FILM TASTES IN WARTIME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 98, 9 May 1941, Page 12

FILM TASTES IN

WARTIME

ARE YOU AN

OSTRICH ? Oz

A REALIST ?

More and more films are being made with a war background. Is this what the public really wants? Miss C. A. Lejeune recently discussed this in the London " Observer." Here is her article, and a survey of our own among representative film fans

Any film that makes you forget the war is doing real service, says the eminent critic, Miss C. A. Lejeune, in this witty article from the London "Observer," entitled "Confessions of an Aspirin-Eater." (It has to be remembered that she is much closer to the war than we are)

AM sorry that I missed Quiet Wedding. They showed it to the Press one day last week, when my horizon was bounded by four bedroom walls and an aspirin bottle. A colleague saw the film for me, and his description of its charm and wit made me gnash my teeth on the thermometer (half min. clin.). Not only have I lost a chance of paying tribute to a director, Anthony Asquith, whom I hold in the highest ésteem and affection, but I have missed precisely the sort of rural comedy it would have been my delight to see. oa ‘ z Everybody agrees that Quiet Wedding makes you forget the war for eighty minutes. Now that is what I call real service, and I’m afraid there is going to be less and less of it in pictures. On all sides I hear of producers bustling up with topical ideas, clipping headlines from the newspapers, snatching subjects red hot from the radio. Even in remote Hollywood they are doing it. There seems to be no end to the films that are being made about Polish patriots, British flyers, American flyers, and foreign correspondents. I don’t want to be an ostrich, but are these really the films that people want to see? a _* * Mind you, they may be. I have no data for. generalising, The statisticians who used to prove that three men over forty-five and one-third of a child preferred Garbo to Donald Duck (or vice versa), have nothing to tell me about any straw vote for escapism. I certainly met a young man last week who walked out of Bachelor Mother because he wanted to get at grips with reality. But then I also met a woman who walked out of The Mortal Storm because it was "such a gloomy film." * ee I wonder if it comes down in the end to the eternal problem of men’s taste versus women’s? I know many women are annoyed at an attempt to discriminate. Few men are, which seems

to add point to the distinction. But I should say, broadly speaking, that women are not internationally minded. We read the newspapers and listen to the wireless, with an innocent personal preoccupation. Give us an editorial to read on Libya, and most of us reserve the right to let our eye stray to the advertisements or the book reviews, or to dash out in the middle to turn down the kettle. I think we feel a bit like that about our pictures too. I know I do. I can’t really keep up a fine rage over a regime when I’m wondering what it is that makes the German airman’s uniform look so skimped, as if it had been cut out of father’s Sunday trousers. On the otter hand-have you noticed it?-almost any’ young extra looks his best as a storm-trooper. I think it’s the boots. * * % I am not silly enough to insist on keeping the war out of our recreations altogether. That would be absurd ‘and unnatural. Simply done, with grace and good humour, as it is in novels like Cheerfulness Breaks In, Bewildering Cares, and A Footman for the Peacock, the war-time background can be-as much an escape from war-cares as the wildest form of romanticism. w Ed a But I do ask for a certain moderation from our film producers. Not quite so many swastikas. Not quite so much Gestapo, Not quite so many Nk&rzees to end Narzees. When I go to the pictures I do like to give my mind a change of air. I don’t particularly want to roar with laughter. I never was much of a one for roaring with laughter. But I like to lose myself for a couple of hours in some world that doesn’t know politics from a pea-hen. Hang it all, I like pictures, and I want to enjoy them without a strain. % F I like films of old times, spacious years, good talk in good company. I like films of the battles of peace-time, the battles of science, like Edison’s and Pasteur’s and Ehrlich’s. I like films of simple homely people like Our Town, and of decorous decorative people, like Pride and Prejudice. I like a dashing, highpowered romance like Rebecca. I like a Western like Stage Coach. I like to hear Deanna Durbin sing, and I like

to watch Fred Astaire dance. I should have liked Quiet Wedding. I know I should have liked Quiet Wedding. Its very title is soothing. * * * I shall go and see it next week. That is one bit of fun I have already promised myself. And in the meantime, I shall go out into the street and stop the first six people I meet with the question, "Do you like your films escapist or topical?" At least, perhaps I shall, Actually, as it is now fashionable. to say, I have always been a bit dubious about this form of invading the public privacy. I mean to say, how do you set about the thing? Do you come plump out with your question, without a "good morning" or an "excuse me"? Do you caution the victim that anything he says may be taken down in writing and used as evidence? Or do you work round to it gradually, insidiously, after smiling at his dog, or commenting on the weather, or asking him with diabolical subtlety: "Please can you tell me the correct time?" FOLLOWING iT UP A Survey OF Local Opinion Inspired by Miss Lejeune’s suggestion, two "Listener" representatives decided to go out and ask some questions about film tastes in wartime among a bunch of typical New Zealanders picked at random, including a barmaid, a soldier, a theatre usher, a housewife, a barber, two typists, and a lawyer. Here is the result of their survey, and it rather indicates that, like Miss Lejeune, most people at the moment prefer to get away from it all when they go to the movies. IRST port of call was an hotel bar (after all, you can always be sure of hearing opinions in a bar). The barmaid, in between serving a soldier with a bottled beer and an elderly businessman with a whisky and ginger ale, observed that she usually went to the pictures about three times a week. No, she didn’t like pictures with a war flavour. She got quite enough of that (Continued on next page)

