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FRANCE 469
deemed necessary. As a result of the negotiations and the resulting agreement, the leadership of the French industry passed into the hands of the president of the Motion Picture Chamber of Commerce, a representative with a more friendly appreciation of American interests in the market than was held by the former leader. The attitude of the contemporary Undersecretary of State for Public Instruction and Fine Arts, was also considered by the American association to be friendly.
A desire for protection of native industry in European film producing countries other than France and for restrictions on the importation of American films in all countries had provided an incentive for the development of an international concentration of economic policy. The leaders of the industry in Europe had recognized an inability to meet American competition and the necessity of finding a European sales market of sufficient magnitude for European production.
Practical proposals toward the formation of a "Film Europe" were made as early as 1926 at the first International Film Congress, when the Central Distributors Association strongly advised the creation of an international economic film bureau. The task of the proposed bureau would have been to prepare the necessary basis for such a joint activity and to collect and disseminate statistical information on the entire film industry. The necessity of creating such an international bureau, limited by the requirements of exhibitors, was also pointed out by the French representatives at the International Exhibitors' Congress which was held in August, 1928, in Berlin.13
Success in the formation of an international control over European film companies would mean a serious challenge to the American position in the European market. In 1928, Germany, Great Britain, and France produced 221, 95, and 94 feature films respectively, a total of 410 films costing $22,360,000. Other countries produced as follows: Austria, 23; Czechoslovakia, 19; Poland, 14; Italy, 8; Spain and Portugal, 11 ; Sweden, 8; Denmark, 7; others, 19. The 1928 output of American producers was about 800 films at an estimated cost of approximately $115,000,000. As a market, Europe had 27,000 motion picture theaters for a population of 470,000,000, as compared with America's market of 20,500 theaters for 120,000,000 people. Irrespective of the
13 Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Trade Information Bulletin No. 617, 1929.