Some younger UK readers and most of our foreign visitors are probably unfamiliar with this film magazine and as I’m using it for reference and using whole pages to illustrate posts, I feel that it’s time to take a short look at this long running periodical.
It was originally tied in with ABC Cinemas, and was available to buy only in ABC Cinemas, which unfortunatly meant that it only covered films being shown on the ABC Cinema circuit. So MGM, Warner Brothers, Columbia, Anglo Amalgamated, Ealing, British Lion and Pathe received a great deal of attention, but there was no mention of 20th Century Fox, Universal, UA, Rank or Walt Disney releases.
There was a 3-issue trial in 1950 which was just 20 pages and cost 3 old pence. After the trial’s success it became a full monthly magazine from January 1951 costing 4d. Issues August and September, 1959, were not published owing to a national printers strike! Price from September 1970, changed to 5p (when decimalisation came in) and again in 1972, when it increased to 10p.
1972 was also the time that the name changed to just Film Review, as the ABC Cinema chain was very slowly dissappearing and the magazine began to incorporate the complete range of films on offer at all cinemas.
As a publicity medium Film Review unashamedly, but understandably praised all the films and as I’ve already said it dealt only with those showing on the ABC circuit. It even had knitting patterns in the early 50s, but by the 1960’s regular features included items on fashion, record reviews, books, Peter Noble’s famous “Can You Beat the Expert” section and the cartoons of ‘Bry’. It had many contributors and editors over the years, but one in particular, the Co-Editor for many years, was an aqaintance of mine and a 16mm film collector – Peter Haigh. Peter would later supply the crossword puzzles that appeared in our magazine ‘Film for the Collector’, a hobby from his ‘Film Review’ days and one he repeated in ‘The Veteran’ the magazine of “The British Cinema and Television Veterans”. Here is the first trial issue!
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