5.
Page
And So J. Arthur Ranks with Destiny
JOSE
【OSEPH ARTHUR RANK, peer of the realm, is a farge, square, benign looking man. Even in the ornate Mayfair mansion he had converted into an office, he never quite manages to look the mogul of a movie empire.
Ile looks, and talks, like a Yorkshireman' who mills flour. And so, of course, he is.
He once told a reporter. "The trouble with me ts tint I open my gob loo much".
Actually, there are plenty of people who think that the trntible
with Rank Is that he opens his gub too little.
More than once he has been brought somewhere near finn- cial disaster becruze he was
Those were also the palmy days cf some colosal Boys.
Then, in 1948, Rank's bank loans and overdrafts rocketed to
THE CHINA MAIL, TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1957.
directors and producers to have their heads has had to be sacrificed in the name of financial went into expediency. For he the lm business originally to
he regarded short defend artistle integrity against sighted commercialism.
what
to debase
should not be used human values, but to help mon make this world a and women better place to live in,"
Certainly, no one can accuse
whatever else he may Renk of having "debased human
values", DA
It was through his work as n Methodist Sunday school teacher that he first surveyed the Alm world. He was approached for help in making some religious frightening sixteen million films. Like any other cenny pounds and the eru of free Yorkshiremen he gave his full spending was over,
attention to the cause for which The Alien production pro he had given his money.
. Through that ntication he gramme was cut from 40 pictures n your to 20, and extravagolvas were a thing of the past. Hank Came to know men in the Aim called make, in 1935, a film hired a tough accountant called world and he was persuaded to John Davin who could and did Turn of the Tide." tell the prima deonas ki Rank's
The critics applauded it loudly;
cinema than his pay to pinch every penny until
were the copper filings came off in reluctant to show it. their hands.
Rank was shocked that such a Remingly contradictory state of affairs could exist and he was determined to de something about it,
Jured into the production of an extravaganza by people whose taste and artistic judgment he believed own.
was better
Gabriel Pascal, who spent a million and a quarter pounds on The production of Shaw's "Causer and Cleopatra". is reported to have said "Be can always sell u few bags of Bour to raise the money. Of
"Caeser .course,
and Cleopatra" was something rather special and Mr Paseal was being fwony
But other people have said the Some sort of thing privately without eva intenfng to be funny
For year, it was widely be lieved in the film business that the Rank fortune was bottomless and that it didn't matter much whether the inceley erme buck of the box office or not.
Even Keel
The company came back to ou even Iteel and in 1953, Rank made eight million pounds and declared a fet dividend.
Since then, Rank has been as cautious in his film business as he has been in the family flour milling business, which he took over in 1952 after the death of his brother, Many still banker after the days of glory and it may be that the repmiation of the Renk Orgenisation has been sinking in the world of art. Bat it Is certain that is came has been rising la the world of
but
owners
By the end of the war, he not only owned two out of the three big ekrema chains in Britain but held something approaching monopoly of fim making as well.
a
have done.
The man himself is a curious combination of the puritanism which was once associated with the Methodist Church and tho taste for high living that in in- variably associated with the film business.
on cards,
He does not drink, though he rokes a little. He gambles for shools small stakes pheasant and partridge on his atmosphere which would have Hampshire estate, works in an done credit to an Edwardian dandy-and sill teaches Sunday school,
Relaxing
He nearing 70, though he still looks as though he were in his middle arties, and still finds his work in flima relaxing.
But that work has not much changed his tastes or his out- ook. Not so many years ago he is supposed to have confessed He hired the best man he that he did not know who could find and gave them all Thomas Hardy was, but his they asked for. "Miae," he said, lack of broad gencial education "Ls not one of those creative he never went to university, brains. I am not a flm producer." although his father could well He hoped that the best men have afforded has never with all the money there was disturbed him. would produce something great and keep hint solvent. They did the first, but not the second, Uls sense of duty to his shore- holders was too great for him to
Those were the palmy days dnance. who "Brief counter," The Most likely, Rank himself allow the process to go on. But Red Slices," "Hamlet" red regrets
the passing of the old he has insisted on his other great "Henry V made the name of days and regrets, most of all, principle: "Ours is the most sug British. lens around the world. that the principle of allowing gestive medium there Is. It
The Omega Seamaster Made for a Life of Action
Omega Marks
A Quarter Century
of Olympic Timing
At the Olymple Games, the resulty
must be spalled out with the
simost precision. Since 1932, therefort, the organizari bave entrusted Omega
with the tath of timing the Games, At Helinki, Daiga was awarded the Olymple Cras for its cúlifanding contribution to the Gamei.
