FOOTNOTES TO FILM

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 468, 11 June 1948, Page 25

FOOTNOTES TO FILM

ILMS usually come to Dunedin later than they do to the northern New Zealand cities, and the Talks Department of the NZBS has taken advantage of this fact to make an experiment in broadcasting film reviews. They have chosen two panels of "correspondent re-viewers’-one in Auckland and one in Wellington-to’ write criticisms of the latest films for broadcast by 4YA on the date of release in Dunedin. These reviews will form part of a new series of programmes from 4YA called Footnotes to Film, the first of which will be heard at 7.15 p.m. on Wednesday, June 16. The Auckland panel of reviewers will concentrate on British and Continental films, since these have their first release as a rule in Auckland, while the Wellington panel will review American productions. In addition;,Dunedin film enthusiasts may give background talks on the cinema. The programmes are half-hour ones and will be. broadcast at fortnightly intervals. There are three Auckland reviewers. One is J. F. McDougall, a former schoolteacher and graduate of Otago

University, chairman of the Auckland Film Society, and a contributor to its bulletin News and Reviews. He is a tutor-organiser at the Auckland Adult Education’ Centre. Another, Maurice Lee, who is also a tutor-organiser, is a committee-man of the Auckland Film Society, and runs a W.E.A, week-end film session and shows films in Auckland factories during lunch-hours. The third, R. T. Bowie,-is known to Auckland listeners for his broadcasts on films in 1YA’s Winter Course Talks. He has produced a do@tmentary film called "Industrial Auckland," once ran an Adult Education class, on film appreciation, and is part-author of a _ correspondence course on the same subject. He is at present working with a private film-making company. There are also three Wellington re-viewers-C, K. Herbert, J. D, O’Shea, and Hubert Witheford. Herbert is a free-lance journalist who has for some time written film reviews for a weekly paper. He is secretary of the Wellington Film Society and one of an amateur group that recently filmed Frank Sarge- | son’s story A Great Day. O’Shea is chairman of the New Zealand Film Society and editor of a monthly film bulletin. He works in the War Histories branch of the Internal Affairs Department, and is a graduate of Victoria University College. Hubert Witheford has: written occasional reviews and articles on films (an article on war films appeared recently in Landfall), but is perhaps better known as a poet. He also is a graduate of Victoria University College. The first broadcast of Footnotes to Film next Wednesday will consist of recorded talks by J. F. McDougall and J. D. O’Shea discussing the purpose of the session and the importance to-day of informed film criticism. Although the sessions are in the nature of an experiment, the Supervisor of Talks, ‘J. H. Hall, informs us that they may be extended to other main National Stations if the experiment proves a_ successful one.