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scenario, or whether it be the day's " rushes" of the half-dozen productions which are actually on the floor. Again, in a world where competition is so keen, and rivalry friendly or unfriendly is so strong, he must be constantly on his guard, so that his output is not overshadowed by thai of others. He must aim all the while at thinking faster than his rivals.
No one realises more clearly than a producer that it is impossible to stand still, and in hib efforts to bring something new to the screen he will, within the limits of his vision, see to it that this something new contains the vitalising germ of artistic imagination, of fresh uses of the camera, of a finer and more subtle portrayal of human activities and emotions.
But his judge is ultimately the man in the street. If the work he has been at such pains to accomplish does not please the public he will have failed. It will be useless for him to point out that the productions under his control are supreme works of art. It will not help him to argue that every film for which he has been responsible has shown one step further in the development of the cinema. Let us face the fact frankly. The cinema is an industry as well as an art. The buildings in which the films are made are regulated by the Factory Acts. In them are employed hundred of skilled workmen of every trade. Their output, therefore, will be governed by the conditions that affect every industry. They must find a ready market. Furthermore, as a source of employment, the film industry is a national asset, and the greater its success, the greater its national value. It can only achieve that success by turning out films that will not only repay the money spent on their production, but will also show sufficiently large profits to enable the producer to embark on more ambitious and therefore larger staffed undertakings.
This is not a defence of inartistic productions, nor is it a concession to a low standard of taste. It is just a reminder than the making of films does not go on in the garrets of starvation, where the geniuses of so many arts have eked out their existence to find recognition only after their death.
Whatever the rights or wrongs of the question may be, it is a fact that the cinema is part of the everyday life of more people that have ever read a line of Shakespeare or have ever heard the name of Blake. On the lines of the old parallel that the strength of a chain is the strength of its weakest link the enlightenment, the intelligence, and the artistic merit of the cinema are bound up with the capacity of its vast public to appreciate those qualities. All this, too, the producer must bear in mind.
It is good for him to have his critics. It is stimulating for him to receive chastisement from the impatient pens of those who are already sufficiently mentally advanced and artistically inspired to point
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