Documentary News Letter (1940)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER APRIL 1940 The position is aggravated by the fact that first-class American shorts are often given away for nothing as makeweight for the programme. Both groups of short film producers agree on the need to put a stop to throw-away prices, and a memorandum has been submitted to the Films Council, set up under the chairmanship of Sir Frederick Whyte to advise the Board of Trade. This memorandum urges that cinemas shall be compelled by law to allot a minimum percentage of their gross takings to short and second feature films. The suggested percentage is 1 per cent per reel. Sell British A WHITE PAPER, Aims and Plan of Work of the Export Council, has just been published. The Council has been set up to co-ordinate and encourage British exports in co-operation with British industry. It seems that the new Export Council will be concerned not only with the technical and economic sides of export, but with methods of marketing. In the past, British salesmanship abroad has often been under-financed, sometimes lackadaisical and occasionally arrogant. Take it or leave it has been the unspoken comment of some British salesmen. In marketing abroad, films can play a very important part, not only in the encouragement of export but in carrying a British message all over the world. The Germans are ahead of us in this particular field. The films of the German Railway Bureau and the Die Trust, to mention only two groups, are spread over the world in many languages. To our knowledge only one major British industry has seriously tackled the question of films for overseas distribution in foreign languages ; it is to be hoped that the many British industries of international importance and with agencies all over the world will follow suit. Russian Celebration THE TWENTIETH anniversary of the Soviet film industry has just been celebrated by a cinema festival from February 10th to February 25th, and Serge Eisenstein contributes an article to Moscow News of February 19th, 1940. In spite of many rumours to the contrary, the old names appear to have taken their places alongside the new. Eisenstein briefly traces the history of the Russian movement and gives full praise to such films as Dovzhenko's Earth. This would appear to contradict the story that these old films have been under a cloud for some time and that the Russians are rather ashamed of them. Eisenstein rightly points to the need for Russia to articulate its present-day self; nevertheless the new films announced seem to harp as much as ever on achievements of the revolution and pre-Soviet Russia. For example, films in current production are Karl Mar.\\ Suvorov (a great Russian soldier of the eighteenth century), and Shaumyan (one of the 26 Commissars shot down at Baku in the Interventionist War). However, the Moscow and Tashkent News Reel Studios announce documentary productions. Some 30 films were shown at the festival, including We of Kronstadt, Soil Upturned, A Mighty Stream (documentary) and Lone White Sail. It is a matter for comment that the anti-Nazi film Professor Mamlock is not mentioned, though films of the same period receive recognition. The article enc up with a blurb: — "The Soviet Cinema continues to cheris and to further its basic distinguishing features: its prOfouD realism, optimism, exalted aspirations, its service in tt interests of the Soviet people." Reciprocity Wanted ff i\ THE G.p.o. FILM UNIT has taken an important step bridging the gap between the studio and the documenta; movement. David Macdonald, director of This Man is Ne\ and This Man in Paris, is to direct a film on lightships in wa time at the G.P.O., and everyone will wish him success. Tl G.P.O. has always pioneered, and it is good to find its inspir tion continuing. We can now hope that the studios will reciprw cate. It is time that a first-class British documentary direct< was given the financial and imaginative backing of a big cor mercial studio. The outlook of British studios in war would ; far appear to be very similar to that in peacetime: play sat and the more hokum the better. But The Stars Look Down an exception which promises well for the future. Break for the Newsreels IN THESE DAYS the ncwsrccls do not often get a break lil the march of the Graf Spec victors through London to tlftm Guildhall. G.B. News devoted almost their whole reel to tl| march, the decoration of the ofticers and ratings on tli Horse Guards Parade, and the banquet. Splendid camera Sf) ups, a sense of detail in covering the reactions of the crow i and first-class editing, gave us an item which will be loii remembered by everyone who sees it ; it had a dramatic sha)| not often seen in newsreels. The shooting of the mar through the seething crowds has rarely been better done ; t, editing, with its simple contrast of mass effect and significa) detail — the girl giving flowers to the embarrassed sailor, relatives of the men who were killed, the steel-hatted policerai struggling to hold back the crowd — lifted the whole job infc class of its own. Everyone, the organisers of the camera pcjl tions, cameramen, sound men, editors and last, but not lea the sailors and the crowds, deserve and should receive, praise for a splendid job. News Letters SINCE THE WAR no less than three News Letters dealing wi documentary films have appeared. The first was from t: United States, issued by the Association of School Fi Libraries. DNL started at the beginning of this year, a now we have a readable and informative News Letter pv lished by the National Film Society of Canada, of which t: .lanuary issue has just reached us. Exercise in Formal Logic TWO PARIS cinemas are running Only Angels Have Wings al The Lion Has Wings simultaneously. If only angels have win , and if the lion has wings, what is the lion? w