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

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE (J9 23 June, 1936.] Mr. D. E. Griffiths, Mr. S. Eckman, Mr. J. C. Graham, [Continued. Mr. J. Maxwell and Mr. F. Hill. Artists is a co-operative and distributing organisation of eminent artists and producers as its name bears. They formed this co-operative organisation to distribute pictures, and the constituent members do the producing at their own risk and expense. 955. {Chairman) : That is the normal arrangement, the renting corporation is a subsidiary of the foreign producer? — Not exactly. If you take all the other members of K.R.S. who are handling foreign pictures, they are all allied by franchise or otherwise with an American producing company, which company, with its own money, makes about fifty pictures a year, Paramount, Fox, Warners, Metro, and so forth. 956. And why can they not do the same thing in the way of getting British films that this other corporation have done ? — I think they would be very glad to do it, but their set-up makes it very difficult. In the first place, they have got fifty pictures of their own each year to handle, which is a large number. I think that is the only difficulty. Is there any other reason, Mr. Eckman? (Mr. Eckman) : Yes. 957. The difficulty is they have got these American pictures ? — (Mr. Maxwell) : They are fully occupied with their own large output. I should say the main reason why the others cannot do as United Artists do is first of all they do not get the chance, and they would gladly do it if they had, and if you ask me why, I would say it is because the United Artists' co-operative structure lends itself to that kind of thing and the number of pictures they have to handle from America being much smaller than any of the other American companies they have more room to do it. Their sales forces have a margin of time and energy available for it. (Mr. Eckman) : If I might just interject a word or two, the Company I represent has on many occasions made an attempt to get the better British films, but the British companies are reluctant to distribute through our agency because their attitude is that we have so. many, if I may say so, outstanding films of our own, that we could not possibly lend our best efforts to the distribution of their films. That is their opinion regardless of what we may say to the contrary, whereas when they distribute through United Artists, and that company not being a producing company, they feel that one producer has just as much opportunity to get the best results as another. 958. (Chairman): I see.— Shall 1 put it in another way. They feel, and nothing we say to the contrary will disillusion them, that because most of the pictures we handle are our own we would necessarily lend our best efforts to the distribution of those films to the detriment of theirs. 959. They feel you would push the American pictures rather than the British, having no obligation to do other than offer the pictures but not to place them? — Yes. 960. But you have very large capital at your disposal ? — Yes. 961. And have you made efforts to produce directly in this country any of these American producing companies?—It is definitely planned at the moment, but the reason we have not produced up to the present time is because it is so difficult to get the proper personnel. We are rather, wrongly or rightly, envious of the reputation we have established as producers throughout the world, and we have felt disinclined to produce over here until such time as we could produce here as well as we produce on the other side. 962. Is there anything in the existing law over here which would hamper you in producing? — Frankly I have not gone into that; I do not think the company has gone into that question. It is simply a question of available man-power, producers, directors and stars, that deters us, not capital or anything else. (Mr. Maxwell): Mr. Graham's Company have done 37873 some production over here some years ago ; perhaps he might tell you whether any effort has been made to meet that point. 963. Could you tell us your experience briefly, Mr. Graham, whether you have given up attempting to produce, and why? — (Mr. Graham) : We were the first producers in this country before there was any law ; we were in the British industry at that time, and we were perhaps five years ahead of the time and we .were spending a million pounds when we stuck. There was a loss of £600,000, and £300,000 of that money was put in by British people and we paid it back to them and it meant a loss. 964. What was the reason of the failure? — The reason of the failure was that we made these pictures in a period in the industry which had not advanced to its present status, in efficiency, in studios, and so forth, and after we finished those pictures and put hard work into them, the exhibitors said, " Well, we believe we had better take your other pictures," so we had to quit that. That was a period of three or four years before the present quota law was in force, and we did that entirely on our own. 965. Do you consider that these conditions have been modified? — Not the cost. There are many things that still affect it, of course. This was a partlyowned British company that had been formed here to produce British films, and because we saw we had taken them up the wrong street we paid them back all the money at 6 per cent, and took the loss. 966. But you were careful to tell us that the British industry was rmich less efficient? — After the quota law was put into effect we took a stage, and we began to bring personnel here as much as we could under the restrictions of the law, and we produced in one year pictures ranging in cost from £30,000 to about £70,000. I think those were the figures, and we lost money on that, on the whole lot, and we had to stop. Korda got his start with us; he made one picture which did very well, and that was the picture which enabled him to get his capital. 967. You brought over your directing personnel for the pictures? — We hired some here, but mostly we brought it over, but of course we had to produce under the law in order to make British pictures. 968. Quite, 75 per cent. British? — That one year we did eight pictures, and then we found it did not pay, that it was a big loss, and it was heavier on us than our capital would stand, so we dropped down to a lower grade of picture in price, because the law was going up in quantity. 969. Well, in your original memorandum you suggest that five or six feature pictures in the year would be a reasonable number to produce? — (Mr. Mar trill) : Yes. 970. That is for every company ? — For each of these companies. 971. Irrespective of size? — Well, they are all about the same size. They all turn out about 50 pictures a year in America and import that number into this country. 972. Would there not be a big outcry as to inequity if you departed from the basis of the requirements being in proportion to the scale of operation? — I am not suggesting that that should be departed from. It is a matter of readjusting the percentage; in other words, it would be a 10 per cent, quota on the basis I suggest. I have talked of number of pictures, as that is the most realistic and understandable way of stating it. !)".;. It would be an average of six? — Yes. 974. Would you still keep it proportionate P — Each company would do live or six, or four, according to its import of pictures from Hollywood. 975. You do not mean a flat rate of six all round? — No, it would be translated into a percentage of pictures imported, the figure of five or six being. according to my experience, as many pictures as A 4