'Making Hollywood Happen' by Charles Drazin
The story told in Making Hollywood Happen didn’t begin in Southern California but in bleak postwar Britain. The British film industry, like the rest of the U.K.’s economy, had suffered hammer-blows while holding back Hitler. Studios were going dark—until a new firm with a self-explanatory name, Film Finances, established itself as an insurance agency for movie production, first in England, then in Europe, then around the world.
Film historian Charles Drazin offers a fascinating look behind the scenes at a company that would eventually insure some 8,000 films, including Dr. No and Slumdog Millionaire. Six of the films they backed won Best Picture as the Oscars. Drazin is the company’s archival consultant and consequently, presents the story’s authorized version. Nevertheless, Making Hollywood Happen is an extraordinary account of a company that assesses fees from producers with the promise to guaranty the bank or personal loans that support filmmaking. Film Finances attach significant strings to their deals, vetting each production and monitoring their progress. If the director and crew go offroad and over budget, they retain the right to seize control.
Some will argue that it’s a case of the accountants running the show. The answer is that many memorable films might never have been made without Film Finances’ guarantees.
Drazin’s research was made easy because of the extensive corporate archives at his disposal. Every letter between the clubby league of English gentlemen who established or invested in Film Finances when it began in 1950 was neatly filed away, along with receipts for office furniture and complaints about the rickety elevator in their office building. The founders were men schooled in calculated risk taking—many of them wartime veterans of the RAF. The company’s key player, Wing Commander Bobby Garrett, had also been at Bletchley Park, supervising the codebreakers. Memorable films from Dr. No to Slumdog Millionaire might never have been made without Britain’s Film Finances company.
Making Hollywood Happen: The Story of Film Finances is published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
