The Cry of the Owl

N.p. Associated British Picture Corporation, 1963. Two original ribbon copy typescript reader's summary and reports for the 1962 novel by Patricia Highsmith, made for the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) in 1963. Unique.

The first three-page report is by ABPC reader R. Groves, dated "April 15th, 1963," with with a blue rubber stamp stating "RECEIVED / 17 Apr 1963." Bound in preceding is a second four-page report by ABPC reader Jack Common, dated "I.5.63.," with a blue rubber stamp stating "RECEIVED / 3 May 1963" and a manuscript ink annotation of "second report" along the top of the first leaf.

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.

Both reader's summary and reports are written in the ABPC house style including a breakdown of the source material and publication information at the top of the first pages (noted in both as being submitted in proof format by an agent representing Highsmith), followed by a summary and a list of characters names and descriptions, then a detailed synopsis on the second page (the second and third pages on the second report), and finally the reader's comments on the material's quality and filmic possibilities on the final page. ABPC's first reader, Groves, finds the novel "well-written" but "fails to achieve a reasonable credibility from the start." ABPC's second reader, Common, was more intrigued, "there is obviously a possible film here," but is also unpersuaded to recommend the material, finding it "likely to be one [a film] short of human appeal and in danger of a cold reception from audiences."

Highsmith's eighth of her 22 published novel, basis for the 1987 French film "Le Cri du hibou," directed by Claude Chabrol and starring Mathilda May.

8 x 13 inches, both reports bound together with a perforation binding. Near Fine.

[Book #172972]