Abstract
Nat Cohen had developed a reputation as a crass, commercial producer, interested more in profits than quality. This chapter analyses Cohen’s early years with EMI, and argues that this portrayal is unfair. Films such as Spring and Port Wine, Entertaining Mr Sloane, and The Body were some of the more interesting British productions of the early 1970s and were all produced under Cohen’s reign. And while he was also responsible for several more commercial co-productions with Hammer Films, such as Horror of Frankenstein and Scars of Dracula, this chapter argues that Cohen’s funding enabled Hammer to produce some of its more challenging genre films such as Demons of the Mind, and much of its non-horror output, like On the Buses and Love Thy Neighbour, which connected with many of the key political concerns of the early 1970s.
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Notes
- 1.
W.H. MacDonald to Directors of EMI Film & Theatre Corporation Limited (22 February 1972). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library.
- 2.
W.H. MacDonald to Directors of EMI Film & Theatre Corporation Limited (22 February 1972).
- 3.
EMI Annual Report (1972). London: EMI, p. 5.
- 4.
EMI Annual Report (1972), p. 29.
- 5.
EMI Annual Report (1972), p. 30.
- 6.
Smith, J. (2008). ‘Glam, spam and Uncle Sam: Funding diversity in 1970s British film production’, in Shail, R. (ed.) Seventies British Cinema. London: Palgrave, pp. 73–74.
- 7.
Delfont, B. (1990), East End, West End, London: Macmillan, p. 182.
- 8.
EMI Film Productions Limited and Anglo-EMI Film Distributors Limited—Production Release Schedule (24 April 1972). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library.
- 9.
EMI Annual Report (1970). London: EMI, p. 1.
- 10.
Minutes of the EMI Board (3 January 1973). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library.
- 11.
Harper, S. and Smith, J. (2013), ‘Social Space’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (ed.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 185–186.
- 12.
Letter from Douglas Kentish to Trevelyan (30 May 1969). London: BBFC.
- 13.
Letter from Trevelyan to Douglas Kentish (12 June 1969). London: BBFC.
- 14.
Letter from Douglas Kentish to John Trevelyan (29 July 1969). London: BBFC.
- 15.
EMI Film Productions Limited and Anglo-EMI Film Distributors Limited—Production Release Schedule (24 April 1972).
- 16.
Letter from Douglas Kentish to John Trevelyan (29 July 1969).
- 17.
Letter from Douglas Kentish to John Trevelyan (29 July 1969).
- 18.
Letter from Douglas Kentish to John Trevelyan (29 July 1969).
- 19.
Letter from John Trevelyan to Douglas Kentish (20 August 1969). London: BBFC.
- 20.
Entertaining Mr Sloane (18 February 1970). London: BBFC.
- 21.
Entertaining Mr Sloane (18 February 1970).
- 22.
Letter from John Trevelyan to Arnold Barber of Warner Brothers (18 February 1970). London: BBFC.
- 23.
Entertaining Mr Sloane (18 February 1970).
- 24.
Letter from John Trevelyan to Beryl Reid (16 June 1970). London: BBFC.
- 25.
EMI Film Productions Limited and Anglo-EMI Film Distributors Limited—Production Release Schedule (24 April 1972).
- 26.
Undated letter from Trevelyan to Lord Harlech. London: BBFC.
- 27.
Undated letter from Trevelyan to Harlech.
- 28.
EMI Annual Report (1970), p. 4.
- 29.
Minutes of the EMI Film Programme Investment Committee (28 June 1972). Bryan Forbes Collection. Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library.
- 30.
Pirie, D. (2009). A New Heritage of Horror. London: IB Tauris, p. 187.
- 31.
EMI Film Productions Limited and Anglo-EMI Film Distributors Limited—Production Release Schedule (24 April 1972).
- 32.
Ede, L. (2012), ‘British film design in the 1970s’, in Harper, S. and Smith, J. (eds.) British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 34.
- 33.
EMI Film Productions Limited and Anglo-EMI Film Distributors Limited—Production Release Schedule (24 April 1972).
- 34.
Pirie, D. (2009), p. 184.
- 35.
Pirie, D. (2009), p. 181.
- 36.
Personnel Files, Bryan Forbes and John Hargreaves (30 June 1971). London: StudioCanal.
- 37.
Harper, S. and Smith, J. (2013), p. 200.
- 38.
On the Buses (3 October 1970). London: BBFC.
- 39.
On the Buses (3 October 1970). London: BBFC.
- 40.
Harper, S. and Smith, J. (2013), p. 200.
- 41.
Letter from Roy Skeggs to Stephen Murphy (1 August 1973). London: BBFC.
- 42.
Love Thy Neighbour (23 February 1973). London: BBFC.
- 43.
Love Thy Neighbour (19 April 1973). London: BBFC.
- 44.
All the Way Up (26 September 1969). London: BBFC.
- 45.
All the Way Up (13 January 1970). London: BBFC.
- 46.
Handwritten note by John Trevelyan (28 January 1970). London: BBFC.
- 47.
Letter from Phillip Mackie to John Trevelyan (4 March 1970). ‘All the way up.’ London, UK: BBFC.
- 48.
All the Way Up (24 March 1970). London: BBFC.
- 49.
Letter from John Trevelyan to Phillip Mackie (31 March 1970). London: BBFC.
- 50.
Letter from John Trevelyan to Phillip Mackie (31 March 1970).
- 51.
Letter from Phillip Mackie to John Trevelyan (1 April 1970). London: BBFC.
- 52.
Letter from Nat Cohen to John Trevelyan (3 April 1970). London: BBFC.
- 53.
Letter from Phillip Mackie to John Trevelyan (13 April 1970). London: BBFC.
- 54.
Letter from Phillip Mackie to John Trevelyan (13 April 1970).
- 55.
Handwritten note from John Trevelyan (13 April 1970). London: BBFC.
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Moody, P. (2018). All the Way Up. In: EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94803-4_5
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