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

142 COMMITTEE ON CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS 7 July, 1936.] Mr. Ivor Montagu. [Continued. area, and have been thus exhibited without any resulting disorder or police objection of any kind. Yet consider the consequence of the Quota Act in this connection. Suppose a foreign film to have been approved for exhibition by a local licensing authority, and suppose a man to desire, as the law otherwise permit him, to exhibit it to the public, even only once, in that locality to propagandise its social purpose, he can do so only if he contrive its registration for distribution, in other words if : (a) he have enough money to acquire outright a Britishmade film (at a cost of thousands of pounds ; if certain minima now recommended by various bodies to the Committee are accepted, even many thousands) ; (b) he can induce an existing distributing organisation with " free " equivalent British quota (in practice a large and wealthy organisation) to register the film. In other words, in practice, the effect of the Act is that a foreign film not sanctioned by the Trade Board of Censors can, even if sanctioned by the local licensing authority, be shown only by grace and patronage of persons of more than ordinary wealth. This has surely introduced a novel limitation on the rights of the individual, novel when compared with the freedom of expression secured to him in other fields. From another point of view, it is a novel limitation upon the rights of local censorship sanction by local government authority, secured by the Cinematograph Act of 1909. It is not the purpose of this memorandum necessarily to argue that such limitation cannot be justified. It is, however, surely repugnant to the traditions of British legislation that, if just, a novel limitation of the liberty of the individual and of the powers of local government should be effected not overtly, but as unforeseen consequence of an Act passed ostensibly for commercial protection. Solution : the Exemption or Special Taxation of Specialised Foreign Films. 9. The society makes no special claim for exemption of specialised foreign films from all contribution towards British production. The legislature has accepted the principle that exhibition, and distribution, of foreign films should contribute towards production of British films, and the case we have set out above is a case for making at all possible the showing in public of foreign specialised films, not necessarily a case for their total exemption from all contribution. (It should, however, be noted in this connection that a specialised or experimental film, imported for one single private society performance and then immediately re-exported, pays already the same protective tariff as a commercial film which may earn hundreds of thousands of pounds). The trouble is that even one specialised foreign film which can never be expected to earn more than a few hundred pounds or even less than a hundred, under the present distributor's quota, must be balanced by at least one British film costing many thousands. The society suggests that, if total exemption be considered undesirable, there might be a special tax on the gross earnings of specialised films, which could be paid by their distributor to a fund for British production, as an alternative to the acquisition of British product. Even if the total gross earnings of such films were taken for such a tax, the burden would be far less than the necessity to acquire British product, the cost of which is so many hundreds per cent, in excess of such gross earnings as to constitute an absolutely prohibitive obstacle. There seems no reason in equity, however, why the figure should exceed a percentage of the gross takings equal to the percentage of footage imposed on renter's quota currently for commercial films. A difficulty may arise in the definition of a " fund for British production." This should not however be insuperable. A method that would avoid all evasion would bo to pay direct to the Board of Trade, which could allot at its disc ret ion to any national or educational film production enterprise that met with its approval. i i. \ssificati0n of speclujsed fllms : opposition to a Quality Certification. 10. The sole serious difficulty confronting the above proposal is the classification of the category of specialised films. In the next section, however, the Society will submit a solution. Here it only desires to go on record as opposing any method of certification, or quality clause. Interpretation of a quality clause or certification is bound to cause heart-burning and controversy. There are many cases of films indubitably experimental, obviously unsuited to the wide public. But. on the other hand, there are films — as Chinese — which though made as ordinary commercial produce for their own country, have here only a cultural and not an ordinary commercial value. Further, there are many border-line cases, as the aforesaid " Madchen in Uniform." A classification on a quality clause might be a pis aller. But the Society submits there is a more reliable solution. Classification by Narrow Limits of Exhibition. 11. What is the characteristic of the specialised film which entitles it to a case for encouragement? What is the characteristic wherefore its exhibition cannot injure or compete with British production? The fact that it is, indeed, so very restricted in exhibition. No such film can run for more than a very few weeks, if it could it would immediately leave its category and enter the category of those suitable for commercial exploitation and liable in justice to come under ordinary quota responsibilities. But no distribution business, competing with British produced films, could possibly be built up on a bSsis of films allowed to run only a very few weeks. The Society suggests that the following might be taken as characteristics defining a specialised film : — (a) not more than one copy on distribution ; (b) not exhibited for a total of more than so many weeks in any one year. (Even only ten, of which four weeks at least had to be in the provinces, would greatly improve the present position; the number might however well be slightly larger. This period of weeks to be understood, of course, as all theatres totalled together — this follows automatically from the rule of not more than one copy on distribution.) (c) there might be a further provision defining the size of theatre and period together, to ensure that " big business " evasion would be prevented (i.e. specialised theatre size to be taken as averaging 500 capacity, and two weeks at one theatre seating 1,000 would be taken as equivalent to four of the average weeks). If a picture, originally registered as " specialised ", were to meet unexpected success and run any more abundantly, it would leave the specialised category and could fairly be called a commercial proposition, requiring transference to a real distributor with quota footage equivalent, before being allowed to be booked beyond the " specialised " limit period. Summary. 12. The proposals above set out are devised to meet a real difficulty. They have been discussed and unanimously endorsed in principle at a meeting attended bj representatives of the following Film Societies: Billingham, Birmingham. Edinburgh. Leicester, London. Manchester and Salford. Merseyside, Scunthorpe, Tyneside and Wolverhampton. The activity which they ar<^ designed to permit is generally agreed to he beneficial and cannot possibly he regarded as harmful to British production. At present this activity, the exhibition to the public of " specialised " films, is inhibited in its development by the existing law. Indeed it only