36-496: ABC Film Review was a magazine which began regular releases in 1951 after a 1950 trial. The name was kept until April 1972, by May 1972 it was shortened to simply Film Review . The final issue (#701) came out December 2008. In the 1990s, it advertised itself as "Britain's longest-running film magazine" on the cover. It was originally tied in with ABC Cinemas . It was published by Associated British in association with Pathé and produced by Axtell Publications Ltd. of London, and at
72-527: A vertically integrated film industry duopoly in Britain with the Rank Organisation . The company was founded during 1927 by Scottish solicitor John Maxwell after he had purchased British National Pictures Studios and its Elstree Studios complex and merged it with his ABC Cinemas circuit, renaming the company British International Pictures. The Wardour Film Company, with Maxwell as chairman,
108-491: A demonstrated "public value". Of the 21 films made by ABPC during the 1950s, only two were derived from original screenplays. German-born Frederick Gotfurt was Clark's scenario editor in this period, but his command of English was imperfect and the contracted actor Richard Todd doubted Gotfurt's ability to assess the quality of the dialogue in a script. "It was a dreadful place", said Richard Attenborough when remembering ABPC's Elstree facility. "It created nothing in terms of
144-571: A feeling of commitment." During this period though, the company produced its best remembered titles such as The Dam Busters ( Michael Anderson , 1954), and Ice Cold in Alex (1958), whose director J. Lee Thompson was ABPC's most productive during the 1950s. In 1958, Associated Talking Pictures, the parent company of Ealing Films , was acquired. In 1955, the Independent Television Authority (ITA) awarded one of
180-530: A large number of shares to Warner Bros. , who, although the Maxwell family remained the largest shareholders, were able to exercise a measure of control. The studio at Elstree was taken over by the government for the duration of the war. Film production was restricted to B-Pictures made at the company's smaller studio in Welwyn Garden City , which closed in 1950. Much of the output of the studio
216-604: A national printers' strike in the UK that summer (a fate that befell many magazines and newspapers at the time). Price from September 1968 was 9d until September 1970, when decimalisation was approaching, and the price changed to one shilling (5 new pence) in October 1970. The price changed again in May 1972, when it increased to 10p. At this time, the name changed to just Film Review ; the ABC
252-532: A new "national" release but this was unattractive to distributors and in 1961 Paramount switched to ABC after refusing a "national" release for the Dean Martin comedy All in a Night's Work . The "national" release soon ended entirely and there were in future just ABC and Odeon release patterns. In 1967, Seven Arts , the new owners of Warner, decided to dispose of its holdings in ABPC and subsequently EMI launched
288-592: A reallocation of the ITV franchises, ABC Television ceased to exist in 1968; however, unwilling to eject ABPC from the system, the ITA awarded the contract for weekdays in London to a new company that would be joint-owned by ABPC and British Electric Traction (parent company of outgoing franchisee Rediffusion ), with ABPC holding a 51% controlling stake. Both companies were initially reluctant to this "shotgun merger", but eventually
324-408: A small cinema and vice versa). In the 1940s, ABC set up the first major Saturday cinema club for children, "The ABC Minors". At the beginning of each Saturday morning session, the "ABC Minors Song" would be played to the tune of 'Blaze Away' by Abe Holzmann (1874–1939), whilst the lyrics were presented on the screen with a bouncing red ball above the words to help the audience keep the place. In
360-630: A successful take-over bid for the company. Associated British Picture Corporation was later to be renamed Thorn-EMI Screen Entertainment Ltd, although the cinema chain retained its name. In 1986, this was later divested by EMI to the Australian businessman Alan Bond who sold the EMI film/cinema assets a few days later to the Cannon Group for a reported £50 million profit in seven days. EMI retained ABPC's lucrative television interests. Eventually,
396-565: A town showed their own releases and barred each other from showing the same film. Television led to a sharp decline in cinema audiences after 1952 though with the coming of commercial television from 1955 ABPC had expanded into the new medium with the creation of ABC Television Limited , which gained the Independent Television contracts for the North of England and Midlands at the weekend. ABC-TV lost its franchises in 1968 and
SECTION 10
#1732797685297432-576: The 60 remaining ABC Cinemas, which were mostly older, town centre cinemas, were rebranded as Odeon or were closed as the chain was now being run by the former Rank/Odeon executives. An exception was the venue at Westover Road, Bournemouth venue which retained the ABC brand until its closure in early 2017. The Odeon on the same road closed later that year. In 2004, the Odeon chain was sold to Terra Firma Capital Partners who had recently purchased UCI cinemas and over
468-629: The Cannon cinemas "due to the competition from the new multiplex" – examples of this happened in Northampton and Swindon. MGM Cinemas subsequently changed hands many times, first becoming Virgin Cinemas . Virgin Cinemas was founded in 1995 when Richard Branson 's Virgin Group acquired MGM Cinemas, Virgin Group bought the cinemas (numbering 116 at the time) for £195m, and subsequently sold 90 of
