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16 MONEY BEHIND THE SCREEN
The material basis for production on an expensive scale was thus provided for English producers equipped for this task. During 1936 United Artists' EngUsh affihations have been increased from two to eleven, ver}^ largely utilising the services of the continental producers and directors who recently settled in this country. 4-t present the EngUsh producers in the United Artists organisation actually exceed the American producers in number, although the control of the distributing machinery remains in American hands.
10. The second American company whose structure has changed is Universal. Early in 1936, the control of this company passed out of the hands of its founder, Carl Laemmle, into that of a consortium in which, together with A. H. Giannini and J. Cheever Cowdin (American finance and aeroplane magnate) EngHsh interests are strongly represented. The English members of the new Universal board, J. A. Rank, the miller, and L. W. Farrow, are at the same time members of the holding company controlling an important new EngUsh renting concern, with very strong financial support, General Film Distributors, which distributes the output of a number of EngUsh production units which are similar in type and which in some cases actually overlap with those affiliated to United Artists. Another result of this change in the control of Universal has been that the former English renting organisation of this concern has been merged with General Film Distributors, so that here again the EngUsh quaUty films distributed by the latter serve as quota for the American Universal output and benefit by the international distributing facilities of the new joint organisation.
11. These developments which are of far reaching significance in the emancipation of British production from its former quota bondage are already reflected in the film registration data of the last few months. They are illustrated in Table II, which analyses the films registered (a) during the 12 months from December, 1934 to November, 1935 and (b) during the eleven months from December, 1935, to October 27th, 1936. Confining ourselves to British films only, we find that quality production for the two AngloA'inerican renters supplying a world market has risen from 4.2 to 16.6 per cent., and although this increase is largely accounted for by a transfer from the two main British renters of the former period, it has nevertheless also led to a reduction in the numerical preponderance of *' quota quickies." Moreover, the effect cannot justly be measured by the number of films alone, since the change in quality (and also, of course, cost of production) is of very much greater importance. While the power of the purely American renters (now reduced to six) is still overwhelming, if all films registered are taken into account, the new Anglo-American renters have nevertheless already acquired a position in the renting and production sphere at least as strong as that of the two former main