Celluloid : the film to-day (1931)

I78 CELLULOID in which life is lived greatly diminishes the general appeal of his pictures. Asquith appears undecided as to which school of British cinema to follow. He has either to concentrate upon cutting and fall in line with the Grierson propagandist movement, or to learn the technique of the stage and thus join the ranks of the Elstree directors. It would seem from Tell England that his cutting will develop, if we may judge by the starting of the " River Clyde," which is cleverly cut according to equal lengths of three shots repeated so as to produce a stirring rhythm. Because of his interest in such shot-arrangements, Asquith is inclined to forget the meaning of a sequence, and in turn to lose the drivingpower that is essential to the binding of a film into a unity. He still skates lightly over the surface of his scenes and neglects to dive deep into their meaning in order to reproduce their drama on the screen. He does not yet possess enough control over his technical tricks to bend them to the expression of the film's content, as Grierson employs his cutting always to bring out die propaganda of his film. For this reason, I suggest that several portions of Tell England demand reorganization, especially the opening and training-camp sequences, whilst in my opinion the whole of the concluding hospital scene could well be deleted. But Asquith has the intelligence and ability and vigour of which the industry in England stands so urgently in need, and it is to be hoped that he will proceed to realize his early promise. The use of sound throughout in Tell England is good, stimulates our minds, and greatly heightens the