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369
THE NEW BELGIAN WEEKLY
La Cmegraphie beige must be singularly useful to all those concerned with the practical side of cinematography, and particularly to those who share the interests and the problems of the manager of cinemas and the hirer of films, and desire, therefore, an anthological survey of current happenings and possibilities. In the number that has just come in, there are several useful and interesting features.
Amongst them is a report of the findings of a Brussels newspaper, whose editor recently conceived the idea of asking aU the cinema-managers in the town to state their opinions of the causes of the threatened crisis in film exploitation. The responses were of course various and contradictory, but all are agreed on four main points : taxation, which can amount to 60 % of the takings ; the difficulty, in a period of crisis, of paying off the cost of sonorisation plus the running costs which are now much higher than in the past ; the interdictions of the Board of Control, reducing takings by 40 % ; finally, the disastrous multiplication of haUs. It is indicated that although the cinema has now become, for everyone, a necessary superfluity and has therefore remained relatively-untouched by the crisis, the town cannot supply, nightly, the 368,200 persons required to fill the now available seats, and that only the disappearance of 100 of the halls at present in use can restore equilibrium. The reduction in prices just now being practised by certain managers in the hope of attracting visitors, is said to be an illusory remedy.
The relatively small Belgian capital, where fruitful enquiries and illuminating experiments can so conveniently be made, has doubtless provided a picture of the state of affairs existing in all the European capitals to-day.
The film criticisms are admirable for their quiet, inclusive commentary : " A careful, well-made film," one reads, " sympathetic and agreeable ; or, " An unpretentious film, charming by reason of — ", and so forth. Mediocrity, so strangely almost everywhere else a term of abuse, is here honestly presented side by side with its divergent neighbours.
In this charming periodical, weU supplied with stills, there is not a single superfluous word and to read it through is to acquire, most pleasantly owing to the impeccable typography and lay-out, a knowledge of all the leading events in filmdom, present and to come.