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General Film Distributors (GFD), later known as J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors and Rank Film Distributors Ltd., was a British film distribution company based in London. It was active between 1935 and 1996, and from 1937 it was part of the Rank Organisation .
In spring 1997, the Rank Group sold Rank Film Distributors, including its library of 749 films, to Carlton Communications for £65 million and immediately became known as Carlton/RFD Ltd. [34] Pinewood Studios and Odeon Cinemas were both sold off in February 2000 for £62 million and £280 million respectively. [35]
He began by forming a partnership with film maker C. M. Woolf to form General Film Distributors, which in 1936 was incorporated in Rank's General Cinema Finance Corporation but continued to handle all distribution for the Rank organisation until 1955, when it was renamed J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors.
J. Arthur Rank, Baron Rank (born December 22 or 23, 1888, Hull, Yorkshire, England—died March 29, 1972, Winchester, Hampshire) was a British industrialist who became Great Britain’s chief distributor and one of the world’s major producers of motion pictures.
Feb 24, 2023 · Founded by the formidable J. Arthur Rank in 1937, it quickly became the largest and most vertically integrated film company in the United Kingdom, with ownership of production, distribution, and exhibition facilities.
Distribution problems solved. By 1937, Rank’s movie assets were still accumulating, and besides Pinewood, now included Denham Film Studios, as well as several other interests, and it was at this time he consolidated these holdings in a new company called the Rank Organisation. In 1938, the Rank Organisation bought the Odeon cinema chain.
Rank found that the middlemen who controlled the majority of the British film industry clogged the theatrical pipeline with American films. To combat this, Rank created the General Cinema Finance Corporation with the filmmaker, C. M. Woolf, which they used to buy out General Film Distributors, the British arm of Universal Pictures.
