Documentary News Letter (1940)

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12 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER NOVEMBER 1940 with a touch of humour, is at a disadvantage here in having less contact with public opinion, and therefore more need for a well based understanding of probable trends. To refer once more to Let George Do It, the "topical" jokes in that film were not popular and received little more than half the volume of response given to non-topical jokes in the same sequences. The conditions for their particular topicality had changed while the film was being made and distributed. We have made five separate investigations into joke reactions, in Blackpool, in London music halls, in a last Christmas pantomime, in a Sunday newspaper competition and in Formby films. In every case, much over half of the successful laughter points came from themes of ill-health, deformity, sexual abnormality, or potential death (including war) situations. This was as true of Blackpool in 1937 as of a music hall in 1940. Even in 1937, in Blackpool, war was running only a little behind ill-health as the most successful joke subject. I might fade out this article by mentioning an analysis we made of the replies received by the Swukiy Dispatch (courtesy of film critic Moore Raymond) in a competition where they asked people to name which "fade-out" of a film they liked best. Usually, press information of this sort is of little value, because those who reply are influenced by what they think the paper will or won't like as indicated by its published attitudes on the subject. In this case there was no attitude or indication of opinion to influence the readers ; they simply wrote on postcards their ideas of the perfect ending. The most popular fade-outs were these, in this order of frequency : Three Comrades. Two of the comrades, already dead, beckon the third to join them. Arm in arm the three comrades march through the skies. Dark Victory. The heroine walks slowly upstairs to die bravely and alone. Goodbye Mr. Chips. Mr Chips in his old age murmurs the names of the boys that he has known, as he dies. VVutheriiig Heights. The hero climbs the hill, faithful to a tryst with a lover who is dead. A Tale of Two Cities. Carton says "It is a far, far better thing", etc. The camera pans as the guillotine knife falls, and shows the clear sky. Then a scripture text. Modern Times. Charlie Chaplin and his girl walk off down the road together. Queen Christina. The exiled Queen stands at the prow of her ship, like a figure-head, looking into the future. Lost Horizon. The hero struggles back over the mountains to the dream city of Shangri La. Here we see down into the heart of stolid, shy, old British emotion. The tragic ending wins every time, provided it looks into the future and brings some message of heroic hope. It is because Winston Churchill feels like the readers of popular Sunday papers that he is able to call out so much in British people that Chamberlain, Halifax, or Attlee could never command. On the basis of our own experience, plus the existing techniques available from propaganda testing and market research, and the Payne Fund studies, it would seem to be a relatively simple matter to set up an independent bureau, recognised and supported by all the interested parties. This bureau would be concerned entirely with research, establishing and using accurate and agreed criteria, observational, verbal, statistical and qualitative, to measure the effects of all sorts of film, and to predict the needs of existing and potential film audiences. Its job would include : — 1. Keeping a regular check on opinion trends about films in general, different types of film and their prestige in particular. 2. Reporting on public reaction to all relevant films, especially shorts, which are not measurable by any box office index. 3. Discovering what symbols and subjects are suitable or require film treatment at any time, (e.g. At the time of writing Indian troops are a particularly popular symbol not being used on the films: acute boredom is caused by shots of arms workers, the history of the crisis before the outbreak of the war, and the Duchess of Gloucester inspecting things, subjects repeatedly used.) 4. Providing information on the varying situations which produce "undesirable" effects, the general trend of reaction to war themes, etc. (e.g., from September, 1939, to August, 1940, there was a steady 17 per cent disliking all themes connected with the war unless humorously treated, a higher proportion objecting to horror shots of any sort). 5. Producing general factual criticism, from the public opinion point of view, on all propaganda films ; and providing comments on the elementary social factors which seemed to have escaped the attention of the industry (e.g. films such as Call to .Arms and Mr. Borland Thinks Again have been generally distributed, though their application was particular. Mr. Borland was concerned mainly with silage, a word that was not explained until the last minute of the film). POSTSCRIPT ON 5-MINUTE FILMS FIFTEEN official M.O.I, shorts, and 2 G.P.O. films released through the M.O.I., have been the subject of study. The failure to advertise these official films was found to be a weakness, and lately the failure to show them. For instance, at six out of seven cinemas in Watford, and two out of three in Streatham, recently, the "shorts" could not be seen at all. By the end of August a survey showed that 59 per cent of Londoners had seen and remembered something about Ministry ".shorts", and that of these nearly four liked them for every person who disliked them. This is a much higher degree of popularity than that enjoyed by newsrcels, but it has not been wholly maintained. There has generally been a much higher degree of popularity and response from middle-class people than from workingclass people (sex diftcrences are very slight). This seems to derive largely from the essentially upper and middle-class attitude of many of the films. This started with the original Careless Talk films, in each of which the spy was a worker (barman, cafe proprietress, pub-crawler), while in two of them the gossipers were working class, though in only one was the cast, as a whole, working class. The hero of one of these films, a factory scientist with a beautiful large house is killed by the idiocy of a factory worker. The hero of another is a rich young airman ; his fiancee lives in a luxury flat. This tradition has been maintained, though not to the same extent, in the later five-minute "shorts" ; Miss Grant and Miss Know-all are ladies with large houses, while the working-class population of Call to Arms was really a joke, and repeatedly, where working-class characters are represented favourably, they are not represented faithfully. It is interesting to notice that the most remembered and commented on feature of any film was Priestley's commentary to Britain at Bay; he provides a bridge between middle and working classes. Another factor which seems to have led to the decline in intensity of interest is the lack of continuity or apparent theme-sequence in the films from week to week. Several films were criticised for vagueness, e.g.. Sea Fort, which was very puzzling; Call to Arms and Yesterday's Over Your Shoulder, which had direct appeals for service without explaining clearly how or where to offer it. The lack of humour has also been a striking feature of many of the films ; only four have made any real attempt to exploit humour, and in two of these mass taste has been considerably misjudged. Finally, the stressing of stars in some of the films has detracted from the feeling of reality upon which the success of .such films largely depends; Stanley Holloway, Robertson Hare, Emlyn Williams, Dorothy Hyson, and so on, turn "shorts" into rather vague and incoherent minor-feature films. If we classify the films into "short stories" and "strict documentaries", and compare the observed audience response of the two main types, we find a consistently higher degree of response to the documentary; approximately one-eighth of response to the documentaries is unfavourable, whereas rather under a half of the response to the story films is unfavourable. Roughly, this means that bad sequences in short stories really irritate people, while bad sequences in documentaries are not so likely to annoy. But, on the other hand, a short story, which takes into account the other considerations, can be more successful than the documentary in arousing audience interest, and especially personal identification which is associated with probable definite action. The power of a purely documentary film to make people change their habits is doubtful. But here is a subject which vitally requires research. What is the e/fect of an M.O.I, film like Food for Thought in terms of actual increased economic cooking and intelligent dieting? This type of effect could easily be tested, and we hope to undertake such tests in the near future, but really it is the job for a special organisation working directly with film interests.