MOVIE PRODUCTION COMPANIES

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Film 4 Productions

The B.B.C. television drama producer David Rose (1928-2017) had helped to shape the police dramas Z Cars and Softly, Softly. Jeremy Isaacs invited him to become the Head of Fiction at Channel 4. Over the following eight years Film on Four commissioned 136 films, many of which had theatrical releases. They included: Neil Jordan s Angel (1982) and Mona Lisa (1986), Stephen Frears s My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) David Leland s Wish You Were Here (1987), and Mike Leigh s High Hopes (1988). About one-in-seven of the movies was foreign. These included Wim Wenders Paris Texas (1984).

Location: 60 Charlotte Street, W1T 2NU. Channel 4 s original base. (blue, yellow)

124 Horseferry Road, SW1P 2TX. Channel 4 s subsequent base. (red, yellow)

Website: www.film4productions.com

Goldcrest Films

Jake Eberts (1941-2012) was a Canadian-born financier. Through working for the Oppenheimer & Company investment bank he became involved in film finance. The investors whom he persuaded to finance the animated movie Watership Down (1978) included the Pearson conglomerate. The company s subsidiaries included Penguin Books, which had published a paperback edition of the original novel. Eberts concluded that there was scope for establishing a film production business that was closely related to the publishing industry. In 1977 he set up Goldcrest Films. Pearson took a holding in the venture.

Goldcrest s movies films tended to be intelligent and thoughtful. Its initial releases were highly successful. They included: Chariots of Fire (1981), Gandhi (1982), Local Hero (1983), and The Killing Fields (1984). The business established a close relationship with the producer David Putnam. Eberts was unhappy with Goldcrest s move into television. Therefore, he allowed himself to be lured away to work in the United States. The company entered into an overambitious production programme. It lost a serious proportion of its capital through financing Revolution (1985). The losses were compounded by its backing of Absolute Beginners (1986) and The Mission (1986). Eberts rejoined Goldcrest but was unable to return it to its previous condition. In 1987 it was acquired by Brent Walker. During the previous six years its films had won nineteen Oscars.

Eberts had set up Allied Filmmakers in 1985. The films that that company backed included The Name of The Rose (1986), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), and Dances With Wolves (1990). The films with which he was associated won a further eighteen Oscars.

Location: 1 Lexington Street, W1F 9AF (orange, turquoise)

Website: www.goldcrestfilms.com

Hammer Film Productions

The Hinds family became watchmakers in 1825. Their business was based in West London. In 1924 William (d.1957) and Francis Hinds parted company. The former performed in music halls under the stage name of Will Hammer, being one half of a duo that was called Hammer & Smith. He was not a success.

Hammer Film Productions and Exclusive Films were founded in 1934 by James Carreras and William Hinds. The former was not a success and became dormant. Following the Second World War the business was revived to make quota quickies. The two men transferred the businesses to their sons. James Carreras became the managing director and Anthony Hinds (1922-2013) the creative director. Initially, Hammer developed into producing low-budget thrillers, comedies, radio adaptations.

In 1952 Hammer acquired Down Place, a Thames-side mansion. The facility was renamed Bray Studios. A company bus service transported staff to and from London. The company hired the director Terence Fisher and the writer Jimmy Sangster. It developed a repertory company of actors that included Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

Hinds appreciated that Hammer could not compete with the American studios with regard to technologies such as 3-D and CinemaScope. Therefore, when the company produced The Quatermass Xperiment (1953), it asked the British Board of Film Censors to give the film an X certificate. The film became Hammer s largest box office success to date. Hammer took a major gamble when it invested 65,000 in the production of The Curse of Frankenstein (1956). It was Hammer s first horror film. Christopher Lee played the Creature. The movie took $7m at the American box office. Thereafter, the business focused its resources on the horror genre. The following year the company made Dracula. Lee starred in it as the count. He was to reprise the role eight times. He became friends with Boris Karloff. One day the younger actor bemoaned how he was continually being given horror roles. The older one responded Types are continually in the work. Audiences came to trust the Hammer brand for the reliability of its product. While the company did not regard its own output as being works of art, it was a leading patron of contemporary British composers. The composers whom it commissioned included: Benjamin Frankel, Christopher Gunning, Elisabeth Lutyens, and Humphrey Searle.

In the early 1960s Hammer had experienced a series of expensive of box office flops and wished to reduce its production costs. The company employed Don Sharp (1921-2011) to make The Kiss of The Empire (1963) with a cast of unknowns. Mr Sharp was a seasoned director but, prior to his hire, had never seen a horror movie. He gave himself a crash course in the genre. Kiss proved to be a success. He became one of the studio s principal directors, making six movies with Christopher Lee.

During the 1960s Hammer took advantage of society s growing tolerance and liberality to make movies that contained scenes of nudity and violence. Hinds did not like this development. In 1970 he resigned from the company s board. Thereafter, Carreras increased the amount of sexuality that was portrayed in its vampire movies. Ingrid Pitt (n e Ingoushka Petrov) (1937-2010) starred in The Vampire Lovers (1970), which was based on Sheridan Le Fanu s lesbian vampire novel Carmilla (1872). The following year she was cast in Countess Dracula (1971), which drew upon the life of the Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614).

In 1971 Hammer released On The Buses. The comedy was very profitable. In 1979 the business was liquidated.

Hinds attended a Hammer convention that was held at Bray Studios. The experience prompted him to state that the attendees were barking mad .

Location: Hammer House, 113-117 Wardour Street, W1F 0UN (orange, purple)

35 New Bridge Street, EC4V 6BW

Unit 20, Berghem Mews, Blythe Road, W14B 0HN. Hammer Studios.

Website: www.hammerfilms.com

HandMade Films

The Long Good Friday was made for Lew Grade s Black Lion Films. Grade believed that the film was flattering to the I.R.A.. Therefore, he refused to give it a theatrical release. He proposed that it should have a television screening late at night. Barry Hanson (1943-2016), the film s producer, arranged a series of screenings for parties that gave it a theatrical release. HandMade bought it for 730,000, which was 200,000 less than it had cost to make.

The Life of Brian (1979) was banned in several European countries, one of which was Norway. It is reputed that subsequently the movie was advertised in Sweden as The film that was so funny they banned it in Norway .

HandMade was badly damaged by Shanghai Surprise. The company became involved in a dispute with Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus s E.M.I. Films.

Website: www.handmadfefilms.film

Palace Pictures

Nick Powell and Richard Branson set up Virgin as a music retailing business. It proved to be highly profitable. The pair set up a record label which was also extremely lucrative. In 1979 the 21-year-old Stephen Woolley was managing the La Scala cinema in King s Cross. He approached Virgin for financial support. It bought the building. He turned the venue into an art house cinema that proved to be able to attract large audiences.

Powell left Virgin. In 1981 he opened Video Palace, a video shop on Kensington High Street. He hired Woolley to oversee the shop s stock. In 1983 the pair founded Palaces Pictures, a film distribution business. They became so successful that other distributors started following them about and then making gazumping offers. They responded to this situation by expanding into production. The business proved to have a number of successes, however, its subsidiaries that operated outside of its two core businesses proved to be largely loss-making. Ultimately, this factor undermined the company s viability. In 1993 it collapsed. A few months later Powell and Woolley set up Scala Productions, which swiftly established itself as one of the leading independent production houses.

Location: 62-64 Kensington High Street, W8 4PE (purple, grey)

16-17 Wardour Mews, W1F 8AT (purple, turquoise)

David Backhouse 2024