504-582: The United States. Existing cinemas which could not be re-modelled were usually operated as separate circuits. In 1937, the parent company, BIP was renamed Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC). ABC also ran cinemas under the Ritz brand such as the Ritz Cinema, Muswell Hill . After he died in 1940, his widow Catherine sold a large number of shares to Warner Brothers , who eventually became
540-414: The advent of largely American-owned multiplexes led to the end of barring and the old distributor alignments, which had in any case been rendered largely irrelevant by cinema closures often leaving only one cinema in a town, which had access to all films but usually had to give precedence to its traditional alignment (so an Odeon might have a poor "Rank" release in its biggest screen and a big "ABC" release in
576-475: The chain's remaining non-multiplex cinemas to Cinven for £70m to concentrate on multiplexes. Virgin then divested itself of the cinema business to French-owned UGC . Subsequently, UGC divested its UK operations to a rival operator, Cineworld . While this was happening, the divested smaller ABC cinemas gained a stablemate under Cinven; in 2000 Cinven bought over the one-time rival chain of Odeon Cinemas for £280 million from Rank Group plc and most of
612-474: The four initial contracts for commercial television in the UK to ABPC (after original awardee Kemsley-Winnick Television collapsed). The contract was to provide programming on the new ITV network in the Midlands and northern England on Saturdays and Sundays. The board of ABPC had been unconvinced by the merits of entering the television market, but were eventually convinced by the ITA who believed they were
648-800: The largest shareholders and able to exercise control, though ABPC was separately quoted on the London Stock Exchange. By 1945 it operated over 400 cinemas (usually called the Savoy or Regal) and was second only to Rank's Odeon and Gaumont chains. By the close of the 1950s, ABC had started rebranding most cinemas as ABC and dropped names like Regal. UK exhibition was characterised by alignments between distributors and exhibitors. ABC had access to Warner Brothers, MGM and its own ABPC productions, whereas rival Rank had 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Walt Disney, Columbia, Universal, United Artists and its own productions. Rival ABC, Odeon and Gaumont cinemas in
684-495: The late 1980s, on the verge of bankruptcy, Cannon was taken over by Italian fraudster Giancarlo Parretti , who then changed the company's name to Pathé Communications , which subsequently bought MGM . These Cannon cinemas, along with a group of theaters Cannon owned in Holland , were used as part of a phony transaction by Parretti to a holding company purportedly owned by Italian media mogul Silvio Berlusconi , Cinema V ; Cinema V
720-644: The new station, christened Thames Television , took to the air in July 1968 (two days after ABC's last broadcast). The 51% controlling stake passed to EMI upon its acquisition of ABPC the following year. Policies changed after Clark left in January 1958. New projects from the company were limited to those using contracted television comedy performers, and investment in independent productions. The use of Elstree for television production increased. Later successful features from ABPC itself included several films built around
756-681: The next six years all the Rank people were replaced with UCI management, replicating what Odeon did to ABC in 2001/2002. On Glasgow 's Sauchiehall Street the O2 ABC Glasgow became a music venue until its permanent closure after it was severely damaged by a fire in 2018. Furthermore, Minehead and Skegness Butlins holiday camps had an on-site ABC cinema until the camp decided to close them in 2021. Associated British Picture Corporation Associated British Picture Corporation ( ABPC ), originally British International Pictures ( BIP ),
SECTION 20
#1732797685297792-433: The only acceptable option to take the contract. Former head of British Pathé Howard Thomas was appointed as the station's managing director. Under the name ABC Television , the company came on the air in stages between February and November 1956. Among many television series ABC produced were Opportunity Knocks , The Avengers , Redcap , and the long-running Armchair Theatre drama anthology series. Following
828-443: The outset the only credited contributor was James McCrossan. The 3-issue trial in 1950 was just 20 pages and cost three old pence . After the trial's success, it became a full monthly magazine from January 1951 costing 4d until December 1951. The price was increased in January 1952 to 6d and stayed at 6d until August 1968, which was a complete run except for the issues for August and September, 1959, which were not published owing to
864-468: The pop singer Cliff Richard , such as The Young Ones (1961) and Summer Holiday (1963). The same year, ABPC acquired Associated Talking Pictures (parent of the original Ealing Studios ) from The Rank Organisation (who had bought the studio in 1944). In 1962, the company acquired 50% of the shares of Anglo-Amalgamated , and made an arrangement with the Grade Organisation to support
