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xxxii INTRODUCTION
one, and though there is an overwhelming flow of facts of Hollywood life and labour, the facts of the geographical aspects, physical facts of geology, climate, temperature, and so on, of that wonderful combination of natural features which made the Hollywood Film City inevitable upon the birth of the Cinema, are not to be had, except from the more or less sentimental guesswork impressions of visitors.
The many difficulties experienced in the attempt to study the reactions of populations to the Cinema in the war and revolution areas, would take too long to explain. In the chapter on The Personal Equation, wherein I tell the story of my adventures in search of first-hand evidence, the reader may, if he likes, imagine them for himself.
With regard to London as a world cinema industry centre, there are regional surveys that enable one to see what natural advantages this centre possesses to promote film life and labour. But the industry itself is too young, and its extensions as yet too uncertain, to permit the inquirer to make a definite and complete London cinema industry survey. The most that can be done at present is to compare such natural and commercial advantages as London possesses with those of Hollywood. Anyone who does so will find that commercially London has considerable advantages over Hollywood, especially as the new conditions of production set up by the present " revolution " of the picture promises to transfer the American cinema industry to New York and its suburbs1. The Talkie has set Hollywood
1 See Film Weekly, November 18, 1929, p. 5.