Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER 105 FILM SOCIETIES The London Scientific Film Society has had great difficulty in finding suitable premises. The first performance will be given on Sunday, December j 9th, at 2.45 at the Scala Theatre, Charlotte Street, W.l. The Cane Town Film Society (Secretary: Mrs. ; G. K. Agnew, P.O. Box 3218, Cape Town) held its first performance on Wednesday, August 29th. The programme consisted of Teeth of Steel, Behind the Screen (Chaplin), Night Mail and Prelude to War. By the time the second performance was held towards the end of September, the Society was already turning members away because all available seating accommodation was booked. The objects of the Society are to further interest in the film as a social, artistic and historical medium, to further film appreciation, and to undertake any other related activities. The Dundee Film Society (Secretary: G. A Kinnear, 3 King's Road, Dundee) opened its eleventh season on Sunday, October 14th. The programme consisted of Song of Ceylon and Le Bonheur. The Northern Counties Children's Cinema Council opened its seventh series of "Films for Educationists" at the News Theatre, Pilgrim Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne on Saturday, October 13th. The programme was drawn mainly from the Central Film Library. Five further programmes in this series are planned. Another series, known as "Films for the Classroom", was launched on Friday, October 5th, with a programme of geography films. The secretary is Mr. F. R. Griffin, 138 Holystone Crescent, Newcastle upon Tyne 7. The Workers' Film Association ran a Film School at Cliftonville at the end of September. Speakers included Sidney Bernstein, Basil Dearden, Arthur Elton, Ernest Meyer, Geoffrey Bell, Mary Field, and Frank Sainsbury. The Leicester City Libraries have arranged a "Programme of Film-Lectures" in the Southfields Library. Seven sessions are planned on "The Face of Britain", "Pacific War", "Other People's Jobs", "Spotlight on Education", "G.P.O.", "Canadian North" and "Building and Planning". Each programme will be accompanied by a speaker, and an excellent reading list has been issued. The Leigh, Atherton and Tyldesley Districts Film Society (Secretary: J. C. Fletcher, Hindles Cottage, Atherton) had its first performance on October 3rd. The principal film was Spring Song, "a Russian musical film free from all politics, history and propaganda". Other programmes will include The Italian Straw Hat, The Blue Angel, Of Mice and Men and The Ghost Goes West. On November 14th there will be a session billed as "The Amateurs' Contribution to Screen Art". Mr. G. H. Higginson will screen a programme of his own films. This seems a move other film societies might well follow. The Scientific Film Association has started to issue a Scientific Film Societies' News Letter to its 20 member societies. It contains notes of new films and similar information, much of it of interest to all societies, since so many of the films listed are suitable for popular use. The joint film catalogue activities of The Scientific Film Association and The Royal Society of Medicine have brought to light a good copy of Pukovkin's The Mechanism of the Brain, a study of Pavlov's theories. The film was produced in 1925 and shown at the R.S.M. and the Film Society. The copy then disappeared, and has only just been found in a miscellaneous collection of films forwarded for examination by the Physiological Institute of University College. The print has been handed to the National Film Library. Copenhagen Filmkresen (Film Circle) had its first performance on Sunday, November 28th. Arthur Elton gave an address, and the programme consisted of These Are the Men, Listen to Britain and World of Plenty. Five more programmes are planned. The New London Film Society which takes the place of the now defunct ' 'London Film Institute Film Society", opens a "Festival of Great Films, 1895-1945" with a performance of the original version of Birth of a Nation (1915) at the Scala Theatre on Sunday, December 2nd, at 3 p.m. There will be twelve programmes in all, and many of the films will be drawn from the collection in The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The council consists of Rodney Acland, Anthony Asquith, Michael Balcon, Cavalcanti, Dilys Powell and Olwen Vaughan. Applications for membership should be made to Miss Olwen Vaughan, 4 St. James's Place, S.W.I. BOOK REVIEW Film and the Future, by Andrew Buchanan. (Allen & Unwin. 6s.) Mr. Buchanan seeks to find out whether the film exerts the right or wrong kind of influence for the world today. Most people will join him in his quest with sympathy and interest, but they will also find his forced witticisms and personal references rather trying. The good intentions are there, and the desire to make good national films which are of real international value. But we could have done with less forced brightness. Finally, one quotation might give some idea of Mr. Buchanan's approach: "If the screen is our canvas, religion is the only power which can inspire us to paint upon it the type of films mankind is needing. Humanity is not asking for such films, because as a result of materialistic propaganda much of the world has become inarticulate, immunised against truth". Grass and Clover Seed Production Flax Storing Vegetables Indoors Storing Vegetables Outdoors More Eggs from Your Hens Keeping Rabbits for Extra Meat Feeding Your Hens in Wartime Garden Tools Saving Your Own Seeds Winter Work in the Garden Simple Fruit Pruning New Crop Modern Pruning for Commercial Apple Orchards All these films had been completed well before May, 1945, which is the date of this catalogue. If the Committee considers none of these films suitable for inclusion, they are unfitted to do their work, and a list which omits such films is obviously not worth publication. Yours faithfully, Brian Smith CORRESPONDENCE a. sc.w. graded list Dear Sir, When at last the long-heralded and eagerly anticipated flood of substandard film apparatus and supplies of educational films actually arrives, it will be essential that one or more disinterested bodies undertake an efficient catalogue of the films available. Up till now The British Film Institute has, from time to time, published a fairly comprehensive catalogue of scientific films; but the B.F.I, is not the most obviously suitable body to undertake this work, and in any case their catalogues do not attempt any assessment of merit, which is really a necessity for the ordinary catalogue user. Now, the Scientific Films Committee of the Association of Scientific Workers have published a "Graded List of Scientific Films" which claims to be "a comprehensive record of the best of such films". At first sight the A.Sc.W. would seem to be the ideal body to undertake this work and their system of grading seems very sensible — three classifications: General, Specialist and Teaching, and three grades: recommended, suitable, and not recommended. But when the catalogue is examined in detail it is found to contain a host of inaccuracies — wrong titles, mis-spellings, inaccurate crossreferences, etc. Moreover, there doesn't seem much point in listing films which are described as "withdrawn" or "not available", particularly when the same film may be described under one subject-heading as available and under another as withdrawn (e.g., Five Faces, available under "Anthropology", withdrawn under "Sociology".) As regards the gradings awarded in the catalogue, such things are, of course, very much a matter of personal opinion, but many of them do certainly appear on the face of it most extraordinary. For example, under "Sociology", The City, The Face of Britain and A Child went Forth are all graded higher than Land without Bread and Housing Problems, while The Nose has it is considered better "Light Relief" than How to Sleep. What is more serious, however, is the whole host of films which find no mention in the catalogue at all. We must assume that they have been relegated to Grade 3, "not recommended for any audience type". To take one single heading only, "Agriculture and Horticulture", it would be interesting to hear the Committee's reasons for excluding from a list, which includes such films as Pests of 1938 (withdrawn) and Cheese for Choice (withdrawn), the following films from one source only: — Kill that Rat The Rabbit Pest Ditching Hedging Food from Straw A Way to Plough Clamping Potatoes Growing Good Potatoes Clean Milk Fuel and the Tractor Welding Helps the Farmer Cereal Seed Disinfection Vegetable Seed Growing Stooking and Stacking Making Good Hay Retseedim; for Better Grass Potato Blight (Continued at foot of col. 2)