Guild Home Video (GHV) or Guild Film Distribution was one of the first video distribution companies to start operating in the UK. Unlike other independent labels such as Intervision or Videoform, GHV not only survived for a very long time, but continued to grow, eventually becoming a video distributor for independent studios such as Carolco,

New Line Cinema New Line Cinema is an American film production studio owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and is a film label of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent film distribution company; later becoming a film studio after acq ...

Cannon A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...

, and

Lorimar Lorimar Productions, Inc., later known as Lorimar Television and Lorimar Distribution, was an American production company that was later a subsidiary of Warner Bros., active from 1969 until 1993, when it was folded into Warner Bros. Televisio ...

. The videos were released by

Video Collection International 2 Entertain (stylized as 2 , entertain) is a British video and music publisher founded in September 2004 by the merger of BBC Video and Video Collection International in 2004. Under CEO Richard Green, the company operated as a joint venture b ...

and

PolyGram Video PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be ...

Origins

Originally based in Oundle Road,

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...

before moving to Church Street,

Walton-on-Thames Walton-on-Thames, locally known as Walton, is a market town on the south bank of the Thames in the Elmbridge borough of Surrey, England. Walton forms part of the Greater London built-up area, within the KT postcode and is served by a wide ran ...

, Guild Home Video were one of the biggest of the early video companies, and responsible for distributing a large and varied catalogue of movies. The initial batch of releases came out in mid-1980 and were easily recognisable by the sky blue, stylised 'G' symbol that the company retained throughout its life (with only a colour change to gold in 1987) and the logo was redrawn for an updated, cleaner look in 1984. The original Guild catalogue included a large array of features ranging from creaky and dated British science-fiction/horror fare such as ''

The Beast in the Cellar ''The Beast in the Cellar'' is a 1970 British horror film written and directed by James Kelley. The film was produced by Leander Films and Tigon British Film Productions, and starred Beryl Reid. Plot Soldiers stationed at a rural army base i ...

'', ''

The Body Stealers ''The Body Stealers'', also known as ''Thin Air'', is a 1969 British science fiction film directed by Gerry Levy, about the disappearance of British armed forces paratroopers in mid-air whilst on a routine jump. Two investigators try to figure o ...

'' and ''

Doomwatch ''Doomwatch'' is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC, which ran on BBC1 between 1970 and 1972. The series was set in the then present day, and dealt with a scientific government agency led by Doctor Spencer Quist ...

'', to documentary/non-fiction titles such as ''The Entertaining Electron'' and ''Reardon on Snooker'' as well as recent box office hits such as

David Cronenberg David Paul Cronenberg (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation ...

's ''

Scanners ''Scanners'' is a 1981 Canadian science fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Stephen Lack, Jennifer O'Neill, Michael Ironside, and Patrick McGoohan. In the film, "scanners" are psychics with unusual telepathic ...

'' and

Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure. He received numerous ...

's remake of '' The Postman Always Rings Twice''. Many classic Australian movies such as ''My Brilliant Career'', ''Breaker Morant'' and ''Money Movers'' were also released at that time too. The original catalogue was uncommonly large by the standards of most labels at that time, with well over 100 titles released within the first two years of trading alone, and Guild became well known for the professionalism of its product. At a time when many of the independent labels were resorting to tacky and often distastefully lurid cover designs to get its products noticed (Go Video's '' Cannibal Holocaust/SS Experiment Camp'' and Vipco's ''

The Driller Killer ''The Driller Killer'' is a 1979 black comedy slasher film directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Ferrara (credited as Jimmy Laine), Carolyn Marz, Baybi Day, and Harry Schultz. The plot concerns Reno Miller, a struggling artist in New York City, ...

'' being prime examples), GHV adopted a much more subtle approach. Early Guild covers were colour-coded. Cassettes for "hire only" carried a Pink band round the base of the sleeve, while later Hire/Sale cassettes carried a sky blue band round the top. There were also a number of tapes with a yellow band as well, but these are all but extinct now and desirable when found.

Growth

Guild Home Video continued to grow steadily throughout the 1980s, notable especially as one of the very few independent labels to survive the 1984 Video Recordings Act (1). This ruinous and reactionary response to the "

Video Nasties Video nasty is a colloquial term popularised by the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (NVALA) in the United Kingdom to refer to a number of films, typically low-budget horror or exploitation films, distributed on video cassette that ...

