British Lion Films

British Lion Films is a film production and distribution company active under several forms since 1919. Originally known as British Lion Film Corporation Ltd, it went into receivership of 1 June 1954. From 29 January 1955 to 1976 the company was known as British Lion Films Ltd, and was a pure distribution company with a filmography of 232 films. As a production company they are still active and have produced over 170 films.

British Lion was founded in November 1927 by Sam .W. Smith (brother of Herbert Smith). By the end of World War II, the company had released over 55 films, including In Which We Serve, for which writer/producer Noël Coward received an Academy Award. It is best known for the period when it was managed by Sir Alexander Korda. Korda's company London Films bought the controlling interest in British Lion in 1946 and then acquired Shepperton Studios, basing its productions there. In 1949, due to financial problems, they accepted a loan from the National Film Finance Corporation. Not being able to pay it back, the company went into receivership in 1955. As a result British Lion Films Ltd. was formed as a distribution company in January 1955, with the Boulting brothers, Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat as directors. Until 1976 their distributor filmography included 155 films.

British Lions

British Lion(s) may refer to:

British Lion (album)

British Lion is the debut solo album from Steve Harris, best known as the bassist and primary songwriter for the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden. The album was announced on 18 July 2012 and released on 24 September.

Background

Following the initial announcement of the album's release in July 2012, Classic Rock revealed that the project originated with a band, named British Lion, which Harris had been mentoring in the early 1990s. Harris confirmed this during an interview with Classic Rock the following month, explaining that he became involved after "Graham Leslie [guitar] came to me with a cassette of songs... and I thought they were really good, so I said I’d try to help his band do something. I ended up managing them and producing them and writing with them." After the original band split up, he "kept in touch with Richie [Taylor, vocals] and Graham, and then Richie was working with another guitarist called David Hawkins, who's a really talented guy, and so we started writing songs together." After several years of work, due to Harris being occupied with Iron Maiden, the album ultimately consists of "six songs written with Richie and David, there's one with just me and Richie, and the others are me, Richie, Graham and a couple of other guys that were around at the time." In an interview published by Kerrang! in September, Harris said that he considers British Lion "more of a side-project" than a solo record.