Seals out Water
He has always had his values cicarly and distinctly delined and he is quite content to have the details to the experts.
Now that he is a peer of the realm, he may well think that he has done his job well---even If television sull threatens to close him down.
Seals in Accuracy
Omega Seamaster,
selfvinding, waterproof, sbeck-protected, antimagnatie
The Seamaster was designed to share with you the zest of high adventure and the stresses and strains that go with it. In any climate... aloft, ashore and afloat... under the surface, ton, you can count on the Seamaster's extra stamina and extra precision.
Wear it daily, and you never, never need to wind this automatic precision watch.
Developed from the watches we designed for Britain's Armed Forces, today's Seamaster is a favorite with pilots and navigators, golfers and skin-divers. Whatever your profession or sport; with the Seamaster on your wrist you experience the pride of wearing a famous precision watch especially groomed for the active life... for your roughest, toughest day.
Ω
OMEGA Seamaster
HONG KONG
(Names Hiked to alphabetical order)
Artland Watch Company
25 Des Voeux Road, Central
Broadway Watch Company
173 Des Voeux Road, Central
Axdion Company
100 Queen's Road, Central
China Emporium, Lid.
Ingenahl's
AQ's Rond, Central
163 Des Voeux Road, Central,!
The Watch the World has Leamed to Trust
Lam Yoan Fong Watch Company
176 Des Voeux Roads, Canun? Les Jim Keo Watch Dualur
Bonbam Strand,East
Les On Watch Company,
L
134 Queen's Road, Central
6 Queen's Ross, Central
Rous D'Or Watch Company
Shui Hwa Watch Campany
17 (ween's Bond, Central,
Tal Sing Watch Company
18 Des Voeux fload, Central
KOWLOON
Kung Bros, & Company
13 Nathan Road (blizamar Arcade)
INFLATION
AREA SUNT
BANL
TOUGH JOB FOR THE PLUMBERS
money
mechanism?
World Copyright by arrangement with
Manchester Guardian
THE GIRL FROM THE RECTORY LETS HER HAIR DOWN
Randolph? Oh, I
slapped his face
TX7HILE Sir Beverley Baxter fay
W
panting on the hearthrug at her feet, Miss Ursula Bloom, the novelist, was telling me the story of her life,
We were sitting in Misa Bloom's luxury flat in the border country between South Kensington and Chelsea.
Miss Bloom was wearing a simple blue wooden dress. Sir Beverley Baxter was wearing nothing but a simple blue leather collar.
Which is not
not really
so surprising as it
may sound, because Sir Beverley Baxter happens to be Mis Bloom's pot dachshund.
A year has passed
BOOKS
by
sinca Misa Bloom ROBERT
wrote an entire book
about
Sir
Beverley PITMAN
and all the other dogs
In her life. But that was not
Martin
SAYS MISS BLOOM
fm all the time I was playing, Of course, the. Great War had started then, One of my jobs was to scratch the latest war news on blackened slides to be flashed on the screen.
It
"Then came my first marriage, was a tragedy. But, of course, I had my son, Pip.
"Once when Hitlo Pip was playing on the sands at Frinton, a big, self-confident boy started throwing a tha can around, I fold the boy to stop, but he did 1 all the more. So I slapped him really hard on the fico, The lad just burst into tears and said he would tell his father, I sald: "Tell your father, I don't mind'.
"That boy was Randolph
Churchill."
Miss Bloom's story had ended,
I rase. Miss Bloom rose, Bir Heverley Baxter rose, He shook
why I had come to her Chelsea SHE IS ALSO THE GIRL of a minister of the Established his big, silky cars. flat. I had come about quite a who has had the courage to let Church, different book. Not a dog book, more hair down in public than but a book about a clergyman. anybody else. Callin Thomas About the Rev. James Harvey not excepted. Bloom, her father.
A SENSATION
BRILLIANT MAN
THEN what was that minister really like? What la the ex- planation?
And I must not forget some- one else the man who showed me to the door. For an hour he bud sat with glistening eyes while Miss Bloom told her
Hc story. was a' cun-tarned man, His handshake at the door had the battleship touch..
