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312 HOLLYWOOD NO LONGER THE MECCA
directors, technicians and stars. Some of the films, such as The First of the Few in which Leslie Howard starred, and The Adventures of Tartu, in which Robert Donat played a secret service man in the Nazi-occupied Skoda works in Czechoslovakia, used established stars, but many others devoted themselves to introducing as top liners players who had hitherto had chequered careers, such as James Mason, who had played in cheaply-made thrillers, and Margaret Lockwood who had appeared intermittently in pictures like Bank Holiday in pre-war days and had taken a not very fruitful flyer at Hollywood in 20th Century Fox's Shirley Temple starrer, Susannah of the Mounties, and the De Mille production, Rulers of the Sea.
In the past, Britain had lost Ronald Coleman and Ray Milland to Hollywood ; it was to lose, and still loses, many players, but at least the tide has begun to turn. Hollywood is no longer the Mecca to which every British film artist bows.
Even without stars, Britain was now making films which ranked but against that, its artistic success, without big name stars, of San Demetrio, London, true story of the oil tanker which came home home after catching fire and being abandoned following a German attack on a convoy, its decimated crew either half starved or dying, was to show that the British studios could make its Battleship Potemkins — and better.
Direct government financing was to be responsible for one of the biggest hits of the period — 49ZA Parallel {The Invaders in America), while proximity to the occupied countries was to make its dramas of the war as seen by the inhabitants of the occupied countries, such as the Silver Fleet, with Ralph Richardson.
Even greater stabilising power for the industry than government support was provided by the phenomenal rise of J. Arthur Rank as the power behind at least five out of ten British films.
J. Arthur Rank has alternately been held up by his detractors to be a monopolistic tyrant and a hymn-singing hypocrite. Just as extreme are those who regard Rank as the man who rode to the rescue in the last reel and saved British films from the death sentence.
The truth lies midway between the two. Rank might be monopolistic but certainly so far from being a tyrant he gave native production more latitude and freedom than it had ever had before. He rescued the talents of those who had to grind out pictures to suit