The Cine Technician (1943 - 1945)

s, ptember— October, 1944 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN 75 facilities in flour space and personnel left available after war-time demands have been met, and the Quota Act. At the beginning of the war the British footage required to be registered by a renter under the Quota Act was stabilised at 20% Even with reduced facilities, the percentage achieved for the year L943 II was 24.19'X,. This, of course, is due to ,i similar war-time reduction in American production, hut it places the British industry in a heller posit inn for building up. in competition with parallel American efforts after the war, a lulls developed and prosperous industry. The Report expresses the conviction that the Quota percentages should be raised substantially as soon as the release of production facilities makes it possible. The Quota Act, however, provides no guarantee that the British films which renters are bound by its provisions to handle will be fairly marketed. There are a large number of common trade practices which prevent British films from earning as much as tin \ deserve. Conditions are imposed in contracts both between renters and producers and between renters and exhibitors which favour American interests or those of the combines at the expense of independent producers and exhibitors. This discrimination has always been the underlying factor which prevents independent film production in this country from being a sound financial investment. The Beport deals with this aspect of the industry in great detail and at some length. The sections dealing with it are the most interesting and informative part of the document. It achieves i his mainly by its outsj^okeimess, which brings out 1 into the open the completely unscrupulous i methods common in the distribution side of the business. Several times the Beport quotes an agreement entered into in November, 1940, between the United States Department of Justice and the leadQg vertically-integrated American motion-picture i distributors, which embodies undertakings on the part of the latter not to enforce conditional contracts of various kinds. The suggestion is made that our own government might gain ideas from this agreement. Comment on this suggestion is not possible without fuller knowledge of what the ^reement contains, but the sections quoted certainly seem to indicate that similar enforcements here would effect a measure of improvement. Berhaps its best aspect is that, having agreed to such measures in their own country, the Americans can hardly refuse to accept similar proposals here. Tin last section of the Beport contains the committee's conclusions and recommendations. Throughout the Beport there is a recurring insis• nee that to achieve any improvement in the pre sent situation government stimulus is needed. In the twenty-two concluding recommendations the committee reveals unequivocally that in its opinion this stimulus can only be effective if it takes the form of legislation or other protective government action. Legislation is suggested to prevent further expansion of monopoly interests in all sections of the industry, to prohibit all inequitable forms of conditional booking and to increase the quota percentages as soon as possible. A Tribunal to investigate disputes ami complaints, and legally empowered to arbitrate upon them is recommended, as is an apprenticeship scheme to be property constituted in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour. Also an official approach to the United States Government is envisaged to conclude agreements on matters of reciprocity. The three recommendations which have already aroused the most controversy are the setting-up of a government finance corporation or him credit bank and a government distribution organisation, and the retention by the government of some part of the studio facilities which it controls at present. These conceptions are too well-known to A.C.T. members to need comment. All of them figured in the memorandum published by the Association in 1941, and have been amongst our post-war aims ever since. Maybe this is why to some of the reactionary sections of the industry they are suspect as ideas and provoke wholesale denunciations. For the government to provide the means of production and distribution alongside existing production and distribution organisations does not band the whole industry over to the government. It merely provides a chance of survival for the independent producer who will otherwise be crowded off the screen by the more powerful combines— and many independent productions have contributed much to the prestige of British film^. Everything which the Films Council's Import asks for is designed to ensure fair dealing. The legislation proposed would only come into effect where unfairness existed. Yet according, for instance, to The Cinema on August 2nd. " The final set-up would give the Government such an absolute grasp of the trade that .... the industry would thereafter be in shackles." The Daily Film Renter of the same date looks upon the proposals as an unwarrantable interference with free enterprise. Sentiments of this sort merely serve to bring the industry into disrepute because they can only imph a desire to perpetuate the tradition of gangsterism and racketeering which has characterised certain sections of the Trade for so long. There will be opposition to this Beport and its recommendations in many quarters. Even the Filnrs Council itself was not prepared to give un