Word: ranked
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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These losses, which Rank can ill afford, have taught him to change his way of treating his stars. He had been content to make verbal contracts with them. But when Phyllis Calvert, the No. 2 female star in Britain, went to Hollywood to visit and came back with a written contract, he decided that he had better get tougher. (He refuses to make another picture with Calvert, saying sadly: "I have turned her picture to the wall.") Rank now leashes his people with seven-year contracts before letting them loose in Hollywood...
...make such a marriage possible, Rank has duded up his productions and slowed down their dialogue for the U.S. eye and ear. He has worked at keeping out unintelligible Britticisms and is careful with American slang. He has upped his annual publicity budget from ?250,000 to ?1,000,000. He has borrowed Hollywood stars to reflect glory on his own stars in British pictures. He has sent his own stars to pick up more reflected glory in Hollywood films...
...Rank's lend-lease arrangement with Hollywood has not been all sugar & spice. A good many British stars who have come to the U.S. are considering staying (Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer, James Mason, Deborah Kerr...
...Granger and John Mills will take their suntans and return to Britain as better attractions at the U.S. box office. Some of his artists, including Margaret Lockwood, are still on the verbal agreement basis because Hollywood is no lure to them. They prefer-out of patriotism and regard for Rank-to stay in England. Director David Lean (Great Expectations) is a case in point. After previewing the movie, a Hollywood executive wired Rank to find out how long his contract with Lean ran. Said Lean, who has no contract: "Forever...
Size of the Dowry. Because of his lavish spending, Rank's pictures netted him only a modest profit last year. But his theaters netted him a profit of about $25 million. Unless the current slump in the box office gets much worse and nips Rank, Hollywood expects that he will have all the cash he needs to finance his picturemaking...