Cinema’s biggest hit
QUESTION Does the original Rank gong still exist? Film fans will fondly remember the sight of the famous gong man who preceded the opening credits of every movie produced by the Rank Organisation, England’s biggest and finest film production company.
Hull-born J. Arthur Rank (1888-1972) was already a wealthy industrialist through his father’s flour milling business, Joseph Rank ltd, when he became a film-maker, financing short religious subjects in line with his methodist beliefs.
The gong man predated the Rank Organisation. in 1935, Rank went into partnership with film distributor C. m. Woolf to form General Film Distributors. it was Woolf’s secretary who devised the man-with-a-gong trademark which was used on films distributed by the company.
By 1937, Rank owned Pinewood and Denham Film Studios, as well as several other interests including General Film Distributors, and it was at this time he consolidated these holdings in a new company called the Rank Organisation. They chose to retain the gong.
Contrary to popular belief, the first gong man wasn’t British boxer Bombardier Billy Wells but a 6ft 5in circus strongman called Carl Dane. Dane had already gained fame in 1926 as the first man to pull a london bus (with 12 passengers inside) using only his teeth. He was replaced by Wells after World War ii.
The third man to strike the gong was a film extra called Phil Nieman, and the fourth and final one was Olympic gold medallist wrestler Ken Richmond.
The gong was, in fact, a papier-mache mock-up and Richmond would tell how he simply mimed in front of it. ‘if you hit that gong, you would have gone straight through,’ was his favourite line.
Today, the famous 6ft tall gong can be seen at the london Film museum in County Hall, london, on l oan f rom Pinewood Studios. Simon Chapman, Henley-in-Arden, Warwks. THE gong at the beginning of Rank films was in fact a papier-mache prop. The actual sound was provided by a much smaller instrument called a tam-tam, owned and played by the famous English percussionist James Blades.
A tam-tam differs from a gong in that it has a flat central area, as opposed to a boss in the centre of its metal disc, and does not produce a single defined note.
i had the good fortune to meet James and play the actual instrument (along with several others including ‘slung mugs’ — used to imitate rain — and a whip) during a performance of Benjamin Britten’s opera Noye’s Fludde at the Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, in the Sixties.
Allan Cosham, Eastbourne, E. Sussex.
QUESTION Are there any countries without drink-driving laws?
SEVERAL countries still allow drivers to get behind the wheel regardless of how much alcohol they’ve drunk.
Neither drink-driving nor driving under the influence of drugs is illegal in indonesia, though it is illegal not to wear a seat belt or not wear a helmet on a motorcycle. The country’s laws recommend sentences of six to ten years for negligent motorists who cause deaths by dangerous driving.
Other countries without drink- driving laws are Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Comoros, Angola, Gabon and Togo. But it’s worth noting that a crash attributable to alcohol in these countries will negate any insurance taken out by the motorist.
By contrast, several countries operate a zero-tolerance policy where any driver found with alcohol in their blood is prosecuted. Among them are Hungary, Tunisia, the Czech Republic and Panama.
Others have harsh penalties. China imposes an automatic six-month ‘penal detention’ on people who exceed the legal blood-alcohol content of 0.02 per cent. Those over the same limit in Colombia face a one-year licence suspension, a $1,000 fine and 20 hours of community service.
L. Tench, Dover, Kent.
QUESTION Were any Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany admitted to Ireland in the 1930s?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, although the irish Free State (later Eire) slammed the door on Jewish refugees during the Thirties, Northern ireland did not.
The North participated in the Kindertransport, which brought 10,000 Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia and the free city of Danzig to Britain. There were two Belfast organisations that dealt with refugees from Germany: Belfast’s Committee for German Refugees and the Jewish Refugee Aid Committee which set up a hostel.
Twenty children were placed with Jewish families in the city and adults became drivers, maids, cooks and gardeners. The Central British Fund, with the help of the Northern ireland ministry of Agriculture, obtained a 70-acre farm at millisle near Donaghadee, Co. Down, and 80 refugee children and 20 adults were placed there. it won awards for wheat production.
millisle was supported by the Belfast Jewish community and Rabbi J. Shacter often visited. When u.S. troops arrived in Northern ireland in 1942, American Jewish servicemen as well as Jewish military chaplains soon discovered millisle. They visited and supplied the children with candy and American comics.
After the war, most of the children either went to the u.S., israel or England — but some did stay on in Northern ireland.
Anthony Waldman, Hainault, Essex.