Relatively gargantuan celluloid arm of the World Group, as founded in '59 by former head of PR at Associated Television John Heyman,...
Conjured up in the late ’50s by playwright John Osborne and director Tony Richardson, you’d expect plenty of angry, heavyweight modernist drama...
Founded in 1950 by a pre-Bond Cubby Broccoli and Polish director Irving Allen, initially turning out derring-do such as Cockleshell Heroes and...
A horror stable with quite a pedigree – founded by the son of esteemed director/cinematographer Freddie Francis, with the old man himself...
Established by Italian immigrant producer Filippo Del Giudice and director Mario Zampi in 1937, the Tower Bridge logo heralded films from a...
Early name for Stanley A Long’s brand of nascent nudity during the ’60s, prior to the notorious Salon Productions (qv). Responsible for...
Odd name for a very British company, Producing very British comedies mainly directed by Roman ex-pat Mario Zampi (but cf Two Cities)....
Begun in ’64 by Robert Hartford-Davis, who’d directed girlschool perv-up The Yellow Teddybears and 18th century horror The Black Torment for Compton...
Whizzkid publicist Tony Tenser went from small-time distributor Miracle Films (‘If it’s a good film, it’s a Miracle!’) to strip club-sponsored Compton...
Glaswegian documentary shoestringers Robert Riddell-Black, Bob Russell and David Low formed this backroom newsreel business in 1950. Panorama commissions and footie coverage...
Robert Baker and Monty Berman met during WWII in the British Army Film Unit and, freshly demobbed, set up as a production...
Early-doors brainchild of Aussie impresario Sir Oswald Stoll, making firstly silent shorts like The Amateur Gentleman and The Solitary Cyclist, and latterly...
Post-Trotwood (qv) sleaze house under the thumb of Soho mastermind Stanley A Long for the duration of the ’70s, during which time...
Aaah, do you see what brothers John and James Woolf did there? Founded in 1948, the cinematic siblings oversaw classics like Pandora...
Theatrical distributor which handled suitably heritage-themed fare such as Lorna Doone, Tom Brown’s Schooldays and The Pickwick Papers, as well as hardboiled...
David Frost of course, developing a filmic wing of his ever-expanding post-LWT media empire, whose first film was the rather humble Ronnie...
A video distributor founded in the early ’80s by Steve Woolley and Nik Powell to channel stuff like The Evil Dead and...
Photographer Cecil Hepworth built the original Walton-on-Thames studios in 1899, but it wasn’t until 1926 that they fell into the hands of...
The leafy SW19 garden suburb played host to over 130 no-nonsense second features from 1942 onwards, usually crime based, usually featuring a...
More actors setting up by themselves! This time it was Albert Finney and Michael Medwin in 1965, cracking off two years later...
Confusingly, not a British-registered company at all, this one, but then what else other than Transatlantic confusion would you expect from Lew...
Not all British films were produced in the Home Counties. Even by the standards of most of the companies listed here, Mancunian...
Long-running company set up by monolithic director Alexander Korda. Early silent productions gave way to sound successes, the breakthrough being the Korda-directed,...
Sporadic company founded by crack producer Kenneth Harper in the ’50s. Dirk Bogarde newlywed social drama For Better or Worse and, more...
Solid ’50s company that churned out basic, no-frills thrillers (most famous of which is probably Tiger Bay), the odd comedy like Hardy...
Not strictly British, this company, but David Hemmings provided one half of the initial impetus and the name (the other being producer...
Well, the story of how Dennis O’Brien and George Harrison clubbed together to help out Terry Jones in the Tunisian desert is...
Before Goldcrest, The Puttnam had his fingers in both Enigma Productions and the splendidly monickered Goodtimes Enterprises, the home of his early...
Inaugurated in ’77 by Canadian producer Jake Eberts, the meteoric rise of this company to the status of ‘saviour of the British...
French-owned company based in Shepherd’s Bush from 1912 onwards, initially the domain of the Ostrer brothers, but later loosely tied in with...
Organised in 1924 by – that man again – Michael Balcon, but quickly restructured as a lower-status companion to Gaumont-British (qv) three...
Quaint little ’60s company that made documentary shorts and, more importantly, quaint little ’60s comedies, mostly of the semi-silent Tati/Plank variety, from...
Productive outfit operating mainly out of New Elstree Studios under the aegis of brothers Edward and Henry Lee Danziger who during the...
The former GPO Film Unit received more regal nomenclature as the war forced an alliance with the Ministry of Information, and homely...
American producer David E Rose’s British-based ’50s outfit, churning out so-so adventure efforts like Sea Devils (Rock Hudson as a nineteenth century...
Grand-sounding title for a company set up by producer Anthony Havelock-Allen, photographer Ronald Neame and David Lean. For the next seven years,...
Formed at the government’s behest! The Wheare Report of 1950 ordered British film producers to club together to make entertaining-yet-improving films for...
First there was W Butcher and Sons, nineteenth-century chemists and magic lantern manufacturers. Then they moved into camera production, before getting into...
Formed by Michael Balcon from the ashes of Ealing Studios in ’57, this agglomeration of independent filmmakers had a run of successes...
Controversially started by the British Transport Commission in ’49, this doughty promotional documentary company produced numerous quaint short subjects, beloved of large...
Started in 1934 by J Arthur Rank and a certain Lady Henrietta Yule of Bricket Wood, intended at first as an outlet...
Long-running company with a chequered history. From humble roots under the aegis of Samuel W Smith making silent productions such as Wisp...
Venerable filmmaker Herbert ‘Anna Neagle’ Wilcox initiated this majestic-sounding corporation in 1928, which churned out over a hundred lightweight murder mysteries and...
Seedy Soho sex outlet maintained by the notorious exploitation hound Derek Ford, responsible for portmanteau porn-ins Suburban Wives and the Gabrielle Drake-narrated...
Small indie formed by Polish producer Benjamin Fisz and Czech entrepreneur Boris Marmor at the end of the ’60s. Undoubtedly wierdo Spanish...
Production partnership of Richard Attenborough and Bryan Forbes, out of which Seance on a Wet Afternoon, Whistle Down the Wind and The...
Born out of the famous comedy writers’ collective Associated London Scripts – ie. Galton, Simpson, Speight, Milligan and Sykes all hunched over...
Charles Pathe formed Pathe Britannia in the early years of the 20th century, and on his retirement in ’29 the company was...
New name for the old British International Pictures from the early ’30s onward. Legendary productions include Brighton Rock, Ice Cold in Alex...
Ever-expanding agglomeration of small producers set up in 1945 by Stuart Levy and the sainted Nat Cohen. Started off making b-list crime...
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