World Film News and Television Progress (Apr 1936-Mar 1937)

IVOR MONTAGU STATES CASE FOR SPECIALISED SHOWINGS The Cinematograph Films Act of 1929 is about to expire and be renewed. Recommendations have been invited for its revision. The Act was drafted with looseness and inexperience, and bad consequences in the film world quite outside the purpose of its sponsors — the encouragement of British production. It is particularly in these directions that revision is desirable. An unforeseen consequence has been the handicapping of the "high-brow" or "artistic" film. Everyone is aware that films are made abroad which, however popular in their country of origin, are, owing to difference of cultural conception and tradition (tragic ending, "realistic" treatment, and the like), or — particularly since the introduction of talkies — of language, not popular audience pictures for this country. Yet it is, I think, generally agreed that the occasional limited showing of such films in this country is wholly good. Not only have new technical influences been introduced thereby into the industry, but as the trade itself has often emphasised, new audiences, new social strata have thereby been introduced into the cinemas, widening and sophisticating the public taste. For a time the work of this showing was effected exclusively by film societies. Later these were reinforced by the speciaUsed theatres. This development has been generally conmiended, in the reports of public bodies such as the British Film Institute, by educational authorities; and yet against it the Cinematograph Act of 1929 struck a crippling blow. FORMAL REGISTRATION The Act, it must be appreciated, imposes a quota not only upon exhibitors but upon renters. There is no reason why these speciaUsed theatres should not exhibit a quota of British films. They do. But the Act imposes a middle-man. If a specialised theatre exhibit a film, even if it propose to give the only exhibition of the film in England and obtain it and return it direct to and from the maker, it must make arrangement for formal registration by some renter. No renter will lightly use up his foreign quota upon a film which, from the start, is expected to book to only one or at most two theatres. What is the solution? It is impossible for a specialised theatre exhibitor himself to start a formal renting organisation and produce or acquire the necessary equivalent of British films. The renting income of the high-brow film for a single show is less than a hundred pounds, whereas the cost of acquisition or production of a British film runs into many thousands. To expect this course would be to declare that no man may show one high-brow film, even for a week, unless he be prepared to invest many thousands of pounds, and overheads, in a renting and producing business, precisely as though he were in regular business as a distributor of foreign popular films. Yet it is precisely this requisition that the Cinematograph Act now makes. How then do the specialised theatres now exist? On the one hand they occasionally persuade big companies, with a superabundance of British quota, to take on a high-brow film that looks as though with luck it might have a wider distribution than to high-brow theatres only. This of course results in a tendency whereby the primary purpose of these special theatres, experiment, is discouraged, and factors quite other than the tastes of their own audiences inhibit enterprise. RENTER'S LICENCE But it is not too much to say that these theatres have been made possible only by the Film Society, which, early realising the position, informed the Board of Trade that it proposed to take out a renter's licence, formally register and act purely pro forma as renter for exceptional films for such theatres, and invite prosecution should the Board of Trade disapprove its activities. But for this action such a film as Madchen in Uniform would probably never have been shown in this cotmtry. Originally requisitioned by the Film Society, it was of course transferred to a "business" renter when it turned out a popular success. Here the Board of Trade has given no undertaking not to prosecute, but with some generosity and understanding it has in fact not prosecuted, indicating that it has refrained from doing so where the pro forma renter has confined his sponsorship to that of a single showing, and not engaged in the business of pushing his wares up and down the country. This in itself is a crippling compromise, however, since from every cultural and educational point of view it is as desirable that an "artistic" film should be shown in Glasgow or Manchester as in benighted London, when and if ever enough people can be found to endure it. EXEMPTION? What is the solution? British producing interests cannot in any way be hostile to the occasional showing of these films, for a film unpopular enough to be stood by only two or three audiences cannot possibly be regarded as competing with home production. Why not exemption therefore? The high-brow film, even if coming over to a single private society show for no hiring fee, already pays the same penny a foot protective duty that is paid by a super-production taking a couple of hundred thousand pounds out of the coimtry. If not exemption, no one would object to some imposition in favour of British produc tion, to be paid, perhaps, to the Film Institute or the G.P.O., so long as it were graduated to the earning capacity of the high-brow film, not as now, in practice many thousands as against an income of, maybe, less than hundreds. NO AMBIGUITY The principle of exemption for the film of educational or cultural effect is already partadmitted by the exemption from foreign quota restriction of films "consisting wholly or mainly of natural scenery, industrial processes" and so forth. The only revision necessary is the addition to this category of the "artistic" film. And there would be no possibility of ambiguity or evasion. Definition is very easy. Let the exemption be extended to any film that is exhibited in public for a total collectively in alt theatres in which it may be shown of ten weeks or less in any one year. Such a period would be ample to allow the longest likely success for any high-brow film in London, and give a margin for the movement to crusade for one, or even two, struggled-for shows in the provinces besides. No foreign film booking to a maximum of ten weeks of booking in a year could possible injure British production, nor could a quota-evading business possibly be founded upon films with such a limitation. New Anomaly of the Quota Act One of the consequences of the Quota Act is the rendering illegal of the "try-out," or unheralded exhibition to a sample public ofa film in unfinished state. This process enables its makers to learn which parts of a film are dull or do not "get over" to an unprepared audience, and to cut or amend the finished film accordingly. There is no process so efficacious in securing "polish," especially in comedy. It is almost universally practised in America. The Act renders it illegal and thus deprives British production — in the letter of the law — of a great advantage. The Board of Trade, on its attention being drawn to this point, intimated through its solicitors that it would initiate no prosecutions, in other words, not enforce the law. It is obviously desirable that this restraint, though commonsensical, should be made unnecessary by a revision. 27