Documentary News Letter (1940)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER MARCH 1940 with it of the Governor-General (Lord Tweedsmuir, formerly John Buchan). In the light of these statements the possible interest of Wanger in Canada is not without significance. On the non-theatrical side, a production programme comprising some 17 films is under way. Of these, one group is closely linked with the war information service. The impetus given to Canadian industry by the European conflict has served to focus public attention on the vast natural resources of the country. The time is thus ripe for a discussion on the screen of the use of this natural wealth, both immediately in war, and in the decades to come when Canada will be planning her economy and her social affairs in peace. Each film of the series will deal with a different "front" of natural wealth — the forests, the mines, the wheatlands, the fisheries, etc. Stress will be laid on the change of attitude in recent years from the "mining" of soil and sea in the past to the planned conservation of today, and the need for wider and more co-ordinated planning in the future will be urged. Audiences for these films will be mobilised both among the associations of professionals engaged in the industries concerned, and among all those groups of forwardlooking people now coming together in Canada to further the post-war interests of the nation. SOUR GRAPES? ij-llt A NOVEL WHICH made a considerable sensation in the U.S.A. and in this country was John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. It was a best-seller, and its theme was the dispossession of the 30 i Oklahoma farming families and their pathetic trek to California— land of broken promise, where they found themselves exploited in the orange groves and starving amid plenty. As a piece of writing the book was widely praised. As a social indictment it naturally raised considerable controversy in the States, where the issues are closely in the public eye; while in this country the situation described tended, of course, to be taken for granted, and the controversial element was accordingly much less of a factor. When Darryl Zanuck bought the film rights, and allocated John Ford (ace director, and recently famed for Stage Coach), the news was received with interest here, and with very mixed feelings in the States. This is in many ways understandable, and it is certainly no business of ours to interfere with what United States citizens may do in regard to a film story which AOil;they may consider as doubtful prestige value to their country faiij on the screens of the world. But it is, perhaps, permissible restJ to comment on the principles involved. For some years now ill documentary people over here have been noting with increasing admiration those trends in American cinema which have not [feared to choose subject matter dealing with the major social I, af ! problems of the United States. In many ways, Hollywood \e) has been, in certain big productions, the screen's major protani gonist of democracy ; and to most people in Britain the filming er^sl I of The Grapes of Wrath seemed to be a continuation of this v^ra I policy rather than a new departure. ne« I But following close on the attempt by Associated Farmers (a capital-investment pressure group) to prevent the showing Vila) |of the film comes an attack by the Motion Picture Herald (an .ji li j influential trade paper), under the initials of Martin Quigley, ^0 Ithe Editor-in-Chief. The attack is interesting. The production Ho|! merits of the film are — not ungenerously — conceded; but, in [jca iQuigley's own words, "the mistake is not in the execution for ^jjll I screen purposes of the Steinbeck story. It is in its selection in ,ij(ij ithe first place as material suitable for the screen." In fact, the „; oil Ifilm is under suspicion as "soap-box propaganda", and the ^iiH loriginal story is, again according to Quigley, "a chaotic jumble ,,nlllof philosophic and sociological suggestion and argument", . !«although he generously grants that "much of the coarseness, vulgarity, and all the filth and obscenity have been chipped away" by the producers. On another page of the same issue of the Motion Picture Herald is a somewhat half-hearted and evasive review. As yet it is impossible for us to estimate either the box-office or aesthetic values of the film version of The Grapes of Wrath, but from the documentary point of view we are bound to consider, with real interest, any movement from influential quarters directed against a trend in Hollywood production which coincides with many democratic ideals. It would indeed appear that one of the major distinctions implied by the Quigley attack is the distinction between a big studio production with world-coverage and a documentary production with limited, if not local, circulation. The latter, because of its comparative lack of pulling power, may be permitted to deal with — to quote Quigley once more — "a stark and drab depiction of a group of incidents in human misery . . . guided by the heavy and designing hand of John Steinbeck" ; whereas the former will fall under the criticism that "the entertainment motion picture is no place for social, political, and economic argument". In this country we have from time to time seen evidence of a similar attitude, and we have hitherto (in welcoming films like They Won't Forget, Dust be My Destiny, Black Legion, and Gabriel over the White House) looked largely to the United States in fighting an attitude which tends to kowtow to religious or political influence in the choice of screen subjects. Hollywood has shown us that social and economic problems can be box-office, and as regards The Grapes of Wrath we have no evidence so far that the world's cinema-goers will reject it as entertainment. On the contrary, latest reports froni New York indicate that the premiere of the film at Broadway's important Rivoli Cinema has proved a record-breaking success. Moreover, a number of New York newspapers have printed reviews of The Grapes of Wrath which can only be described as extraordinarily eulogistic. These facts, to say the least of it, suggest that the Motion Picture Herald may be a little late on the draw. It is, as we have already said, no business of ours to interfere with United States film affairs, but we, as a younger branch of a national film industry which is just — in such features as The Stars Look Down — groping towards a similar technique, are bound to foUow with close and sympathetic interest the efforts of enlightened Hollywood producers to provide what Quigley caUs "demagogic preachment" and what we call "democratic discussion" within the limits of the entertainment cinemas of the world.