Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

62 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER of their own social problems — past, present and future. America is a country which has known unemployment, poverty and internal social stress, things which we in Europe understand. The true America is a country which can look fearlessly ahead, confident of overcoming the political and economic problems which lie before her. Indeed she will fight these problems with a vitality and confidence which may be harder to generate in the countries of the Old World. So let us be assured of it on the screen. Why should we see fleeting glimpses of real, unvarnished Americans only in such front-line documentaries as The Fighting Lady and With the Marines at Tarawa? Let documentary cameras be turned also on the citizens at home. Let us see the true Americans — not just tear-stained but immaculate war-widows in their fabulous kitchens, lost in the luxurious romanticism of war, but ordinary men and women whaj! know what it's all about and know that the present catastrophe :$ not just a novelette which the Japs started with bombs on Peaii Harbour and which the Americans will finish with bombs on Tokyo! It is the full measure of our complaint against U.S. propaganda that it should be necessary to assure our more insular readers that Americans are really just as knowledgeable and intelligent as we are ourselves. To clinch that particular matter, let us finish by quotinji from a letter written in a Pacific island foxhole and sent to Time] by four American soldiers after a viewing of Hollywood Canteen-^ "It was as though we'd been taken into a millionaire's home, treated like uncouth fools to whom a debt was unfortunately owed, then sent back, dazed by the splendorous kindliness of the mighty, to our six-by-three lives. . . ." NOTES OF THE MONTH Our Backs to the Future P.W.D. (Films) SHAEF was an opportunity of linking all that was best in British, American and French films. Instead it appears to have devoted itself to a damaging Anglo-Franco-American film trade war, with no holds barred. Its head is Mr. Sidney Bernstein, owner of an important chain of cinemas in greater London. He seems to have brought the outlook of a successful exhibitor of the old school into international film relationships. One would have supposed that the personnel of P.W.D. (Films) SHAEF would have been selected from film men distinguished in their profession. In fact, the French were dismayed to find that the principal film representative in Paris was a Mr. Allan Byre, known there before the war as a film manager and salesman. He is listed in the latest edition of Annuaire General de la Cinematographic we have been able to consult, as "Administrateur de la MetroGoldwyn-Mayer". Mr. Byre is a man of integrity, and has served P.W.D. to the best of his ability, but his world is not the world of international cultural relationships; it was difficult for the French to appreciate that he was not really serving his old masters, and therefore impossible for them to give him the respect a Government servant is entitled to expect. One can hardly be surprised, therefore, that the department of Mr. Jean Painleve, one of the most distinguished documentary and scientific film makers in Europe, and now the director-general of the Cinematographic Francaise, has been a little reserved. In case it should be imagined that Mr. Byre's case is exceptional, it is necessary to add trfat Mr. Korda's one-time associate, Mr. Pallos, is the P.W.D. representative in Rome. It is rumoured that he has, no doubt through lack of political sense, started distribution negotiations with a renter powerful under Mussolini and who has since been put on trial for collaboration. Nor is it any secret that many of the P.W.D. film staff, representing Allied film interests, have been picked because of their continental commercial background. When one talks to some of them, it is apparent that their only interest is to regain their pre-war jobs in the continental Wardour Streets, which they hope will become as similar as possible to continental Wardour Streets before the war. The picture is an ugly one. The matter does not end with P.W.D. (Films) SHAEF. If it did, what has happened might have only been a short term policy disaster. But Mr. Bernstein is not only the head of P.W.D. (Films) SHAEF. He is also and simultaneously head of the section in the Films Division of the M.O.L dealing with the production and distribution of films for liberated territory after P.W.D. (Films) SHAEF has passed on. True, Mr. Bernstein is under Mr. Beddington, but it is no secret that he is reluctant to accept the discipline of his director, with a consequence that there seems to be no prospect of a change of policy. The position is clouded by little puffs of optimistic publicity. Were it not for the fact that it is strictly against the rules and etiquette of the Civil Service, one would almost imagine that Mr. Bernstein occasionally employs a press agent. Matters are going from bad to worse, and something must be done to put them right. It is no answer to bleat out that a number of British feature films have been shown on the Continent. The Continent is starved of films, and it would have been disgraceful if such distribution had not been achieved. So far we have dealt only with the production and distribution of British films for the Continent. What of the production of films on the Continent, for distribution here and overseas? Matters are nearly as bad. Films Division, near D-Day, was all of a tremble, and ambitious proposals for continental documentary films were made. In fact, very few units have been sent out of the country. Is this due to the fact that P.W.D. (Films) SHAEF withholds facilities, or even that Mr. Bernstein's section frustrates the ambition of the Division as a whole? Or is it Divisional policy to confine British film-making to our own backyard? Specialised Distribution one of the most remarkable non-theatrical developments of recent years has been the conspicuous success of the technical film designed for exhibition to specialised audiences. For example, judged by the number of bookings, the M.O.L film, Neuro-Psychiatry (retitled Psychiatry in Action in America) is the seventh most popular nontheatrical film in the United States in 1944, the first six being combat films including Desert Victory. Psychiatry in Action ha(t been booked 1,974 times by December 31st, 1944, and 177 times in the first two months of 1945. Forty-five prints are in circulation and 17 copies have been sold to American organisations who make their own arrangements for exhibition. The film has also been borrowed by the U.S. Army and Navy for exhibition to their psychiatric services. There seems to be no question that this type of film presents a new and valuable method of sharing British wartime experiences, and it is to be hoped that a programme of such films will be developed, both by the Government and by industry in the coming j years. Provided that the films are objective, accurate and give credit fairly, they will enhance British prestige everywhere. John Robbins. Henri Storck we publish in this issue articles by John Robbins and by Henri Storck. John Robbins was amongst the most promising of the new young recruits to documentary. There was only time for him to begin his apprenticeship at Film Centre before he was called up and speedily commissioned. Then only a few months later he was killed in action. We shall never know what he might have contributed to the post-war story of documentary. Henri Storck is a Belgian pioneer of the film of fact. His deep hatred of social injustice he demonstrated in Borinages. Now he has suffered but survived the • Nazi occupation. That he is once more able to speak out freely is a result of the contribution of John Robbins and the other young men who have died with him. -.