Cinema Quarterly (1934 - 1935)

about the form and dictator-director notions of the script-writer. The second scenario was written by D. J. C. Beck who showed the deceit and duplicity of the armament manufacturs on Armistice Day, and the power of music and uniform in raising the militant spirit. EXHIBITION OF KINEMATOGRAPHY. This exhibition was held by the Royal Photographic Society at their Galleries in Russell Square, London, during the month of November. The exhibition consisted of a large collection of stills from British films of recent date, many of them still in production, a selection of film personalities and stills from amateur producing societies. Various models of sub-standard projectors both silent and sound, models of the latest cine-cameras, and a 35 mm. super-speed camera. A section of the stills showed the technics of set building, model work, and trick photography used in studio productions. Some stills showed the ingenious faking in the larger scenes of The Scarlet Pimpernel. In the film competition open to workers on sub-standard, the plaque for Glass One was awarded to John Chear for his Bird Studies on 9.5. The plaque for Class Two went to G. H. F. Higginson for a 16 mm. film entitled Pond Life. Several types of film were projected and some amateur productions. In the ten meetings held, the many new technical processes of colour, trick photography and timing apparatus were demonstrated. Mary Field, Basil Wright, F. Watts and Oliver G. Pike gave lectures on certain aspects of the cinema. KINO. Kino (86 Gray's Inn Road, London, W.C. 1) is an organisation of amateur filmworkers using the film as a medium of propagating Communist philosophy. It has an active news-reel group operating much the same as the commercial companies. Two news-reels have been produced dealing with several demonstrations, including the one at Olympia, Air Display, Gresford Colliery Disaster, International Workers' Sports in Paris, etc. Another group is engaged in producing an Anti-Fascist film, and yet another group in the production of features. The last group has made the film Bread, described as a drama of the Means Test. Two of their cameramen are to give lessons in cine-camera craft to about six pupils at a time, the fees being low. Kino intend organizing an exhibition of photographs from the Workers' Film and Photo League, in which prizes will be given for the best social as well as technical photographs submitted. A film hire service is now in operation for the distribution of Soviet films. SON OF A SOLDIER. Direction: LEBEDIEV. Reduced from silent 35 mm. copy to 16 mm. Distributors: KINO FILM HIRE SERVICE. The narrative centres on the life of a boy in the Russia of 1905. The typical school of that period, with its tyrannical old priest and his teaching of Gabriel and the fiery chariot, is done extremely well, but is apt to grow wearisome owing to its length. However, when the boy is (literally) chucked out of school, the real film begins. This delightful rascal gets employment at the local factory, illegally using child labour. The lodger at the boy's home is employed there as an engineer, and together they are absorbed by the then revolutionary ideas of Communism. When one of the boys is injured by a truck which should have been fitted with brakes, there is a disturbance amongst the workers in the factory which breaks out anew when the Factory Inspector is hurried away by the owner without having seen the exploitation and dangerous practices going on. The Cossacks are called in to quell the disturbance, and on finding a crowd of factory hands assembled, tear down on them with bared sabres. lc27