The Cine Technician (1943 - 1945)

12 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN January — April. 1944 The Critics Reviewed by Frank Sainsbury " The Critics are those who have failed in Art and Literature." I DON'T know where this quotation comes from, but I can well remember having to write an essay on it at school. At the time there can have been few subjects that interested me 1< ss than the critics, and after reading my poor attempt at an essay the English master asked me to name one. Frantic searching of my mind produced the single effort, " St. John Ervine," whose name I'd happened to notice in the ' ' Observer. " " Pooh ! That reviewer ! ' ' exclaimed the English master in disgust, and there for the moment the matter rested. However, as the years went by and I began to take more of an interest in the critics I've finally come to the < onclusion that the very large majority of them have failed not only in Art and Literature but in everything else as well, including particularly Life! A year or two after my first brush with the subject a growing interest in films led me to read regularly the film column in the "Observer," in those days signed with the cryptic initials, C.A.L., which was enough to fire anybody's imagination, so economically and enthusiastically was it written. From there my eyes would sometimes stray across to the opposite page, and there would be my old mate, St. John Ervine, fulminating from that well-known centre of culture. Seaton, Devon, against the vulgarity of the cinema compared with the refinement of the theatre. Week after week his lack of knowledge of films did not deter him from giving the cinema the nearest equivalent of a good hiding of which that jolly bravo was capable. And then, one fateful week, whatever's this? An article from our finickv connoisseur headed. "At last— A Good Film.''' With bated breath our eyes race down the column to try and find what master-work it is that has at last won the approval of our chubby purist — ah ! here it is — and what an anti-climax — Grace Moore in One Night of Love, a fairish routine middle-class picture that couldn't hurt a fly! Well, that's the sort of thing the cinema has had to suffer for far too long, ill-informed comment from outsiders. Incidentally, the week after St. John Ervine 's momentous discovery it was very nice to find C.A.L. showing him up good and proper by gently pointing out that Tullio Carminati, whom he had much admired in the film as an unknown, had, in fact, been Duse's leading man many years before. And his discomfiture was complete when some months later Elsie Cohen took the trouble to run a few good films for him at the Academy, and he had to take it all back and apologize. Now there can be no art that needs good criticism so badly as the cinema. The fact that it is also a great industry, tied up with international cartels on the one hand and with all the ballyhoo tradition of the great showmen on the other, means that it simply must have the discipline and encouragement of good public criticism if it is ever to develop and get anywhere. And yet during all its 50 years' history there cannot have been more than a dozen or so even reasonably good film critics. It's a job : hat's considered good enough for any old hack on the paper — '"Old so-and-so's not got much to do these days — put him on to doing film write-ups." And what could be nicer for some weary and disillusioned old journalist than to spend his mornings and afternoous snoozing in the dark in the comfort of an armchair with the prospect of all the free drinks he can swallow afterwards. X need to look at the film — he can easily write up his stuff from the publicity hand-out and what he overhears from his fellow-drinkers, bearing in mind all the time that film companies are some of his paper's best advertisers. And so the weekly cheap, trashy gossip continues. Now before anyone even begins the job oi being a film critic I should say that he should already have three qualities in particular — knowledge wide taste and enthusiasm. Knowledge meanthat he should have a wide experience of films ol