Picturegoer (Jan-Jun 1938)

January I. 1938 TlCTUREGOER Weekly PICTUREGOE R-T HE SCREEN'S MOST POPULAR MAGAZINE AN OPEN LETTER to OUR READERS The SHAPE of THINGS to COME Jane Wyatt and Ronald Colman in "Lost Horizon" — the biggest D EAR READERS, This page of open letters has its first birthday this week. A great deal has happened since it made its bow. Perhaps a great deal more than appears on the surface. A year ago we wrote of "all the indications pointing to 1937 being a year of great progress"; that not for a long time had a New Year opened under more promising auspices. Returning prosperity, we pointed out, had resulted in a general loosening of purse strings. Britain had never been so well equipped, financially and materially, for the battle for world film supremacy. At the same time we thought it necessary to issue a warning, in this very prosperity lay the fatal temptation to mistake pretentiousness for greatness. "Producers," we said, "might do worse than make a promise to themselves to remember that while money helps, money alone has never made good films." Nevertheless, we were optimistic about the future. Everything in the movie garden seemed to be lovely. City philanthropists were being killed in the rush to provide funds for British films. Hollywood was enjoying the biggest boom since the arrival of talkies. To-day the British film industry is in a mess and Hollyw ood is in the throes of one of the most serious financial crises in its history. It gives us no satisfaction to say that we told you so, but this sorry story has been largely brought about by unproductive spending. We are inclined to believe, moreover, that the metamorphosis is something more even than a mere difference between boom times and a slump. It may be a paradox, but prosperity has always been bad for films artistically. Through the entire history of the movie there have been definite periods when the screen has stagnated — and they have always been the periods of the industry's greatest prosperity. Curiously enough, they have usually come at intervals of roughly ten years. The period round about, for instance, 1907, saw the rough beginnings of films as we know them now. The new medium was considered important enough to warrant censorship. Griffith was beginning, and Bronco Billy was inaugurating the star system. By 1917 the screen was forced to throw oil the crudity of melodrama and custard-pie comedy and get down to the job of developing screen storytelling as an art. The genius of Chaplin was just being recognised, and the age of the super-cinema was dawning. There came the Thrilling Twenties, when the silent screen was brought to its greatest heights of perfection. By 1927, however, the screen had again reached saturation point. Though more money was being spent on them, pictures were standing still artistically. Attendances were falling off alarmingly. The movies had nothing new to offer. The sound revolution that year saved the situation. We cannot help speculating whether history is not repeating itself, and if films to-day are not in exactly the same position as tbey were ten years ago. More money was spent in 1937 in film production than in any single year in the past, but attendances are dropping steadily. The films have not progressed in the last year. There have been good films, like Lost Horizon, which was the biggest money-spinner here, but nothing that has advanced movies. Has the screen again reached the point where it must develop in some new direction if it is to retain its hold ? And will television come to the rescue of the cinemas in 1938 as talkies did a decade ago ? Television has made enormous strides in the last few months. In Britain most of the big cinema circuits are making plans to install " cinevision " screens. It may be a very big force by the end of 1938. Whatever happens, it should be an interesting year. The screen flourishes best in adversity. Necessity is invariably the mother of inventiveness in the movies. Prediction concerning movie matters is always risky, but we venture to forecast that one manifestation in the coming twelve months will be a moderation of the star system — with elimination of hysterical stellar worship — and heavy casualties in the ranks of the present front-rankers, most of whom are getting on as stellar life is judged. Finally, we wish our readers a Happy New Year. We'll do better than that. By providing you with the best review service available, and enabling you to shop for your films, we'll ensure that, so far as film-going is concerned at least, you won't have an unhappy one.