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THE BRITISH FILM 43
THE BRITISH FILM
What I have written of America largely holds good with England, save that it applies on a much smaller scale to our limited output and our small-minded executives. There is no question, of course, that the coming of the talking film greatly helped the British film industry as a whole to gain some position of moderate stability, and that British films to-day are, generally speaking, slightly better in quality and more plentiful than they were in the pre-dialogue period. On the other hand, I and many with me wholly disagree with the way in which films are produced in England, not only as regards subject-matter but with the whole attitude of the average British film man towards the cinema. I object to imitative methods; I differ from the British executives' idea of what constitutes box-office appeal; and I abhor bad and incompetent workmanship in such a great medium as the cinema.
The general mismanagement of British studios and their complete failure to understand what the cinema means to the everyday person is capable of quite simple explanation. Immediately after the War, the film industry in this country was comprised almost solely of renting and distributing firms for handling foreign, chiefly American, pictures. There was little attempt at actual production, partly because of lack of money and partly because of inexperience. The men who entered the film trade then came either as newcomers or were returning to their old calling. At any rate, it is more or less true to say that few of