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.
8 THE CINEMA
Only good screenplays written freely by men of talent and imagination will keep the cinema in the forefront of the entertainment world. Showmanship now means quality. The popular success of films like The Third Man shows that this is so.
Showmanship now means quality. Quality can bring new and valuable audiences into the cinema. Of course mediocre and bad films will go on being made and will remain marketable to certain classes of audience. But they will cease to be the main selling-points for the industry. The formulae pictures will become the background pictures, the weekly programme ' fill-ups ' about which little can be said. The cinema will draw its lifeblood and in the end its biggest market from films which have something outstanding to give in the way of real dramatic entertainment.
R. M.
We wish to correct a misunderstanding which has arisen out of the wording of a sentence included in the Introductory article to The Cinema 195 1. The sentence is :
' Already the film has been used as a bargaining weapon in the negotiation of trade agreements with the United States and the application of Marshall Aid, to the extent that, for instance, the French industry is hamstrung. Swedish production is on the point of ceasing, and British producers are facing an acute financial crisis.'
It has been said that this statement (which should, of course, be read in its context) is derogatory to both the American government and the American film industry. We wish to correct this impression. There is no criticism, either direct or indirect, of the American government or the American film industry as such. The statement is that the film has been made an important factor in the negotiation of general trade agreements between America and other countries. Our criticism was a general one. The article urged that the film, which is so highly specialized an industry vitally affecting national and international opinion, should be kept as free as possible from the bargaining involved in general trade negotiations between governments.
We do not, as Editors, want the statement in The Cinema ig^i to imply, either directly or indirectly, more than just this, and we regret any other implications which may have been found in it.
R. M. R.K.N. B.