TV Cream
Independent Producers
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245AMICUS PRODUCTIONS
The fag-end of the ’50s saw rock ‘n’ roll cheapo producer Milton Subotsky team up with money man Max J Rosenberg for...
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196ANGEL PRODUCTIONS
More or less one-man outfit of producer Daniel M Angel, who lined up a range of Val Guest light comedies such as...
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177ANGLO-AMALGAMATED
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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194
ASSOCIATED BRITISH PATHE LTD
Charles Pathe formed Pathe Britannia in the early years of the 20th century, and on his retirement in ’29 the company was...
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173
ASSOCIATED BRITISH PICTURE CORPORATION
New name for the old British International Pictures from the early ’30s onward. Legendary productions include Brighton Rock, Ice Cold in Alex...
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158
ASSOCIATED LONDON FILMS
Born out of the famous comedy writers’ collective Associated London Scripts – ie. Galton, Simpson, Speight, Milligan and Sykes all hunched over...
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160
BEAVER FILMS
Production partnership of Richard Attenborough and Bryan Forbes, out of which Seance on a Wet Afternoon, Whistle Down the Wind and The...
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182
BENMAR PRODUCTIONS
Small indie formed by Polish producer Benjamin Fisz and Czech entrepreneur Boris Marmor at the end of the ’60s. Undoubtedly wierdo Spanish...
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170
BLACKWATER FILMS
Seedy Soho sex outlet maintained by the notorious exploitation hound Derek Ford, responsible for portmanteau porn-ins Suburban Wives and the Gabrielle Drake-narrated...
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163
BRITISH AND DOMINIONS
Venerable filmmaker Herbert ‘Anna Neagle’ Wilcox initiated this majestic-sounding corporation in 1928, which churned out over a hundred lightweight murder mysteries and...
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213
BRITISH LION
Long-running company with a chequered history. From humble roots under the aegis of Samuel W Smith making silent productions such as Wisp...
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176
BRITISH NATIONAL FILMS
Started in 1934 by J Arthur Rank and a certain Lady Henrietta Yule of Bricket Wood, intended at first as an outlet...
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179
BRITISH TRANSPORT FILMS
Controversially started by the British Transport Commission in ’49, this doughty promotional documentary company produced numerous quaint short subjects, beloved of large...
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178
BRYANSTON FILMS
Formed by Michael Balcon from the ashes of Ealing Studios in ’57, this agglomeration of independent filmmakers had a run of successes...
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266
BUTCHER’S FILM SERVICE
First there was W Butcher and Sons, nineteenth-century chemists and magic lantern manufacturers. Then they moved into camera production, before getting into...
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218
CHILDREN’S FILM FOUNDATION
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...
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155
CINEGUILD
Grand-sounding title for a company set up by producer Anthony Havelock-Allen, photographer Ronald Neame and David Lean. For the next seven years,...
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172
CORONADO PRODUCTIONS
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...
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155
CROWN FILM UNIT
The former GPO Film Unit received more regal nomenclature as the war forced an alliance with the Ministry of Information, and homely...
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166
DANZIGER PRODUCTIONS
Productive outfit operating mainly out of New Elstree Studios under the aegis of brothers Edward and Henry Lee Danziger who during the...
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187
DORMAR
Quaint little ’60s company that made documentary shorts and, more importantly, quaint little ’60s comedies, mostly of the semi-silent Tati/Plank variety, from...
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179
GAINSBOROUGH PICTURES
Organised in 1924 by – that man again – Michael Balcon, but quickly restructured as a lower-status companion to Gaumont-British (qv) three...
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160
GAUMONT-BRITISH PICTURE CORPORATION
French-owned company based in Shepherd’s Bush from 1912 onwards, initially the domain of the Ostrer brothers, but later loosely tied in with...
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179
GOLDCREST FILMS
Inaugurated in ’77 by Canadian producer Jake Eberts, the meteoric rise of this company to the status of ‘saviour of the British...
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176
GOODTIMES ENTERPRISES
Before Goldcrest, The Puttnam had his fingers in both Enigma Productions and the splendidly monickered Goodtimes Enterprises, the home of his early...
