PRAISE FOR BRITISH FILMS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25088, 21 January 1947, Page 7

PRAISE FOR BRITISH FILMS

QUESTION OF EARNINGS IN AMERICA (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, January 20. The President of the Board of Trade (Sir Stafford Cripps) told members of the Rank film organisation at its annual dinner that if given a fair field British films of the present standard could become a major factor in adjusting the difference between the amount earned by American films in Britain and that earned by British films in America. Sir Stafford Cripps said the present volume of American films entering Britain was showing a returri 10 to 20 times as great as that shown by British films in America. He described British films as a precocious child which had now become of age and of which he was the guardian. All he had seen and heard convinced him that if the British film industry gave the public good films the public would appreciate them. Sir Stafford Cripps said he thought that was the true reason why recent British film productions had been so successful. The standards set had been decent and high, both aesthetically and morally, and to-day British producers could claim with justice that British films were more popular than any others in Britain, and were for the first time making real headway abroad. He made it plain that in the future the British Government would definitely expect more reciprocity in the interchange of films.