We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
American Motion Pictures Abroad — Golden 53
possible exception of Germany — where the domestic product commands a majority of the showings. Japan in 1927 filled nearly 75 per cent of its film requirements with Japanese produced pictures, and while these are constructed as to plot themes and methods in a manner which make them unsuitable for world wide distribution, a few Japanese films were shown in China, Siam, and other adjacent territories. A few films for Indian consumption are produced yearly in India, while China boasts a number of producing concerns. With respect to these latter a bulletin compiled last year by Mr. North, chief of the Motion Picture Section, describes in general connection with the Chinese motion picture market a number of Chinese productions. Australia finally is seeking hard to create a native film industry. There are now several motion picture concerns organized in that country and three or four features were put out last year. One of these, For the Term of His Natural Life, received quite extensive showings and was recently taken to England for distribution.
There is considerable agitation against American films in certain sections of the Far East. In Australia a commission was created to hold hearings to investigate the motion picture situation there and out of it may come some sort of legislation that will curtail in some way the imports of American motion pictures. New Zealand has already introduced a bill which in some respects is almost a duplicate of the recent English Quota Bill passed in the mother country. In India also a commission was created to investigate the industry. Hearings are being held at present to determine the effect of films on the natives, with the idea of tightening up the censorship. This same feeling has also appeared in the Netherlands East Indies. The idea is not that films in themselves are immoral or unfit for showing but that films which can safely be shown to European audiences exercise a far different effect on primitive and subject races.
There are in the neighborhood of 3,500 theaters throughout the Far East. Australia leads the way with 1,300 and most of these are as up-to-date as in the United States, for Australians are keen film fans and show a greater per capita attendance at pictures than any country in the world — our own included. Japan has about 900 theaters, a few of these in such centers as Tokyo, Osaka, and Kobe being as modern as may be found anywhere. New Zealand boasts of about 500 theaters — nearly all of them comparable to our own