British Films

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 301, 29 March 1945, Page 5

British Films

BBC talk which we publish on page 16 makes agreeable reading, not only because it cafries a promise of improved entertainment for the pic-ture-goers of this country but also because it confirms the opinion, expressed before in our columns, that the sovereignty of Hollywood is at last being effectively challenged. Not many would disagree with the speaker’s contention that the war has given the British cinema its’ great opportunity. Fewer films have been made, but they have been made better; and more than this, the war has had some effect on the spiritual quality of British pictures, has given them greater depth and integrity than most of their Hollywood counterparts. Indeed, the prospect for the future seems so bright that we may appear to be carping when we draw attention to one cloud on the horizon. Whether monopoly control is the price which must inevitably be paid for efficiency in a large-scale organisation like the film industry is a matter for argument: it is as well to realise however that, in fact, that is the price which is now being paid. The colossus of the British einema today is J. Arthur Rank. No single person in Hollywood has power comparable with that of this millionaire who has entered the film world with the avowed intention of putting British pictures on the map. Already he is in virtually complete control of the making and showing of all entertainment films in Great Britain, and not content with this he is building up watertight organisations for the screening of his pictures in nearly every country in the world, It is not likely that he will overlook Australia and New Zealand. Nobody can doubt the sincerity of Mr. Rank’s patriotic motives and few will ‘deny that ‘so far his methods have been markedly successful. Yet the question that may have to be answered in a democratic community is whether it is right in principle that so powerful a weapon for mass education as the cinema should be in the hands of any one man, or even a limited group of men, however wellmeaning they may be. As one writer has put it, "These people, of course, may not use the film for purposes other than entertainment. But they are in a position to do so."