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feeling of concentration on the job in hand. By these methods it is apparently possible to ensure that the cost of a film bears a reasonable relation to its probable revenue.
About a million people go every week to Sweden's 2.500 cinemas. Four out of every ten films they see are Swedish. American, British and French predominate in the remainder although in, for example, 1949 films were also shown from the Argentine, Austria, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Russia and Switzerland. The exhibition of the foreign-language films is concentrated in the towns and cities, while the Swedish films are shown most extensively in the small towns and country areas. The larger film-producing companies, including Svensk Filmindustri, Europa, and Sandrew, are also owners of cinema chains which gives a certain stability to the film scene. Among the groups are the Sveriges Folkbiografer (Popular Cinemas of Sweden), a co-operative enterprise of about 400 cinemas within the frame of the Folkets Husforeningars Riksorganization (the National Organization of People's Houses Unions). Founded in 1941. this organization has grown rapidly and since 1945 has been linked to the distribution and production company, Nordisk Tonefilm.
From 1948 until the autumn of 1951, the Swedish film industry struggled under the burden of a greatly increased entertainment tax: from 15 per cent, to 30 per cent, on the cheaper tickets and from 30 to 45 per cent, on the others, with an average of 37.5 per cent. This meant in effect that the cinemas became tax collection offices for the municipal and central governments and that a disproportionately small amount of the revenue from film-going returned to the filmmakers. Proposals were made that there should be some discrimination in the imposition of the tax so as to benefit Swedish production, and in particular the production of films of cultural value. In order to enforce their protest, the Swedish companies ceased production in 1950. In the autumn of 195 1 , the Riksdag decided to return to the producers 20 per cent, of the State's revenue from entertainment tax on a certain number of films. Simultaneously the cinema owner's association decided to ear-mark for production a small percentage of the box-office revenue. These measures enabled the producers to resume film-making at the end of 1951.
It is too soon to say how film-making will be affected by the new conditions. Before production was temporarily interrupted, however, the Swedish film appeared to be a vital, growing creative force. It had rediscovered the traditional virtue of naturalism and addressed itself again to serious themes. Foreign influences had been absorbed to the enrichment of the native cinema and the work of the Swedish directors in turn had had its impact overseas. There was a creative stirring in and about the studios. New men with new ideas were making their presence felt. Already there had been a satisfying volume of achievement to confirm the reality of the revival of the Swedish cinema; and the forces which had produced it seemed far from spent.
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