General Film Distributors (GFD), later known asJ. Arthur Rank Film Distributors andRank Film Distributors Ltd., was aBritish film distribution company based in London. It was active between 1935 and 1996, and from 1937 it was part ofthe Rank Organisation.
General Film Distributors was created in 1935 by the British film distributorC. M. Woolf (1879–1942) after he had resigned fromGaumont British and closed his distribution companyWoolf & Freedman Film Service.[1][2]
In 1936,J. Arthur Rank and the paper magnateLord Portal,[3] convinced him to make it a daughter company to their General Cinema Finance Corporation, which had just acquired the British distribution rights for allUniversal Pictures titles (by buying a large chunk of Universal in the US).[4] One year later it became the cornerstone inThe Rank Organisation.
General Film Distributors kept its own name within the Rank Organisation until 1955, when it was renamedJ. Arthur Rank Film Distributors,[5] which in turn was renamedRank Film Distributors Ltd. in 1957.[6] Rank Film Distributors was acquired byCarlton Communications in 1997 and closed.[7]
It was C.M. Woolf's secretary who devised theman-with-a-gong trademark which was adopted by the Rank Organisation when it was founded in 1937.[2] Athletes who played the Gongman in the film sequence over the years, included boxer BombardierBilly Wells and wrestlerKen Richmond. Also, George Francis Moss Snr played the Gongman.[8][better source needed]
During the 20 years General Film Distributors had its original name, the company distributed over 450 mainstream films. A British DVD distributor, active since 2005,[citation needed] uses the same name, but as a DVD distributor, GFD is possibly related to the original company.[citation needed]
