Documentary News Letter (1940)

■f DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER MAY 1940 Columbia Pictures (an American organisation). This firm will not take the renter's usual percentage of returns from bookings ; the whole of the takings from exhibitors are to be passed back to the Ministry of Information (under which the G.P.O. Film Unit operates). The following queries arise from this situation. Was Squadron 992 offered to the Wardour Street renters (both British and American) in the open market? Would Squadron 992 have been a natural box-office success on, say, a normal 75 per cent, to 35 per cent, contract with any competent distributor? What is the rental being charged to exhibitors of which Columbia will generously take no share? Is this rental likely to bring in as much money as would have been obtained by a normal distribution contract? And finally, if a first-class film like Squadron 992 is to be relegated to a special ad hoc form of distribution, what is going to happen to other Ministry of Information shorts which in subject matter alone, may not be able to compete in excitement and audience appeal with the G.P.O. production? Does the film qualify for renters' quota? If so the renters would appear to have picked up a bargain. To Hell with Culture! THE Daily Express attacks the Government for giving £50,000 to help wartime culture. An editorial demands to know — "What sort of madness is this? There is no such thing as culture in wartime. Wartime is itself the enemy of culture. And cultural activities, which bring so much benefit to the people in peace, must now be set aside. All our resources must be used for the single purpose of making ourselves safe against anticulture — Nazi Germany." The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines "culture" as follows: "improvement by (mental or physical) training; intellectual development." Either the Daily Express is exceptional in putting its precepts into practice and banishing intellectual development and improvement by mental training from its offices, or our chances of victory would appear to be slender. There is happily some reassurance in the comment of the News Chronicle which describes the grant as "an effective quiet response to the brutal scraping of the Nazis' iron heel on the culture of civilised nations." Film Council for Wales? WALES HAS NOT been unrepresented over past years either on commercial or non-theatrical screens ; such films as Proud Valley on the one hand and Today We Live or Shadow on the Mountain on the other have, at any rate, given Wales something of a place on our screens. But as regards the cultural and educational use of films Wales has lacked — and still lacks — an organised and co-ordinated system like that operating in Scotland. A Welsh educationist, Mr Idris Evans, writing in the Western Mail, now makes a plea for a Welsh National Film Council on the Scottish model; and he envisages its finance as coming from part of the £3 million returnable to Wales under Tithe Redemption. He wants a Film Library, a projector supply-service, a film unit, and a road-show system; and, apart from the fact that a good many people outside Wales are still asking for those things and only getting them piecemeal, it is difficult to see any flaws in the argument. This is a case 1 where Nationalism might serve a really useful Internationa purpose ; and if it is true — -as Mr Evans claims^that 90 pe cent of Welsh school-children have never seen an educationa film, let alone had lessons in film appreciation or criticism something should be done. The English and the Scots are, a least, not quite so far behind ; and a drive from Wales migh accelerate progress elsewhere. JTKf Belated Showmanship FILM PUBLICITY is SO peppered with the more extravagan adjectives of praise that there is a pretty irony in the fact tha they were not applied to one of the few films that could la' claim to them until its over-modest West End premiere wa< ''>' finished. During its run at the Polytechnic, Dark Rapture wa being described as sensational, not by the professional ballyhO' boys, but by private, word-of-mouth publicists who happenof to run across it. The news came at last to the ears of its die tributors and the film, ready for general release, now ranks fo a full-page advertisement in the Trade Press. If the exhibitor take their cue, Dark Rapture, which belongs with Voyage a,\~ Congo, Nanook and Grass among the great film records o primitive living communities, can still reach the audience i deserves and bring in a lot of money for some people wh deserved to lose it. Replying to Haw Haw IN APPOINTING Christopher Stone to perform an anti-Ha\ Haw pep-talk after the News on Saturday evenings, the B.B.C are apparently using the methods of homeopathy. In fact the look like trying to cure the Haw Haw habit by a double strength injection of Haw Haw virus. Stone^a radio pei sonality with a large following, earlier in Broadcasting House and more recently at a foreign sponsored station — turns o all his technical abilities of intimacy and persuasion — and large number of people, we suspect, promptly turn off thei sets. For the technique — however efficient — is unpleasan The sneer in the voice is almost as bad as a television close-uj and the choking little giggles which interlard the use of wore like "vermin" or "Twerp" bring the whole performance o to an even lower propaganda level than Haw Haw himsel We consider that the countering of foreign radio propagand ^^ should be taken much more seriously than this. For one thiajj . style is all important — and Stone has chosen the wrong styl If he would confine himself to the detailed analysis of tl| Haw Haw method which turned up in one of his talks — or any rate to a similar technique, there would be less chance < you and me switching straight over to Bremen and Hambur J »c i Confusion of Vision IN OUR LISTING last month of documentary News Lettd which have been published since the war, we overlooked oi % right under the editorial nose — the American Film Center New Nor was that all. We learn from the sponsors of Plann^ Electrification that the flywheel mentioned by our review' was twice as big as he thought, weighing not 1 1 tons, b 22 tons. We apologise for both errors.