Derann Film Labels

  • The Quick and the Dead

    The Quick and the Dead

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    Yet another title picked up from Grand National Pictures. A pretty standard war drama with American troops trying to make it back through enemy-occupied territory to the safety of their own lines. A quickie label from Marianne Frost and printed by myself inhouse.   Label courtesy of Peter Brooke at ‘SPROCKETS’ .

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  • Dangerous Exile

    Dangerous Exile

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    This historical drama features a host of British stars, including Belinda Lee, Keith Michell, Anne Heywood and Finlay Currie to name just a few, but its main star is Louis Jourdan who would really hit stardom the following year in his next film, ‘Gigi’. There’s also a 13 year old Richard O’Sullivan who would become…

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  • The Blood Beast Terror

    The Blood Beast Terror

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    One of the titles from our contract with Tigon and wasn’t on par with the other horrors we picked up at the time. It has  a solid cast with Peter Cushing, Robert Flemyng, Wanda Ventham and ‘Doctor Who’ regular Kevin Stoney, but they are all wasted in what is a very poor effort indeed. Peter…

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  • The Chiltern Hundreds

    The Chiltern Hundreds

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    This light comedy was one of the titles we picked up from Rank Film Distrbutors for our first contract. Directed by ‘Paddy’ Cartairs it revolved around Tony Pym, who’s out to impress and marry wealthy American June Farrell and decides to run as Parlimentary candidate, only to discover unexpected competition from the family butler, who…

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  • The Charlie Chase Comedies

    The Charlie Chase Comedies

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    Unlike Edgar Kennedy, I was familiar with the name of Charlie Chase as I’d seen ‘Another Wild Idea’ which had featured a ray which had temporarily rid him of his  inhibitions and landed him in hilarious trouble. This was another small group of titles Derek decided to issue along with the Edgar Kennedy, Leon Errol…

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  • The Legend of Dracula

    The Legend of Dracula

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    This was just one of the many titles we picked up from Norman Salter at his one man business Viscom, in Wardour Street.  Originally titled ‘In Search of Dracula’, it was an 82 minute documentary exploring the legends of vampires, using books, paintings and early films on the subject. It was actually an eerie, but…

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  • G.I. Blues

    G.I. Blues

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    This was the second most popular of the Elvis Presley features we picked up from Grand National, whose contract also included the western ‘Last Train from Gun Hill’ and five additional Elvis Presley musicals: ‘Blue Hawaii’, ‘Girls! Girls! Girls!’, ‘Paradise Hawaiian Style’,  ‘Fun in Acapulco’ and ‘King Creole’, all originally released by Paramount Pictures and…

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  • The Edgar Kennedy Comedies

    The Edgar Kennedy Comedies

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    I wasn’t familiar with the name of Edgar Kennedy and his ‘slow burning anger’ comedy  when Derek decided to issue a number of the many comedy shorts he’d made for RKO. What I do recall is that Derek was able to use 16mm lavender prints as the master material and that the quality was first…

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  • One Way Out

    One Way Out

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    This was an episode from the American TV series ‘Four Star Theatre’ which was first aired in 1955. Derann had purchased a private collection of 16mm and this was among them, so after viewing the 30 minute programme Derek decided to edit it to fit on a 400′ spool and the end result was more…

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  • Radar Men From the Moon

    Radar Men From the Moon

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    This was the second of the serials we picked up from Sidney Tagar at Ivy Film in New York. The first had been the highly successful ‘Captain Marvel’ and any serial would have been poor by comparison, but with ‘that’ title it was worth the chance. CHAPTER TITLES: 1. Moon Rocket; 2. Molten Terror; 3.…

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