The Cine Technician (1938-1939)

THE CINE-TECHNICIAN July-August. L988 |/>'v courtesy of Progressive Film Institute Ltd. t ■ \() accompany a beautiful blonde to a cinema a mile B from the front line trenches is an interesting exX perience. Unfortunately I have never had thai pleasure. First ly, all t lie cinemas w en ■ lull. Secondly I. wasn't with a beautitul blonde: only with Thorold Dickinson. This, oi course, is an experience but of another kind. We were in Madrid, not, as you may have gathered, to see pictures, but to make them. How we came to be there is a long story which I shan't attempt to relate. What 1 shall try to tell you is something about the Spanish film business There is in Government Spain to-day, in spite of the War, a. busy little film industry, producing in the main newsreels and documentaries. There are two main companies engaged in this work. The largest is Film Populai . covering all Republican territory, making a weekly newsreel and a fair number of documentaries. "Galicia," one of the latter, a lyrical film dealing with lite in that region, won a Gold Medal last year in Paris. Hut these shorts are not confined to ethnological subjects only. They range from pottery-making and farm work to the technique oi blood-transfusion and to films on various military actions in the "March of Time" style. The cameras chiefly used for these are Eyemos, and some of the material which has been obtained on the battlefields is amazing. Shots from the trenches across "No-Man's Land" during attacks and close-ups of the fighters in action bring the horror and terror of war home to you with a vengeance. The second company is called Laya Film*, operating primarily in Catalonia, producing films similar to the above, but with Catalan commentaries. There is no truth, how ever, in the rumour that it is going to make a picture on the Elephant and the Catalan Question ! Military' subjects of various kinds are made occasionally by Army units, several very good ones having been made by the Centre Army at Madrid. We saw one that had to be shot on sound stock owing to a shortage of negative. We were told it was shot on a rather dull day when there was no great range of tone contrast. The result was surprisingly good. We were also shown a shot of an explosion which would have delighted the hearts of one or two English directors whom I could name. In fact, I thought that they must have had something to do with it, until we were told that every precaution had been taken to make sure that the cameramen were safe. Ordinary studio production has never been very plentiful in Spain and since the rebellion this little has become even less; even so. one or two films have been made at the Lepanto Studios at Barcelona. The production qualities of these films are, however, not very high; thev bear PICTURES IN WARTIME by a marked resemblance to some of the early Quota "quickies." The greatest snag in Spanish film production at the moment is the shortage of raw stock which has to be imported, and consequently it is used very sparingly. English studios have a legend of the novice who was told to bring a "film-stretcher" in order to extend the length of a shot, and who busily trotted off to find one If he could find such a stretcher and take it out to Spain today, he'd make a fortune. The cinemas do very good business, even under the most adverse conditions. For example, most of them in Madrid are along the Gran Via. in which stands the famous Telefonica, the target for over eighteen months of the Fascist batteries only a few miles away, and it is impossible to get into any one of them on a Sunday afternoon w ithout having previously booked. The majority of the films showing are American — some rather old — either sub-titled or dubbed into Spanish. There are a few Spanish, French and Russian pictures, and while we were there a Harry Roy film was released ("Everything in Rhythm."). The dubbing of Spanish on to foreign films is done very well and is considerably ahead of many of the dubbed films which have been shown here in England. Some of the cinemas show nothing but shorts, news and (Continued on page 58)