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56 MONEY BEHIND THE SCREEN
50. (b) The Men Behind the Movies. The extent to which the men behind the movies in the renting and production, and recently also in the exhibition sphere, are the controllers of the great American film groups, has already been discussed at length. Turning to British interests proper, we find that the unification of ultimate control which is so striking a feature of the American film industry, is not as j^et found to the same extent in the British movie trade, the position of which is from this point of view in many respects similar to that of the American industry about 1927/S, prior to the crisis and the introduction of sound. That is to say that, while there is still a great deal of decentralisation, the lines along which unification will be achieved and the groups which are preparing to take control as soon as a crash or some other cause provides them with a chance to do so, can already be roughly perceived through the mist of nominee companies, finance agencies and the corporate facades of ad hoc syndicates. One of the features in the company flotation position peculiar to 1936 is the sudden and startling increase in the number of new film financing companies registered, which leapt up from one in 1935 to seventeen in the first 10 months of 1936. Among these groups foreign interests have not been entirely lacking. Thus we find that the principal figure behind the General Film Finance, Ltd., registered in August, 1936, is Lawrence Fox, described as an American banker who intends to create a new organisation for the production of films in England. And there was also a mysterious report, somewhat sinister in its political implications, in the Evening Standard of 17.9.36, according to which representatives of German financiers were sounding opinion in the City concerning a scheme " to establish in this country an organisation similar to the German film bank which finances German films." The bank would advance resources for the production of films, the character of which it approves. Nothing appears to have come of these plans.
The dominating interests among the directors and shareholders (in so far as their identity is not concealed behind bankers nominee companies) of the great EngUsh and Anglo-American renting concerns have already been indicated in paragraphs 23 — 45. Among them the Rank-Portal (G.F.D.), and the Prudential — Bowring — Warburg (Korda) groups loom as the most powerful interests next to the Chase National Bank — Balfour, Broadman — Fox interests in Gaumont-British Picture Corporation, Ltd. Of equal importance for the future control of the industry are probably the most influential among the debenture and mortgage holding concerns listed in para^aph 48.
Through ita jxjgition as trustee for all the Associated British Picture Corporation, Ltd., debentures as well as for many debentures of Gaumont-Biitish subsidiaries, the Law Debentui-e Corporation, Ltd., deserves first place as creditor of the movie industry. Its eliairman. Sir Miles W. Mattinson, K.C., is at tlie same time ( hairman of