Rank deserved a biography - this is actually the second but the first came out in 1952 when the mogul was still very much alive. Death allows freedom and a bit of perspective and Wakefield does a good job - its not a classic biography but its solid, thorough work. Its main problem is that Rank wasn't that interesting. The concept of him is - Methodist flour miller, one of the richest men in England via inheritance, who went into movie making to spread the word of God and wound up dominating the British film trade. But in full length form he's actually not that compelling - devoted family man, fond of a joke and shooting, principled, teetotal chain smoker, feudal in his manner, regular Sunday School teacher, a proud Yorkshireman who never lived there, extremely hard working.
I always got the feeling he was into cinemas because it was a way to differentiate himself from his father (rich men's sons often have a point to prove) but he never really loved movies the way he did God, or flour - so his involvement with the creative side of things was a bit limited, which I guess is where this fell short. I did find a lot of the stuff about his adventures with the Methodist church interesting ditto the details of his daily routine - but the flour industry stuff not so much. The people around Rank e.g. Pascal, John Davis, are a bit more interesting and colourful.
Wakefield was partly motivated to write this to rehabilitate Rank's reputation (which shouldn't have been as bad as it was anyway) - he certainly succeeds. It's a very good book, just not a top rank one, if you'll excuse the pun.
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