" crisis meant that any movie available on video had to carry a

BBFC The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC, previously the British Board of Film Censors) is a non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of f ...

video certificate. As each film would cost hundreds of pounds to classify if re-submitted, many independent labels found it uneconomic to submit their entire back catalogues and several simply went out of business. GHV, by now exclusive distributors to the likes of Cannon,

The Samuel Goldwyn Company The Samuel Goldwyn Company was an American independent film company founded by Samuel Goldwyn Jr., the son of the famous Hollywood mogul, Samuel Goldwyn, in 1978. Background The company originally distributed and acquired art-house films fro ...

and Lorimar were able to continue on the strength on their newer titles and the older back catalogue generally disappeared from view. More successful titles such as '' Straw Dogs'' and '' Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came'' were among the first budget "sell through" titles to appear when Video Collection began retailing cut-price movies in 1986. In 1986, it also saw the launch of Guild's short-lived Frontier brand. It apparently released just seven titles. Between 1991 and 1992, Guild revived a brand but under the name Capital Home Video, which only released indie titles and a few known titles such as '' Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers''. In 1986, it entered into an agreement with Karl-Lorimar Home Video to release titles for the British home video market. Later that year, it inked into an agreement with Medusa Communications in order that Guild Home Video to supply Medusa for Guild two titles a month per year, in effect at the end of January, and marked the first time the company, which had three titles a month, had to distribute titles by other companies, and the company already had a two-year pact with CBS/Fox Video. In 1987, Guild decided to expand and supply into theatrical distribution via subsidiary Guild Film Distribution (formerly Guild International Distributors), and it was on good terms with film distributor

Carolco Pictures Carolco Pictures, Inc. was an American independent film studio that existed from 1976 to 1995, founded by Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna. Kassar and Vajna ran Carolco together until 1989, when Vajna left to form Cinergi Pictures. Carolco hit ...

in order to acquire all UK rights to '' Extreme Prejudice'', as well as video rights to Carolco's upcoming pictures ''

Angel Heart ''Angel Heart'' is a 1987 American neo-noir psychological horror film, an adaptation of William Hjortsberg's 1978 novel ''Falling Angel''. The film was written and directed by Alan Parker, and stars Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet, an ...

'' and ''

Rambo III ''Rambo III'' is a 1988 American action film directed by Peter MacDonald and co-written by Sylvester Stallone, who also reprises his role as Vietnam War veteran John Rambo. A sequel to '' Rambo: First Blood Part II'' (1985), it is the third in ...

'', and decided into a package of three films that were produced by New Century Entertainment, which included ''

Russkies ''Russkies'' is a 1987 American comedy-drama film starring Whip Hubley and Leaf Phoenix, directed by Rick Rosenthal with cinematography by Reed Smoot. Plot A few nights before Independence Day, three 12-year old military brats (Danny, Adam, ...

'', '' Nowhere to Hide'' and ''Kid Gloves'', and picked up home video rights to an Australian feature, which was '' Coolangatta Gold'', and Guild picked up theatrical rights to ''

A Prayer for the Dying ''A Prayer for the Dying'' is a 1987 thriller film about a former IRA member trying to escape his past. The film was directed by Mike Hodges, and stars Mickey Rourke, Liam Neeson, Bob Hoskins, and Alan Bates. The film is based on the 1973 Jack ...

'', which was produced by

Decline

By the early 1990s, the home video industry was changing drastically as the video trade was being dominated more and more by the big studios. It was in this climate that GHV had its climax in major success. In 1988, they secured a distribution deal with Hollywood mini-major

, which resulted in them gaining exclusive UK video rights for big budget blockbuster movies such as '' Terminator 2: Judgment Day'', '' Total Recall'', ''

Cliffhanger A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode or a film of serialized fiction. A cliffhang ...

'', ''

'' and ''

Judge Dredd Judge Joseph Dredd is a fictional character created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. He first appeared in the second issue of ''2000 AD (comics), 2000 AD'' (1977), which is a British weekly anthology Comic book, comic. He is the ...

''. GHV merged 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 ...

in 1996, forming Guild Pathé Cinema Limited. Guild Pathe Cinema (1996)

Guild Home Video shut down all UK operations in 1998, when Guild Pathé Cinema, became Pathé Distribution. Guild also had rental distribution rights with

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

, operating as Fox Guild Home Entertainment and after the Pathé merger, Fox Pathé Home Entertainment. The company itself remained as an in-name only dormant business of Pathé until folding on 17 December 2019.

References

{{Authority control Home video distributors Video rental services Video production companies Mass media companies established in 1979 Film distributors of the United Kingdom Mass media companies disestablished in 1998 1979 establishments in the United Kingdom 1998 disestablishments in the United Kingdom

Origins

Growth

Decline

See also

References