ABSTRACT
Amid the ill-organised and crowded events of the 1930s when so much film history is being made it is not easy to isolate, still less to assess the careers of two men, both expatriates, who made a considerable impact on the film industry: Filippo del Giudice and Gabriel Pascal. Filippo del Giudice was for eight years Rank’s senior producer. An Italian lawyer and refugee from Fascism, he came to London from Rome in the mid-thirties and earned a living by giving Italian lessons. Gabriel Pascal, the Hungarian producer and director, embarked on a career no less erratic and less prolific of good works. In 1935 when British films could not claim much intellectual substance this was surely an achievement. Both Pascal and Filippo del Giudice had qualities the film industry needed, with large ideas and powers of organisation and a belief that great things could be done.
