British cinemas winning battle against videos

Press, 3 February 1986, Page 37

British cinemas winning battle against videos

B y

DAVID LEWIS

NZPA-Reuter London

A concerted campaign to get the British public to return to the movies is proving a great success, reversing a long trend of declining audiences. Until last year, it seemed video recorders would kill cinema-going in Britain, despite a in filmmaking, renewal. But British Film Year (8.F.Y.) has changed all that. Ticket sales rose last year by at least 34 per cent, the industry estimates. More cinemas opened than closed, for the first time in years, and a recent London Film Festival enjoyed record figures in every respect. "People are talking about a rosy future for British cinema in a way we wouldn’t have believed possible at the beginning of last year,” said a B.F.Y. spokesman, Mr Keith Howes.

With £1 million ($2.65 million) of Government and film industry funds, the B.F.Y. promotion campaign for British films and cinemas will run till March.

It has taken a publicity roadshow to 23 cities, persuaded film distributors to brighten up their cinemas and launched an educational programme in 8000 schools. Britain’s film-makers have had several good years, highlighted by such Oscar-winning productions

as “Chariots of Fire,” “Educating Rita,” “Gandhi,” “A Passage to India” and “The Killing Fields.” Work on special effects for blockbuster American films such as “Superman” and “Star Wars” had also continued to provide lots of work for British film technicians.

But a seemingly inexorable trend among viewers towards television and videos hire seemed, until recently likely to end mass cinema-going in Britain.

Attendances slumped from a one-time peak of 30 million a week before the advent of mass television to just 51 million for the whole of 1984. Cinemas were closing or being turned into bingo halls. A country that once had more than 5000 pic-ture-houses had only 700 at the end of 1984. The removal of Government funding for film production through a levy on ticket sales last year seemed the final straw. But now the tide seems to be turning, helped by B.F.Y. and, it must be admitted, last year’s dismal summer.

A recent report found the sudden rise in ticket sales was not just a flash in the pan, while a survey on film-going discovered surprisingly that owners of video recorders were more likely than others to visit the cinema.

Even television, for so long seen as the curse of

cinemas, is coming to the rescue. Channel Four, Britain’s newest television station, has helped boost cinema-going by producing quality films for later presentation on television.

The “Draughtsman’s Contract,” “The Ploughman’s Lunch” and most, recently, “My Beautiful Laundrette” are just three successful low-budget British films to have been produced with television at least partly in mind. The shoestring-budget comedy “Letter To Brezhnev,” and “Turtle Diary” are two other recent home-grown successes. "Turtle Diary” was the first film from the United British Artists stable, whose founders include its two stars, Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley.

Mr Howes believes the public has also been attracted in greater numbers by an improvement in cinemas’ appearance and service.

“The upsurge of interest in cinemas as distinct from just films is very marked,” he says. Marketing surveys for B.F.Y. showed the public wanted to regard a visit to the cinema as a special event, while the owners of cinema chains had allowed their picture houses to become shabby. “For a long time the cinema industry had stopped listening to the public,” said Mr Howes. Now money being spent

on refurbishment is paying off and many cinemas offer comfortable seats, attractive bars and other facilities. American Multi-Cinema (A.M.C.) and the Bass leisure group have opened Britain’s first “multiplex” cinema in the new town of Milton Keynes north of London. The complex has 10 small screens together with restaurants and recreational facilities.

A. has plans to build 30 other multiplexes in Britain over the next 15 to 20 years, and the Thom-EMI and Cannon Classic groups are also following suit. Britain’s cinemas now have about 1200 screens. B. success was enhanced by the 18-day London Film Festival, which ended last month. A record 161 films were shown, attendances rose from 57,000 in 1984 to 65,000 and the proportion of seats sold from 73 to 77 per cent. All peak screenings were sold out.

Festival Director Mr Derek Malcolm said he was absolutely delighted with last year’s sucess.

“The London Film Festival has now become an excellent showcase for films from all over the world,” he said. “Our profile has improved enormously... we are now the world’s major non-competitive festival celebrating not just minority films but cinema as a whole.”