances played in insuring against the unforeseen and
maximizing the spending power of a budget. Their presence in the company was a
vote of confidence but also a solid source of future business.
Another significant development was the decision of the government in June
1954 to call in its £3-million loan to British-Lion, which was then taken under
public control. Re-forming the company under new management, the NFFC
demanded the financial controls that were already standard for the rest of the
industry and henceforward Film Finances provided guarantees to the independent
producers that distributed through British-Lion.
Soon after the government announced that it was taking British-Lion into
public ownership, the corporation’s newly deposed chairman Sir Alexander Korda
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began negotiations with Film Finances to guarantee four films for his own production company London Films. Since Korda had made a reputation for himself as one
of the most extravagant, high-spending producers the industry had known, it was a
moment of immense symbolic value. Here he was with no choice now but to
submit to the discipline of the completion guarantee.
John Croydon’s report on the script and crossplot for the first of the four productions, Carol Reed’s A Kid for Two Farthings (1954), revealed the gulf that would
have to be bridged to bring London Films within the production disciplines that
most of the industry now observed. The fact that Croydon had to write the report
hurriedly over the weekend because of the imminent start date of the production
only added to his tone of incredulity:
[T]he document I have read is not a script. I could describe it as a draft for a
novel, but where its application to cinema comes in, I fail to see. If I were to
be told that this document was a draft treatment, upon which a writer were
to set to work to extract the application to cinema, and that an experienced
script-writer were then to go to work to produce a shooting script, I could
understand it. As a document from which a film is to be made, and one that
is to commence within a very short time, it is something quite beyond my
comprehension or experience.35
The first page of the ‘script’ is enough to suggest the cause of Croydon’s
bafflement:
1. TRAFALGAR SQUARE (Location)
It is a Sunday morning and the part of the Square under Nelson’s Column is
packed with children with their families feeding the pigeons. Hawkers stand
around selling seed. There are so many pigeons it is difficult for them all to
get food—one in particular seems to be missing out all the time. Getting fed
up with the competition he takes off down the empty Strand—passing the
Law Courts, we hear the choir as the bird settles on the cross at the top of St
Paul’s. He looks off and sees in the distance the crowds in Petticoat Lane; the
choir mixes with the crowd noise.
The bird takes off again and flies past the deserted Mansion House and Bank of
England. The choir music fades—the market sound gets louder. The pigeon
swoops down over the market, and lands on the Unicorn sign at the Unicorn
public house in Fashion Street.
2. MARKET (Location)
The first of the credit titles appear over the following scene. It is mid-morning, peak market period, and the crowd behind the credits moves in waves.
We hear the babble of voices under the music, out of which an occasional
huckster’s salesline emerges.
As the last of the titles disappears, a green-grocer who has sorted rotten
cabbages from his barrow tips the cabbages over the wall and they roll down.
The pigeon lands to eat off them.
FILM FINANCES
At a stall which is selling very exotic doves, Joe, a boy of six, stands staring
lovingly at the birds. As he turns away, he sees the pigeon pecking and
strutting in the lot.36
The writer had provided no indication whatsoever of how the indistinct images his
words evoked would be realized on the screen. ‘I cannot see from where we start
to obtain the true position,’ observed Croydon.
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Does the Production Manager have any sort of a breakdown, that indicates
how the Director is to direct the film? … Will a more cinematic document be
produced, showing more clearly the production difficulties and the manner in
which the picture will be broken up? If the film is to start so quickly even that
seems rather doubtful.’37
The script, which left everything open to the private whim of the director, was an
index of the production practices of a company that had hitherto operated as a
kind of privileged atelier:
I think these papers bring very clearly into the open the sort of difficulty we
are to encounter when we are asked to guarantee completion of London Film
pictures. Are we to search for some other method of assessing hazards and
financial risks? Or do we sit back until we receive the type of papers to which
we have become used?38
But Croydon was realistic enough to realize that they would be waiting a long
time. He appreciated, too, that the director concerned was exceptional. Carol
Reed had made some of the best films ever to reach the screen, including Odd Man
Out (1945), The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949). His record had to be
respected. This was an occasion where one had to rely on faith rather than a full
set of figures. The conclusion of Croydon’s report, with all its prolix hesitation,
registered the pain he felt at having to pass from certainty into the realm of trust:
So far as I am concerned, I would say that if you can be satisfied on the schedule, then I must perforce fall in with the assurances—and I hope the re-assurances—that you will receive and say that subject to your being satisfied on all
the questions, Producer’s undertakings, quotations and other enquiries which I
raise above, that I recommend this proposition for the Guarantee sought.
