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The Kinematograph Year Book.
But the need for a planned course of action is recognised, and has led to the proposal for the formation within the C.E.A. General Council of a Planning Committee. When this suggestion was first put forth the immediate attention it aroused quickly proved that the trade as a whole was alert and ready to take up the idea. However, the question of a practical job into which the committee could get its teeth was a stumbling block, for good as was the welcome for the abstract idea, the discussions which were held in branches throughout the country failed almost completely to suggest definite employment for it. The majority of people, in short, were willing enough to bless it, but found it easier and safer to defer the duty of getting down to work on it.
In this, the Trade has only been following the attitude of the country's general commercial activities, as far as they have been declared. But it is known that in many branches of the business world a great deal of unadvertised research and planning have been going on, and one might well expect the kinematograph industry to have a feeling of growing urgency to tackle the problem.
A LTHOUGH the much discussed Planning Committee carried with * it the doom of the pigeon-hole, there was eventually revealed a strong and influential move by one who has now established himself as the biggest personality in the business — J. Arthur Rank. Mr. Rank, with a dominating position in the exhibition and studio worlds, and carrying very considerable weight in distribution, has developed his understanding of the screen's value in cultural and patriotic as well as commercial fields. For years he has studied it from the angles of education and religion.
We have come to look upon him as one of the big characters, a man whose horizon is not limited by petty ideas or straitened finance. Every act and every plan of his is therefore watched not only because of its intrinsic importance, but as an indication of enterprise to be emulated.
IDEALISING the pent-up energy that would seek expression in the days when the war will have ceased to be the centre of every man's thought, Mr. Rank has definite ideas upon the part the British nation should play, and he has seen few indications of unified policy building on the part of the trade or its constituent members. He has therefore determined that to ensure a worthy place for our own product on the screens of the world a positive drive would be necessary, and that failing any other move he would tackle the problem himself.
Accordingly he had conversations with executives from America, experts in foreign sales, and eventually two companies were floated : Eagle-Lion Distributors, Ltd., in this country, and Eagle-Lion