Redstar

Forgive my ignorance on these matters, but what about "The Queen" and "Mrs Henderson presents" ? Were these made with American money?

Mr Dean

Between about 1945 and 1955, Britain had one of the highest per capita film attendance rates in the world. If British films were made for modest budgets they could very often make a profit in the UK alone. The attempt to sell in North America was always doomed to failure in the long run and if Lord Rank hadn't had deep pockets, he would have ruined his studios with big budget flops like Christopher Columbus (UK 1949). Rank's link to Universal had some successes but couldn't be sustained.

After this, first Goldcrest (remember Revolution?) and then Palace Pictures tried to succeed by selling films in America but both collapsed, ironically just as Palace had its biggest hit with The Crying Game. Only British films made with Hollywood money are likely to sustain American box office success (i.e. the Working Title model).

Hollywood made its own films in the UK from the 1920s to the end of the 1960s and then came back in the 1990s. Personally, I don't think of Harry Potter as a British movie series -- they are essentially Hollywood films.

Mr Dean

No, both these films were made with European money. Look on IMDB and you'll see the usual collection of small British companies, a distributor/producer like Pathe (a French company) and UK 'soft money' from the BBC or UK Film Council. 'Soft money' =public funding.

These films were successful on a small scale in America, but even though their budgets were modest (I'm guessing around £5 million for Mrs Henderson Presents), no single UK company could afford to stake the whole amount itself and certainly not guarantee a 'slate' of several films each year with similar budgets. Stephen Frears has had several mini hits in the US recently, but other films that were good movies but took little money in either the UK or the US (Liam for instance in 2000, The Hi-Lo Country in 1998). You have to be a studio that can sustain losses on films and still keep funding new ones in order to stay in business. We can't do that in the UK, so we cobble together this strange way of financing films. It can work over time, but only on a modest scale and certainly not on a scale that would get the films into American multiplexes without the backing of a Hollywood studio.

ChristineCB

I have to wonder if there was an evil plot involved. After all, what good did it do for Hollywood to buy out all of these Brit actors if they could stay in the UK and make successful films there and achieve the same popularity as imports to the States?

If I was a Hollywood mogul and was going to tantalize Gielgud, Olivier, etc. with claims of achieving American fame and getting American fortunes, I wouldn't do it by saying, "...or you can stay there because Brit films are so popular here!"

In fact, Hollywood had more incentive to keep Brit films from being successes.

Steve Crook

P&P's financing came from the UK (Rank & Korda) until The Elusive Pimpernel and Gone to Earth which were both UK/US co-financed.

But they always relied on and expected quite reasonable US sales, and usually got them.

It's trued that as Mr Dean says, with the very high attendances in in 1945-55 a UK financed film could make a modest profit on UK sales alone. But British film-makers all really wanted those US sales where the market was so much bigger. That was the only way to make a really big profit on a film which could then be used to finance studio growth and cover the cost of the inevitable flops

British film producers were also often stabbed in the back by the Government making ill thought out changes to the various protectionist measures, often without warning. J. Arthur Rank was in the US finalising a co-production deal with some American studios when the British government brought in one such act in about 1948. The Americans didn't believe that Rank was unaware that this was even being considered. Rank had already invested a lot of money in production facilities and the changes almost bankrupted the Rank organisation. It did mean that Rank himself had to stand down and the accountants took over.

Steve

Steve Crook

And let's not forget the over-enthusiasm generated by every British film that is a worldwide success - "The British are coming!"
That's quickly followed by a realisation that this level of success only happens to a few purely British films so is quickly followed by news reports about the collapse of the "British Film Industry"

Steve

D Cairns

There is a British film industry in the sense that a great many British film technicians earn a (shaky) living working on films in this country. The number of purely British films is low, but not non-existant. It's not quite fair to call it a cottage industry when a modest film costs two million quid.
I'm as disappointed as anyone in the lack of GOOD British films, and the lack of variety in those getting made (I'd like to do something about it if anybody has a few hundred grand to spare). I think the best bet would be for more genre films, modest ones at first, like DOG SOLDIERS, could be made, gradually getting a bit more ambitious, especially in terms of ideas. We should concentrate on reaching an audience and offering them something entertaining with a bit of intelligence. Instead of miserable social realist things that rarely reach a wide enough public to pay for themselves.

