This Sweet Sickness

N.p. Associated British Picture Corporation, 1961. Original ribbon copy typescript four-page reader's summary and report for the 1960 novel by Patricia Highsmith, made for the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) by ABPC reader Gillian Glew, dated "March, 1961," with a blue rubber stamp stating "RECEIVED / 6 Mar 1961." Unique.

One of the most powerful media conglomerates in British cinema history, the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) was founded in 1927 when John Maxwell acquired 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, enabling 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 resulting reader's summary and reports are an extraordinary record of mid-twentieth century literature never intended for public consumption and unseen since their composition.

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 (noted as being submitted by a literary agent for Highsmith), followed by a summary and a list of characters names and descriptions, then a detailed synopsis on the second through the fourth pages, and finally the reader's comments on the material's quality and filmic possibilities on the fifth page. ABPC reader, Glew's comments on Highsmith's novel is enthusiastic yet trepidatious, noting "the gradual deterioration of the hero's mind is horrible, yet gripping. It is, however, very morbid,... it could have filmic possibilities."

Highsmith's seventh published novel, basis for the 1962 episode "Annabel" of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" television series, and the 1977 French film "Tell Her That I Love Her," directed by Claude Miller, and starring Gérard Depardieu and Miou-Miou.

8 x 13 inches, perforation binding. Near Fine.

[Book #172933]