Garrett arranged to meet Carol Reed on 8 July 1954. The night before, translating
Croydon’s characteristically forthright report into diplomat’s language, he wrote a
note to London Films’ managing director Harold Boxall to set out the terms for
next day’s discussions:
As you probably realise the script which we have got, while obviously perfectly workable from Reed’s point of view, is not the sort of thing we are
used to. We have to try and see the project so far as we can through the eyes
of the producer and director and the only way we can attempt to do this at a
distance is by studying a shooting script in conjunction with a crossplot of
set-ups. This way of working may have its faults but as an arbitrary method
we have found it the best available and the one which causes us to bother the
producer the least. In this particular case however with the time available to
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us I think it really boils down to our having to take the matter on trust and I
should just like to hear from Reed that he believes he can do it.39
Satisfied with his meeting with Reed, Garrett went on to write a letter of intent.
Although Reed began filming on 12 July 1954, one remaining loose end, which
Korda raised at about the time the production moved into Shepperton Studios,
was his concern with the proviso in the agreement that gave Film Finances the
right in exceptional circumstances to take over the production. Garrett explained
that it was a standard clause designed to offer emergency protection ‘in case we
should find ourselves in the unlikely position of dealing with an irresponsible
madman.’ Addressed to the producer who had only a few years previously sunk a
million pounds into one of the most notorious flops of the time, Bonnie Prince
Charlie (1948), the comment could be interpreted as a veiled warning, but Garrett
preferred to cite the figures of Film Finances’ first four years of business as an
index of what to expect. Of the 120 films the company had guaranteed, only 26
had exceeded their budgets, but in none of these cases had Film Finances imposed
its right to take over a film. Perhaps concerned as much to safeguard his position
of authority as for any margin of comfort, Korda confirmed that he would provide
a personal guarantee for the first £20,000 of overcosts, but the film was completed
on budget and no call was made on the guarantee.40
The fact that Film Finances had been flexible enough to forego its usual insistence on a well-prepared production plan was an example of its essentially pragmatic attitude. It was with a considerable sense of give-and-take that it worked to
fashion a more cost-conscious industry. The successful progress of A Kid for Two
Farthings was a welcome omen for the fortunes of the much more ambitious Richard III (1955), which Laurence Olivier intended to begin shooting in Vistavision on
location in Spain in September 1954. In the intervening period, London Films had
learned what was required to meet Film Finances’ expectations. Budgeted at
£443,209, it was by far the most expensive project Film Finances had yet
considered, but, in contrast to A Kid for Two Farthings, Croydon considered both
the budget and script to be well-thought-out documents to which considerable
time and care had been given.
Working with Hollywood
The extra business that came from the British-Lion group meant that by the mid1950s, Film Finances were guaranteeing over 30 films a year. But this number
would drop towards the end of the decade, as the industry began to make fewer
but bigger films to attract an audience that was losing the film-going habit.
‘Numbers at the box-office have fallen very considerably and continue to fall,’
commented Garrett in his chairman’s speech for 1958.
The public now go for certain films and neglect others. It would be a misuse
of the generally understood meaning of the word to say that picturegoers have
become more discriminatory. It is simply that they go less often to the cinema
and so when they do their choice falls on fewer films.41
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FILM FINANCES
A parallel trend was the growth through the decade of American financing. ‘An
increasing number of British films are being set up in conjunction with Americancontrolled distributing companies,’ began the 1956 NFFC report, ‘and it seems
likely that whilst this state of affairs continues the proportion of British films made
without assistance from this Corporation will increase.’42
Giving guarantees for such films had been a small but significant part of Film
Finances’ business from the first years of the company. In 1951, it had provided a
guarantee of completion to the US distributor United Artists for The African Queen:
British company Romulus, through its associated company Independent Film Distributors, secured English financing for the below-the-line production costs of making the film, while the US distributor met the above-the-line cost of producer Sam
Spiegel, director John Huston and the two Hollywood stars Humphrey Bogart and
Katharine Hepburn. The rights to the various territories around the world were
then divided between United Artists and Independent Film Distributors. The deal
provided a model of financing for other United Artists productions that Film
Finances guaranteed. For example Another Man’s Poison (1951), made in a British
studio but with the above-line Hollywood talent of Bette Davis, Gary Merrill and
director Irving Rapper; or Decameron Nights (1953), shot by a British company in
Spain and England, but with the American-financed package of producer Mike
Frankovich, stars Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan, and director Hugo Fregonese
(a second choice, the Film Finances files reveal, after Max Ophüls had turned the
project down).