ChristineCB

I've been surprised that DOG SOLDIERS hasn't spawned a variety of pups. I liked the first HOWLING or two, but DOG SOLDIERS is a favorite werewolf film - and I'm fairly happy that it hasn't been sequeled to death. I understood DOG SAILORS was, of course, the natural progression, but someone keeps wanting to do DOG POKER PLAYERS instead. Something about an "existing market"... I don't know... René Russo didn't seem too keen about it.

Carmel

If they put as much money into the British film industry as they pay BBC workers ie:Jonathan Ross and other hosts we could maybe get the British film up and running to put Hollywood to shame. The film industry here are to worried about being as big and as better as Hollywood that they lack the story lines and only coming up with poor scripts they should concentrate on 1. Good actors that dont demand big money there are enough drama schools out there to pick from why go for the big names they all started somewhere. 2. good scripts, sadly which Britan has been lacking of late and 3. Good locations arround Britan there are loads of them why keep reusing places we have seen in other films, Britan is big enough to pick out some new ones. They should also sell their films to the public with advertising thats what sells a hollywood film their big advertisment campains, which Britan do so badly American's put their films on billboards and tv and chat shows telling us how great there films are thats what makes us go to see them because we here so much about them. Come on British film makers come up with the good stories we so desprately need.

batman

Well said Carmel, I have been banging on about this for years. We have the talent, the locations and the facilities .... it just seems that no one in 'positions of power' in the industry cares about the product they deliver or the audience, many of whom constantly demand an improvement but appear to permanently ignored. This is especially the case with TV.

Bats.

"Boom boom a baby .... Banham Zoo .... Banana pants! Hahahaha"

Cheeky Bob

The biggest problem is that we spend too much money on production, and nowhere near enough on development and distribution. With entirely predictable results.

In many ways, development is the most neglected part of the equation - I read somewhere that Hollywood typically spends up to 10% of a film's budget on development, but in Europe it's nearer 1%. Frankly, it shows - and until we start taking development seriously we're just not going to be able to compete effectively. Either commercially OR artistically.

smudge

I have to go with Steve on this one - it's something I've pondered for a few years now, since I started reading 'grown up' books on cinema (i.e. the ones with the economic as well as the artistic content.) Some of my key periods of British Film suddenly don't seem so British anymore ; Hammer Films heyday - relying on US funding ; the swinging sixities - by then Elstree Studios had been part owned by Warner Bros for a very long time, moving on Seven Arts. So how 'British' was British ?

Even that elder statesman of British Film - The Rank Organisation - only survived because of the diversification into Xerox machines and a little hard headed business practice by Sir John Davis.

It's that old chestnut of, "What makes a British Film British?" and back to the current Govt's interpretation of 'cultural content'. At the end of the day the film industry, like anything else, really belongs to the men who hold the money...

Smudge

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

Cheeky Bob

I thought the recent official definition of a British film as one where at least 70% of the budget was spent on British services and talent is as good as any, and a lot better than many previous attempts.

Not least because it's based on what the money is spent on, as opposed to where it came from - and I think that's the right way round.

Fellwanderer

That seems much more sensible to me than simply where the money came from.

You might just as well argue that Manchester United is American and Chelsea Russian [some probably would anyway ] if you go down the line of where the money backing them comes from.

All the best
FELL

A signature is no substitute for a life

ChristineCB

I'm just not sure why 'foreign investors' would find it in their - or their union workers' - best interests to send money and jobs away from their region. I'm sure Hammer was thrilled at the seemingly big dollars to keep vomiting up their very limited-audience product, but I can't imagine any of Hammer's enemies doing them any worse than giving them short-term money to produce repetitive, unimaginative crap for a few years and ruin their 'brand name'. It was probably easy for those distributors to say, "Sorry, your brand-name is ruined and we don't want you."

Hammer surely wasn't the first studio that joined the First Wives' Club. Is it true that Hammer's gravestone reads, "With friends like these - ?"