John and James Woolf
Sir John Woolf and his brother James Woolf were British film producers. John and James founded the production companies Romulus Films and Remus Films, which were active during the 1950s and 1960s, and the distribution company Independent Film Distributors, which was active 1950–59 and handled the UK distribution of films such as The African Queen and Gift Horse, as well as several films made by their two production companies.
Biography
John and James Woolf were the sons of the British producer C. M. Woolf, who was co-producer with Michael Balcon of two early Alfred Hitchcock films, Downhill and Easy Virtue. Woolf senior was a major figure at Gaumont British and established General Film Distributors in 1937.John and James were educated at Eton, while the older brother also attended Institut Montana, Switzerland. John was the sales manager of General Film Distributors until it was taken over by the Rank Organisation James worked for Columbia Pictures in the Hollywood publicity department.
John Woolf served in World War II. In February 1943 the army refused to give him leave to take over GFD. Charles Woolf died in 1943 and John Wolf inherited half his father's holdings in GFD; the other half went to John's brother Maurice and sister Rosemary.
He was demobilised in 1945 with the rank of major.
Romulus Films and Independent Film Distributors
When their father died in 1943, J. Arthur Rank became director of General Film Distributors. John returned from the Army as joint managing director. However, neither John or James enjoyed working for a large corporation.In 1948, they went to S.G. Warburg for financial backing for two new companies, Independent Film Distributors, and a production arm, Romulus Films. According to critic Ronald Bergan in his obituary of Sir John Woolf: "Their aims were ambitious: to produce artistically valuable and yet commercially viable films, whose subjects would be wider than the Little Englanderism of British pictures of the period, and featuring big stars." James Woolf's obituary in The Times stated that John "was the main financial brain and James primarily in charge of artistic policy."
According to John Woolf, "Independent started by putting up seventy per cent of the cost of a number of films, most of which weren't very successful. In fact I started off as badly as my father had with General Film Distributors." He said he had more success with films in which they produced directly as Romulus.
Filmink magazine later wrote:
From the beginning, the Woolfs ued a two-prong attack in their movie making career – they would produce lower budgeted films aimed primarily at the British domestic market, and big international pictures with Hollywood stars and finance from major studios. They didn’t have a particular preference for any kind of film but worked in commercial genres – comedies, thrillers, war/adventure, sexy melodramas. Their films were almost always based on some pre-existing IP – a novel, a play – and almost always constructed as star vehicles.
Their first film was Shadow of the Eagle, shot party in Italy, which was a box office flop. This was followed by two co-productions with Hollywood: I'll Get You for This with George Raft and Coleen Gray, and Pandora and the Flying Dutchman with James Mason and Ava Gardner. The latter was produced and directed by Albert Lewin who had begun to prepare the film for MGM, but James Woolf discovered on a Hollywood visit that the studio had cancelled the project because of Lewin's problems with the House Un-American Activities Committee; Romulus stepped in to co finance. John Woolf recalled "Pandora wasn't all that successful, although it covered its costs eventually. It was a rather turgid film but we didn't have much experience as film producers then... It was too long and I couldn't get Lewin to agree to cut it, but in many ways it was a brilliant film." The film was one of the most popular films at the British box office 1951.
Romulus' next three films were more British-based efforts: two thrillers, She Shall Have Murder and The Late Edwina Black, and a comedy directed by Henry Cornelius, The Galloping Major. These did not perform particularly well commercially and resulted in the brothers deciding to concentrate on transatlantic projects.
John Huston
The Woolf brothers were approached by Sam Spiegel, looking for finance for The African Queen, which was going to star Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, and be directed by John Huston. Alexander Korda, an old friend of their father, advised against being involved: "Two old people going up and down an African river... who's going to be interested in that? You'll be bankrupt!". The brothers decided to cover below the line costs of £250,000. The movie was a large success critically and commercially, and established Romulus within the industry.The brothers wanted to make another film with Huston and suggested Moulin Rouge starring Jose Ferrer. Made for a budget of over $1 million, it was another large hit at the box office. A third collaboration with the director, Beat the Devil, was less successful - John Woolf called it a "disaster" on release although the film subsequently developed a cult reputation. A key figure on both behind the scenes was Jack Clayton, who became an important executive for Romulus.
