Film and TV Technician (1957)

132 FILM & TV TECHNICIAN October 1957 BRITISH FILMS FOR BRITAIN The article printed below was contributed by GEORGE ELVIN to the fiftieth anniversary edition of the KINEM ATOGRAPH WEEKLY, to whose Editor we are indebted for permission to reproduce it here ANE of these days we shall pre" sumably reach agreement on the overall case for the production and exhibition of British films and how to fulfil it, but ever since my association with the industry a handful of people and a still smaller number of organisations have been battling against all comers — including those supposedly favouring British film production— either to stop the industry dying or at least to permit it to continue just ticking over. In no other industry (and making films is as much an industry as most other pursuits) would home producers continue to tolerate a position whereby they are very much the junior partner to imported product. Yet I have seldom known British producers, distributors or exhibitors collectively advocate policies which would lead to a substantial increase in British production. On the whole they have generally pursued lines to foster the hold of foreign product on British screens. Cockeyed The same thing can be said for hybrid bodies such as the Cinematograph Films Council which are charged by Act of Parliament to protect the wellbeing of British film production and yet appear to spend a lot of their time taking action which to my view has a contrary effect. They have never once, as far as I can remember, agitated for increased quota. They did nothing, despite being urged to do so by the trade unions, to force the government to halt the scandal of the shortage of studio space. Where can an independent producer find space today and what chance have we got to hold our own, let alone progress, with Denham and a dozen or so other studios remaining unavailable. Recent tendencies are making matters even more cockeyed. We have now reached the stage where theoretically, at least, British quota can be fulfilled without a single film being made in the United Kingdom. Indeed, but for the doggedness of the trade unions, and particularly their determination not to countenance British films being made other than under the terms of their agreements with the employers, we could have been flooded with films made in the Commonwealth and in Colonial territories, and employing a substantial proportion of foreigners supplemented by a modicum of local labour and yet still ranking for United Kingdom quota although using neither our studios nor staff. Naturally I am all in favour of the development of film industries in the Commonwealth and Colonies, but not at our expense. Kite-flying Recent kite-flyings are even more startling. We had John Davis's speech at the 1957 CEA Conference at Gleneagles which advocated a get-together with some of the Continental countries. I am all for the entente cordiale, provided it is to the common benefit of all parties and at the expense of other imported films. But rumour has it that there is a school of thought in both France and Great Britain advocating the possibility of altering our own British quota to a combined AngloFrench quota, so that French films can be shown over here as if they were British. Kuropean common markets are all very well if they are really common markets and in fact, build up a genuine free trade area. But the whole purpose is nullified if that free trade area merely whittles down the small degree of protection at present reserved by the British government for wholly British product. Fancy the British public going to the cinema and seeing a British quota film, not a word of which it can understand unless it is dubbed or sub-titled! So as a slogan for Kine.'s next 50 years I commend: "British films for Britain — and more of them." But these days it is pointless for the entertainment industry to talk merely in terms of cinematograph films. There is on the one hand wholesale condemnation of television by the film industry and yet, on the other, film interests are quite properly carving their own niche in this new medium. Now the Rank Organisation has joined ABC and Granada in the television field. Yet presumably our film industry will continue to breathe words of fire against television when it is not too busy pretending it doesn't exist at all. One of the best safeguards our industry has had with reference to the impact of television is the foresight of the film trade unions who have always looked upon it as a legitimate field of organisation. Not only, therefore, are the film trade unions numerically strong in that field, but they have also for that very reason helped to mould its policy along the right lines. TV Agreement To mention the obvious example, the trade unions have now reached agreement with the programme contractors, albeit not without some struggle, which will prevent television production being in cheap competition with films in the labour sense. It is about time other film interests took an equally realistic attitude and thought out and sought out policies which will enable films and television to develop as complementary partners in the entertainment industry. Let us hope that when our grandchildren are asked to write articles for the centenary year of Kink, or Kine. and Television Weekly as it will doubtless by then be known the first fifty years can be dismissed as the nightmare which they have largely been. On the other hand, let us hope that the 50 years about to begin will be a period in which we have all learned from the mistakes of the past and will record the progress of an industry serving the public in the twin fields of cinema and television providing an increasing number of British programmes until we can hold our own with ease with the rest of the world. Above all, in doing this we can provide a service to the British public which only a British industry, because it is British in all meanings of the word, can fulfil.