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12 CELLULOID
or she happens to be particularly acquainted with current film production, what is there to assist? Descriptions in the daily Press, displays of photographs outside the cinema, and poster hoardings claiming every film to be greater than the last, which I refuse to believe the most ingenuous of filmgoers can take seriously — these are the public's chief guide to a film's respective merits.
In truth, the uninitiated filmgoer has no guarantee that a film is worth seeing before he has paid to see it. Once this is done, however, nothing else matters to the cinema in question, the man who owns it, or the company that made the film on exhibition. They have got his money and he cannot get it back. If he is in Central London, he has probably been forced to pay three shillings and sixpence and is shown into a two-shilling-and-fourpenny seat, such being the practice of some cinema exhibitors I have met. But it is dark, a picture is in progress, and he is much too selfconscious to argue. When he comes out, he grudges his money and feels a fool for having been lured inside by the attractive advertisements outside. He should not have been bullied by the commissionaire. Yet — and this is the crux of the matter — he goes again next week and the week after, simply because he has the desire to see a film and because he has not the courage to stay away. The whole game of bluff pursued by cinema exhibitors to-day is based on the human weakness that " you must see for yourself to believe."
Thus, despite such tricks as trying out new films before their premiere on unsuspecting audiences and