Born in London on 18 October 1911, Frederick Maurice Speed began a lifelong devotion to filmgoing in the small cinemas around Hammersmith.
Speed's second innovative concept was based on his conviction that "What the ordinary moviegoer lacks is a more or less complete annual record, in picture and story, of his year's filmgoing.
As time went on, Speed gathered together more and more outside contributors, among them Peter Noble, William K. Everson, Oswell Blakeston, Peter Cowie, Anthony Slide, Ivan Butler and Gordon Gow, as well as soliciting special articles by such film industry figures as James Mason, Michael Balcon, Cecil B.
In 1987 Speed, by then in his seventies, took on co-editor James Cameron-Wilson, who would eventually graduate to editing the book on his own before handing over to Michael Darvell and Mansel Stimpson in 2007.
After the 70th edition appeared on 2 November 2015, the annual made the move to digital the following month, relaunching as the website Film Review Daily.
His first book, Movie Cavalcade: The Story of the Cinema – Its Stars, Studios and Producers, was published in 1943 and boasted a foreword by Bob Hope.