The Cine Technician (1943 - 1945)

120 THE C INF. T E C EN I CI AN November— December, 1< J; CORRESPONDENCE The Shame and Disgrace of Colonel Biimp Fundamentally our case is that if the mailer of m film is understood in all its aspects and in all flic psychological intricacies below the mere story structure, the maimer of making that film wili be less of a problem. The light approach to tins question affects the marketability of our films in competition with America, and indeed the fate of the Brit ish film industry and our own individual livelihoods which are dependent on the industry. It is surely therefore incumbent upon F.S. to give your readers an approximately factual idea of what we do say in The Shame and Disgrace of Colonel Blimp, instead of doing this he puts up a number of Aunt Sallies of his own imaginative creation and shies at them with a terrific amount of misspent gusto. We emphatically do not turn Pabst "from a sincere internationalist into a chauvinist" in Tlie Film Answers Back. The words are not in our hook. We describe I'ahst in no way as any kind of " ist " at all. We simply show Pabst doing what all the other pre-Nazi producers were doing, spreading doubts, cynicism and despair among the German people and so undermining their power of resistance to the Nazi virus, or encouraging the latent, pro-Nazi proclivities of the German nation. whichever way you prefer to describe the process. In The Shame ami Disgrace of Colonel Blimp we do not attempt to establish the English as a "race." The word does not appear in our honk. nor does Yansittart, nor vansifctartism, nor " German Imperialism." nor do we say that the German "Expert" fails because of "knowledge." What we do say is that the British have added something to technique in warfare that the Germans haven't got — morale and the knowledge of the end and purpose for which they are righting. And we do not enjoin the nation to become " experts " in matters of the subconscious or in anything else. In fact almost even thine, that F.S. says we said we never said at all. He reads all those isms and spasms into what we wrote, displaying a truly remarkable gift worthy perhaps of a spiritualist medium but not what we expect to see exercised in a technical, scientific professional journal. But the thing that gives F.S. the greatest joy is. to use his own words : " the authors have somehow conclusively proved that the showing ol Blimp was the direct cause of the release of Moslex ' " Sorry to spoil his fun hut the authors attempt lo prove nothing of flic kind. We never said that Blimp is the direct cause of Mosley's release. What we do say is that Blimp by reason of its wide national circulation and cumulative effect. helped to establish a mood, "a social mental atmosphere." which made the reversal of the T.U.C. vote on the Germans, the plague oi sti and the release of Fascists with Mosley at their head, possible logical and understandable. Fi these things all ha]. pencil within a few montl Blimp's release. Alvar Biddell is not the only direct cause oi you getting the news at nine o'clock. He helps but there are tens of thousands of other " causes " that together contribute to the one result . F.S. is considerate enough to suggest that ah is not well with the Middle Class and that the Robsons ought to be enlightened on the point. Thanks but we know already. We are aware that there are among us a proportion from whom you could pick out types like that ranting Fascist hoor. Sub. -Lieut. Wilson or the idiotic Blimp WynneCandy. Well what of it ? What do we gain, whai purpose do we achieve by displaying our w types to the gaze ol the world and not our bi si If F.S. is not yet quite clear on the elementar commercial principle that the Americans have long since discovered, that crying stinking fish is bad for trade, it is time t lint "somebody enlightened him." — Yours faithfully, £. W. and M. M. ROBSON F.S. writes I am sorry the Robsons think I have misrepresented them. I agree that they don't make much use of words ending in -ist: a reviewer has to, in trying to give the sense of arguments which trail on for page after page. I hope readers of tli ■ Journal will also read the Blimp pamphlet (it's well worth it) and I'll leave them to judge for themselves whether the summing-up -ist and-ism words of the review are unfair to the Robsons. In The Film Answers Back the authors, at the end of a review of Kameradschaft, state that Pabst 's purpose in finishing with a scene between officials below ground at the 1918 frontier was t bring up the issue of the Versailles treaty. As the purpose and effeel of that scene was pn-eisel the opposite — namely to emphasise the futility i national barriers (but in a hopeful constructive way) — I think the stupidity of the Robsons' misrepresentation would have justified much more caustic commi nt than 1 gave it. With their final paragraph I am quite in agreement : it is indeed very p >or policy to cry stinking fish thai is why I consider it a greal pity that British films are almosl exclusively concerned with the thoughts and doings of the middle-class From a Polish Trainee Members of A..C.T. will he aware ol the schero for training Allied technicians for the re-establishment ol their Studios after the war. sponsored 1>\ A..C.T. and operated in conjunction with