Trouble for J. Arthur?

Through such prestige films as Henry V and Brief Encounter, British Cinemogul J. Arthur Rank got a size ten foot in the door of the world movie market. But last week, as Hollywood had long predicted, Rank was preparing to sacrifice quality for quantity and go after the U.S. market with mass production.

Rank set the stage by announcing a proposed merger which, in effect, will give theater managers control over film production. Odeon Theaters, Lt., Britain's third largest theater chain (350 houses), has offered to pay -L-1,225,000 for control of Rank's privately owned producing and distributing company, General Cinema Finance Corp., Ltd.

Since Rank and associates already had working control of Odeon, the deal was like shifting money from one pocket to another. But two potent critics of Rank, Lord Beaverbrook and Brendan Bracken saw a chance to pry out some facts about what goes on inside Rank's tightly run, closely held film empire. Bracken's Financial Times cried that Odeon stockholders were getting a "pig in a poke."

Bracken and the Beaver demanded to see General Cinema Finance's balance sheet. The Beaver's Daily Express hinted that the Stock Exchange might suspend dealings in Odeon stock "until full accounts of the General Cinema Finance Corp. . . . have been published." The Tribune, a Socialist weekly, thought that Rank might have lost so much money on his prestige films for the U.S. market that G.C.F. needed a financial transfusion from Odeon.

Whatever the truth, the proposed merger would make Odeon the prime company of Rank's financial pyramid.

Rank had already cut back plans for big-budget pictures in favor of -L-200,000 and -L-250,000 productions. And some of his (and the world's) most talented moviemakers, feeling the cold hands of businessmen curbing their artistic impulses, had deserted him for Sir Alexander Korda (TIME, Nov. 17), who is concentrating on prestige films. Carol Reed (Odd Man Out) and Powell & Pressburger (Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) had already gone. British critics had begun to note the deterioration in Rank films; recent films, said the Sunday Times, ranged from "mediocre to ghastly."

Hollywood, which had quailed at Rank's hand-tooled best, did not fear for a moment that his mass-produced best could compete with theirs.

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