British National Films Company
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In 1934 the British National Films Company was formed in England by J. Arthur Rank, Lady Annie Henrietta Yule of Bricket Wood and producer John Corefield.
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[edit] Origin of the company
Joseph Arthur Rank was a devout member of the Methodist Church and the son of a millionaire flour miller. On the first day of the week he was a Sunday School teacher and he discovered that if he screened religious films instead of lecturing his class, he got a positive response.
His idea spread to other classes held by other churches and in 1933, this motivated J. Arthur Rank to form a Religious Film Society to distribute the films that he wanted to show to other Sunday Schools.
Following distribution, J. Arthur Rank then decided to go into the business of producing religious films. Mastership was his first religious film production. It was a twenty minutes film made at Merton Park Studios at a cost of £2,700. Mastership was never shown commercially, because it was merely intended as a form of evangelism and shown within other churches. Rank was pleased with the results and other films went into production in Elstree at the better equipped Rock Studios, which were later renamed British National.
[edit] Press challenge
In the 1930s the Methodist Times newspaper in England began attacking the low moral standards exhibited by British films and by American films shown in Britain. In response, the London Evening News answered the Methodist Times by suggesting that if the Methodist Church was so concerned about the effect that the film industry was having upon family life in Britain, that it should start producting its own family-friendly films. It was this exchange that motivated J. Arthur Rank to expand his movie interests into the commercial market.
[edit] Lady Yule
A young producer named John Corefield introduced J. Arthur Rank to Lady Annie Henrietta Yule of Bricket Wood, who was both extremely wealthy and extremely bored with life. In order to fill her life with activity she engaged in big game hunting and breeding Arabian horses with a degree of success and lasting fame. Upon meeting J. Arthur Rank she decided to add the making of films to her list. However, when it came to the business side of film production, Lady Yule did not share the same ideas as J. Arthur Rank with regards to the making and distributing films to improve society, because she did not believe in giving discounts to religiously motivated film productions. She thought that films were an interesting hobby and similar to her financial interests in Arabian horse breeding.
[edit] Formation of the Company
In 1934 J. Arthur Rank, Lady Yule and John Corefield formed the British National Films Company and went into production in answer to the challenge by the Evening News to the Methodist Times.
In 1935 British National commenced production of their first feature film called Turn of the Tide. The script was based upon a 1932 novel by Leo Walmsley called Three Fevers. The setting, which Rank knew from childhood, was Robin Hood's Bay on the north coast of Yorkshire, England. Having read the book, Rank decided that it would mamake an excellent family-friendly British film in answer to the Hollywood-style movies that Alexander Korda was making at the Denham Film Studios.
Although Turn of the Tide was well made and featured a good cast, British National could not get wide distribution for the film and when he did, it was as the second half of a double feature. The company struggled to recoup its costs and Rank knew that for British National to make a profit, he had to create a commercial version of his Religious Film Society in order to control distribution and exhibition.
[edit] Pinewood Film Studios
In 1934 Charles Boot had undertaken to construct a new film studio in the village of Iver Heath in Buckinghamshire. His location was set among the Pine trees on the estate grounds of a mansion called Heatherden Hall that Charles Boot had recently bought at auction. The complex was named Pinewood Film Studios and it was completed within a year. By 1935 Charles Boot had approached British National about taking over ownership and management of the new studios and a contract was entered into. John Corfield eventually resigned from the board of Pinewood Film Studios and Lady Yule sold her shares to J. Arthur Rank.
[edit] Film Distribution
The problems that British National experienced in distributing Turn of the Tide, were eventually solved by J. Arthur Rank and that episode belongs to his life story.