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159
HANDMADE FILMS
Well, the story of how Dennis O’Brien and George Harrison clubbed together to help out Terry Jones in the Tunisian desert is...
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210
HEMDALE FILM CORPORATION
Not strictly British, this company, but David Hemmings provided one half of the initial impetus and the name (the other being producer...
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178
INDEPENDENT ARTISTS
Solid ’50s company that churned out basic, no-frills thrillers (most famous of which is probably Tiger Bay), the odd comedy like Hardy...
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170
KENWOOD PRODUCTIONS
Sporadic company founded by crack producer Kenneth Harper in the ’50s. Dirk Bogarde newlywed social drama For Better or Worse and, more...
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197
LONDON FILM PRODUCTIONS
Long-running company set up by monolithic director Alexander Korda. Early silent productions gave way to sound successes, the breakthrough being the Korda-directed,...
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173
MANCUNIAN FILM CORPORATION
Not all British films were produced in the Home Counties. Even by the standards of most of the companies listed here, Mancunian...
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181
MARBLE ARCH PRODUCTIONS
Confusingly, not a British-registered company at all, this one, but then what else other than Transatlantic confusion would you expect from Lew...
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182
MEMORIAL ENTERPRISES
More actors setting up by themselves! This time it was Albert Finney and Michael Medwin in 1965, cracking off two years later...
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204
MERTON PARK STUDIOS
The leafy SW19 garden suburb played host to over 130 no-nonsense second features from 1942 onwards, usually crime based, usually featuring a...
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185
NETTLEFOLD STUDIOS
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...
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171
PALACE PICTURES
A video distributor founded in the early ’80s by Steve Woolley and Nik Powell to channel stuff like The Evil Dead and...
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486
PARADINE PRODUCTIONS
David Frost of course, developing a filmic wing of his ever-expanding post-LWT media empire, whose first film was the rather humble Ronnie...
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167
RENOWN PICTURES
Theatrical distributor which handled suitably heritage-themed fare such as Lorna Doone, Tom Brown’s Schooldays and The Pickwick Papers, as well as hardboiled...
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222
ROMULUS FILMS
Aaah, do you see what brothers John and James Woolf did there? Founded in 1948, the cinematic siblings oversaw classics like Pandora...
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170
SALON PRODUCTIONS
Post-Trotwood (qv) sleaze house under the thumb of Soho mastermind Stanley A Long for the duration of the ’70s, during which time...
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183
STOLL PICTURE PRODUCTIONS
Early-doors brainchild of Aussie impresario Sir Oswald Stoll, making firstly silent shorts like The Amateur Gentleman and The Solitary Cyclist, and latterly...
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279
TEMPEAN FILMS
Robert Baker and Monty Berman met during WWII in the British Army Film Unit and, freshly demobbed, set up as a production...
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166
TEMPLAR FILMS
Glaswegian documentary shoestringers Robert Riddell-Black, Bob Russell and David Low formed this backroom newsreel business in 1950. Panorama commissions and footie coverage...
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278
TIGON FILMS
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...
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198
TITAN FILMS
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...
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186
TRANSOCEAN FILMS
Odd name for a very British company, Producing very British comedies mainly directed by Roman ex-pat Mario Zampi (but cf Two Cities)....
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163
TROTWOOD PRODUCTIONS
Early name for Stanley A Long’s brand of nascent nudity during the ’60s, prior to the notorious Salon Productions (qv). Responsible for...
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166
TWO CITIES FILMS
Established by Italian immigrant producer Filippo Del Giudice and director Mario Zampi in 1937, the Tower Bridge logo heralded films from a...
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225
TYBURN FILMS
A horror stable with quite a pedigree – founded by the son of esteemed director/cinematographer Freddie Francis, with the old man himself...
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158
WARWICK FILM PRODUCTIONS
Founded in 1950 by a pre-Bond Cubby Broccoli and Polish director Irving Allen, initially turning out derring-do such as Cockleshell Heroes and...