In 1952, another long-term Hollywood partnership began when Film Finances
gave a completion guarantee to Columbia Pictures for The Red Beret (1953). Independent producers Irving Allen and Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli had relocated their
company Warwick Films from America to England to take advantage of the new
Film Production Fund. Established in 1950 through a government levy on boxoffice receipts, the money was redistributed to the producers of British-made films
in proportion to the British gross of their individual films. Although the fund was
intended to offer support to British producers, it inevitably gave special advantage
to those producers who had access to the powerful distribution platforms of the
Hollywood majors. The huge box-office success of The Red Beret, which, released
in the US under the title Paratrooper, was in Variety’s list of the top 10 best-grossing
films of 1953, provided a foundation for a series of subsequent Columbia-financed
Warwick productions, most of which received guarantees from Film Finances.
For Columbia, the guarantee was a means of asserting control over a production that, made far from Hollywood, it could not effectively supervise itself. It
offered certainty that the film would require only the specified investment, but also
that the exact terms of the distribution agreement would be fulfilled.
The cost of backing British
When Robert Garrett founded the company, he had hoped that Film Finances
would help to create an industry that could secure stable British funding for independent producers. But such an ambition required the kind of continued public
support that, in face of the industry’s continuing lack of profitability, the
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government was reluctant to sustain indefinitely. Its original intervention in 1948
had been with the express purpose of getting the industry back on its feet. It went
on supporting independent producers through the NFFC long after the original
loans had been written off, but the understanding was always that this was a
temporary measure.
The 1950s was a decade of constant tinkering with tax regimes and levies,
with new schemes and systems, in the hope that a genuinely profitable, self-supporting sector of independent production would emerge. Film Finances played its
full part in pursuing what turned out to be an illusory dream. To the degree that
its goal was to help independent producers to secure finance, it had a shared brief
with the NFFC that was the basis of their close co-operation.
When the NFFC assumed direct control of British-Lion, placing its former
managing director David Kingsley in charge of the company, British-Lion became
the chief focus of government efforts to support independent producers that were
tied to neither the two British combines—the Rank Organisation and Associated
British Picture Corporation—nor the American majors.
Kingsley encouraged independent film-makers to pool their resources into
satellite groups that released their films through British-Lion. One such group was
Bryanston, which the producers Michael Balcon and Maxwell Setton formed in
1959. Following a suggestion from Kingsley that Film Finances should consider
taking part in a similar scheme, the company joined a consortium of investors in
1961 to set up a satellite sub-distribution company called Garrick Film Distributors. The principal partners were producer Raymond Stross and Irish showbusiness
entrepreneur Louis Elliman, who controlled the newly established Ardmore Studios
near Dublin. The partnership envisaged that Stross’s production company would
play the chief role in making films for Garrick, which would, wherever possible,
be filmed at Ardmore Studios, with completion guarantees provided by Film
Finances.
But in spite of the appealing synergy of this venture, it turned out to be a
costly, time-consuming struggle that served only to illustrate the precarious nature
of British financing. Three films were produced in 1962: The Very Edge (1963), The
Brain (1963) and The Leather Boys (1964). The original intention had been to follow
up with two more productions in the second year, and a further two in the year
after that.43 But the National Provincial, the bank that advanced a production loan
for the three films of £223,870 against Garrick’s distribution guarantee,44 refused
to lend any more money until revenues began to flow from the first three films.45
Production plans were put on hold but then postponed indefinitely following poor
box-office returns from the UK release of The Very Edge in May 1963.
In October 1963, Garrick’s company secretary, William Croft, circulated a
bleak letter containing schedules of estimated revenues for the three films. ‘The
Schedules show that Very Edge will not recover its guarantee; that we may get out
on The Brain if we take our percentages into account, but that the company now
stands or falls by results on Leather Boys. From these results you will see that we
could not undertake any production during 1964.’46 The situation became only
worse when British-Lion put back the release date of Leather Boys until March
1964, a year after the film had been completed, and a deal for distribution of The
Brain and The Leather Boys in America fell through.
