Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER 115 THE FILMS ACT TT^or twenty years there has been legislation to protect and Ml develop the British film production industry. This year it is due once again for revision. On the two previous occasions when a Films Act was debated (in 1927 and 1937) the case for protection was, however, not easily made. British production was small and helpless in the face of Hollywood's numerical and technical superiority, while economically its affairs were literally nobody's business. There was little public realization of the power of the film medium and of the need for making it part of the cultural and economic life of the country. In the main the case had, therefore, to be argued in a 'Buy British' spirit in a desperate attempt to stem the Hollywood flood. In the end, British films got a better showing, but they were bad films for the most part, and the patriotic sense of the cinema-going public was severely strained. Today, circumstances are different. Although Hollywood is economically as powerful as ever and remains the chief supplier of the world's films, it has lost much of its technical and qualitative superiority. British film-making, on the other hand, has gained immensely in prestige and has shown, during the war years, that it has both imagination and a sense of reality. The argument for protection and for guaranteeing the British film-maker more screentime in the cinemas has now shifted on to grounds of quality. It is no longer a case of saying, rather wanly, this country could produce films, too, if it had a chance. Today it can produce films that have already made a contribution to film-making as well as sent the coins rolling into the box-office. This improvement in quality of entertainment is, however, limited in extent. For feature films, which constitute the bulk of British studio production today, account for less than half the cinema programme. The remaining 1 \ hours are taken up by bad American second features or equally noxious British 'featurettes'. Occasionally a stray short is taken in like an orphan of the storm, but it is rarely a welcome addition to the house. If the issue is to be quality, then it is the supporting programme (the second feature and the shorts) which needs the legislators' particular attention. The main bone of contention is the fact that the low quality of the supporting programme is not due to lack of talent in this country. The documentary and short section of the British industry has earned a considerable reputation. It has also an extensive production capacity. In the last five or six years as many feet of film have come out of the documentary and short units as all the feature studios together. Yet there is no market in the cinemas for their productions. During the war, largely as a result of special arrangements between the Government and the trade, a number of films like Target for Tonight, Western Approm lies. Desert Victory and World of Plenty did enjoy wide distribution in the cinemas and proved box-office successes. But with the end of the war the barriers have been raised once again. Yet the success of the Rank-sponsored series, This Modern Age', over the post-wai years proves that there is a market if the trade is willing. There is the talent and capacity in this country to produce not only shorts but longer story documentaries, to tike the place of the present low-grade supporting films. There is also scope for cartoons, comedies, short story and other types of film which could add variety and balance to the cinema programme. So long as the whole machinery of film renting, aided and abetted by the existing Films Act, operates in favour of the cheap and nasty, no improvement in the supporting programmes is, however, possible. The present Films Act introduced a cost test for feature films as a guarantee of quality, but provided no cost test for shorts. By artificially dividing films according to length into two categories — long and short — it encouraged the production of 'featurettes', short films padded out to just over 3,000 feet to qualify for long film quota. But it is above all the hand of the big renting companies and of the three major cinema circuits which is at work. It is they who determine what is to be the fate of the independently produced film, whether it be feature, documentary or short. Tod it is as plain as it has ever been that it is only the American film or the British film produced by the big combines which has full access to the cinema market. The inalienable freedom of the others is the freedom to want. The proposals submitted to the Board of Trade by the producers' associations all agree in recommending measures to reduce further American penetration into the production and exhibition branches of the industry and to increase the screen-time allocated to British films. They also agree on a new quota system based on a division of films into first features, second features or intermediates and shorts (instead of just long and short as in the past) which should help to eliminate some of the shoddy productions encouraged by the present Act. But this alone will not solve the problem of the supporting programme. A reasonable cost test to ensure higher quality for all categories is essential. It would prevent renters paying the ridiculously low figures they offer at present for short and documentary films, a figure which does not even cover production costs and is often an insult to the maker. The new Act should prevent such films being bought for less than production cost and, if they are rented, the producer should get a more equitable percentage of the receipts. A separate contract should be required for each film to reduce the dangers of block-booking, the practice by which exhibitors are forced to take films they do not want in order to get the film they are really interested in. It is also most important that producers should have better representatives on the Cinematograph Films Council which is the body operating the present Films Act. At the moment onlj two producers have seats, Mr Rank and Sir Alexander Korda, as against four exhibitors' and two renters' representatives. I he documentary and short section has no representation .it all. All these proposals, and the counter-proposals from the exhibitors must, however, be seen against the economic background o\ the industry and of Britain's financial relations with America Hollywood interests will lobby hard to prevent an) further measures designed to raise the volume and quality oi British production. The American companies' takings from abroad (of which 75 per cent come from Britain) represent the whole o\ then profits They naturalk feai increasing competition. I here is the further complication ot the Rank organization's own relations with Hollywood, and the carrot of increased distribution lot British films in the States which suggests some arrangement with regard to the future oi American films in Britain. ihe successful development ol British film-making and the quality ot the entertainment ottered to the cinema public depend on the action which the Government will take Ihe new I ilms Vt is one ot the ke\s to the problem,