HISTORY IN THE MOVIES

Hokitika Guardian, 2 July 1930, Page 7

HISTORY IN THE MOVIES

THE CASE, FOR ACCURACY. Many most, entertaining . pictures and “talkies” are sadly inaccurate when dealing with history and biography. Ought not the exhibitors to oe compelled to admit on the screen, and in the printed programme, that they have in such and such incidents falsified history? The case for accuracy is stated by Mr Hamilton Fyfe in the following article in the “Daily Chronicle” on the London exhibition of the quiet splendid film “Disraeli,” recently shown in Auckland. I heard a song in a revue once which had for its refrain “What Did Mr. Gladstone Say in Eighteen-sixty-three?” As I came away from seeing the Disraeli film I had ringing in my head the query, “"What did Mr Disrael'r do in E’ighteen-serenty-fijvo?” According to the film he did some very strange things, and other people did strange things, too. Yet here let me say—at once and to avoid misunderstanding—that “Disraeli” is, as an entertainment, first class. But what I feel is that there ought to be an announcement on. the screen at the beginning, along with the cast ,and the names of the people who turned the handles and so on, to tell audiences that they are going to see a. purely fanciful version of an historical event, and that in reality nothing of the kind happened,

The only thing that history and the picture have in common is that Disraeli in 1875 bought for Britain the Sue& Canal shares which belonged to the bankrupt Khedive of Egypt. This was an important event. Surely jt is desirable that we should know how it occurred. The picture makes it appear; to have been attended by the most melodramatic incidents. There is an attractive woman spy in the pay of the Russian Embassy who tries to prevent the purchase,. There is a governor of the Bank of England who refuses to have any hand in financing what lie , call a wild scheme. There in a patriotic Jewish financier who undertakes to . lend the money. for.?;-the shares and then goes bankrupt. There is a'“sensational” scene between Djzzy and the governor of the bank,, which ends by the Prime Minister, threatening to “bust” the institution and-by the terrified governor hastily attaching his .signature to the document Which he had before refused even to look at I

Then there are the scenes'inprhjeh Disraeli’s wife appears, charming scenes showing the roniahjdc relations between the'vpoliticiaa, .already an old man, and the still older woman, he had married and made a countess in her own right. But in 1875, when the canal shares were bought, Disraeli wife had been dead for some years 1 “Well,” you may ask, “what does it all matter? We don’t go to the pictures to learn history. And what about Shakespeare’s historical plays? He invented incidents, he made his characters behave in a melodramatic way,” .

Yes, but Shakespeare did not, even with the license allowed to dramatists in hie age, falsify the circumstances ol any well-known event. It' he had made the Fall of Wolsey, for example, the consequence of the Cardinal’s indulgence in “sherries sack,” or had woven into Henry Y. a story of conspiracy between the French and some of the English lords, there would have been protests from the “groundlings” in the pit as well as from his fellow authors.

■ Many spectators muat have-thought, after seeing this film, that governors of the Bank of . England usually act like the one whom they saw’. When they read in. the newspapers anything about Mr Montagu Norman they will picture to themselves a man accustomed to thwart Prime Ministers with truculent whiskers and ’ later to yield to their wishes under threat of the ruin oi bis establishment by political influence! Or take tne appearance of the great Jewish financier, who is inevitably identified with Lord Rothscliild, since r it was Lord Rothschild who found the millions required, lending them to the Government at the low rate of 2% per cent, until Parliament eould vote the money. How many people are now convinced that the Rothschild house once failed for o time and that the peerage in the family was given, publicly at a Foreign Office reception, the Prime Ministei calling out,the man who had “saved his country,” or tried to, and, amid loud applause, announcing the honor bestowed upon him P Does all this matter? Need any objections be raised to the falsification of history ? Should we shrug our shoulders at the spreading of entirely erroneous notions of the methods of statecraft and high finance? I think not. Millions of people are go-, ing to see “Disraeli,” Millions of minds are, therefore, going to be led astray. Wouldn’t it be fairer, wouldn’t it be better every way, to display a notice such as I have suggested?