Film and TV Technician (1957)

December 1957 FILM & TV TECHNICIAN 165 Talking Points DOES TV HELP CINEMAS? NO HORROR HERE IT is about time we stopped letting people kid us that films and television are basically different and opposed to one another. True, I have yet to see a cinema advertisement urging patrons to watch a particular TV programme (though I expect that will come), but I should like to commend some fascinating work done by young Theo Richmond,* which indicates that a large section of cinemagoers are induced into the pictures by publicity on TV, both BBC and commercial. A Contradiction Richmond is what may at first sound like a contradiction in terms, for he is a film publicity director and a scientist, and the Boulting Brothers, who employ him, have just published his enquiry into what made people queue up to see Brothers In Law in the London general release area. Six out of ten who went to see this comedy also watch TV, but half of them only do so less than three evenings a week. Just the same, the TV programmes, which featured something about Brothers In Law, were so effective that 209f of those interviewed gave TV as their reason for going to see the picture. Actually, the main reason given by those in the queues was the cast of this amusing British film (over 30r/c of those quizzed gave this reason for going to the pictures that day), but here, again, I feel * " The Answer in the Q." General Secretary (continued) has faced up to its responsibilities in recognising and negotiating proper agreements with the appropriate Trade Unions. Whatever finally emerges as the new pattern we shall insist that the I.T.V. standards and not the archaic ones of the B.B.C. shall continue to apply to those who create, produce and transmit the programmes. The four persons I have mentioned have started us thinking. A.C.T.T. must before long get down to formulating its own policy. Maybe we should look carefully at the pronouncements I have cited for a start. that TV must be reckoned, together with the other means of publicity, to have had its effect, as most of the programmes featured one or more of the stars. It is significant that all the TV publicity was in entertainment programmes — seven of them from the BBC — and no commercials were telecast for the picture. I hope John and Roy Boulting and their far-sighted publicist Theo Richmond will carry out a similar survey with Lucky Jim (in my opinion a better piece of filmcraft than Private's Progress or Brothers In Law), for which 15-second commercials have also been put on the air. No hasty conclusions can be drawn from the present enquiry — and Richmond is careful to point out the limitations in this case — but I commend it to the monolithically-minded moguls of the Cinematograph Exhibitors' Association, who have been trying to stop Ealing Films from selling some of their old comedies to a commercial TV contractor in the mistaken belief that this will ruin the cinemas. Can't the CEA see that one of the means of financing the largescale productions, which are so necessary for their survival, is for producers to give old films a new lease of life and so get a new source of revenue from the product-hungry medium of TV? In an era when a number of talented film-makers are debasing themselves — and insulting their audiences — with horror and other X certificate films, it is refreshing to come across influential entertainers strongly condemning such catch-penny tactics. In a fine obituary to Louis B. Mayer the London Evening News wrote: " He detested the brutality that has entered pictures in the last decade. It made him unhappy that the public seemed to want it." I wonder whether the public really wants it. Anyway, now here is Sam Wanamaker, in introducing his New Shakespeare cinematheatre-club-concert-hall in Liverpool, saying he will not show films of violence, horror, science-fiction and exaggerated sex, nor productions glorifying war. Bravo ! But Wanamaker then goes and spoils it by banning the sale of confectionery in the auditorium. Why put films that emphasise the unnatural side of life in the same category as the very natural, harmless desire to have a bite to eat or a refreshing drink? Spoil Sports A similar ban mars the excellent National Film Theatre in London. I wonder if these spoil-sports understand the traditional likes of British audiences. John Hollingshead, one-time manager of the Gaiety Theatre, described the habits of the gallery at the Old Vic about 1838, which consisted of " perspiring creatures ; most of the men in shirt-sleeves, and most of the women bareheaded, with coloured handkerchiefs round their shoulders. . . . This ' chickaleary ' was always thirsty — and not ashamed. It tied handkerchiefs together — of which it always seemed to have plenty — until they formed a rope, which was used to haul up large stone bottles of beer from the pit, and occasionally hats that had had been dropped below." But I must not leave the National Film Theatre on a sour note, because through their showing the East German picture Duped Till Doomsday during the recent London Film Festival, I spent many pleasant hours with its director Kurt Jung-Alsen, who flew over specially from Berlin. We discussed at length the everpresent problem of where to And good screen-writers — the acuteness of this problem in East Germany (continued on page 166)