Kinematograph year book (1944)

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.

268 The Rinematograph Year Book scheduled. It is intended by Del Guidici, the managing director, that only in this way can we break with the American market, and he justifiably points to the success of the Noel Coward picture. On the other hand there is the school, headed by Maurice Ostrer, of Gainsborough, whose view is, that any subject made at a cost of more than £100,000 is liable to be an economic failure. He declares that the current extravagant production costs are largely a question of E.P.T., and fears a post-war slump. His policy is not to attempt to vie with the extravagant programmes of the largest American companies, but to develop markets in the British Commonwealth, where immediate expansion can be made. It does not, of course, follow that a moderate production cost makes for mediocrity ; as a matter of fact, one of the most satisfactory things about war production is that improvement in quality has been accompanied with a closer liaison between counting-house and producer. The economies arising from planned production have been evident in the year's operations, and if this has not led to an increase in production schedules, the reason is to be found in the lack of floor space. The refusal of the Government to release any more studios and the recent demands of Two Cities upon the space available has created difficulties for the independent producer which will materially affect the production of the smaller budgeted pictures that have proved the quota mainstay of the provincial exhibitor. The entry of M-G-M British to production will yet lurther aggravate the situation. All available space is nowadays earmarked well ahead, not only at Denham, but also in smaller studios, which in other times would be regarded as wholly inadequate to the pretentious type of picture they now house. The position had become so acute that the B.F.P.A. has been considering the possibility of arranging for studio space for members who are unable to obtain it. It is hoped that something may be done during the current year to relieve the situation. Some easement is provided by the reduction of the Warner British programme, which has rendered Teddington available ; by the enlargement of Merton Park to accommodate feature films and by the establishment by Nettlefold of a small service studio in St. John's Wood. A change in financial control of D. & P. Studios Ltd., the owning company of Denham and Pinewood is foreshadowed by a recent offer by Mr. Rank for its shares. This will place him in a pre-eminent position after hostilities as regards production facilities, which will also include the G-B Studios at Shepherd's Bush and Gainsborough at Islington, and, through Two Cities, of Highbury. National Studios at Boreham Wood and Ealing are concerned purely with their own product. Warners' Teddington Studios has been available to outside firms, but Riverside, until last December, was the chief outpost of the independent. A.B.P.C. continues to function at Welwyn but a tie-up with Teddington has been announced. The post-war situation regarding studio space, equipment and personnel has occupied the B.F.P.A.. An Advisory Committee has been set up to deal with the matter which arose from a request for the Board of Trade for information as to the position. A questionnaire had been sent round to all studios in January and a certain amount of information had already been received. ART DIRECTION. AT a time when all materials, except plaster, are in short supply, elaboration and screen quality of our film settings have never been exceeded and are, indeed, comparable with the best Hollywood has achieved. This result is a tribute to the artistry and ingenuity 01 the art-director, who, according to Edmund Carrick, of Pinewood, has actually beneficed by the restrictions in that the disgracefully wasteful habits of peace time have necessarily had to be abandoned in favour of enforced economy. As a matter of fact, the art director, who has been using all sorts of artifices