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18
DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER MARCH 1940
CORRESPONDENCE
DEAR SIR,
In hisarticleaboutfilms at the New York World's Fair, your contributor, Richard Griffith, does not seem to have been particularly well informed.
For instance, it might interest both him and your readers to know that at the British Pavilion Cinema, amongst many others, fifteen recent G.P.O. films were shown. These were :
Calendar of the Year How the Telephone Works Job in a Million Rainbow Dance Speaking from America What's on Today Night Mail
Big Money
The City
The Islanders
Men in Danger
Spare Time
Trade Tattoo
British Made
North Sea
Many of these were specially made for the Fair and the reports show that they were exceedingly well received there.
Thanking you for the publication of the present note, I remain.
Yours faithfully,
A. CAVALCANTI
G.P.O. Film Unit, 21 Soho Square, W.
DEAR SIRS,
May I, a journalist on the staff of the Newcastle Evening Chronicle, express my appreciation of your excellent paper.
I would like to suggest however that more space be occupied with reviews of story films, which are, after all, the chief attraction of the modern cinema. You show such detailed analysis of every film you criticise and thus provide such a definite guide when one 'shops' for one's films that it seems a pity to restrict yourselves to one or two films per month.
Again do you not think it would be a good idea to give short reviews of the films exhibited at the various film societies? I ask this because I have just paid my first visit to the Tyneside Film Society where they showed The Rich Bride, a Russian picture. I, having memories of that beautiful Earth, was sadly disappointed but would like to have known what was your opinion (you being now my criterion). Yours faithfully,
GEOFFREY C. BOCCA
Newcastle-on Tyne
[Editorial Note: Mr Bocca's suggestion regarding film society notes has already been adopted. The question of more reviews of feature films is largely a matter of space. We believe that our main job is to stick as closely as possible to documentary activities and problems; but we should be glad to hear what other readers think.]
FACT AND OPINION
SINCE 1936 the German National Educational Film Bureau has produced 600 substandard size films. 250,000 copies of these are available to universities and schools, which possess a total of 36,000 substandard projectors.
I
WE ARE EIGHT
In 1932 Hitler was not in power. In 1932 the documentary film was in its infancy.
In 1932 the first number of sight & sound was published . , ,
The latest issue — completing the eighth volume — is now on sale. Quite a few people have been good enough to tell us that it's well worth Sixpence.
published by
THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE
4 Great Russell Street WCl
News for the Tommies in France— news for you,
too: FROM FEBRUARY 18 ONWARD PROGRAMMES FOR THE FORCES WILL RUN FOR TWELVE HOURS— FROM 1 1 A.M. TO 1 1 P.M.
Which means, for home listeners, a twelve-hour stretch when programmes of a light, cheerful, melodious nature are guaranteed.
So, if you want to avoid high-browism, education and food for thought^ust tune your set to liAl m., and leave it there.
(JONAH BARRINGTON in the Daily Express) ***** Foreign newsreels with Swedish dialogue already recorded on them may no longer be imported into Sweden. This ban has been established by the Government owing to the continued importation of foreign propaganda films (presumably German) with tendentious Swedish commentaries.
*****
'"With an orchestra playing dimly in the background of a huge sound-proof stage, the recording featured a chorus of very high sopranos, together with a vibraphone, a metal percussion instrument similar in form to a zylophone, but containing motor-driven resonators for sustaining the tone and producing a vibrato effect. The microphone was placed in an open steel vault at one side of the \ stage."
(Paramounfs description of the recording of \ Dr Ernst Toclis music for "The Cat and the\ Canary".)
* * * # *
The University of San Antonio has established a library of sound films to serve the schools and colleges of Southern Texas and the needs of the University itself.
*****
The debate in the House of Lords on the nun discussed Unity Mitford item in British Paramount News produced, among other things, a vigorous defence of the freedom of the newsreel companies by Lord Dufferin. He said that if every time an abuse of freedom was committed they allowed that to be an opportunity for further Government control, further censorship, and further denial of liberty, then, he believed, they were going to erode, in a very few years, the whole rock of personal liberty in which he, as a Conservative, and everybody else in that House in their own idiom believed.
From Mass Observation comes a weekly newsletter, in pocket size, called, succinctly enough, US. The first issue contains "Belisha Backwash" and "Food in Wartime". For future issues M.O. studies of Haw-Haw, Holidays, and the Southwark By-election are promised. US costs 5^. a quarter or £1 a year, from 6 Grotes Buildings,' Blackheath, London, S.E.3.