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

166 COMMITTEE ON CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS 14 July, 1936. j Mr. 6. R. Hall C.une. [Continued. 1827. I do not quite understand Mr. Baker's proposal. Would you explain it? — You mean the italicised part? 1828. Yes?— Well, that is very much what Mr. Holmes was saying just now : first of all that the quota should be based upon foreign footage only, and, secondly, that a quality test should be imposed upon any quota films produced for renters for the purpose of fulfilling quota against foreign footage. He suggests a quality test there. 1829. It is rather puzzling? — Yes, I think it is; because a quality test is one thing and a price test is another. Perhaps Mr. Baker, as most of us think, thinks that if you put a footage price of a sufficient size on it will in itself tend to raise the quality of the film. That is all I can think he means. 1830. (Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold Wilson) : I apologise for my enforced absence, which may make it necessary for me to ask questions which have already been dealt with. I am in the position of being asked to criticize in one capacity what I have already unreservedly endorsed in another. You will observe my signature as Chairman to a report the concluding phrases of which may appear to pre-judge the work of this Committee. And I am further embarrassed by the fact that I am a colleague, of the witness not only in the House of Commons but on the Advisory Committee, and he has served on that Advisory Committee considerably longer than I have. The report which is now before us is the outcome of a great deal of thought and research and consideration on his part and on the part of his sub-Committee as a whole, and should carry great weight. Mr. Hall Caine has noted his objections to labelling films as quota films, on the ground that it would tend to prejudice films so exhibited. 1 should like to ask him whether he has any alternative suggestion as to distinguishing between various categories of films by some anodyne unobjectionable word which would serve the purposes of Government without in fact raising prejudice, or would he prefer to have simply no label at all? — Well, I have never given that matter thought. I certainly would prefer to have no label at all, because whatever label you put on would tend to identify itself with something which might be thought to be distinguishing and therefore to some extent objectionable. If you could leave it without any label it would be better. Really any name would do ; if it falls under a bad category it would always tend to. 1831. And would you regard the present and impending financial rearrangements within the industry as making the labels even less valuable? — Yes. 1832. You have given your reasons why you think the proposals to prevent evasion which are laid down in paragraph 6 would in practice work fairly well. Have you any reason to think that the American film companies have succeeded in getting round the Chancellor of the Exchequer in relation to income tax? — No; I have got my own ideas on the subject but I have never gone very carefully into that side of it ; but I do want to say that before you came in I did tell the Chairman, as you will see in the evidence, that my Committee did not consider this suggestion for a statutory declaration a.s by any means a final suggestion or as any other than another deterrent against abuse. 1833. But as a matter of fact, the arts of countering avoidance and evasion have been so highly developed in other directions, at the Treasury, in tin' Hoard of Inland Revenue and elsewhere, that it should not be impossible for the Board of Trade to learn from the experience of other Departments and administer a carefully drafted scheme of this sort? — 1 do not think it would. I moan, after all. take income tax for instance: you know your return I'm' income tax: you either make an honest return or a. dishonest one: and. after all. there is roalK i cry little moans of finding out whether that is the entire income you derive except from extraneous sources. It is the same way here; I think you have to find it in that way. Nobody is going to the Treasury and turn evidence again-t himself and say: " I made a false return of income tax."' 1834. Have you in your business capacity been impri sscd by the ability of the Treasury to detect any involuntary omission on your part? — I think we all have. 1835. So you hold by your general scheme as being adequate? — I think it is the best that we can suggest to protect the industry against itself. 1836. I gather from your answer to Mr. Cameron that you were not opposed to a quality test? — No. 1837. Can you elaborate further your ideas as to how a quality test could be superimposed upon the cost qualification? — Well, before you came in, Sir. I had said to the Chairman that I thought the whole of the Acts dealing with the cinematograph industry should be brought under one control which should include the British Board of Film Censors. I think it is quite ludicrous that we should have a voluntary organisation censoring its own work. All these things should be brought in, and then if you do that. if you put it up for ethics and morals, it is quite easy also to judge for quality. 1838. With regard to the scenario writer, I prefer on the whole, to be wrong with you in 1927 than to be right with you to-day, in the belief that it is important that the scenario writer should be a British subject, and not merely a British subject hut have qualifications other than those which are imposed by the naturalisation laws of this country. There is no country in the world in which it is so easy to become naturalised as this country. I do not think being a British subject is by any means necessarily a qualification ? — No. 1839. I know many British subjects whose mentality is further removed from that which I would wish to be typical of a British subject than the mentality of many foreigners? — You mean that the qualification should be British born, but even then that would not do. 1840. I feel that if we had an independent hoard there might be, quite unofficially, a general tendency by companies to select scenario writers with greater care. We do want to maintain the ideal of a scenario writer whose work will represent the spirit that we wish to maintain in this country, and not those rather woolly misrepresentations of classical authors, which have to my mind spoiled so many potentially good films. 1841. (Mr. Stanley Holmes): May I intervene? If we had a quality test for all films, that could include historical and geographical accuracy? — Yes. 1842. (Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold Wilson) : I agree. — (Mr. Hull Caine): May 1 answer Sir Arnold on the point which led me to take the modified view that I have taken. I entirely agree with what he has said. I so expressed myself in the Committee stage of the House and was successful in getting my amendment through. It was for the reason that 1 wanted to ensure that when a British film went out to the Dominions and foreign countries it would actually show our mentality and express the British spirit. The foreign producer was able to circumvent the clause: he did not call the man a scenario writer. He wrote the scenario, which, as you know, i the short draft of the long story: then he brought in a man whom he called a continuity writer; he broughl in another fellow whom he called something else. And SO we found that, though they were strictly complying with the law in that they had engaged Mr. So and So, who may have been British horn and British bred and everything else, to write the scenario, they then handed it afterwards to another man who was an American, and he re-adapted it and made it entirely different. We had no power sec that the scenario when written was transcribed into the actual film. 1843. It has been suggested that n might he possible to organise a school >>r institute of technical training, which would make it easier to produce