QUOTA QUICKIES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 219, 16 August 1937, Page 11

QUOTA QUICKIES

ABOLITION HOPED FOR

LONDON. Aug. 1. The Government’s proposals for replacing tho existing Film Quota Act will be submitted to Parliament in tlie next session,

The Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association is disappointed to find no provision in the proposals for the Film Commission it desires. The Government prefers to keep the control of tho industry in the hands of tho Board of Trade. An attempt will be made to abolish the worst evils of the “quota quickie” bv a clause requiring a minimum expenditure of £15,000 on each film. It is proposed to reduce the exhibitors’ quota for 1937-38 from the present 20 per cent, of programmes to 15 per cent., and to make the quota for long films 15 per cent, for renters and 10 per cent, for exhibitors in the first year of tho new legislation and 20 per cent, for renters and 15 per cent, for exhibitors in the second year. The Bill will include a schedule providing for an increase in the renters’ quota for long films to 30 per cent, ami tho exhibitors’ quota to 25 per cent, by stages over a 10-year period. The Economist., in an editorial, says: “The 10 years’ life of the existing Act has not encouraged the layman to accept the argument that the protection of the British film industry will produce a plentiful supply of good British films. In tho circumstances, is •it really in the interests of the British public not merely to maintain the quota, but to increase it?”