Motion Picture Herald (Jan-Feb 1945)

MOTION PICTURE HERALD COLVIN BROWN, Publisher MARTIN QUIGLEY President and Editor-in-Chief TERRY RAMSAYE, Editor Vol. 158, No. 2 OP January 13, 1945 NEWSREEL PROBLEM THE newsreels have been taking a kicking around by pressures high and low ever since the war began and have now with developments of last week reached their all-time low in scope and status, within and without the industry. Through most all the years of the service of the newsreel it was standardized in one-reel length, meaning between 950 and 1,000 feet, positive length. That gave, in theory, fifteen and a fraction minutes of screen time, but in projection practice between thirteen and fourteen minutes. When sound arrived, projection speed went up to 24 frames a second, bringing the running time for the same footage down to a shade over ten minutes. Then when wartime conservation arrived in 1942 the War Production Board, specifically on the advice of the industry itself through the Industry Advisory Committee, cut the newsreel allowance to 750 feet per print — about eight minutes of screen time. Now a new cut to 600 feet, giving about six and a half minutes, has been proposed by the War Production Board conservationists, but this time the industry is raising opposition, urging that it would seriously invade the functioning of the newsreels. Unhappily, the camel was permitted to get his head in the tent in 1942. It was just as true then as it is now that the newsreel in this war has the biggest screen story in its career to tell — and will continue to have it to tell through the rest of the war and into the peace — with the least opportunity to tell it. THE motion picture industry will be having to decide whether or not it desires to continue and to encourage the newsreel. It is entirely within its rights and province to make any decision it considers indicated. The newsreels belong entirely to their owners who are engaged in the entertainment business in the service of theatres. There is no obligation, upon the institution of the screen to produce newsreels. It would seem, however, that any decision should be positive. The whittling that has gone on and such devices as shelving an entire release to make way for a propaganda short have given the newsreel pernicious anemia. The individual policies of the newsreels have been widely various and divergent for these many years. Today it is to be expected that prospects of the use of television as a device of news purveyance to the theatre screen may now move the reels and their corporations of ownership and affiliation to a more aggressive policy — at least through a developmental period. * * * * THE newsreel in the early days of its functioning was in some degree a news medium. That was before it had to compete with anything but the printed word from the telegraph wire and the newspaper halftone. There came in turn rotogravure, airplane transport, wirephoto and radiophoto picture services. More and more the newsreel became a sort of screen equivalent of the Sunday supplement of the newspaper. With sound, the newsreel has gone further in that direction, has become more and more a bit of vaudeville derived from the news, with its sports commentators, its fashion bits, and its jokesters. Meanwhile, generally speaking, newsreels have been sold as "fillers" and it is a commonplace of interior discussion among newsreel men that their product is "just as strong as the line of features that It is sold with", regardless of content. Incidentally, now and for a long time some of the reels make their living out of sidelines, such as miscellaneous shorts made from by-product negative and from the production of industrial, propaganda and advertising pictures in the so-called nontheatrical field. It is to be remembered, in the long view, that the newsreel is still the most honoured and traditionally established product of the theatre screen. It is decidedly older than the feature picture, and it was making friends of importance for "the movies" before there was anything else on the screen to interest even moderately adult-minded persons. There are still those who go to the theatre to see the newsreel — but they will not be going much longer to see the little that the newsreels have had to offer of late. The newsreel has long been In a pretty sequence of predicaments, with the line of policy odd-jobs that it has had to do. The situation is reminiscent of what so often happens In publicity departments. When in many corporations, In this and other industries, something arises which presents a non-routine problem, it is referred to the publicity department, which is subsequently charged with the costs. In parallel, all too often when some motion picture home office finds some "Washington requests" for screen attention the convenient device Is to give the job "to the news". There has been and continues so much of that that when the newsreel editors are through with the" "business office must" their space, time and footage are gone. This condition, of course, spreads all across the field so that no one reel suffers a handicap, but the whole institution does. * * * * ANOTHER set of problems for the newsreel arises from the fact that those long, long features which have been k draining away the raw stock have also been taking the screen time. The newsreel properly fits Into the standard movie show, which means a mixed bill of drama, comedy, music, etc. It was at the zenith of its opportunity In the days of the single feature and the short feature. It no more belongs with the big super-feature of today than an acrobatic act would fit In the program of the Metropolitan Opera — not so well, in fact. The motion picture is in a tedious process of stratification between the movies and the super-cinema. Maybe, when that classification is made, If the newsreel should live so long, it will be better off. Just now It needs a friend and a policy. //■^ ELEVISION bids fair to become a billion dollar industry I with 150 transmitting stations operating within five I years after the war," In the opinion of Mr. James D. McLean of the General Electric Company, speaking before the National Retail Dry Goods Association in New Yodc this week. Mr. McLean is chief sales engineer for his company which makes equipment, for sale. — Terry Ramsaye