Films and The Studios

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 786, 5 October 1929, Page 29

Films and The Studios

BRITAIN’S “COLLAPSE'

The British cinema industry has fallen on such hard times that 600 artists and others arc out. of work. American companies who mainly control distribution in Britain are compelled to include a quota of 10 per cent, of British films, but by selecting poor productions and boycotting good ones they have succeeded in killing the demand for British pictures. The production of "dud” films to satisfy the requirements of the quota has thus become the only flourishing branch of the British industry. These remarkable statements or, rather , charges iccre made a few weeks ago by the London "Daily Mail” which published a long article dealing with the present position at Elstrce and ether important British film centres. It predicted an increase of unemployment among the film people of Britain following on the reduction of production, and endeavoured to show that the Cinematograph Films Act, through its quota clauses, can be either evaded or used as an instrument with which to attack British competition. If this be .so it is a state of affairs for which the blame must be shared in a considerable measure by British producers themselves. The action of American distributors is shrewd, even cunning, but it is businesslike. Clearly British producers must retaliate by offering uniformly good films. There is no reason in the world why they should not, nor is there reason for the hopeless attitude apparently being adopted. Already Britain has provcd*that excellent pictures can■ be made under the Union Jack, and the few Elstree talkies have been superior in many respects to those from elsewhere.