Minutes of evidence taken before the Departmental Committee on Cinematograph Films (1936)

76 COMMITTEE ON CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS 19 May, 1936.] Mr. S. H. Cole, Mr. D. Dickinson and Mr. G. H. Ei.vin. [Continued. 588. That is an exceptional case. Generally they are shown? — Yes, that is an exceptional case. 589. This case which you mention in paragraph 3, showing the film to the charwomen, is a great difficulty, because it seems to comply with the Act, and suppose the film was shown in the normal hours in the ordinary programme; I suppose you cannot work out your quota within a single performance. Do you see any amendments which could cover this point and prevent them showing unpopular films for quota purposes at undesirable hours? — That is again bound up with our chief point of quality. If a film is good enough to be shown, in a lot of cases it will be shown, but in some of these cases they are poor films. 590. It probably will disappear if you can raise the quality? — Yes. 591. Then, in paragraph 3, at the end of the section dealing with charwomen, where it is a quotation, it is said that the Act should be extended under conditions that will ensure quality and guarantee exhibition. Of course, you did not write this? —No. 592. But can you give us any idea what guarantee of exhibition was in the writer's mind ? — Quality is the main guarantee. 593. Really, guaranteeing exhibition means nothing. The important thing is to ensure quality? Yes. 594. Well, then let us come to paragraph (1) (a). You make a proposal that films should have a total cost of £12,000 per six thousand feet to make them eligible for quota. Do you prefer this total basis to the Form C basis with which you are no doubt familiar — Form C excludes certain costs from the calculations? — I see. 595. It would be quite easy to adjust your proposals to that other basis which leaves out certain expenditure which may be a little misleading in this connection? — We find it is very difficult, particularly in the. film industry where jobs do not necessarily have the names under which they go, to simplify it or get it in such a space that you could definitely say that you could exclude or would include certain types of work, and we think this is the best way of doing it. 596. You deliberately prefer the total cost of the Form C cost basis? — Yes, definitely. Could Mr. Dickinson amplify that? (Mr. Dickinson) : It seems if a renter had to deal only in films that cost £12,000 each for his quota requirements the amount of money he would have to spend would be so great that he would not be able to market pictures which had no hope of being shown. He would have to get good pictures which would rely upon their entertainment value to have any hope at all. Pictures would be so good they could mingle with the American renters' own product in direct competition — which seems unfair to American renters, but the quota Act was a tax on imported foreign films, and the idea was that the money should be used to build up an English film industry. 597. I am not in doubt as to your purpose, I am only wondering whether the more convenient measure would be the Form C basis which I understand works out the classes of expenditure which come in on the Form to about half the total cost. It would be quite easy to adjust your figures to a lower figure on Form C, and you would get exactly the sarin result if you fixed the figure of the Form C total at the proper proportion of the total cost. It might be you would exclude certain classes of cost by the Form C basis which are a little misleading and apt to be extravagant. It would strike out artificial extravagance, perhaps? — We would prefer total costs. 598. You would prefer total costs to Form C when modified to be adjusted to your purposes. If you had Form C you achieve that object which you mention in the next paragraph to some extent, and in that way you would exclude the company director's fees. preliminary expenses, overheads, and story cost. The other things do not come in, so instead of limiting them to 30 per cent, you would have them excluded altogether and get an adjusted figure perhaps on Form C ; but anyhow, you prefer the total figure ? — {Mr. Elvin) : Yes. 599. Then, in paragraph (I) (b) . the salaries. Instead of cutting out the manual and semi-manual labour, would it not be perhaps more convenient to deal with this matter by raising the percentage and keeping them in? I do not know what they come to? — Yes, if the percentage was raised high enough. Our point is the manual and semi-manual always is British labour, and in our opinion 75 per cent, is the right percentage excluding those two types of work. 600. If we kept manual and semi-manual in on this present system how much ought the percentage to be increased to cover them ? — (Mr. Cole): I think another reason why we excluded manual labour and electricians, and so on, is that very often, especially in the production of " quickie " films a large amount of overtime is worked, and that does not result in technicians getting more money. Technicians do not get any more money whether they work 12 or 24 hours a day. The electrician and manual labourer do, so it is much more difficult to say what proportion of the salary costs on a " quickie " film will be drawn by manual labourers than it is to say what amount will be drawn by technicians, and that is a strong reason for excluding manual labourers. 601. Then, in paragraph (II) (c), films for specialised halls. You would like the Act replacing the present Act to deal with the safeguarding of noncommercial foreign films. Is not there some difficulty about a hard and fast legislative provision for this? Is there not always the danger that you will let into your exemption cases which do not deserve it, where people are using the films as part of a very big volume of exhibition and where they quite well could cover it by the quota. If there is that danger do you see any objection to leaving this provision for non-commercial foreign films to the discretion of the Board of Trade anyway? — Oh, yes, we put that in because we wanted some remedy to the present position, but if there was a provision in the Act . . . 602. You will be prepared to leave it to the Board of Trade?— (Mr. Cole): Film Societies know at the moment that they have to, and they do, very often break the letter of the law in pursuing the showing of specialised films. They should not have to feel that, but they should feel they could do something at the discretion of the Board of Trade. That would be all right. We agree it is bad to legislate for exceptional cases and much better to legislate for the general ones and have a discretion for the exceptional ones. 603. In paragraph (II) (d) you draw attention to the necessity for increasing the penalties for breach of quota requirements in view of the bigger financial incentive to break these regulations. But I take it that there will still he cases where breaches are beyond the control of the people concerned. Would you keep the discretion to the Board of Trade to give relief where special circumstances are shown? — (Mr. Ei.vin) : Yes, but then we do urge, nevertheless, our paragraph with reference to the footage by which a renter fails should he added to his next year's quota whether the offence is inadvertent or deliberate. I think that is probably a justifiable clause that the footage must be added on to next year; but we realise there are cases where the Board of Trade must use discretion. 604. It is clear the penalties would have to be reviewed before being re-enacted. Now, as to double bookings, a great deal of trouble is really due to block booking, that the exhibitors are forced to take a bad film as part of the price of taking a good one. Do you think it would he desirable to make block booking an offence just as blind booking has been made an offence? — I think it would, hut. of course, it may raise certain difficulties. I think at any rate it would be a move in the right direction. It would certainly remedy the present position.