Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

10 DOCUMENTARY FILM NEWS NEW DOCUMENTARY FILMS Trained to Serve. Crown Film Unit for the C.O.I. 1,457 feet. Trained to Serve is the third in a series of COI made in Germany by Graham Wallace of the Crown Film Unit, working with German film technicians. The other two films were KRO Germany, 1947 and School in Cologne. Contemporary films, when dealing with a situation that is possibly debatable, are inclined to be tepid in their approach. Facts are given, but not all the facts. In most cases there is a simplification of the problem, to the detriment of the whole. It was apparent in One Man's Story, and the same impression is left on the mind in Trained to Serve. The film indicates that when hostilities ceased in Germany, there was no police force available that had been trained to serve the community as we understand it in this country. The German Police Force had been used as a heavy arm of the Gestapo, and it was necessary to recruit a body of men. and train them in the traditions of a democratic security force. We are shown the black market, prostitutes, and juvenile delinquents, in fact the whole bag of tricks. Social problems being dealt with, even under the guidance of the Control Commission, do not necessarily contribute to social stability. This film says that the situation is difficult, but that everything is going to plan. Is it? Artificial Insemination of Cattle. Made by Darlington Hall Film Unit for C.O.I. Approx. 900 feet. Artificial Insemination of Cattle is an excellent film that can be fairly called a first-class instructional record. Artificial insemination, when applied to homo sapiens, has provoked considerable argument. Cows evidently have no scruples. As the film ably demonstrates, this is all to the good, because, with care and training, artificial means of reproduction enables the small farmer to build good class dairy herds and livestock, for the payment of 25 shillings service fee. Prior to the introduction of this scheme, which is sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Farmers' Union, the quality of the dairy herds in this country was conditioned by the economic circumstances of the farmer. With the introduction of this plan there appears to be no reason why there should not be a progressive improvement in the value and quality of livestock. Films of this nature can be dull, very dull, but this film tells its story in a straightforward and scientific manner, with excellent visuals and an unobtrusive commentary. Hill Sheep Farm. Campbell Harper Films Ltd, lor Department of Agriculture C.O.I. 20 minutes. 1,682 feet. A film which demonstrates the urgent need to repopulate and refarm the Highlands of Scotland again.t a background of the destruction of Scottish sheep farming and the general decline of Scottish agriculture. The shepherd's job is a skilled job, vital for all. This film shows how he wages his battle with nature almost single-handed. It leaves us regretting what might be done with help better planned and more generous than the Hill Farming Act provides. Direction and photography are good. The film moves rapidly and has a refreshing authenticity. Scottish Universities. Data Film Unit for C.O.I. and the Scottish Home Department. Director: Francis Gysin. Running time: 22 minutes. Unbelievably dreadful and pompous. The film moves in the manner of a tired professor, on whose behalf the commentator reads a lecture. Most of the problems of university life receive a mention, which is about all that can be said in the film's favour — unless we add that its very dullness indicates in a negative kind of way how far behind the times our universities move. It is understood the Unit encountered many outside difficulties and conflicting opinions during production. They are reflected in the film. AN AMERICAN FILM Florida— Wealth or Waste. Produced by the Southern Educational Film Production Service. Written by George Stoney. Camera by Leo Seltzer. Length: 3 reels (?) Those who have always regarded American documentary as lying somewhere between Chevrolet advertising films and the purity of Bob Flaherty will do well to examine the specifics of a modest self-confident little film called Florida — Wealth or Waste. Therein is to be found, among other things, that pleasing sense of gusto which comes, or used to, when producers embrace the difficult with enthusiasm, and when films, having taken on almost too much, arrive breathlessly at the end title, conscious of having done and said a good deal, and said and done it well. Consider as sponsor, in general a Region, comprising six south-eastern states of the United States, and in particular the State of Florida with its jostling attributes and competing interests, its geography and climate, its forests and orange groves and farmlands and sponge beds and fisheries, and that most mystical and marvellous of all resources in the eyes of the Chamber of Commerce — the Tourist Trade. Consider further that the legend which gives the State of Florida its special quality is the legend of limitlessness — of inexhaustible fertility, of expendable plenty, the bounteous extravagance of nature bestowing on native and tourist alike endless oranges, endless sunshine, endless sea beaches, with the Chamber of Commerce wisely adding its own bounty of endless parades, bands, board-walk attractions, bathing beauties and luxury hotels. The Southern Educational Film Production Service, with grave and honest regard for the njeds and interests of its sponsors, enters wholeheartedly into the picture postcard view of the state, moves soberly over the denuded devastated exploited farm and timber lands without reproaching anj component part of the sponsors. defines a Florida which is far from perpetual plenty, and begins decisively about the end of reel two to pull an educational film on conservation and the planning of resources out of all that has gone before. Some of us may wonder that in the richest and most powerful nation on earth it is necessary to calculate the attitudes of conservation with such caution, and present them so deftly and carefully. But they are new attitudes to a country which has hitherto suffered little under reckless extravagance and the waste of its resources. Nothing better can be said of a unit than that it truly understands its local and national problems, and that it finds as well the effective idiom to make that understanding prevail. Florida — Wealth or Waste by gearing the policy of conservation to the most local of needs has also done a good job for FAO in the United States. And while it is busy on the long slow task of creating new attitudes to resources, it contrives at the same time to suggest that Negroes, given the potential of skills and opportunities, might also have something to contribute to the future of the south. But for the audience which isn't concerned with how difficult it must have been to launch these particular arguments in this particular situation, it is anyway a good film to look at. It is a better piece of information for the United States than those expensive Voice of America broadcasts which prove that the New York Times is an objective newspaper and etcetera. BASIL WRIGHT his vigorous andjorthright THE USE OF THE FILM Basil Wright's title, The Use of the Film, reveals the angle ol his approach, and whilst he lias much to sav about the actual making >>t films he bears in mind throughout that the) are always made For semiuse or other. He covers concisely the nature ol this great new mass medium, its enormous potentialities, the present position of Hollywood and the luture ol the British Film industry . 35 6J THE BODLEY HEAD