Payroll

N.p. Associated British Picture Corporation, 1960. Original ribbon copy typescript four-page reader's summary and report for the 1959 novel by Derek Bickerton. Summary and report made for the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) by ABPC reader Frank Jackson, dated "Jan 60," with a received stamp dated "11 Jan 1960."

One of the most powerful media conglomerates in British cinema history, the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) was founded in 1927 with John Maxwell's acquisition of British National Pictures Studios and its Elstree Studios complex, first named British International Pictures (BIP).

The company was renamed ABPC in 1933 after acquiring British Pathé, and enabled the company to become a fully vertically integrated studio capable of producing, distributing, and exhibiting its own pictures. Following Maxwell's death in 1940, Warner Bros. purchased a large stake in the company, allowing ABPC to distribute its films into the lucrative US market, as well as taking an active stake in television by launching the Associated British Corporation (ABC). Amid the downturn in the British film industry by the late 1960s, EMI staged an aggressive takeover of ABPC in 1969, and by 1970 the name was officially retired.

At the height of ABPC's success in the 1950s and 1960s, its readers reviewed nearly everything being published, from established authors to those with recent screen success, to emerging new authors, in search of material for film adaptation.

The four-page reader's summary and report, written in the ABPC house style, includes a breakdown of the source material and publication information at the top of the first page, followed by a summary, a list of characters names and descriptions, then a detailed synopsis on the second, third, and fourth pages, followed by the reader's comments on the material's quality and filmic possibilities. ABPC reader Jackson enthusiastically recommends the text as "first-rate" and "a book of such obvious filmmability," despite the "ridiculously gory conclusion."

The first of four novels by linguist, novelist, and professor Derek Bickerton,. Adapted into a 1961 film directed by Sidney Hayers, starring Michael Craig, Françoise Prévost, and Billie Whitelaw.

8 x 13 inches, perforation binding. Near Fine.

[Book #172914]