Documentary News Letter (1940)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER MARCH 1940 island and we are shown a little of its present way 3f life under a naval dictatorship. Previously we lave broken our twenty minutes' journey across iie world to consider Philippine independence, vhich is relevant to the story. In conclusion we ire told that all the facts add up to prove \merica's determination to keep war out of the IVestern hemisphere. This lightning survey is tough going. American ludiences will doubtless find the problems more ^^miliar than they are in Europe, but even when he principle is accepted of telling more than can je assimilated rather than less, there still remains I limit beyond which the description of interjational affairs may drive the man-in-the-street ;o give up in despair before the complexities and »ntradictions. The solution would seem to be to ell more of the story by picture and less by comnentary. Less ground will be covered more ilowly, but it will be covered more surely. The itmosphere and mood of a country and the iharacter and problems of its people are comnunicated with better and more permanent effect )y picture and dialogue than by an abstract voice. Ve need not look beyond March of Time for the >roof of it. Can we please have more items like 'Uncle Sam — Farmer"? •.F.B. (Petroleum Films Bureau) Cinemagazines. "reduction : Elton and Baylis. Distiihution: "Jon-theatrical, available on 35 mm. and 16 mm. iverage running lime: 7 to 10 mins. HIS SERIES of one-reelers, of which Number 4 5 just released, represents an important innovaion in industrial public relations on an interlational scale. An issue normally contains three eparate items each dealing with the function of ome single cog in the complex machine of lodem hfe. Number Three contains a descripion of the operation of the airport on Lake Lisumu, and a beautifully photographed decription of the Mauretania leaving dock for her rials. Finally it shows Mr Teddam making a cartwheel while he comments on his ancient craft dth the assurance of Sacha Guitry and the ative simplicity of Walt Whitman ; a miniature lasterpiece of photography and editing by Peter laylis. Number Four shows how the Australian "'^^ lush is cleared, the use of "Propagas" for weldig, and the moving of a railway bridge overight between trains. The references to the wide■ _ sread use of oil and oil products are always imlicit and never underlined. Usually one of the iree items in each release contains no oil referice whatsoever. The films provide an essential mtrast in a non-theatrical programme of weightier propaganda and help to create the best ackground for all good public relations by idustry — a perspective of the inter-relationship the modem world of industry and commerce. Technically the P.F.B. Cinemagazines are unrpassed in any field. Jobs are never disiated from the people who do them, and alism is achieved by ingenious adaptation of iOtographic style to subject matter and a first ^('^ Jte use of sound. Commentary is used sparingly, ^1*'' nd never distracts one's attention from the >' Teen image. Foreign versions are available '^ /erseas in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and P\ Utch ; other languages will probably follow. STORY FILM OF THE MONTH THE STARS LOOK DOWN By a Film Critic WHEN MAX SHACH bought Dr Cronui's Stars Look Down some years back, he announced that Karl Grune (publicised as the director of Kameradschaft, by the way), would direct. Our hearts sank. They were raised again last year when the rights were transferred and Carol Reed slated as director. During production we learnt that the model-makers were closely studying the fine studio-work of Metzner's pit interiors in Kameradschaft. Perhaps it was this gossip which first suggested that the film would be mainly about a mine disaster. When a film departs from the novel from which it is taken, usually it is to the good. But The Stars Look Down film not only departs from but ignores wholly this book's theme. The book had three parts : except for the love story, the film uses only the first. This is merely the bare setting of the stage for a drama that the film never reaches. You may not like Dr Cronin's work, but you caimot ignore his theme of conflict between vested interests and common labour. The important passages of the book (excluding the pit disaster) were the mine-owner's hearing of his son before the conscientious-objector's tribunal, the burning of the Neptune pit despite Arthur Barrass' progressive attempts to improve conditions, the "Tynecastle" election which sent Fenwick to Westminster, his realisation that a lone M.P. can do nothing without his party's support and assent, the betrayal of the miners' interests by the Labour Government, and the second election when Joe, the profiteer, beats Fenwick to it. None of these is in the film. Nor does it try to span the passage of time — pre-war, war, and post-war, so essential to the story. Fenwick in the book ends by going back to the pit realising the subtlety with which members of His Majesty's Opposition have their teeth drawn ; Fenwick in the film ends by starting out into the world to put wrong right : he just catches the 10.15 "up" train to nowhere in particular — an idealist, a crank, a daffy without even the equipment with which Mr Smith went to Washington. Therein lies the impotence of this film. Not only does it imply — not state, note — imply that Unionism is a negative, often harmful, thing, but it makes the hero prompted by motives which are those of an "intellectual" dreamer, a man bom out of his class. (Remember a similar treatment of the young Socialist in the South Riding film ; a cough-wracked consumptive, therefore forgiven his "odd" views.) There is no effort to develop Fenwick's character. Young Barrass appears scarcely at all. Nor, to anyone familiar with the Northumberland coal fields, does the film get anywhere near the real people. Apart from the brilliance of Emlyn Williams's Joe (not a typical working class character, note) these people are people of the studios. We see nothing of authentic "Tynecastle" life, so well described by Cronin. Reference again to the book reveals that seldom has there been such a guide for detail to a director. Most of it is ignored. Maybe this failure to get to grips with the thing is summarised by the fact that the only authentic shots of coalmining— except for a few pithead scenes — are stock material bought, we suggest, from Jack Holmes's G.B.L film The Mine. We would have liked to welcome this as the great film its distributors claim, and to have seen it as the big job which one day Carol Reed will do. So let's be fair. He has directed a well-made film centred round a colliery village in the Newcastle field, a film in which he has honestly tried to portray mining life. He has a first-class opening sequence, a good scene when young Fenwick pleads for the nationalisation of the coal industry.. . and a terrifying flood disaster in the mine. He has, a rare virtue in British films, the support of some excellent small-part playing. The sets are mostly admirable and the photography of high quality. But he has no more than this; except our thanks that the film was made at all. By a Coal Owner I HAVE NOT read the novel of The Stars Look Down, but I hope, for Dr Cronin's sake, it is more convincing than the film. For this is a film that lacks almost completely any feeling of reality. There is some clever direction, and some interesting camera angles, but the whole thing is studio from beginning to end. The scenes at the mine itself, and the disaster of the flooding of Scupperhole, inevitably recall Kameradschaft. And how weak this film looks in comparison. The emotional tension in Kameradschaft was almost unbearable and the horror wholly convincing ; how vividly I remember the old grandfather watching over his grandson, the frightened eyes of the pit ponies, the frantic tapping on the pipes. But the entombed scenes in The Stars Look Down have in them nothing memorable : the young lad, the religious fanatic, the footballer — they all just missed being real people. The coal-owner in the film is an astonishing travesty — a ridiculous figure straight from melodrama. He stalks about the pit with a sneer on his face, pretends for some odd reason that he has lost the plans of the old workings, and seems to be passionately anxious to have his mine flooded. What is the point of all this? If the film is supposed to be propaganda against the owners, this utterly unreal figure is not going to help. The whole business of the lost plans baffled me ; and I never understood why the owner appeared at the last minute with the plans and promptly lost both them and his own life. The best thing in the film is the acting of Emlyn Williams ; he runs away with every scene in which he appears. The domestic affairs of Mr Redgrave and Miss Lockwood occupied far too much of the film and I found them tedious. By a Durham coal miner THIS FILM of the life of the mining community, in its general setting, is an example of that which can be witnessed in many parts of the British coal field ; in its particular it shows the danger to