A look at some of the numerous meetings that we undertook in order to issue 8mm films to our customers, or obtain 16mm for our library.
Contracts & Rights Chapter 6
If you’ve been following the Friday posts you will know that in 1974 I’d been able to get a day off work at the hotel in Stourbridge where I was second chef, and had already spent a day with my boss to be, in London’s Soho district. That first time was electrifing… Wardour St, Dead St, Berwick St, Poland St, Brewer St, Greek St, Soho Square. Magic names! The small and often cluttered offices of company’s with names like Miracle, Eagle, Border, Monarch, E J Fancy, New Realm, Supreme, Gala, Grand National, and Golden Era, all small distributors who existed on re-release programmes of older films that still had some life in them at the box-office and a soupçon of new but generally ‘B’ quality European features. Outside there was the hustle and bustle in the streets, the pubs filled with film talk and office workers looking over wads of paperwork while they grabbed a rolls and a pint of larger. Many of that boisterous crowd were even carrying film cans or transit cases, so when I began in mid 1975 I thought was prepared for the excitement to come.
Derek had made just one call in order to get an appointment with the head of Rank’s sub standard division. Our first series of talks with Rank, which was also the first time I was present at the negotiations from the outset, consisted of just two visits and ended with us acquiring 6 feature films and a selection of ‘Look at Life’ shorts. During my early visits to Wardour Street Derek had spent time and gone into great detail with me on the subject of film rights, for in all honesty I had no idea what they were and so you can only imagine the thrill of actually being there and going through the process. For the life of me I can’t recall our contacts name, but he wasn’t a young gent and had obviously been with Rank Distributors for many years. He sat behind a large, imposing desk, with two of his office walls completely filled with dark oak wood book cases covered with glass doors, a third wall had wooden panelling and shelving to match and had family photos and a few treasured awards and certificates, while the fourth was plain and had two medium sized windows. All he had done, following a short and friendly chat was hand us the current Rank 16mm rental catalogue and arrange for a second visit.
…. to be continued.
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