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FILM FINANCES
The continuing existence of Garrick Film Distributors became one of crisis
management. In May 1965, the shortfall on Garrick’s distribution guarantee to the
bank for The Very Edge was ‘in the order of £40,000,’47 while the other two films
were still struggling to break even. Over the next year, the company continued
slowly to reduce its debt. The National Provincial Bank refrained from calling in
the loan only because it realized, as Croft explained to Garrick’s board, ‘that it
would be idle for the Bank to appoint a Receiver and therefore incur additional
costs and at the same time not to be able to do the job any better than we ourselves our doing.’48
The predicament of Garrick was typical of independent production as a whole,
which, for the lack of British finance, had little alternative but to turn for support
to Hollywood. When the National Film Finance Corporation sold its stake in British-Lion in 1964, it amounted to a tacit acceptance that the government no longer
considered it realistic to sustain a British-financed film industry of any significant
size. It was able to begin a quiet retreat because there was now American money
in the industry to prevent the total collapse that had threatened when the NFFC
was first created in 1948.
Commenting on the availability of Hollywood finance in its 1966 report, the
NFFC offered the following assessment:
In these circumstances it might seem that, since the best British film-makers
are now usually able to obtain the finance they require without recourse to
the Corporation, the need for a National Film Finance Corporation has
disappeared because its task has been successfully completed.
However, a British film industry which had no alternative but to seek finance
from US companies would not by definition be independent. Many would
think this unfortunate, if not positively wrong. They would argue that the
maintenance and development of a British film production industry, not completely dependent on outside finance, would be in the national interest. It can
be argued that there is no assurance that the US distributors will continue to
finance British films on the present large scale, or at all, and if for any reason
‘runaway’ production … were to return to Hollywood, or to go elsewhere,
British film production would be so gravely weakened that its survival might
be in peril.49
The evidence suggests that Robert Garrett was among those who considered the
drying-up of British finance for independent production to be ‘positively wrong.’
When the government put British-Lion up for auction, he wrote this note of
support to Sir Michael Balcon, who had announced that he would be a bidder:
I was delighted to see that you had entered the fray—it is most public spirited
of you.
I think, however, it is scandalous that at a time when independent production
is obviously in need of money its friends should have to consider diverting
substantial resources in order to “pay off” the Government.50
Film Finances itself continued to thrive. Independent production was growing even
if the money that supported it came from elsewhere. But the lesson for the
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company—which became even more apparent at the end of the 1960s when
‘runaway’ production did indeed return to Hollywood—was that its ultimate
future lay elsewhere.
Notes
1
2
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3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Parliamentary Debates: House of Commons, vol. 476, cc. 2862–2882, 14 December
1949.
Political and Economic Planning, The British Film Industry (London, 1952),
251–252.
See, for example, Parliamentary Debates: House of Commons, vol. 476, cc.
2489–2592, 29 June 1950.
Film Finances Limited, undated 8-page brochure, Film Finances Archive, General
Collection, box 29, folder called American Business.
Robert Garrett letter to James Lawrie, 1 November 1950, Film Finances
Archive, General Collection, box 100, folder called NFFC 1950–1956.
David Edwin Keir, The Bowring Story (London, 1962), 304.
Information about Robert Garrett’s family background comes from an interview
by the author with his step-sons Charles Fairey and Tom Craig (1 November
2011), and Burke’s Peerage and Gentry (see Garrett, formerly of Cromac House).
Kinematography Weekly, 18 July 1935.
Interview by the author with Sir Anthony Havelock-Allan, 2001.
Ibid.
The National Film Finance Corporation came into being on 11 April 1949,
taking over the assets and liabilities of the previous National Film Finance
Company, which the British government had set up in October 1948 to provide
emergency funding to British-Lion.
National Film Finance Corporation Annual Report 1950 (Cmd 7927), 2.
Film Finances Archive, General Collection, box 100, folder called Memoranda—
Miscellaneous 1950 & 1951. Film Finances was incorporated on 24 February
1950.
Kinematograph Weekly, 18 December 1952.
Memorandum from Robert Garrett to Bill Cullen and Peter Hope, 13 July
1950, Film Finances Archive, General Collection, box 100, folder called Memoranda—Miscellaneous.
Robert Garrett to James Lawrie, 1 November 1950, Film Finances Archive,
General Collection, box 100, folder called NFFC 1950–1956.
At the company’s 1949 annual general meeting, ABPC’s chairman, Sir Philip
Warter, described film production as a ‘hazardous business’ that was ‘only justified by the national interest’ (The Times 5 August 1949). Events over the next
decade gave him little reason to change his mind.
Maurice Foster to Robert Garrett, 1 August 1950, Film Finances Archive
Realised Film Box 4, Blackmailed.
