LIFE OF A FILM.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 April 1926, Page 3

LIFE OF A FILM.

(By Iris Barry ii/’Daily Mail.”) It is no easy matter for even n practised film-goer to see the films he wishes. Certain pictures have an extended run at a West End theatre; but not every film-lover cares to pay theatre prices, films t'hat are given a trade-show only, though described then in the papers, remain in' obscurity for months. Suddenly an eagerly awaited piece appears in one's local kinoma lor three days. If one cannot make the opportunity to see it then, the chances are that one never will. The following week it may perhaps he shown t at some other accessible picture-house, though generally it is only by ' ingenuity and good luck that it can he tracked down. There have, however, been eases of people tailing long train journeys to catch up with an elusive picture. It is small wonder that son*? call themselves movies. The ultimate fate of films is a matter of speculation for the general public. For some time alter release -he average, film remains in circulation; copies are. despatched to provincial, and then to rural kinemas Irom the fire-proof safes of Waldour-street, and return thither in due course. If the film is above the average it

may continue to appear .up and down „ the country for a fairly long time, even years. The best of all are, of course, reissued and enjoy a second life. V Fairbanks’ "Robin Hood ” and D. ’ yy Griffiths’ “Intolerance” enjoyed numerous revivals. And the pictures of Charlie Chaplin go on until they fall to pieces. Even now a kinema near Leicester Square is reviving every existing Chaplin picture from the eailiest times at tho rate of one a week. Some of them are considerably over ten years old. Hut the fate of ordinary films is different. A picture is scrapped after about two years, sold as junk, or melted down for the sake of certain constituents of the celluliod. There are in existence in this coun-

try a few firms dealing in junk. From / their extensive library of old films can be hired early Iliograph dramas, the J almost forgotten films of Mr. and Mrs Sidney Drew and of the still older Broncho Billy. Some of the pictures are incomplete, most of them are spotty, and flicker terribly. And to anyone seeing them to-day they are apt to prove excruciatingly naive and absurd. If the pictures of 1936 are as vast an improvement on those of to-day as ' the current films are over those of 1916 they should he admirable indeed.