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THE FILM SINCE THEN
The Blue Lagoon, a faded ' naughty ' romance much sought by schoolboys thirty years ago.
The war years and after have seen the British studios produce some really brilliant technicians, among them David Lean and Carol Reed. Settings, dressing, lighting, editing, sound, trickwork, music especially — all these have made the grade since the dim days when Rotha first wrote this book. A lot of technicians and other studio personnel in Britain must have worked very hard, and in very grim circumstances in those war years. Mr. Rank is said to have given comparative creative and technical freedom to some of the directors working in his many companies, perhaps especially to the group who were gathered round Filippo del Giudice when he was in charge at Two Cities Films, and to the various teams working under Independent Producers Ltd.1 The results, frankly, are disappointing. Not only have many of the films not justified their costs but they have not added anything notable to the real British cinema. If this is the full flowering result of creative freedom and unlimited money, perhaps there is something to be said for the discipline of strict producership ? Technical virtuosity is just not enough.
Only Sir Michael Balcon, head of production at Ealing Studios since 1938, appears to have followed a wise policy of making pictures within a budget which is recoverable
1 David Lean writes : ' J. Arthur Rank is often spoken of as an allembracing monopolist who must be watched lest he crush the creative talents of the British Film Industry. Let the facts speak for themselves, and I doubt if any other group of film-makers anywhere in the world can claim as much freedom. We of Independent Producers can make any subject we wish, with as much money as we think that subject should have spent on it. We can cast whatever actors we choose, and we have no interference at all in the way the film is made. No one sees the films until they are finished, and no cuts are made without the consent of the Director or Producer, and what's more, not one of us is bound by any form of contract. We are there because we want to be there. Such is the enviable position of British film-makers to-day, and such are the conditions which have at last given our films a style and nationality of their own/ {Penguin Film Review, No. 4, October, 1947.) In view of this agreeable position, it is rather difficult to understand why several of Mr. Rank's most accomplished writers and directors — Carol Reed, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Frank Launder and Sydney Gilliat — have recently decided to emigrate to Sir Alexander Korda's stable.
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