During this period, Romulus continued to finance other films such as the comedy Treasure Hunt. The Woolfs formed a relationship with producer Daniel Angel which resulted in the social drama films Women of Twilight, directed by Gordon Parry, and Cosh Boy, directed by Lewis Gilbert. Angel recalled, "Jimmy Woolf had these two stories, we made the films with the idea of showing them in cinemas together on the one programme. They turned out better than we'd expected and we showed them separately." Women of Twilight featured Laurence Harvey who Romulus put under contract, due to the enthusiasm of James Woolf who became a great champion of the actor.
Romulus then invested in the comedy Innocents in Paris, directed by Parry, and the crime film, The Good Die Young, directed by Gilbert. Gilbert says James Woolf found the original book and insisted Laurence Harvey be cast; there were some American actors in the cast to appeal to American audiences.
Romulus did two films based on stage plays: the courtroom drama Carrington V.C. starring David Niven, and I Am a Camera, directed by Cornelius from the stories of Christopher Isherwood, with Harvey in a key role. The latter was popular at the British box office. In January 1955 James Woolf announced:
Although there are a number of cases where pictures bring in large grosses in Europe and fail in America, the single common denominator for boxoffice success throughout the world seems to be the comedy feature. One of the main reasons our company embarked upon ‘I Am a Camera’ was the simple fact that we found an acute shortage of adult comedy films.
Alex Korda and ''Room at the Top''
In the mid '50s the Woolf brothers helped provide almost £1 million to help finance four films for Alex Korda: Richard III from Laurence Olivier, A Kid for Two Farthings from Carol Reed, Summertime from David Lean and Storm Over the Nile from Terence Young and Zoltan Korda. All four were successful, ending Korda's career on a note of triumph prior to his death in 1956. The popularity of A Kid for Two Farthings led to Romulus financing a short, The Bespoke Overcoat, which launched Jack Clayton's career as a director and won an Oscar for Best Short Film.Romulus made some more parochial comedies based on stage successes: Sailor Beware directed by Gordon Parry, Dry Rot and Three Men in a Boat, starring Harvey. It also financed The Iron Petticoat ; this was a difficult production of producer Harry Saltzman but was profitable at the box office. According to Sue Harper and Vince Porter:
Outwardly modest and shy, John Woolf generally made films from successful and well-received novels or plays. He and James both had a keen sense of what might be popular in both the British and the American markets. Their films have no recurrent theme, unless it be that of a determined individual, usually a man, who is at odds with his immediate milieu. Once he had bought the story rights, John normally packaged the screenplay with internationally recognized stars and an established director.
Dry Rot featured the actress Heather Sears, who was put under contract to Romulus. The studio created a vehicle for her, The Story of Esther Costello co-starring Joan Crawford.
Romulus financed three movies for producer Peter Rogers: After the Ball a biopic of Vesta Tilley starring Harvey; Time Lock from an Arthur Hailey TV play; and The Vicious Circle a thriller with John Mills. Other projects included The Silent Enemy, a biopic of Lionel Crabb starring Harvey, and The Whole Truth a thriller with Stewart Granger and Donna Reed.
In December 1957, Romulus announced a program worth $5.6 million the following year including The Night Comers and Room at the Top. John Woolf became interested in Room at the Top after seeing an interview conducted by Woodrow Wyatt with the novel's author John Braine on Panorama on 8 April 1957. He bought a copy of the book the next day, and quickly purchased the film rights. There were two strong roles for actors under contract to Romulus, Laurence Harvey and Heather Sears, and the job of directing was given to Jack Clayton. The movie was an enormous critical and commercial success, Romulus' biggest since The African Queen; it established Harvey as a bona fide film star and Jack Clayton as a key director.
By the end of 1959, the company celebrated its tenth anniversary. It estimated it had invested $18 million in films, and had borrowed $2.1 million from the National Film Finance Corporation. Romulus claimed it had earned $8.5 million in foreign currency and that its films had played for 40,000 weeks in British cinemas and won more than 20 international awards.
Individually, John was instrumental in the formation of Anglia Television in 1958 and James wrote novels. In 1958, John Woolf was briefly on the board of British Lion but he resigned in a few months.