FILM TASTES IN WARTIME (Continued from previous page) in the newsreels. Give her something to make her forget about it, she said. ‘Do you prefer comedy or more serious drama?" "Well, I must say I like a good serious drama. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit sad." The soldier, a 1914-18 veteran, said that he had been in the army all his life and expected to die in it, but when he went to the pictures, which wasn’t often, he liked to get away from it all. After all, he supposed a dairy farmer wouldn’t be very keen to see a film about dairy-farming. He wanted anything but realism in his screen entertainment. Musical comedy was his favourite fare. Theatre Usher's Opinion A theatre usher was next on our list. She confessed surprisingly that she didn’t see many pictures-she seldom had time for much else but helping patrons into their seats and helping them out again. When she did settle down and see a picture through from start to finish, she certainly didn’t go round looking for war pictures or depressing sidelights on European politics. Musical comedy was her first preference, with an especially warm corner for Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, and after that "crazy comedy." A young housewife showed the same preference for light entertainment. After reading the evening paper and listening to the latest BBC news, she seldom felt in the mood for a further dose of the international situation .at the pictures. Escape and The Mortal Storm she had found a little too close to the headlines. Her preference was for straight corhedy. The nervous tension of the past year or so may be reflected in her dislike of rowdy musical comedies and swing music She liked a good Western or an exciting outdoor picture, even if it did

include fighting, though she admitted that this came under the heading of escapist entertainment. One Light, One Heavy We seized the, opportunity to mix business with a hair-cut, and the barber whom we questioned while his scissors passed over us turned out to be another escapist. "Give me something light," he said between snips. "Especially now, when things look pretty black. By the time you’ve read the paper and listened to the radio-well, it’s only natural if you want something to brighten you up, isn’t it? Musical comedy, or something like that. I like a good drama, too, but nothing too heavy." A fellow journalist whom we questioned on the ’phone took a rather unusual line. "For myself I like films about persecution by the Nazis, such as The Mortal Storm,’ he said. "I think it’s a good thing for us to be reminded frequently that the Jews in Germany, and the Socialists, suffered first — that Germany fouled her own nest before she started smashing up other peoples.’ We're rather too inclined to regard this war as simply a straight-out issue between the British and the Germans. Oh, yes, and I’d make straight for any film if I knew it had anything about battleships in it-but then, battleships are a weakness of mine. I love ’em." Odd Reaction Another odd reaction came from a refrigeration engineer, He said that if he had the choice of going to two pictures he would go to the one which did not deal with the war. But if he did get inside the theatre and found a war film showing, he would be intensely interested. He admitted that he had pacifist leanings, but at the same time he had an absolute passion for anything mechanical, and if there was a film which showed any details about modern tanks, guns, tractors or aeroplanes, he would be there to see it, despite his pacifism. He expressed the opinion that just re-

cently there had been. a change in public taste away from war pictures. The radio salesman said tersely: "War pictures? I shun them like the plague." He used the illustration: "Do people who have their house burnt down want to see a film of another house being burnt? Or do people who have had a bereavement like films about funerals?" As an afterthought he added that his two sons at secondary school would climb two miles over broken glass to see a really "live" war picture. The young liked them tough. The Brighter the Better Two typists when interviewed were quite definite that their taste in films was "the brighter the better." They hated scenes of fighting, or stories with unhappy endings, and wouldn’t dream of going to a film with a title like The Beast of Berlin. However, they had adored Rebecca, but in general they liked their movies bright. An interesting point is that practically everybody said how much they were interested in newsreels of the war, and how disappointed they were that there were npt more newsreels of the big events. The Lawyer Was Shrewd Perhaps the most acute comment came from a lawyer. After cross-questioning the interviewer as to the reasons for the inquiries, and what he expected to learn, he expressed his own opinion that so far we had not seen any real war pictures, with the possible exception of Convoy and The Lion Has Wings, and both of these were very popular. The reason was that they were not direct propaganda, but highly skilful entertainment. In other words, he said, entertainment would draw crowds. whether or not the theme had anything to do with the war. He said that The Listener might question half the country and arrive at the conclusion that everybody disliked war pictures, but immediately there came along a first-class war picture with a good story and that touch of some-

thing which constitutes what we call popular entertainment, the cinemas would be packed out — and the very people who told us. they disliked war pictures would lap it .up no matter how grim or terrifying it was. "No matter what we say, we are all horribly fascinated by the war," he said.