John Croydon, memorandum, 3 August 1950, Film Finances Archive Realised
Film Box 4: Blackmailed.
Robert Garrett to Harold Huth Productions, 4 August 1950, Film Finances
Archive Realised Film Box 4: Blackmailed.
FILM FINANCES
21
22
23
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24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
Robert Garrett to Harold Huth, 4 August 1950, Film Finances Archive Realised
Film Box 4: Blackmailed.
Robert Garrett to James Lawrie, 4 August 1950, Film Finances Archive Realised
Film Box 4: Blackmailed.
Harold Huth to Robert Garrett, 8 August 1950, Film Finances Archive Realised
Film Box 4: Blackmailed.
Interview with Norman Spencer, 2 May 2009.
Ibid.
Ibid.
National Film Finance Corporation annual report 1952, HMSO, Cmd. 8523, 4.
Memorandum from Robert Garrett to Bill Cullen, 7 July 1952, Film Finances
Archive General Collection Box no. 34, folder called Minutes of Meetings, AGM
etc, 1950–1959.
Michael Powell to Robert Garrett, 31 July 1954, Film Finances Archive Realised
Film Box 135: Oh - Rosalinda.
John Croydon to Robert Garrett, 16 August 1954, Film Finances Archive
Realised Films Box 135: Oh - Rosalinda.
Maurice Foster to John Croydon, 17 September 1954, Film Finances Archive
Realised Films Box 135: Oh - Rosalinda.
John Croydon to Robert Garrett, 20 September 1954, Film Finances Archive
Realised Films Box 135: Oh - Rosalinda.
Michael Powell to Film Finances, 27 July 1954, Film Finances Archive Realised
Films Box 135: Oh - Rosalinda.
Rough Notes for Chairman’s Speech at AGM, 10 October 1954, Film Finances
Archive General Collection Box no. 34, folder called Minutes of Meetings, AGM
etc, 1950–1959.
John Croydon to Robert Garrett, 4 July 1954, Film Finances Archive Realised
Films Box 120: A Kid for Two Farthings.
Script for A Kid for Two Farthings by Wolf Mankowitz, undated, Film Finances
Archive Realised Films Box 120: A Kid for Two Farthings.
John Croydon to Robert Garrett, 4 July 1954, Film Finances Archive Realised
Films Box 120: A Kid for Two Farthings.
Ibid.
Robert Garrett to Harold Boxall, 3 July 1954, Film Finances Archive Realised
Films Box 120: A Kid for Two Farthings.
The budget was £197,889, according to a letter from Harold Boxall to Robert
Garrett, 12 July 1954, Film Finances Archive Realised Films Box 120: A Kid for
Two Farthings.
Chairman’s Speech for Annual General Meeting, 1958, Film Finances Archive
General Collection Box no. 34, folder called Minutes of Meetings, AGM etc,
1950–1959.
National Film Finance Corporation Annual Report 1956 (Cmd. 9751), 1.
The plans for the satellite company are set out in an undated memorandum
called Satellite–Stross, Film Finances Archive General Collection Box no. 30,
folder called Garrick 1961–1966.
Figure given in an undated estimate of revenues, Garrick Film Distributors,
Film Finances Archive General Collection Box no. 30, folder called Garrick
1961–1966.
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45
46
47
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48
49
50
L. Cruikshank, deputy manager, National Provincial Bank, Piccadilly, to
Raymond Stross, 22 June 1962, Film Finances Archive General Collection
Box no. 30, folder called Garrick 1961–1966.
William Croft to directors of Garrick Film Distributors, 28 October 1963,
Film Finances Archive General Collection Box no. 30, folder called Garrick
1961–1966.
William Croft, letter to directors of Garrick Film Distributors, 3 May 1965,
Film Finances Archive General Collection Box no. 30, folder called Garrick
1961–1966.
William Croft, letter to directors of Garrick Film Distributors, 3 January 1966,
Film Finances Archive General Collection Box no. 30, folder called Garrick
1961–1966.
National Film Finance Corporation Annual Report 1966 (Cmd. 3066), 6.
Robert Garrett to Sir Michael Balcon, 2 January 1964, Film Finances Archive
General Collection Box no. 21, folder called National Film Finance Corporation.
Charles Drazin lectures on the British cinema at Queen Mary, University of London. His
previous books include The Finest Years: British Cinema of the 1940s, Korda: Britain’s Only
Movie Mogul and In Search of the Third Man. He is currently working with Film Finances on
compiling an inventory of their archive and is writing a history of the company.