900-542: The rival British Gaumont , due to his dissatisfaction with the projects he was assigned at British International. Under Maxwell's paternalistic management the company prospered and during 1933 it acquired British Pathé, which as Associated British-Pathé now functioned as the distribution division. The company was renamed Associated British Picture Corporation in 1933 and was now in a position to vertically integrate production, distribution and exhibition of films. After Maxwell's death in October 1940, his widow Catherine sold
936-497: Was a cinema chain in the United Kingdom. Originally a wholly owned subsidiary of Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC), it operated between the 1920s and the 1980s. The brand name was reused in the 1990s until 2000. ABC Cinemas was established in 1927 by solicitor John Maxwell by merging three smaller Scottish cinema circuits. It became a wholly owned cinema subsidiary of British International Pictures when it
972-559: Was a British film production, distribution and exhibition company active from 1927 until 1970 when it was absorbed into EMI . ABPC also owned approximately 500 cinemas in Britain by 1943, and in the 1950s and 60s owned a station on the ITV television network. The studio was partly owned by Warner Bros. from about 1940 until 1969; the American company also owned a stake in ABPC's distribution arm, Warner-Pathé , from 1958. It formed one half of
1008-514: Was a readers' Q&A page with questions answered originally by Peter Noble and later on David McGillivray . James Cameron-Wilson, a commissioning editor of the magazine, also eventually took over this section. Film Review ceased printed publication by Visual Imagination in 2009. It has no connection with the Film Review annual which was launched in 1944 and was last published by Signum Books . Originally edited by F. Maurice Speed , it
1044-524: Was a shell company owned by Parretti's business partner Florio Fiorini, to make it appear that Pathe was paying off their debts to their bank, Credit Lyonnais Bank Nederland , when in reality the bank's loans to Pathe had expanded tremendously (including the $ 184 billion supposedly paid by Cinema V); this was done to prevent the Dutch central bank from finding out about the deepening connection between CLBN, Parretti and Fiorini. In any case, even after Parretti
1080-518: Was arrested and Credit Lyonnais seized control of MGM in 1992, the new company began opening its own multiplexes as MGM Cinemas . The existing few Cannon multiplexes were also renamed as MGM Cinemas. MGM continued to operate multiplex and non-multiplex cinemas, but under its two different brand identities, with the multiplexes being known as MGM Cinemas and the smaller non-multiplexes remaining as Cannon. MGM opened new multiplexes in towns and markets already served by their Cannon cinemas, and then closed
1116-583: Was dropped from then on. It continued to appear as a monthly magazine until 2008. The next-to-last edition, a double-issue, number 699/700, for August/September 2008, edited by Nikki Baughan, had 220 pages and was priced at £4.99. Contributors included Peter S. Haigh, Vincent Firth, Norman Taylor, David Richardson , Tony Crawley, Marianne Gray, Judy Sloane, Alan Jones , Tom Hutchinson, Nigel Robinson , Jason Caro, Roald Rynning, Howard Maxford, Cleaver Patterson, James Cameron-Wilson, Michael Darvell, Stephen Applebaum, Anwar Brett, Lorien Haynes and James Mottram. There
Film Review (magazine) - Misplaced Pages Continue
1152-401: Was merged with Rediffusion to become Thames Television . As a result of the decline many suburban ABC theatres closed. Most of those remaining began, from the late 1950s to lose their individual names and were simply branded "ABC". In 1959 Rank abandoned the separate Odeon and Gaumont release and put the best cinemas from each circuit onto a new Rank release. The remaining cinemas were given
1188-440: Was merged with the production arm of British National Pictures Studios , which had been formed by Maxwell in 1926. During the 1930s, it grew rapidly by acquisitions and an ambitious building programme under the direction of chief architect W. R. Glen, who had been appointed in about 1929 and maintained a distinct house style. It acquired First National Pathé Limited which gave it trading connections to First National Pictures in
1224-428: Was routine, which restricted its success outside the UK, but after World War II , the company contracted with Warner (by now the largest shareholder, owning 40% of the studio) for the distribution of its films in the United States. Robert Clark was head of production for the company between 1949 and 1958, and insisted on tight budgeting and the use of pre-existing properties such as books or plays as these already had
1260-482: Was taken over by James Cameron-Wilson and was then jointly edited by Michael Darvell and Mansel Stimpson with Cameron-Wilson serving as executive editor. Its 70th edition appeared on 2 November 2015. In December 2015, the annual was launched as a website, Film Review Daily , edited by Cameron-Wilson and with regular contributors including Cameron-Wilson, Stimpson, Darvell, George Savvides and Chad Kennerk. ABC Cinemas ABC Cinemas ( Associated British Cinemas )
1296-479: Was the distributor of BIP films. He appointed Joseph Grossman , formerly manager of the Stoll Studios, his Studio Manager. During its early years the company's most prominent work was that directed by Alfred Hitchcock , including the film Blackmail (1929), usually regarded as the first British all- talkie . Hitchcock worked on a total of twelve pictures for the company before leaving in 1933 to work for
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