BRITISH FILMS ABROAD

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 139, 8 March 1929, Page 11

BRITISH FILMS ABROAD

ENCOURAGING SIGNS . Dominion Special Service. * London, January 17, There is distinct encouragement for British films iu the film import statistics for 1928 now available in France and Germany. During 1928 France imported 23 British pictures, as against eight in 1927. two in 1926, seven in 1925. and none in 1924. France produced 94 full-length films during the year and imported 313 from America and 122 from Germany.. Germany imported 92 European pictures during \ 1928. as against 90 in 1927; among countries contributing these pictures - France heads the list, Austria comes second, and Great Britain third, with 15 pictures to her credit; in 1927 Great. Britain stood bottom but one on the list, with only two films placed oh the German market. In most other European countries, too. and in the Dominions, British films have made considerable headway, 'though the American market still remains virtually closed. But it remains true that the British film industry has so far produced only one star of international appeal— Betty Bal'four—and that not lately; and no British director, in spite of the brilliant promise of Hitchcock, Savile, and Anthony Asquith, and the substantial achievement of Maurice Eivey, has yet won the -international repute of a Lubitsch. a Fritz Lang, a Joseph von Sternberg, or a D. W. Griffith. Individual film talent is certainly not lacking in Great Britain; what is lacking is. rather, the driving power and organising Intelligence necessary to. put Brtish films definitely “on the map.” There is still too much haphazard production on a small scale, too little continuity of policy, and too much control by financiers ignorant of production technique. We need more men at the top who understand that the film industry is a business, but who understand also that this business requires imaginative handling of a distinctive kind, and cannot. be .treated simply as a branch of the celluloid trade. _________