Братья Вульф: Британские кинопродюсеры и их вклад в британский кинематограф

British film producers

Sir John Woolf (15 March 1913, London – 28 June 1999, London) and his brother James Woolf (2 March 1920, London – 30 May 1966, Beverly Hills, California) 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 (known as IFD), 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 (such as Room at the Top).

John and James Woolf were the sons of the British producer C. M. Woolf (1879–1942), who was co producer with Michael Balcon of two early Alfred Hitchcock films, Downhill (1927) and Easy Virtue (1928). 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 and was demobilised with the rank of major.

When their father died in 1942, 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." The first Romulus release was Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951) with James Mason and Ava Gardner. The American director producer Albert Lewin 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. According to John, this resulted in the Woolf's concentration on developing transatlantic projects. 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. and James wrote novels. In 1963, the Woolf brothers ran into trouble from the film distributors' Defence Organisation owing to their refusal to withhold the rights to their old cinema films from the sale to television. There was some talk that their new films would be boycotted by British cinemas, but that did not happen. Bryan Forbes later claimed the heart attack was brought on by an accidental overdose of painkillers.

James was gay and was rumoured to be a lover of Laurence Harvey. John Woolf was married three times. His second wife was the actress Edana Romney. His third wife, Ann, was the daughter of director Victor Saville. She survived him. In 1999, the year of his death, John Woolf was estimated to be worth £40 million, through a combination of his films and shrewd investments. In the late 1940s the brothers' uncle, Maurice Woolf, left £130,000 to a showgirl, Prudence Wise. John Woolf challenged the will and settled out of court.

Sir John Woolf's son, Jonathan Woolf, revived Romulus Films as of 1999, producing the film Revelation (2001). In 2013, Romulus Films, Ltd. changed directions from film production to regenerative medicine, being involved in a $5 million stock and warrant purchase funding arrangement with BioTime Inc. In April 2021, Romulus signed a worldwide distribution deal with StudioCanal.

In 2022, John Woolf was portrayed by Reece Shearsmith in the British American film See How They Run.