Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

38 DOCUMENTARY FILM NEWS NOTES OF THE MONTH The New Films Agreement talks taking place between the Board of Trade and leading Hollywood representatives over the future of American films in Britain ended at the beginning of March in a compromise. Briefly, this agreement, covering a period of four years, guarantees Hollywood a minimum annual remittance of 17 million dollars, plus a sum equivalent to the amount earned by British films in America. The money earned by Hollywood films over and above this total, which will probably be some 10-12 million pounds judging from past figures, will remain in this country, and its use will be regulated by a Joint Committee of the British Government and the Motion Picture Association of America. Up to two and a half million pounds may be invested, in the first two years, in approved commercial or industrial undertakings, and a further sum may be used in encouraging the arts, but the greater part of this surplus will be directed into the British film industry itself, for financing the improvement of studios, the purchase of story rights, the production of films, and so on. In return for this agreement the Government has withdrawn the 75 per cent import tax on American films. Under this agreement the actual dollars which Hollywood will be taking out of this country will be only a little more than was envisaged under the import tax, and there is some incentive to Hollywood to promote the showing of British films in America, since they will be able to take out extra money accordingly. On the other hand, Hollywood will be assured of at least four or five million a year, regardless of the quality of the films they send us, and however the distribution of British films increases in the USA they cannot earn dollars, as Hollywood remittances will merely increase correspondingly. Financially speaking, therefore, the agreement is fairly well-balanced, but the section relating to the investment, mainly in the film industry, of the balance remaining in this country is not so attractive. While Hollywood will not be able to buy up British cinemas, at least not without the permission of the Board of Trade, it will be able to dominate production to an extent not possible in the past. The British film industry stands in urgent need of capital to finance production, but if this capital is to be drawn from American sources, there is a danger that it may mean the production in Britain of a large number of imitation Hollywood-type films, which could only lower the prestige of our technicians; and it may lead, too, to an even worse shortage of facilities available to the independent British producer. On balance, therefore, one can only view the whole agreement with the greatest concern. The main interests in the British film industry gave the Government no real support in its negotiations with Hollywood, and no effective evidence of the promised increase in production, while the Secretary of the CEA in an article in the Kinematograph Weekly after the conclusion of the agreement complacently congratulated himself and his members on their success in getting the tax removed. The situation will not improve unless the industry itself shows a greater willingness in future to assist in stabilizing the national economy. Hamburg Film Society the Hamburg film society had its first showing on February 16th. The programme included Helmut Kautner's film Unter die Brucke, banned by the Nazis during the war, and Song of Ceylon. The Society is under the joint presidency of the Regional Commissioner and the Burgomeister, and is managed by a British and German committee. Membership of the Society is limited to 1,000 persons, of whom not more than 300 may be British. The aims of the Society are as follows : (0 The display, to a selected public, of feature and documentar, films of outstanding artistic or historical merit, and in particu lar of such films made before 1933 in Germany and abroad and after 1933 abroad. The rapprochement of the film industry and the public, (hi) The exchange of ideas between members of the German film industry and the British. (ii) Young People's Film Club it is proposed to form a Film Club for London schoolchildren— mainly from secondary and public schools. The idea is to encourage a critical appreciation and under standing for good films — educational, instructional and entertainment films of all nations. The shows will in some cases be centred round topics (Life at Sea, Animal Behaviour, Planning of Cities past and present, etc., etc.). Short talks given by experts, will often introduce the films, and discussion will be encouraged. Good music, related to the films, will be played by the children in the interval. Seven shows are planned at intervals of three to four weeks on Friday evenings. A subscription of 10s. is suggested for the season. Headmasters of all secondary and public schools in the London area have been written to with a view to finding out how they feel about the idea and how many of their staff would wish to cooperate. Twenty-nine Years H. bruce woolfe started life in the film industry 29 years ago when he founded British Instructional Films. Since then he has had more than a thousand films to his credit. On Wednesday, March 17th, he retired from the Chairmanship of the Association of Specialized Film Producers and that body gave a luncheon in his honour. DFN would like to add to that tribute in these columns and, on behalf of its readers and its Editorial Board, to congratulate Mr Bruce Woolfe on his long and outstanding service to the film industry. We hope that his name will continue to be connected with the trade for many years to come. Shorts the Minister of Education has appointed the following to be Governors of the Educational Foundation for Visual Aids : Sir Rolande Wall, MC (chairman), Dr W. P. Alexander, Mr J. Beddington. CBE, Sir Ifan ab Owen Edwards, Sir Henry French, GBE, KOB. Mr W. Griffith, Mr F. A. Hoare, Mr H. D. Hughes, MP, Mr S. H. Marshall, MP. Mr G. G. Williams, CB, deputy secretary to the Ministry of Education, will act as assessor to the Governors. Glasgow has, by a majority of one vote, recommended the finance committee of its Corporation to investigate the question of civic cinemas. It is good to see advantage taken so quickly of the amendment to the Local Government Bill. They hope to concentrate on the cultural aspect of film shows and not to attempt to compete with the usual form of entertainment cinema. the BFPA is allocating ten Film Fellowships among the studios — nine students will come from European countries and one from China. Shell Petroleum are also giving two. This is in agreement with the UNESCO proposals.