Motion Picture Herald (Jan-Feb 1948)

MOTION PICTURE HE RALD MARTIN QUIGLEY, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher TERRY RAMSAYE, Editor Vol. 170, No. 9 H|U February 28, 1948 SAYS MR. RILEY THE international relations of the cinema, and especially the screen relations between Britain and the United States, continue to experience confusing and naif attentions which muddle the scene. Mostly they are mere rationalizations serving to complicate painfully simple situations. Now comes Mr. W. G. Riley, industrialist engaged in glass manufacturing in the Midlands, writing a letter to the motion picture editor of the New York Times, signing himself as director of Pilgrim Pictures, Ltd., London, in which he now appears as backer of Mr. Filippo del Giudice. After rehearsing Britain's economic plight, he says: "... British films are not only an essential export helping us plug the holes in our dollar position, they are an opportunity to tell countless Americans something of our island story, how we think and the way we live, what we believe and why. Such matters, it is true, cannot be measured in dollars. They are means of understanding between peoples. The world is sick, tired, disillusioned. People are looking for new faiths and beliefs. Is the box office alone to be the measure of this need? . . . We believe that the cinema, while earning its keep, can play a part in this spiritual reconstruction. ..." Mr. Riley talks of "holes in our dollar economy" in the same breath with his phrase urging against "box office alone". It is by box office strictly "alone" that Riley-Pilgrim pictures will be able to plug any holes in any "dollar position". It is by box office, decidedly "alone", that they will find "an opportunity to tell Americans something of our island story". FURTHER, it is not entirely constructive to be telling us that "the world is sick, tired, disillusioned" and "looking for new faiths and beliefs". Part of the world is, but not our part. The Marshall Plan, the Friendship trains and the like are not the expressions and works of a disillusioned people. If we are to be disillusioned, that will come later. As for "new faiths and beliefs", we are rather, as a nation, engaged in trying to preserve the old ones. Mr. Riley urges the cinema as an instrument of "spiritual reconstruction". Restoration would be a better word. As for that "island story", we have been hearing it ever since Plymouth Rock. English common law is our common law. We honour the British traditions, and admire them somewhat more than some aspects of the island story of today with its drift to totalitarianisms, regimentations and nationalizations of industry. Mr. Riley speaks in glowing inference about "Henry V", that handsome Technicolored piece of Shakesperiana. Henry was part of the island story, too. And what did he tell his soldiery before Harfleur about why they were in France and what they were fighting for? Better let that one go as better for art than for history. Henry was a swashbuckling raider. It may be set down that "box office alone" can make the picture function. Neither Joe Blutz and his girl will go to Music Hall, nor will Adam Jones and family go to the Bijou Dream in Whiffletree, Iowa, looking for any "island story", for any chance to "plug holes" in any dollar position, or for "any new faiths and beliefs". The Blutzes and the Joneses want a show. They do not care what it is about or who made it, but they want it to be good. No one has yet found a way to make them look at it if they don't like it. ■ ■ ■ SQUIRT on THE NICKEL PROBABLY the surest way to mess up the poker game is to change the size of the chips on the table. Of late years we've had a lot of that, especially on the international map. The fact is that there has been a tinkering with the dollar, the pound, the franc, the mark and the ruble, the zloty, the bolivar, to say nothing of the box-top. Now the grand old American nickel is under fire. From expansive California comes word that Mr. Edward W. Mehren, president of the Squirt Company of Beverly Hills, is advocating the coinage of a 7'/2-cent piece. He wants that for the drink vending machines, where he considers 5 cents is not enough and a dime is too much. That squirt from Beverly Hills might drown the nickel, and what with the penetration of the screen theatre by the vending machine might come to put a coinage complication on box office prices. Candy bars and popcorn would move up with the change. The nickel has had an honoured career. Once it would buy a cigar, a big glass of beer, a cup of coffee, a piece of pie. Now all you can get for it is a chance to stand up in the subway or a booth telephone call. A y/j-cent piece would obviously call for a 2'/2-cent piece to make change, but at the rate things are going the price will have moved up beyond that squirt idea and the minimum coin will be the two-bit piece which gets your hat back. The dime is passing, too, only to be remembered by that 10-cent monument, the Woolworth Building, downtown. The dime won't even get your shoes shined in New York anymore. ■ ' ■ ■ A REACTION POSSIBLY it would be healthy to put into international circulation here some of the American reaction to the British 75% tax on film imports. Here is how the New York Daily News looks at it, editorially,, with a headline, "Plowing under British Movies": "Who will profit, we couldn't say. Sir Stafford Cripps will probably be able to warm his ascetic, pleasure hating little soul with the thought that by gad, sir, he showed 'em. But his government will be out a lot of revenue, thousands of jobs will have been massacred, and the already miserable Britons will have been deprived of a harmless and economical way to escape for an hour or two from the wretchedness of their everyday lives. ..." The Daily News is not a notable protagonist of the picture industry, but it is close to some millions of the common people. — Terry Ramsaye