''ABC Film Review'' was a magazine which began regular releases in 1951 after a 1950 trial. The name was kept until April 1972, by May 1972 it was shortened to simply ''Film Review''. The final issue (#701) came out December 2008. In the 1990s, it advertised itself as "Britain's longest-running film magazine" on the cover.

Background

It was originally tied in with

ABC Cinemas ABC Cinemas (Associated British Cinemas) was a cinema chain in the United Kingdom. Originally a wholly owned subsidiary of Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC), it operated between the 1930s and the 1980s. The brand name was reused in ...

. It was published by Associated British in association with

Pathé Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French people, French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest ...

and produced by Axtell Publications Ltd. of London, and at the outset the only credited contributor was James McCrossan.

Cost

The 3-issue trial in 1950 was just 20 pages and cost three

old pence The British pre-decimal penny was a denomination of sterling coinage worth of one pound or of one shilling. Its symbol was ''d'', from the Roman denarius. It was a continuation of the earlier English penny, and in Scotland it had the same mon ...

. After the trial's success, it became a full monthly magazine from January 1951 costing 4d until December 1951. The price was increased in January 1952 to 6d and stayed at 6d until August 1968, which was a complete run except for the issues for August and September, 1959, which were not published owing to a national printers' strike in the UK that summer (a fate that befell many magazines and newspapers at the time). Price from September 1968 was 9d until September 1970, when

decimalisation Decimalisation or decimalization (see spelling differences) is the conversion of a system of currency or of weights and measures to units related by powers of 10. Most countries have decimalised their currencies, converting them from non-decimal ...

was approaching, and the price changed to one

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence o ...

(5 new pence) in October 1970. The price changed again in May 1972, when it increased to 10p. At this time, the name changed to just ''Film Review''; the ''ABC'' was dropped from then on. It continued to appear as a monthly magazine until 2008. The next-to-last edition, a double-issue, number 699/700, for August/September 2008, edited by Nikki Baughan, had 220 pages and was priced at £4.99.

Writers

Contributors included Peter S. Haigh, Vincent Firth, Norman Taylor, David Richardson, Tony Crawley, Marianne Gray, Judy Sloane, Alan Jones, Tom Hutchinson,

Nigel Robinson Nigel Robinson is an English author, known for such works as the ''First Contact'' series. Nigel was born in Preston, Lancashire and attended St Thomas More school. Robinson's first published book was ''The Tolkien Quiz Book'' in 1981, co-writte ...

, Jason Caro, Roald Rynning, Howard Maxford, James Cameron-Wilson, Michael Darvell, Stephen Applebaum, Anwar Brett, Lorien Haynes and James Mottram. There was a readers' Q&A page with questions answered originally by Peter Noble and later on David McGillivray. James Cameron-Wilson, a

commissioning editor In book publishing, a commissioning editor is essentially a buyer. It is the job of the commissioning editor to advise the publishing house on which books to publish. Usually the actual decision of whether to contract a book is taken by a senior ma ...

of the magazine, also eventually took over this section.

Related works

''Film Review'' ceased printed publication by

Visual Imagination Visual Imagination Ltd. was a British company that produced genre magazines. It was founded in 1985 by Stephen Payne and originally only published the science-fiction magazine ''Fantasy Image''. After Payne bought the magazine '' Starburst'' f ...

in 2009. It has no connection with the ''Film Review'' annual which was launched in 1944 and was last published by

Signum Books Signum is Latin for "sign" and may refer to: Brands and companies * Integra Signum, a (defunct) Swiss railroad signaling company ** Integra-Signum, a train protection system * Opel Signum, an Opel car model * Signum Biosciences, a company based ...

. Originally edited by F. Maurice Speed, it was taken over by James Cameron-Wilson and was then jointly edited by Michael Darvell and Mansel Stimpson with Cameron-Wilson serving as executive editor. Its 70th edition appeared on 2 November 2015. In December 2015, the annual was launched as a website,
Film Review Daily
', edited by Cameron-Wilson and with regular contributors including Cameron-Wilson, Stimpson, Darvell, George Savvides and Chad Kennerk.

References

External links

*{{official website, http://www.filmreviewdaily.com/ 1950 establishments in the United Kingdom 2008 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Defunct magazines published in the United Kingdom English-language magazines Film magazines published in the United Kingdom Magazines established in 1950 Magazines disestablished in 2008 Monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom