Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

DOCUMENTARY film 1IVUS VOL. 7 NO. 64 APRIL 1948 EDITORIAL BOARD STEPHEN ACKROYD DONALD ALEXANDER MAX ANDERSON EDGAR ANSTEY GEOFFREY BELL KEN CAMERON PAUL FLETCHER SINCLAIR ROAD GRAHAME THARP BASIL WRIGHT EDITOR DAVIDE BOULTING SALES & ACCOUNTS PEGGY HUGHES Cover design by JAMES boswell CONTEXTS Editorial Notes of the Month Art and the People Sinclair Road Sixpence on the Rates? \ New Documentary Films. . This Modern Age Films and the National Coal Board A Musician's Approach to the Documentary Film William Alwyn Ross McLean Alan Field Why Scientific Film Societies? James W. Oswald Correspondence { 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 44 45 46 47 48 Published every month by Film Onirp :t I Soho Sc|. London Wl ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION 12 5. SINGLE COPIES \ S. WHICH HUNT? rr may be too niucli at this stage to hope to find unanimity in the bewildered, muddled, dollarpounded, scatter-brained, boomslumped and junglebooked collection of human oddities which make up the film trade. But anyone who has kept an eye on the far-toosuccessful idiocies of the Committee on un-American activities might well feel that now. and not later, is the time for the Hritish film industry to think very carefully about the implications of the current purge of Communists instituted by the Labour Government. I)f S does not play party politics, and we are quite prepared to believe or disbelieve, in the danger of having party members within certain areas of the Civil Service; but there is, on any and every count, something nasty about the secrecy, the lack of public judgment and right of appeal, which enshrouds the measures announced by Mr Attlee. Both on general grounds of the wellbeing of the State, and because there are not a few film-workers who are in the direct employ of the Government (and there'd be lots more if ACT had its way and nationalized us), all people in the Trade should ponder carefully the long-term implications of the purge. Will it turn into a witch-hunt? And if so, which witch hunt? Against traitors, or against 'progressives'? These questions are of especial importance to all members of the documentary film movement and their 'fellow-travellers' (teachers etc), because the documentary movement has been, and will continue to be closely identified with progressive thought and action, both on the national and the international front. Documentary has never accepted any political labels, and has never identified itself with any political party. This has not prevented it from being accused from time to time of being pillarbox red, or, on the other hand, of being the lackey of big business and monopoly capital. It has survived both accusations because both are false. But the implications of the present anti-Communist panic — and they are possible implications, and no more than that are somewhat disturbing. It is certainly alarming to read in a Times leader (approving the purge)acondemnation of Communism on the grounds that it is 'an international creed, dedicated to a crusade that overrides patriotism'. Shades of Nurse Cavell! Poor Sir John Boyd Orr' Poor Julian Huxley! Miserable Trygve Lie! And thrice, thrice miscrabledocumentar> film maker' The Times leader continues, 'the faithful and their camp followers cannot fairly expect to be trusted in positions of responsibility bj the unbelievers who are in an overwhelming majoritj and who retain an impenitent, bourgeois preference for putting the count!) first*. Well now. we can all understand what the poor feader writer was trying to saj in this particulai text, and without the guiding hand of an editor like Harrington Ward; but that does not alter the fact that a Times leader writer should so allow himself to be panicked as to express, m an) context whatsoever, so unfortunate a sentiment, a sentiment which, if acted on. would make it wise for most documentary workers to hand themselves over to their old colleague Detective Inspector ( ain without more ado. We do not in fact SUggesI that the situation is serious yel We do not in fact support cither the Russian or the \mencan thesis Hut we ^\o ask the film industry, and documentary in particular, to he extremely vigilanl lesl the creative and social urge tend to he engulfed in an undiscrimmating political panic I hiis. having ourselves looked under the bed for a moment, we beg others not to <\^ it for too long; too protracted a SCTUtin) ma) re\eal somethin unpleasant; cracked, and without a handle