Two Letters

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 197, 2 April 1943, Page 13

Two Letters

"MR. DAVIS." Sir,-A you or your film critic, "G.M." able to explain to me why the British film The Next of Kin is being shown to the New Zealand public under the title of Mr. Davis? The film has been highly praised by both British and American critics, and "G.M." himself

devoted a great deal of space to his review of it. I know quite a number of people who have been waiting for its release here, and they have all been surprised to learn that it is being advertised and screened as though it were just another spy melodrama. Surely this is rather a comedown, for the film was intended to convey the urgency of the warning "Don’t Talk." P.M.H. (Wellington). [When this letter was referred to R. L. Grant, general manager of Theatre Management Ltd., the company: which is handling the exhibition of the film in New Zealand, he said: "If we had tried to sell it straight out as a Don’t Talk-propeganda film, it wouldn’t have lasted more than a few days at a secondgrade theatre, whereas, presented as it has been as Mr. Davis, it has run three weeks in Wellington, ething certainly never done by a propaganda before. The public just don’t want to be educated; they only want to be entertained. If there is instruction to be given it must be given painlessly, or they stay away. When presented as The Next of Kin, the film was a dire flop in Australia, whereas here, sold purely and simply as a commercial entertainment, it has been a tremendous success, and at the same time the propaganda has found its mark. Even if we had presented it as ‘Mr. Davis: Made under the title of The Next of Kin,’ that would have kept people away. We know that, because at the outset we checked with people who unhappily were actually the next-of-kin ) of ‘ soldiers-those who had lost relatives on active service-and asked them how they would react to a film called The Next of Kin. They all said they wouldn’t want to see it. What we did in changing the title was done entirely with the: Government’s sanction: they said they were simply interested in getting the maximum, number of people to see the film and absorb its message, and I say without fear of contradiction that we have done that.’’]