Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

14 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER No. 2 1944 PATIENCE OR STRIP-POKER? The poor old British Film Industry is always facing some problem or another, and just now it's got enough to keep its united brainpans buzzing for a long time. Things aren't helped by the fact that it seldom manages to achieve unanimity either of thought or action — a fact which is particularly noticeable at the present time. On the other hand, the horizon is not entirely black. In the last war, the industry virtually passed out through malnutrition and was only revived in the twenties by some doubtful injections of Quota, which put the patient on his feet but also induced a severe attack of the quickies. This time, despite man-power problems, rising costs, blitz, and requisitioned studios full of canned goods and white collar workers, the production side has kept going, even if with a smallish output. No mean achievement, especially when you consider that in the late Thirties the whole trade was still in the process of climbing out of the mess into which the wicked fairies Boom and Speculation had hurled it. Moreover, even the conservatism of the movie business has been cracked open by the impact of war, and there are a lot of signs of fresher approaches to better subjects, and of the emergence of a truly national film style. All these hopeful signs only make the present problems more serious and the need to solve them all the more urgent. Opposing Factions The scene is rather like a powerful battle landscape of the old school, except that in addition to the thunder and lightning and rolling stormclouds of our old friend Nature there are a lot of confused explosions of maroons and squibs and smoke bombs produced by the advance guards of the opposing Film Factions. On the one side are the cohorts of Big Money and Big Production Values, formed up in vertically integrated groups (or ranks). Some of them are flying the tattered banners whose decoration is a crossed prudential. Others flaunt the Flour-de-Lys. Others again show a simple Stars and Stripes superimposed on the Union Jack. On the other side stand those whose motto is "Limited expenditure and recoup from the Home Market". A more motley collection, and less disciplined — but with the advantage of being less disposed to internecine conflict than their opponents. Their flags fly with equal bravery — here a banner with the device of a parish pump couchant on a yule log, there the pennant of St. Michael at All Angles .... And seated a little apart in a hastily dug trench, wearing tin helmets kindly supplied by the President of the Board of Trade, is a potential armistice commission consisting of the Squires Palache, Guedella, Plant and Citrine. The battle is incredibly confused. In the fitful flashes you are just as likely to see friend hitting friend a sharp crack from behind as you are to see foe taking foe into the NAAFI for a quiet get together about a temporary alliance. But sooner or later one side or the other must win. Costs and World Markets The trouble is of course that the issues keep on getting confused. Everyone is agreed that we need a truly national film industry, and need equally a share in the world's screen time. The methods of achieving this, however, are the source of the conflict. The danger of domination by United States interests is clear enough. But on the other hand you have big interests, associated especially with the names of Rank and Korda, who claim that we must make films costing from a quarter to half a million, and break into world markets on production values comparable with those of Hollywood. On the other hand are the smaller independent groups at Ealing and Elstree, who would limit expenditure to from fifty to a hundred thousand, in the expectation of gearing their economics to home cinemas, breaking into world markets on merit, as specifically British products, but not depending — at any rate for some time — on receipts from overseas. (The Big Money boys claim that the others won't have a chance to break in at all on this basis.) You take your choice. Here come Henry V and Caesar and Cleopatra, which between them may involve anything up to £1,000,000. Or you can have the modest cash value of San Demetrio London and Millions Like Us, which, at a guess, don't represent more than £180,000 between them. Ah, but don't forget In Which We Serve, which cost a quarter of a million and (so they say) made its money ; a first class film, truly British. The answer may well be that In Which We Serve was a production so exceptional as to prove the rule. Of course, there's always Colonel Blimp. And The Canterbury Tale and The Tawny Pipit are just around the corner. . . . Films of Merit For our part, we warm to the small money school. We like the intrinsic values to be found in Millions Like Us, an £80,000 film which trotted out of a surprising corner of the Rank stables, and in which Launder and Gilliatt put the ordinary men and women of this country on the screen with a sincerity and humanity which should command universal and not merely parochial success. We believe that given the chance (will it get it?) it should be widely successful in the United States. We like the patient honesty of San Demetrio, London. We like it all the more because we can see a straight line of development in the Balcon team at Ealing (and we do not forget the value of Cavalcanti and Watt in this respect) which has travelled from the uncertainties of Convoy and Contraband through The Foreman went to France and Nine Men to San Demetrio. Nor do we believe that there is no market for this type of film overseas. We agree with Balcon that there has never been any proof that, say,the U.S. public doesn't like this sort of film. The U.S. public at large has never had a chance to indicate its opinion. The Alternatives Of course it will need time and patience, and perhaps Government assistance of varying kinds, to achieve world markets on this scale. More co-ordination of effort among the smaller groups will be required. But what is the alternative? The enormous risk involved in over-capitalisation and over-expenditure in one of the world's most uncertain markets ; the development of monopolistic controls which, if successful, will put the British industry under the absolute control of one man, or group of men, to a degree which — however good their original intentions — cannot be healthy in a medium so powerful in its influence over men's minds. If unsuccessful, a deal with the U.S. interests on their own terms, or total collapse (as in 1937), with the necessity this time for the Government to step in and clear up the mess. For heaven's sake, if Government is to be practically interested (and we believe for reasons of national well-being it must be), let's have it come in at the constructive stage for once, rather than on the merely negative job of shoring up a brave new building which has unexpectedly become slum-property. Whichever choice is made, we still have a long way to go. There are plenty of shoddy ideas and shoddy films on both sides of the fence. But never forget a shoddy film can cost a large lump of money. You don't make bad material any stronger by coating it with platinum. It's a pity it's so difficult to get real unity in the film industry here. It shows signs of getting good, but it's growing up in a hard, hard world, and its economic fate is in danger of being tied up with other issues which have little to do with the real meaning and values of movie.