Ged Jones

A vast and complicated  industry and one that until the advent of DVD, was a thriving  and occasionally a rather sleazy part of the market, with adverts often taking up whole pages made up of small blocks, with headlines that might read ‘Uncensored Swedish Movies’ or ‘A Private Collection’. Walton Films where producing them as…

This Welsh based company was run by two confirmed film fanatics John Curtis & Ken Smith. John Curtis started with a Bing 35mm projector complete with oil lamp during world war 2 showing films to raise cash for Mrs Churchill’s Red Cross Appeal. Similar to the late David Guest, Ken Smith came from a fairground…

Active in the 16mm market for a number of years before adding 8mm to his ‘Star Movie Pack’ brand name, with the popular Wombles. Their 16mm library which was headed by the RKO product, was added to the Harris film library in 1976.

Based in Hornchurch, Essex, this was a specialist distribution company that catered for the sports fan. They  Issued an excellent selection of soccer movies as well as many other sports, including boxing and golf.

Operating from Wigan by Steve Ellison, this was a popular and busy company. Stocked a great many imports from numerous sources and by special arrangement with Barry Wiles Films these included an excellent selection produed by the National Film Board of Canada. As Steve’s a member of the group I’m hoping that he’ll tell us…

Based in Coventry and run by Peter Adams and his wife. With the demise of his small business Peter would become our head sales rep in the late 70s selling both our film and video releases.

Run by Roger Lilley, a keen film fan and ex cine projectionist, who had been bitten by the ‘bug’ at an early age. This was his second venture into the 8mm market, he’d sold ‘Plymouth Home Movie Centre’, (formed 1973) but by 1981 had started  ‘Looney Movies’, which was later re-branded Movieland Int. In 1987…

Dixons was one of the largest consumer electronics retailers in Europe. In the UK, the company operated Currys, Currys Digital and later, PC World. They specialised in selling mass market technology consumer electronics products, audio video equipment, PCs, small and large domestic appliances, photographic equipment and  communication products. Many UK readers were undoubtedly influenced by…

Run by Patricia Hamilton, their releases began to appear around 1978 and included ‘Kentucky Fried Movie’, ‘Let’s Get Laid’, ‘Rabid’, ‘Shivers’ and ‘The Brood’. Miss Hamilton paid a visit to our premises in 1980, she seemed amazed at the size of 99 High Street, and more than a little impressed. She was very easy to…

Colin Malin had worked at Derann for many years and joined this group around 9 months ago…. but it was only recently that I discovered he’d also had a small film business in Birmingham.  Here in his own words is its tale….. “In my early days of collecting 8mm films and visiting Derann, I met…