MPIRE FILMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 226, 24 September 1927, Page 25

MPIRE FILMS.

A STAUNCH ADVOCATE. SIR ROBERT DONALD AND THE FILMS BILL UNIVERSAL ACTIVITY.

Sir" Robert Donald, a former editor of the "Daily Chronicle," is a staunch advocate of Empire films. In addressing, a meeting of the Royal Colonial Institute in London recently on the Films Bill introduced in the British Parliament, which provides for the exhibition of a quota of British films in all moving-picture theatres in that country, he said:—"Within a few years the production of good pictures ii. England and n the Dominions will far exceed the modest quota prescribed in the bill. There are more producers at work than ever.before, and films of high entertainment value are being welcomed at home and in the Dominions, and find a market on their own merits abroad. There has been a tendency to deprecate our capacity to produce good pictures. The American movie magnates do not share this despondent view. American interests are anxious to participate in the production of British pictures. They are competing for a place in the quota. They are buying British pictures for exhibition in the Dominions, particularly Australia, which is the greatest film country in the world in proportion to population. They ' are hurrying over the Canadian border to form Canadian companies and create a new Hollywood in British Columbia, bo as to take advantage of Empire preference. Australia is entering the production field* and is opening up special facilities for the exhibition of British pictures. With this universal activity, brought about to a large extent by the agitation of the last two years, culminating in the resolution of the Imperial Conference, our exhibitors will soon be in a happy position. They will have a wider selection of good pictures and more competition for their patronage than ever before. "The American movie magnates are awakening to the fact that the world wants a different type of picture. They are not out to fight public opinion, but to conciliate it. Especially do they want to satisfy public demands within the British Empire, which is their largest customer and their greatest potential rival. Twenty years ago they took hold of a crude art, and catered first for the hicks of the backwoods and the dagoes of the cities. They kept tip that style far too long, because they had no opposition, dumping their overflow on the world, and drawing forty per cent of their gross receipts from abroad, largely from the British Empire. They realise that they cannot hurt the national pride of peoples with impunity, and that every nation must express its own national sentiment, history, character, habits and ideals in its own pictures. They find that the world wants better pictures, and there is just now a slump in sob stuff and sex dramas, in crime and woolly west atrocities, and a new atmosphere is being produced with an eye to the foreign as well as on the domestic market.

"Once we get going, England, in cooperation with the Dominions, will be the greatest rival to the United States, and, remembering the incalculable possibilities of expansion for exhibition among the millions of India, and of our coloured subject races, we shall in the future head the list in the number of our theatres. But in advocating more British pictures it does not help in the, meantime to abuse foreign production. 'The Age,' of Melbourne, expressed the Australian view on this matter when it said: 'The Australian citizen has no prejudice against the American pictures, except in relation to the strongly propagandist flavour of a portion of the films, and the steady belittlement of all the British characters in many of the stories presented. But he cherishes the belief that a larger proportion of British films would add to his pleasure. He makes the demand that such films should be given a better chance. , "