J. Arthur Rank
Joseph Arthur Rank, 1st Baron Rank (
December 23 1888 –
March 29 1972) was a
British industrialist and
film producer, and founder of the
Rank Organisation, now known as
The Rank Group Plc.
Joseph Arthur Rank was born on
December 23 1888 at
Kingston upon Hull in
England into a
Victorian family environment, which was dominated by his father Joseph who had built a substantial flour milling business. Joseph is reported to have told his son Arthur that he was
"a dunce at school" and that the only way that he could succeed in life would be in his father's flour mill. J. Arthur ventured on his own with
Peterkins Self-Raising Flour, but when that business failed he returned to work for his father. That was the business (Joseph Rank Limited) that he later inherited and which became known as (now the quoted company
RHM).
J. Arthur Rank was a devout member of the
Methodist Church and in his middle age he taught
Sunday School to which he began to show
religious films. This practice expanded to other churches and schools and it led to his formation of the
Religious Film Society to which he then distributed
films that he had also made. His first production was called
Mastership.
When the
Methodist Times newspaper began to complain about the negative influence that
British and
American films shown in Britain were having on
family life, their
editorial was answered by the
London Evening News who suggested that instead of complaining, the Methodist Church should provide a solution. Rank took up the challenge and via an introduction by a young film producer named John Corefield, he discussed both the problem and a solution with
Lady Annie Henrietta Yule of
Bricket Wood. The net result of these meetings was the formation of the
British National Films Company.
The first commercial production by this company was
Turn of the Tide, a movie based upon a recently published
1932 novel by
Leo Walmsley called
Three Fevers. Having created their movie, British National then had to get it distributed and exhibited, but this proved to be more difficult than making the movie itself. Some commercial screens began showing
Turn of the Tide as a second feature, but this was not enough exposure for the company to make a profit.
Having first created a film production company and having made a movie at another studio, J. Arthur Rank, Lady Yule and John Corfield began talking to
Charles Boot who had recently bought the estate of Heatherden Hall at
Iver Heath,
Buckinghamshire, for the purpose of turning it into a movie studio that would rival those in
Hollywood,
California. In
1935 the trio became owner-operators of Pinewood Film Studios. Lady Yule later sold her shares to J. Arthur Rank and John Corfield resigned from its board of directors who were happy to see him go.
The problems encountered in the distribution of
Turn of the Tide were addressed when J. Arthur Rank discovered that the people who controlled the British film industry had ties to the American movie industry and that for all practical purposes he was shut out of his own domestic market. American films occupied 80% of British screen time during the era before
World War II.
In
1936 Rank arrived at a solution to his distribution problems. Because the middlemen controlled the distribution pipeline from production to exhibition, he decided to buy a large part of both the distribution and exhibition systems. He began by forming a partnership with film maker
C.M. Woolf (father of Sir
John Woolf), for the purpose of creating the General Cinema Finance Corporation (GCFC). They then used that company to buy out General Film Distributors who were the
UK distributors for
Universal Pictures).
In
1937 J. Arthur Rank began to consolidate his movie interests in both the
Pinewood Film Studios and the
Denham Film Studios and other interests within a new company called the
Rank Organisation. In
1938 the Rank Organisation bought the
ODEON cinema chain (named after its founder's own ambition:
Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation). In
1938 the Rank Organisation bought
Amalgamated Studios in
Elstree and in
1941 it absorbed the
Gaumont-British Picture Corporation who owned 251 cinemas and the
Shepherd's Bush Studios (which the Rank Organisation later sold to
BBC Television.) It also bought the
Paramount cinema chain so that by
1942 the Rank Organisation owned 619 cinemas. He was succeeded as
Chairman by
Sir John Davis, upon his retirement. A more complete history is found under the
Rank Organisation from
1937 to
1986 and
The Rank Group Plc which absorbed the Rank Organisation in
1986.
Although his critics claimed that many of the films that he had produced under the name of J. Arthur Rank were not exactly in keeping with his original intention of producing
"family-friendly" movies to combat crass American commercial interests, he nevertheless kept to his core beliefs. To that end in
1953 he set up the J. Arthur Rank Group Charity to promote
Christian belief. The charity later became known as The Rank Foundation. [www.rankfoundation.com]
In
1957 J. Arthur Rank was raised to the
Peerage, being created
Baron Rank, of Sutton Scotney in the County of Hampshire. (
Sutton Scotney is a small
village between
Andover and
Winchester in
Hampshire.)[www.rankfoundation.com]
The name J. Arthur Rank became a common expression in
Cockney rhyming slang meaning masturbation.
