HandMade Films was a British

film production Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...

and

distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ...

company. Notable films from the studio include ''

Monty Python's Life of Brian ''Monty Python's Life of Brian'' (also known as ''Life of Brian'') is a 1979 British comedy film starring and written by the comedy group Monty Python (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin). It w ...

'', '' Time Bandits'', ''

The Long Good Friday ''The Long Good Friday'' is a 1980 British gangster film directed by John Mackenzie from a screenplay by Barrie Keeffe, starring Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren. Set in London, the storyline weaves together events and concerns of the late 1970s, ...

'' and ''

Withnail and I ''Withnail and I'' is a 1987 British black comedy film written and directed by Bruce Robinson. Loosely based on Robinson's life in London in the late 1960s, the plot follows two unemployed actors, Withnail and "I" (portrayed by Richard E. Gran ...

''.

History

Foundation

HandMade Films was formed by former Beatle George Harrison and business partner

Denis O'Brien Denis O'Brien (born 19 April 1958) is an Irish billionaire businessman, and the founder and owner of Digicel. He was listed among the World's Top 200 Billionaires in 2015 and was Ireland's richest native-born citizen for a period of several ye ...

in 1978 to finance the controversial

Monty Python Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'', which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over fo ...

film '' Life of Brian''. Harrison had been introduced to O'Brien by actor

Peter Sellers Peter Sellers (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series ''The Goon Show'', featured on a number of hit comic songs ...

in 1973. Soon afterward the two went into business together. When the original financiers of ''Brian'', EMI Films, pulled out of the project less than a week before filming was to commence, the creators had to find other financing. Harrison, a friend and fan of the Pythons, mortgaged his home in order to finance the feature.

Eric Idle Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943) is an English actor, comedian, musician and writer. Idle was a member of the British surreal comedy group Monty Python and the parody rock band The Rutles, and is the writer of the music and lyrics for the Broadway ...

of the Pythons later called it "the most anybody's ever paid for a cinema ticket in history". ''Life of Brian'' grossed $21 million at the box office in the US. Harrison explained: "The name of the company came about as a bit of a joke. I'd been to Wookey Hole in

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lor ...

... earan old paper mill where they show you how to make old underpants into paper. So I bought a few rolls, and they had this watermark 'British Handmade Paper' ... So we said ... we'll call it Handmade Films."

First film and growth of productions

The first film distributed by HandMade Films was ''

'' (1980), and the first it produced was '' Time Bandits'' (1981), a co-scripted project by

Terry Gilliam Terrence Vance Gilliam (; born 22 November 1940) is an American-born British filmmaker, comedian, animator, actor and former member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam has directed 13 feature films, including '' Time Bandits'' (1981), '' ...

and

Michael Palin Sir Michael Edward Palin (; born 5 May 1943) is an English actor, comedian, writer, television presenter, and public speaker. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. Since 1980, he has made a number of travel documentaries. Palin ...

. The film featured a new song by Harrison, " Dream Away", in the closing credits. ''Time Bandits'' became one of HandMade's most successful and acclaimed efforts; with a budget of $5 million, it earned $35 million in the US within ten weeks of its release. Harrison served as

executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights ...

for 23 films with HandMade, including the Oscar-nominated ''

Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a Half length portrait, half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described ...

'', '' Shanghai Surprise'' and ''

''. He made several

cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...

s in these films, including a role as a

nightclub singer A nightclub act is a production, usually of nightclub music or comedy, designed for performance at a nightclub, a type of drinking establishment, by a nightclub performer such as a nightclub singer or nightclub dancer, whose performance ma ...

in ''Shanghai Surprise'', for which he recorded five new songs. According to Ian Inglis, Harrison's "executive role in HandMade Films helped to sustain British cinema at a time of crisis, producing some of the country's most memorable movies of the 1980s." In 1987, HandMade Films made a four-film pact with independent motion picture distributor Island Pictures to distribute four films for limited theatrical release from 1987 to mid-1988, which are '' The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne'', '' Track 29'', '' The Raggedy Rawney'' and '' Bellman and True''.

Changes of ownership and recent history

Following a series of

box office bomb A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...

s in the late 1980s and excessive debt incurred by O'Brien, which was guaranteed by Harrison, HandMade's financial situation became precarious. The company ceased operations in 1991 and was sold three years later to Paragon Entertainment Corporation of Toronto, Canada. Afterward, Harrison sued O'Brien for $25 million for fraud and negligence, resulting in an $11.6 million judgment in 1996. New owner Paragon Entertainment Corporation restarted production under the HandMade name in 1996–1997. The company's most notable release of that era was '' Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'' (1998). In 1999,

Patrick Meehan Patrick Connolly Meehan (12 April 1927 – 14 August 1994) was the victim of a controversial miscarriage of justice in Scotland. Although he died a natural death (of throat cancer in Swansea)reverse takeover A reverse takeover (RTO), reverse merger, or reverse IPO is the acquisition of a public company by a private company so that the private company can bypass the lengthy and complex process of going public. Sometimes, conversely, the public com ...

agreement with Hand Made Holdings Ltd announced on 15 May 2006. The Equator Group reincorporated as HandMade Plc on 8 June 2006 and the new company was traded on the

Alternative Investment Market AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in operation since 1980. It allows ...

(AIM) stock exchange (changing its

ticker symbol A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. In short, ticker symbols are arrangements of symbols or characters (generally Latin letters ...

from EQG to HMF). Trading of HandMade plc shares was suspended several times, notably June to October 2009, after the company failed to provide 2008 audit results to shareholders. On 29 April 2010, Almorah Services Ltd tendered a takeover bid, priced at £0.01 per share in cash and HMF was delisted from the AIM on 29 June 2010. HandMade plc was re-registered as HandMade Limited, a private company, on 2 February 2011. Handmade Limited entered administration on 11 July 2012, liquidation on 24 April 2013, and was dissolved on 22 February 2018. In 2016, Park Circus purchased distribution rights to the HandMade film library. In 2017, following an investigation by the Insolvency Service, three HandMade Limited directors were disqualified from acting as a director of a company: Patrick Anthony Meehan for 13 years, David Bernard Ravden for five-and-a-half years, and Peter William Parkinson for four years. The directors misused funds to "pay off relatives" and "on matters undisclosed to advisers, shareholder or potential investors".

Filmography

References

External links

*
HANDMADE LIMITED (03270629)
company overview (1996-2018) at

Companies House Companies House is the executive agency of the company registrars of the United Kingdom, falling under the remit of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. All forms of companies (as permitted by the Companies Act) are ...

1988 Interview with George Harrison
at Film Comment
An Accidental Studio
documentary about the history of HandMade films {{Authority control Film production companies of the United Kingdom George Harrison Mass media companies established in 1978 1978 establishments in England Mass media companies disestablished in 2013 2013 disestablishments in England 1994 mergers and acquisitions