Mister Ten Per Cent

This was, I believe, the last film to be made by the old Associated British Picture Corporation before they were acquired by EMI. ABPC, like their rivals Rank, made films to be shown in their own cinemas. While Rank operated the Odeon chain of cinemas, ABPC for their part operated the ABC cinema chain, so in theory it should have been guaranteed a widespread release. In fact, it performed so appallingly badly when first shown that it was pulled from most ABC cinemas. I saw it at the New Coliseum, Whitley Bay, one of the few ABC cinemas to have actually shown it, although it was relegated to the bottom half of a double-bill with a revival of the Dam Busters, also made by ABPC but a much better film. Mr. Ten Per Cent, I thought was awful, not at all funny, so it's failure was hardly a surprise. By that time, ABPC had largely abandoned film making, however under EMI, Brian Forbes was installed at Elstree Studios to oversee a revival of film production there, but Mr. Ten Per Cent was the last gasp of the old regime.