Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

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DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER JANUARY AND FEBRUARY 1944 NEW DOCUMENTARY FILMS Two Good Fairies. Production: Norman Films. Direction: Germaine Burger. Camera: Jack Rose. Script: C. E. M. Joad. 17 mins. 'T'he Scottish C.W.S. is entitled to congratu*■ latory remarks for sponsoring a film about the Beveridge plan, but they must forgive us if we fail to get enthusiastic about the results. The story of the film concerns a soldier who dreams of what life will be like for him after the war with the Beveridge scheme in full operation. He is trained for a new job, gets married and rears a family, and at every stage of his life his friend "Bill" Beveridge pops up with a bountiful supply of money to help things along — marriage grants, maternity allowances, children's allowances, funeral grants and so on. Now this is all very well but it does no good service to Beveridge. To picture a post-war period in which a benevolent Government showers gifts on the people is precisely the approach any intelligent Tory would make for the purpose of discrediting Beveridge, and it is a matter of regret that the Scottish C.W.S. and Norman Films did not give far more thought to the propaganda approach to such an important subject. Neither is the film helped by its amateurish acting and bad casting or by an altogether too long and often unintelligible postscript in which the benefits of cooperative insurance are explained by someone sitting at a desk. (The Co-op is the second good fairy.) The fight of the people to get the full measure of the Beveridge Plan embodied in legislation is likely to be a hard and bitter one ; but there is no suggestion of this in the film. If the documentary film is to play its full and proper part in aiding and inspiring the people in their fight for social security, this "Manna from Heaven" approach evinced in the Two Good Fairies will have to be supplanted by some very clear objective thinking. The Co-operative Movement has in the past sponsored several really good documentary films and it is good that such an important and progressive movement should play a leading part in this field of propaganda for the post-war world. It is, therefore, with the friendliest of intentions that we suggest in future they devote more thought to the treatment of subjects. Power for the Highlands. Production: Rotha Productions. Direction: Jack Chambers. Photography: W. Suschitsky. Script: Roger McDougall. M.O.I. 15 mins. 'T'he difficulty in scripting a post-war subject is that you are even more influenced towards vagueness and caution than when handling a current topic. This film shows that such screen statements can be both broadly definite and controversial. Does this prelude a period of less timidity, or is it just that the Scots are considered mentally more tough than the English? A strong case is made for a post-war "T.V.A. Plan" by which the waters of the Highlands would be harnessed to provide Hydro-Electric Power for the development of industries, and thereby employment for the men now fighting. The argument is presented partly by commentary but most effectively by dialogue between a reactionary old estate keeper and Servicemen on leave, a prospecting engineer and two Yanks lost in a jeep. The keeper is too strong in screen personality for the others, which may be why his conversion to their way of thinking seems facile. Here is no character actor convincing you he's a good character actor, but a man who belongs to the hills and moors all around. Whether or not you credit his conversion doesn't matter: his dignity is not upset and he fixes the argument in your mind. The dialogue is good, though it seldom sounds spontaneous. The camera gets around from a shocking opening at Alamein to many interesting Highland scenes, and flies impressively over Tennessee. Neat continuity keeps the film coherent in spite of over-emphatic music. This lively picture will encourage all Scots who don't agree with the keeper. His kind will argue and maybe reconsider. Highland Doctor. Production: Paul Rotha Productions. Direction: Kay Mander. Photography: E. Catford. M.O.I. Non-T. 21 mins. IVTy father is at present Non-Theatrical. He •^-■-can't get the petrol to drive into the nearest theatrical town. Though he always goes to the M.O.I, shows in the village, his praise is reserved: not solely on account of the defects of 16 mm. prints. He'd say about this film: it's all right if you like Highland scenery. The director, remembering the trouble taken to establish two characters — a doctor and a specialist — might well protest. Father, thinking that perhaps he dozed a bit and not liking to admit so deadly a reflection on a visually lovely and well made film, might not maintain his point. But the truth is that screen characters which become disembodied voices tend to lose all character and become awkwardly conventional stooges. It may well be that lack of finance forced a treatment which entails mainly mute shooting. In that case, straightforward commentary would have allowed greater visual freedom and avoided that awkward flashback transition. The ghost voice treatment, though it probably dates back beyond the Preston Sturges narratage of ten years ago (Power and Glory) has never seemed good to me, except as a brief, pointed sequence transition. The script of this film is lucid, the direction precise, lovely exterior photography conveying very well the geographical nature of the Highlands and islands where so much progress in medical services has been made during 30 years, but — to paraphrase — much remains to be done. All this is nice, despite the worried music, but it leaves you cold. The facts remain on the track. You take away only slight, pleasant impressions of distances and a plane on the shore. Europe's Crossroads. March of Time. No. 6. 9th year. IVfR. Jean pages, who made that sensational ^*March of Time about Franco Spain has since visited Portugal with cameraman Marcel Rebiere, and while Europe's Crossroads has not the same quality of terrifying analysis as the Spanish film, it is still a first-rate job of reporting. Portugal is a country under dictatorship, political and religious — the Roman Catholic Church seems to own and run the country completely. As in most priest-ridden countries, the standard of living, especially among the peasants, is deplorably low. Dictator Salazar talks a lot (Continued on page 8) WORLD WIDE PICTURES LTD Producers of Documentary Films for: THE WAR OFFICE BRITISH COUNCIL MINISTRY OF INFORMATION Etc, Etc, JAMES CARR Managing Director RALPII BOND Producer 52 SHAFTESBURY AVENUE, W.l GERRARD 1736/7