Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

38 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER No. 3 1944 No. 17 THE EAGLE AND THE BEETLE A Hare being pursued by an Eagle, betook himself for refuge to the nest of a Beetle, whom he entreated to save him. The Beetle therefore interceded with the Eagle, begging him not to kill the poor suppliant and conjuring him, by mighty Jupiter not to slight his intercession and break the laws of hospitality because he was so small an animal. But the Eagle, in wrath, gave the Beetle a flap with his wing, and straightway seized upon the Hare and devoured him. When the Eagle flew away, the Beetle flew after him, to learn where his nest was, and getting into it, he rolled the Eagle's eggs out of it one by one, and broke them. The Eagle, grieved and enraged to think that anyone shoidd attempt so audacious a thing, built his nest the next time in a higher place; but there too the Beetle got at it again, and served him in the same manner as before. Upon this the Eagle, being at a loss what to do, flew up to Jupiter, his Lord and King, and placed the third brood of eggs, as a sacred deposit, in his lap, begging him to guard them for him. But the Beetle, having made a little ball of dirt, flew up with it and dropped it in Jupiter's lap; who, rising up on a sudden to shake it off, and forgetting the eggs, threw them down and they were again broken. Jupiter being informed by the Beetle that he had done this to be revenged upon the Eagle, who had not only wronged him, but had acted impiously towards Jove himself, told the Eagle, when he came to him, that the Beetle was the aggrieved party, and that he complained not without reason. But being unwilling that the race of Eagles should be diminished, he advised the Beetle to come to an accommodation with the Eagle. As the Beetle would not agree to this, Jupiter transferred the Eagle's breeding to another season, when there are no Beetles to be seen. REALIST FILM UNIT LTD. 34, SOHO SQUARE, W.l Telephone: GER: 1958 LETTERS DEAR SIR, Your leading article, "Mr. Rank and the Educational Film*' is exceedingly interesting because of the light it throws on the mentality of your leader writer. Firstly — like Goebbels — he is unable to regard the instructional film as distinct from the propaganda picture. Secondly, he believes that British teachers will use any instructional films that are handed out to them, which proves he has never tried to make an instructional film for British teachers, whose intellectual integrity is above suspicion. Thirdly, he seems to think that all British instructional film makers are so venal that they will make films at anyone's bidding to keep their jobs. Has he never heard of the Instructional Film Unit who handed in their resignations to the late Mr. Maxwell, during the j slump of 1934, rather than do work which offended their sense of right? Perhaps the willingness of film technicians to make and teachers to show any kind of government film in war-time, since they conceive it their duty to do so, has misled your writer into belie\ing these groups will accept propaganda either from the government or from private interests in the years of peace. If he truly believes this, he owes two bodies of public spirited and inde1 pendent workers an apology, The Studios, Lime Grove, mary held I Shepherd's Bush, London, W.\2 2nd June, 1944. [We are sorry to see so good a technician as I Mary Field voicing the fashionable bogey-man I story of those opposed to democratic enterprise I on the part of the community. D.N.L. Editorials Board.] Notes of the Month (continued from p. 26) launched with the government's blessing, since their object was mainly propaganda. "But here we have a documentary film which is a pioneer venture, the first as such to be launched by a company which hitherto has concerned itself with entertainment. "The film Out of Chaos has been made for Two Cities Films by Jill Craigie, in private life Mrs. Jeffrey Dell, wife of author-film director Jeffrey Dell. Everybody engaged in film-making will remember the name of Mary Field in connection with the British Instructional Films, but one might call Jill Craigie a pioneer in her choice of subject which is not only unusual, but a difficult one. "This film is the first serious attempt in this country to be made about contemporary art and painters who are very modern, but very sensitive when one meets them. Ordinary people have quite the wrong idea about the modern painter, conjured no doubt by La Vie de Boheme. Actually, most of them look very much like the average Englishman. Henry Moore, who appears in the film, is quite an ordinary-looking little man — the kind one often sees on the 8.30 every morning." Correction In the article "Patience or Strip-Poker?" appearing in last issue of D.N L., there is the statement that along with a number of other films Contraband was made by the Balcon team at Ealing. Contraband was not made at Ealing; it was made by the Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger combination for British National at Denham in 1940.