He was the man for whose
URDO
Bloom
Miss Bloom has already written about her first marriage to Arthur, a rich young man
trom Frinton. She has told In the Chelseu fat, as I palted a few weeks' time Miss
Arthur, Sir Beverley Baxter's brown Bloom will
The how she did not love publish
her paunch, I asked Ursula Bloom devotion the daughter of Porsan Elegant Edwardian (Hulchin but wanted adcurity for
the about her father. how son, s.) with Papa Bloom in. ailing mother; the title role.
marriage was madly unhappy; That book will be a sensation, how Arthur himself died after three years, leaving her * It will be more than a Trollope-
fortune which would eventually tinted glimpse of life in Stratford country, where Rector mount to £100,000, on condi- Bloom had his rectory. It will tion that che
the
be more than a clever flashback again. to an era of gay house-parties and troquet
Edwardian on lawns.
I believe it will also be the key to the extraordinary paradox of Ursula Bloom herself.
"He was a brilliant man. He was one of the great experts on Shakespeare and Stratford He Latin archives translated early
He was full of energy and charm. did not marry He even got himself into the London fire service in the inst war at the of 80,"
up and down the country,
Kave
Away.
£ 100.000.
OTHER NEW BOOKS.
●THE MOST IMPORTANT COUNTRY, by John Connell, A punching, brilliantly-written furvey of the Suez war. Jbs resounding conclusion: that in And she has told how, after
Sir Beyerley Baxter nuzzled every way Eden has been proved few years at 10,000 words a
A book which "every day, she felt able to throw over his wet nose against my hands, right.
I did: "But I read in one of Briton should read. (Council, this entire fortune in order to marry her present husband, your toks that your mother 162) Commander Rebbio" Gower arrelled with your father and
END WITH CLONY, “by Robinson, RN. (Of life and love left him. Why?"
Richard Viner. How tho with Robble she has written:
That love to the sweetest, whole trouble. He was a clergy- tum traiter with the balt of "Woman. They were father's Japanese tempted one P.OW. to pationless beauty that over actsted... There is a locked door men, of course, but he could luxury, cash, and the blandish- never resist them. Especially if mênia of a lovely slant-eyed in my life. Beyond it lies
they were very young or very woman, A tense and rondable green lane of lovely emotions old. Someone said he lied war novel. (Long, 10a (d) Bui sho is also the girl but my road lica the other them either green or rotten."
Let us examine the paradox.
Ursula Bloom is the girl from the country rectory,
WOINCA
to
D
follow her "They, Included
BOLTO
Very
POCKET CARTOON by OSBERT LANCASTER
who, writing at a steady rate way."') of 10,000 words a day, in-
The rector's daughter smiled ---------- cluding Sundays, first made tier FINALLY, QUE IS ALSO sadly. name 39 a specialist in SCA- THE GIRL who has unged all Ladun novelettes. (Sample: other "Her limbs white ar marble and example and have their faces elegant and well-known women, not one half inch of shrivelled regularly lifted as the pores too. One was a titled lady who flesh upon their loveliness. She grow older, Her own score: was elev nanociniod with Edward had come to him caring nine plastic surgery operations VII. When Edward trotted out nothing but a pair of black silk to
Explains: by the porteullis, Dad slipped dato (She stockings and black kid ploves "You think nothing of patch in through the back door. to match. Strangely ravishing ing up your teeth so why not *ffect.")
"The end come when to pro- your face? After I had my eye-
fresh bus posed installing one of the women Iide tucked back, conductor gave me the kind of in our home. Then mother and Bad In 30 I moved out,” look I hadn'
La Gulase Watch Company
FOR THE MASSES
· 456 Nathan Road. (Shaw'e Duliding)
years....")
CURE IS ALSO THE
GIRL
Tal Wah Watch Company
KLL. SID Nathan Road
Société Spiste Pour l'Industrie Horlogère SA. Geneva, Switzerland,
Solo Agunta: QMTIS LTD.
OMEGA ★ 70 210 Christer Dulkling
who, under the per-namo
For over-pretty Ursula Bloom
WHAT
A HARD TIME
Lozenia Prole, has produced the surgery has paid off. Al- у/HAT was the effect on teen-
Pip, is now VY ̧age Urmula? same even more heavily sex though her son, Inden.nowanaper serials for in his forties, I can report that
"Mother and I had a terribly the masses (Some sample Prole she does not look an hour more
NO.. But the Bloom burd time. Måfter a year or two, tllow: Our Dearest Emma, My than Wanton Tudor Rose, and To- paradox has not been smoothed I had to get a job playing a cinema டி but, The Proto serials, the true the placont night. Josephinel)
poriťemaloon, the face-liflings- Harpenden for 805;
Many
are not quito what one There were two big mirrors on
No Lady Has A Dog's Day, would expect from the doughter the piano so that I could see the
"A trough of low pressuyu fa-moving rapidly wastward";
across the North Atlantic' mand guess who's Un;16′1!!!
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.