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

100 COMMITTEE ON CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS 23 June, 1936.] Mr. D. E. Griffiths, Mr. S. Eckjian, Mr. J. C. Graham. [Continued. Mr. J. Maxwbm, and Mr. F. Hill. can be produced by a distributing company in those circumstances and make really good pictures. 976. But it is not a matter of money, the bigger company's profits? — No, it is not a matter of money. These companies have all plenty of money. It is a matter of being able to organise and secure the creative artistic talent that is necessary for the making of good pictures. 977. But is not there the same limiting factor in America? — No, because America, I should say offhand, has got a reservoir of talent, ten times as big as we have got in London. When I say " talent " I mean talent for making pictures. When you look at the figures in paragraph 8 of the second memorandum you will see the best illustration of what I mean. There you have got the output of London Films. In that case you have got a very experienced and able man at the head of it, Mr. Korda, who has been an expert in making pictures to my knowledge for 15 years, it is his life's work and occupies him night and day. He has got unlimited financial resources, and owing to his prestige he has got the pull on any talent that can be got in any part of the world, but his output was three pictures last year, two the year before, two the year before and five the year before, and that is out of probably nine or 10 pictures that he announced his intention of making, but with all his resources he could only make that small number. When you seek to impose on a busy distributor like Mr. Eckman or Mr. Graham the making of 16 or 18 pictures a year, the pictures cannot be well made and it is an impossible burden. If you are content to have cheap pieces of rubbish you might get that number, but they cannot do it and make really good pictures. My own company made 14 last year, and we had the greatest difficulty in getting enough skilled personnel, although with us it is a whole-time occupation and with plenty of capital. It is our aim and effort to make a large output of British pictures, but owing to the limitations of the personnel necessary we were only able to make 14. 978. You'say that if the obligation upon you were reduced so as to be in your opinion workable, you would comply with any stipulation about cost? — Yes. 979. What do you consider to be a reasonable cost to produce a worthwhile picture? — Well, I am not under an obligation myself to make any quota pictures, because our pictures are all British and all quota. I am only speaking on behalf of the American members, and I am only trying to put their case as it appears to me as an experienced neutral, if you like to use that term. The amount of money they are prepared to spend on making really good pictures, if they are asked to do it on a practicable scale, is anywhere from £30,000, £40,000 or £50,000 per picture. 980. What does it work out to per foot in the opinion of your organisation? — If they spend £50,000 it works out at about £7 a foot. 981. The quickies are sometimes produced as low as 15s. per foot, we have been told? — Yes. (Mr. Graham): That is the footage, that is because of the demands for footage under the law. If we were allowed to spend money on a reasonable amount of pictures, instead of having to go to eighteen pictures, as I am making now, you would get some pictures that would be worth-while for your theatres. 982. You do not propose to spend more money on making more pictures, but you propose to spend the same amount of money . . . ? — Intelligently. 983. ... on better pictures?— Yes. (Mr. Matewell): They might even spend more money, because if they go out to spend anything like the monej 1 am talking about, £40,000 or £50,000, as business men they must make that picture so good that it will be fit to go through the whole of their world organisation in order to get their money back, therefore they may have to spend more, they may not stop at £40.000 or £50,000 or even £60,000, thev must make a picture that is good enough to go throughout the world, for there is no certainty of getting that kind of money back from this count ry alone. 984. Are they proposing to spend more money on the same pictures, or more money on fewer pictures? About the same or possibly more money on fewer pictures. 985. Can you give us any idea as to what basis can fairly be taken as qualifying a picture on the grounds of cost for quota if that method were adopted. Some witnesses have urged it, and have made suggestions as to what cost per foot should be taken as automatic qualification? — There has been a scheme already considered by the Advisory Committee, which I think is a pretty good practical scheme, and that is to fix a minimum standard say of £15.000 for any picture to comply with quota, and then if double or more than double that amount is spent on the picture to count it as two for quota. 986. But do you think that good pictures can be produced for £15,000? — Oh, undoubtedly. I know because I have done it. (Mr. Griffiths) : We have done so 987. Then the last point of your second memorandum, the last paragraph seems to me to suggest that if the quality of pictures is improved and the volume remains the same it is going to hit the native British producers? — (Mr. Maxwell) : If that were possible to get such a large number of pictures and all of good quality ; I do not think it is possible, of course. 988. But it would only hit the bad pictures? — No. it would hit the British producer who is producing good pictures. 989. There would be more competition ? — As I put it earlier on, this large number of pictures — I think it is 104 or 111, that are produced for quota at the moment by these American companies so far have been negligible as competitors with us, the native British producers. They have been so bad that they did not compete with us, but if it were conceivable that the same number of pictures should be produced on a really good scale, as really worth-while pictures, that would be 111 new pictures as new competitors on the market so far as we were concerned, and it would be a rather disastrous thing. 990. It would rather depend on the level of the quota, and we have been told by the exhibitors that they have great difficulty in filling their programmes to comply with the quota? — Yes, in some few cases. 991. So that it would be a difference of interest between the producer and the exhibitor? — Yes, naturally the exhibitor wants the largest possible number to pick from. 992. That the good producer ought not to be hit? — It is only the exhibitor in some places who has difficulty in getting his quota. In some places they undoubtedly have difficulty. I do not think the bulk of them have real difficulty in getting the quota because you must remember that the actual output of British pictures is according to the Board of Trade figures, page 7, Table D of the Blue Book, fifty per cent, higher than the statutory requirement last year. When the point is made that the exhibitor at present is playing more than his statutory percentage that is probably quite true but the real fact is that he is playing considerably less than the statutory percentage of the British pictures that are produced. There is a number of between 80 and 90 British pictures produced each year that are not produced for quota purposes at all, like my own company's output: we make pictures because we want to make them, and we believe it is worth while making them. We do not make them because we have an American output of pictures. Therefore they are surplus to what the law requires for quota. As a matter of percentage 1 think the Board of Trade figure is that instead of there being 20 per (out. there is 30 per cent, of British pictures available to the exhibitor? (Mr. Graham): May I add that we find ourselves in the position where our