Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

8 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE Volume XII, No. 6 small-town theatres can be “protected” by the theatrical exchanges against school or other unwanted theatrical competition because such pictui’es will be made o)ihj in 35mm and the new width. The gun will also have a second barrel, because the new width will clip the wings of fbj-bij-night 16mm theatrical exchanges which are springing up all over the map, and are renting out-of-date theatricals in 16mm sound. Too many of these, we are sorry to say, thrive on school patronage, and this brings us to our next observation. With improvements being made in film emulsions and projector lenses, why can not a class of, say, 30 pupils, be accommodated with 8mm projection? Sound has been experimentally recorded on 8mm by amateurs with more than reasonably good results. If professional skill gave this problem serious considera tion, no doubt 8mm sound-film could be economically pi'oduced commercially. This would bring the outright sale of educational pictures down to the point where individual schools could possess them, aoid it is on such possessio}i that adequate and proper use of the motion picture in education depends. Schools ca)i not be operated on loans or rentals as theatres are! At present, those schools fortunate enough to possess projectors are doing what they can to introduce visual communication into their work, but the present situation is too much akin to the “rabbit sausage” that Teddy Roosevelt described as being composed partly of rabbit and partly of horse meat, on a 50-50 basis — one horse and one rabbit! The school use of visual communication is diluted with audio communication in the ratio of a thousand to one. And now some book companies, intent on holding the status quo, are advocating school use of film strips! They know very well that only in this way can they continue the dilution ratio a little longer. If school authorities are so uninformed that they can’t see through this sudden interest of the book companies in projected pictures, they are going to waste a lot of money! The situation has reached the point where one may almost spot a person who may have more than a professional interest in books, by his advocacy of filmstrips. It is amusing to note that some of these advocates do not so much as know what to call this mugwump of the projected-picture field. They think it is something new ! They do not know that the filmstrip antedates the 16mm motion picture and that it was born neither of necessity nor for the advancement of learning, but came into being purely for a commercial reason called “competition.” However, its creator saw that it wasn’t even good competition and discarded it. It will take more than a “strip” to save a certain drowning business, which brings forth another consideration. It was unfortunate that destiny placed the motion picture in the theatrical field instead of the publishing field. The scripts and cameras employed in making motion pictures are “props” of the publishers. The thespian and scenic arts are “props” of the theatre. On this basis the motion picture might be considered as belonging equally to the publisher and theatre. But there was another factor, and it was the deciding one. For purely mechanical reasons the publishers sold their products directly 1 0 the individual consumer, whereas for equally imperative mechanical reasons, the theatre sold its commodity collectively . This difference doubtlessly placed the theatre in possession of the cinema. It is becoming increasingly apparent that this alliance of the theatre and the cinema was not for the best interest of the consumer. The consumer, at least in free countries, accepts collectivity as an irksome compromise, but only a compromise. He is ever ready to cast it aside. For a time the theatre held a firm grasp on the motion picture, but there are too many and necessary uses for the cinema that are not legitimate theatrical material for the theatre to continue its monopoly — witness the great use made of motion pictures by the armed forces ; and the everswelling tide of school, commercial, and propaganda usage of all kinds. Commercial demands have become so insistent that they are pushing their way onto the theatrical screen itself with such bold attempts as Weak End, at the Waldorf and Harvey Curls. Soon we may be having theatrical pictures on The Standard Railroad of the World, It Isn’t a Codak If It Isn’t a West man (with tintinnabulation), or Ninety-Nine and Ninety-Nine One Hundredths Per Cent Pure. The radio is doing it, so why not the movies, especially if television shows or forces the way ! As for classroom pictures, shall we choose to place this frail infant in the hands of its old, rapacious nurse, the text-book publishers ; or shall it be left to the mercies of one that has come up from the slums, and is still pretty sticky — the theatricals ; or shall we let it grow like Topsy and choose its own parents later on? Well, the Topsy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin didn’t do so badly. Let us allow the matter to rest here until next month, when we shall discuss this “Topsy” angle.