The Cine Technician (1943 - 1945)

THE CINE-TECHNICIAN The Journal of The Association of Cine-Technicians Editorial & Publishing Office: 9, BROMEFIELD, STANMORE, MIDDLESEX. Telephone: EDGWARE 31)9 \dvertisement Office: 5 & 6, RED LION SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.I. Telephone: HOLBORN 4972 Associate Editort : Darrel Catling, Sidney Cole, George H. Elvin, Kenneth Gordon, M. J. Land, Frank Sainsbury. Number Forty-six/Forty-seven, Volume Ten January — April, 1944 Price One Shilling Murdered by Gaslight! II 'e publish, without comment, the foil owing letter sent by Sidney Cole to Lady Yule. Dear Lady Yule, Some year.! ago, Miss Ellen Wilkinson wrote a lather bitter book about the Constituency she represented in Parliament — Jarrow, and called it ""The Town That Was Murdered." This is a rather bitter letter about a film I once helped to make, which at the moment I feel like calling — " The Film That Was Murdered." I think it is very likely that the other technicians who worked on it would share my taste in titles. The film is, of course, the British National production, Gaslight. Those of us who worked on it in the dark days of 1940 felt rather pleased that we had been able to show that the British Film Industry could not only survive in time of war, but could produce what was generally acclaimed as a very fine British picture. When we subsequently found that the picture was not to be shown in the United States of America, those of us who understood the economic and political set-up in the world film industry were not really surprised. Wedmow that if we make bad pictures in this country the Americans don't want them — even our own countrymen are not very keen on bad English pictures. Perhaps even less, although this fact is not widely appreciated, do the American want good British pictures. Since when has a powerful industry encouraged foreign competition? Therefore, we were not surprised that America was not anxious to show Gaslight and we waited eagerly to aee if British National had succeeded in breaking down this opposition. But we were staggered to find that, on the contrary, it had apparently acquiesced in the banning of Gaslight from American screens by selling the American film rights of the story. The price, I must admit, was satisfactorily large. But somehow it did not strike us as the most effective way of drawing attention to the merits of British pictures. Hollywood proceeded to make its own version and America will presumably never know that the British original existed. What seems really monstrous to us, though, is that the British rights of the story were also necessarily (I use the word in a commercial and not a moral sense) sold at the same time, in order, I take it, to clear the way in the British market for the Hollywood picture. Filmgoers in this country must forget that there ever was a British film of this name ; they will certainly never again be able to see it. Feeling a little sentimental about all this, I tried recently, through British National and Anglo-American, to borrow a copy, in order to look once more at a job of British film craftsmanship in which I was proud to have assisted. But T was told I was too late. Not only every copy but the original negative itself had been destroyed. The film is of course an ephemeral medium, but even so, it is still sometimes possible to see films which were made as many as 80 years ago — some material record remains of whatever skill and enthusiasm went into the making of them. But with Gaslight — OUT Gaslight — barely four years have elapsed and it seems that nothing whatever remains of our work, except the satisfaction that all of us felt, and still feel, at having worked on a very fine British jdcture. But speaking for British technicians generally, we need a greater incentive than memory. We need encouragement too. The history of Gaslight is many things, but ii is not encouraging. Yours sincerely, SIDNEY COLE. February 21st, 1944.