ROYAL TOUR FILMS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 762, 26 February 1954, Page 16

ROYAL TOUR FILMS

(Associated British Pathé and RankN.F.U.) OMPETITION- it’s wonderful! Little more than a fortnight after the Gothic sailed from Bluff two colour films about the tour were screening, and the movie advertisements were black with claims and counter-claims. One must make allowances for what is really screen journalism, and each of these films is géod in its way as a supplement to what radio and press and black and white newsreels have told the world. But I think New Zealanders, who saw the real thing, may feel without being thought too critical that they could have waited a little longer if they could have something with the sustained crispness of the Canadian Roya/ Journey. The Royal Tour (Associated BritishPathe) -was here first-a_ full-length feature about the visit to the West Indies, Fiji, Tonga and the North Island of New Zealand. The idea of showing something of the countries visited as well as significant events of the tour was a good one, but carried too far--

for instance, in the long dance sequence in Panama. Considering the short time the Queen spent in the West Indies and the Pacific Islands, \these places are served best by the film. The New Zealand events selected are typical and significant, but even within the limits set by the producers there was room, surely, for more; and it’s a pity, to say the least, that the South Island is dismissed with little more than a few stock shots. Perhaps this wil] be made good in the next instalment. The guality of the materia] used in the film is generally very good-Pacific Films had a hand in it from Fiji on-and apart from a :ather too contrived return to Wellington for the opening of Parliament it is well put together. Previewed in Wellington only five days after its rival, Roya] New Zealand Journey (filmed by our National Film Unit for the Rank Organisation) is in effect a severely edited colour newsreel of the tour from Auckland to Bluff. Since it was made so quickly without leaning on background material as the other film does, it is really a much more ambitious production. The material used is again generally of very good quality (there is some really striking photo-

graphy), in some places effective use has been made of natura] sound, and the wider selection of events is a reminder of how much the other film has left out. Even the opening of Parliament is much more fully coyered; and what Mainlander would have missed the visit to Christchurch, which never looked more English? Yet the South Island seems hastily and inadequately covered, and for a time south of Christchurch the commentary is so uninspired, and the voice so lifeless, that I had the feeling everyone concerned had suddenly lost all heart for the job. After that the, film never quite recovers, in spite of good work on the farewell at Bluff. If only that last leg had something of the sparkle of the National Film Unit’s final Royal Tour Pictorial Parade! There was, I suspect, a bit too much of.a rush while the colour film was in London. .