Warwick Films
| Film | |
| Founded | 1951 |
| Founder | Irving Allen, Albert R. Broccoli |
| Defunct | 1962 |
| Headquarters | London, England, United Kingdom |
Warwick Films was the name of a film company founded by film producers Irving Allen and Albert R. Broccoli in London in 1951. The name was taken from the Warwick Hotel in London. Their films were released throughout the world by Columbia Pictures.
The reason for the creation of Warwick Films was a successful combination of several economic factors in the 1950s.
Broccoli was a former agent who knew that Alan Ladd had left Paramount Pictures over monetary disputes. Ladd and Sue Carol, his agent and wife agreed to a three-picture contract with Warwick Films on condition that Ladd's personal screenwriter Richard Maibaum co-write the films. Their first film based on a best selling book was The Red Beret (1953) that was titled Paratrooper in the USA. Based on Operation Biting and economically filmed with Parachute Regiment extras at their installations in England and Wales, the film cost US$700,000 to make and grossed US$8 million worldwide leading to more Warwick films.
Warwick followed this with two more films with Alan Ladd, Hell Below Zero and The Black Knight Both were popular and Columbia signed another three-picture contract. Broccoli said in a 1954 interview:
We're not making British pictures, but American pictures in Britain. We're trying to Americanize the actors' speech in order to make the Englishman understood down in Texas and Oklahoma - in other words, break down a natural resistance and get our pictures out of the art houses and into the regular theatres. And we're doing it. Furthermore, we'll soon be shooting all over the world, bringing to the public the beauty and scope of the outdoors in new mediums - real backgrounds, but always with an American star.
Warwick's budgets were around $1 million a film with $200,000 allocated to the American star.
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