There are many reasons why Rank's bold vision for the British film industry soon began to crumble. The US market wasn't ready to open up to British films, and even in Britain, audiences preferred Hollywood films to home-grown products.
The Rank Organisation's withdrawal from the film business took half a century (and was only definitively completed a few months ago). Many associate the golden gong with the relatively feeble films made in the 1950s -- the Norman Wisdom comedies, Doctor in the House, Genevieve, all those John Mills war movies. In truth, though, Rank's real flowering was comparatively brief. For a few years in the 1940s, Powell and Pressburger, Lean and co were granted a licence that no British film-makers before or since have enjoyed. They responded by making masterpieces.
The Rank 70th anniversary DVD box set, including Brief Encounter, The 39 Steps, The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death, is released on Monday by Granada Ventures.
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