International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1930)

-36 a kindred culture. All the more important would it be to know and to study those films which have proved a commercial success in a given cultural area. These films should be traced and che reasons of their success investigated. However, much could be learnt also from failures, and those films which were less successful or failed to achieve any measure of success should also be made the object of careful study, with a view to finding out the reasons of their partial or total failure. At present the estimation is quite one-sided and superficial. The unsuccessful film does not yield money, it doesn't sell, and it consequently disappears from the scene. Film dealers are not likely to have given much thought heretofore to investigating the psychological causes or the special circumstances to which success or failure may be due. Should I however be mistaken in this, it would then be extremely desirable that the producers and dealers who have made such investigarions should publish the results of their researches in the International Review of Educational Cinematography '. From such contributions as well as from the results of the suggested investigations, and from an accurate study of successful films — having due regard to the mentality and educational methods obtaining in the countries where they were exhibited — educational film producers could doubtless derive precious indications for their production. It is high time that also the film industry should advance from the stage of empiric production, based simply on rough estimations, to the phase of methodical production founded on the results of psychological research and study. The question of how the popular educationist and the school teacher can procure the films most suitable to their purposes has been repeatedly mooted and discussed, but never yet satisfactorily answered. In a number of cases all the seeker can do is to apply to individual dealers or to concerns, who can, of course, only offer what they have actually available. This problem was already thoroughly dealt with by the author in a paper read by him at the Congress for Cinematograph Reform held at Vienna in May 1924 and on the occasion of the First Austrian Educational Week, which took place likewise at Vienna in October 1925 (1). Although the collection of films together with their negatives was also recommended by others (Dr. Ackerknecht, Stettin, and Prof. Dr. Ammann, Munich), no such public, generally accessible collection exists to this day. Naturally the negative and positive stocks of film producers or dealers cannot be taken into account, and neither can the limited school collections which include but a few items. What are these collections compared with libraries! Voluntary institutions for popular education or associations for school cinematographs, as for instance the Austrian Urania Association, the Popular Library, the Vienna Association for Popular Education, and the Austrian Association for School Cinematographs, endeavour, individually or collectively, to procure and collect the necessary material, either by stipulating (1) Compare the report on the Congress for Cinematograph Reform in the magazine « Volksbildung », 5th year, Nos. 4 5, p. 361, «Die Frage der Schaffung einer Ft Imauskunfs telle » (Austrian Federal Press, Vienna I, Schwarzenbergstrasse, 5), and the report on the First Austrian Education Week, p. 19, 1926, (Austrian Federal Press).