A BRITISH FILM TRIUMPH

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 84, 3 January 1935, Page 6

A BRITISH FILM TRIUMPH

British film production, which has been rising steadily in the quality and popularity of its output, has been accorded a notable compliment by the United States National Board of Review in its award of “first prize of .merit” to the picture, “Man of Aran,” the first British film to be so honoured. The British film industry has had a long and arduous uphill fight to become established. The war provided -a great.’ opportunity for American films, which became so strongly entrenched .in British theatres that it was a matter of the greatest difficulty for the home product to obtain a profitable opening.

i The advent of the talking film demonstrated the superior attraction of the English voice to cinema audiences, and even in the United States this advantage made itself felt. The output of British film ‘ has noticeably increased since then. In 1928 the total footage made was 788,954 as against 4,929,082 of foreign film. By January, 1933. the British figure had risen to 1,202,197, while foreign had dropped to 3,773,495. In the year 1933 alone the increased output of British was 20 per cent., while the foreign output was virtually stationary. The film, “Man of Aran,” was acknowledged by British critics to be the most notable production of the year, and its merits must have been indeed very pronounced to have attracted the attention and admiration of the American reviewers. Arid the remarkable thing about it is that there is no story in it. It is simply a depiction of the daily routine, hardships and adversities of a sturdy community of fisher folk on the storm-swept Aran the Iristy coast. There is no attempt to stage emotional situations,'or to impart verisimilitude by tricks of photography. It succeeds by depicting people as they really are, and it is a significant commentary on the direction of the public taste in cinema productions that a film of this type should so greatly attract their interest.