The Cine Technician (1939)

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Dec. -Jan., 1937-8 THE CINETECHNICIAN 172 U.S. competition makes film production a poor man with a hard life, bui speculation makes him a rotten one, his heart and lungs festering pasture lor maggots, his movements a jerky galvanism, subsiding whenever the artificial current is removed. It is the speculation which makes fancj costs and rational organisation a joke. A studio hasn't to he efficient, it has to be showy. A story hasn't to he a good one, but a known one. A director who is a news story may have every extravagance indulged, a star the moneyed layman has heard about (even if long tombstoned at the box-office from old age) must he got at the price of any crotchet, even to the engagement as well of ten unnecessary cameramen from Kamschatka, who alone have the knack oi renewing her ragged profile, so long only as they will sign a contract long enough to appear on the prospectus or be mentioned at the board meeting. Half the producers in the business know nothing about production and care little. They are windowdressers, using production as an excuse to catch the finance of the passer-by. The other half are merchant middle-men, reluctantly consenting to production only so much as is easier than finding new ways of evading the regulation!-, designed to oblige them to it. The real producer, the man who wants to (and maybe, who knows, knows how to) make pictures, is not in production, but if he exists at all is peddling his dreams around coffee stalls in company with the "independents" who call themselves so because nobody has given them the chance they'd jump at to be dependent. And dreams they will remain. Without legislation protecting not Britain against U.S.A. but him specifically against circuit booking power acting with the force of monopoly, the real would-be producer can dream on. And to expect legislation like that from a Government in our society here to-day is the same as if the grocer round the corner expected it to save him from the chain stores. Equally, so long as monopolies pack a bigger punch than individuals, so long will "impartial" controlling commissions, designed to retain but 'govern' both, a la Moyne, stay a vision from Utopia. Then what to do? Quota Acts help, of course. They help the monopolist against the small man. But when he dines he drops crumbs. True, the speculators and the merchants will find their ways round the new one, certainly, as they did round the old. The "quickie" will have its equivalent. A cursory examination of the new draft, with its labour-cost minimum less than the sum paid often to one single artiste. indicates the field-day it offers to the ingenuity of the speculators' accountants. The Board of Babes in the Wood will also have fun (if they try), discovering whether the minimum for purchase of foreign rights under the socalled reciprocity scheme has not, in fact, been offset against juggled prices of foreign pictures changing hands in the opposite direction. But all in all. even il everj part of a law can be dodged, it will always be easier to pretend to be con101-111111'' than to dodge all of it. Even the "quickie" gave work. Hence a by-producl oi every such law will be a cer tarn amount oi product ion. We can and do put up a fight to tighten tic loopholes to make thai by-product a big as possible. Xext year some of our "plus lours" will be got out of pawn. A lot ol them, il any < ms are won out of the separated quotas now. But boom and slump is our lot. As it is the lot of every son of Adam, not — well. 1 nearly broughl m politics here, shall we then call it not working in the "post-office land," i.e., the land where business is run social! ['< service. A small boom and slump of our own is related to the enactment of quotas. Towards the end of a law period there's no money put into our business, because speculators are waiting to see how best to wangle the next law. Just after a new law starts there's always optimistic "sucker" money that hasn't yet found out that, in the grip of the speculators, production under the new condi tions will be just as unprofitable as under the old. But our large boom and slump is related, inversely, to the general boom and slump of the country. In a period of national slump, when the market for money returns next to no per cent., there are still vast sums accumulating for investment in the hands of big banks. trusts, insurance combines. Bather than take chickenfeed, the directors of said organs don't mind an occasional flutter in the highly speculative comedy of film finance, where even if the odds are all against you, it's at leasl a gamble and does introduce you to a thrilling world of starry goo-goo eyed dinner companions. In time of national boom, happens the contrary. Today, for example, why put a penny on to such a roulette board, when cast into cannon or aeroplanes or battleships it will return to you ten-fold '.' So we technicians must wait. Work when we're called, and somebody can raise money out of employing us and seeming to be interested in production. Starve when, from time to time, the unprofitability of the game, to the poor suckers who stump up the cash, temporarily gives it a bad name. (Luckily for us suckers' memories are short). Whether we work or starve, whatever it depends upon, does not depend on us. Nothing we can do, no skill or self-sacrificing hours we may contribute, can affect one jot the question whether the studios shall be busy or be idle and empty. Those who do have some responsibility in the matter are, curiously enough, to be found at supper in the Savoy Grill, boom and slump alike. It makes one think. The "post office" way — shall we call it? — is not perfect , but it does keep on delivering letters. And what to do about that is another question. IVOR MONTAGU [Editorial Note. — In enjoying this vigorous article, readers will have borne in mind that it expresses, as do all oui contributions, an individual point of view.]