Founder Derek Simmonds

Derann Vaults

A Derann Story

  • Lost – Part 1

    Lost – Part 1

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    by

    Ged Jones

    In last weeks post I mentioned the American International Pictures (AIP) product we missed out on when AIP closed their London office. Even though, like most London based offices their London agent, a good looking middle-aged lady whose name I can’t remember, had to constantly confer with her US offices, she had insisted that we…

    Read more: Lost – Part 1
  • Rights – Part 2

    Rights – Part 2

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    by

    Ged Jones

    We never gave up hunting for film rights and very soon signed a contract with Enterprise, who I’m sure had offices on the top floor of the same building as 20th Century Fox, where we picked up ‘Kingdom of the Spiders’, ‘The Comeback’, ‘The Magic of Lassie’, ‘Bruce Lee: The Man and the Myth’ and…

    Read more: Rights – Part 2
  • Clubs – Part 2

    Clubs – Part 2

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    by

    Ged Jones

    In post #29 of this series I talked about Derann’s regular involment, enjoyment, not to mention profitable, time we had from putting on film shows at numerous working men’s clubs in the West Midlands. We had as many as three teams working up to four or even five nights a week, with two workers in…

    Read more: Clubs – Part 2
  • Staff

    Staff

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    by

    Ged Jones

    In 1975, our premises were at 171 Stourbridge Road, Holly Hall, just a hundred yards from our first shop (at 169), and only a few minutes from the much larger building (an old car showroom, that at various times in its life had been a chapel and a butchers, complete with its own slaughter house),…

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  • Mountain – Part 2

    Mountain – Part 2

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    by

    Ged Jones

    If you thought that my ‘Mountain’ post ended abruptly that’s because when I’d finished typing, it was so long I decided to cut it in half… so here’s that second part.  Peter and Aubrey were like chalk and cheese…. Peter was generally very talkative and would have a constant stream of information concerning new releases…

    Read more: Mountain – Part 2
  • Mountain

    Mountain

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    by

    Ged Jones

    Our (Derek and myself) trips to London generally followed a regular pattern. We would travel down in Derek’s car, arriving at around 7.30am, park as near to West Central Street as possible and take a short walk to a cafe to have breakfast… always the same small cafe. It would give Derek chance to stretch…

    Read more: Mountain
  • Hammer

    Hammer

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    by

    Ged Jones

    As I joined Derann, Derek was about to sign a contract for ‘The Adventures of Captain Marvel’ a 12 part serial,  ‘Gullivers Travels’, ‘Hoppity Goes To Town’, ‘Wake of the Red Witch’, ‘Copacabana’ and ‘Kronos’, with Ivy Film of New York. Upon their release they proved to be popular and sold very well, especially the…

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  • Newsletters

    Newsletters

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    by

    Ged Jones

    One of the very first jobs that Derek passed over to me was the printing of the newsletters, that most important link with all our customers, whether renting or purchasing films. Derann possessed an ancient AB Dick offset printer and I was shown what to do and put to work. That machine could sorely try…

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  • Elvis

    Elvis

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    by

    Ged Jones

    As my life progressed it reached a few important junctions and here’s one of them. Elvis Presley entered my life in 1963 when I saw the film ‘It Happened At The World’s Fair’ at my local ABC. It wasn’t that I was unaware of his music, his 45s were always being played on the radio,…

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  • Clubs

    Clubs

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    by

    Ged Jones

    I’ve already mentioned the film shows at the working-mens clubs in #24 of this series, they were extremely popular and the right film could fill a large venue and the more crowded the hall, the happier the manager(s) of the club. Word of the cash in the coffers of some of those clubs must have…

    Read more: Clubs