George Pinches

George Pinches (b. 1921) was a British film executive who was head of booking cinemas for the Rank Organisation and as such was one of the most powerful people in the British film industry.

Historian Geoffrey MacNab called him "as an immensely powerful figure, known to pursue vendettas against various producers and also to be strangely reluctant sometimes to book hit movies that didn’t appeal to him." ^[1]

Pinches joined the Rank Organisation as a film booker in 1938 and became its booking controller in 1960. In 1967 Pinches became a director of the company. ^[2]

He was married to Ingrid Pitt ^[3] ; her affair with producer Peter Snell during the making of The Wicker Man has been invoked as a reason why that film was rejected by the Rank Organisation. ^[4] Pinches called Bad Timing , make by the Rank Organisation, "a sick film made by sick people for sick people" and the Rank logo was removed from it. ^[5] He rejected Raging Bull for Rank's cinemas because he found it "filthy, revolting and disgusting". ^[6] Not long after, he retired. ^[7]

References

1. Macnab, Geoffrey (2016). Delivering dreams : a century of British film distribution. I.B. Tauris. p. 18.
2. "The men at the top". Cheshire Observer. 9 April 1976. p. 46.
3. Vagg, Stephen (29 November 2025). "Not Quite Movie Stars: Ingrid Pitt". Filmink. Retrieved 29 November 2025.
4. Brown, Allan (2010). Inside The wicker man : how not to make a cult classic. Polygon. p. 99-100.
5. Kendrick, James. "Bad Timing". Qnetwork. Archived from the original on 21 November 2006.
6. "Knock out blow for disgusting film". Evening Standard. 13 January 1981. p. 4.
7. "Feeling the pinches". Evening Standard. 16 January 1981. p. 6.