FEW WAR FILMS

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 118, 12 February 1941, Page 6

FEW WAR FILMS

This Year’s Releases In New

Zealand

mostly lighter types

Except for genuine “shots” depicting military operations in the various theatres of war, which were becoming an everyday feature of moving picture programmes, New Zealanders would see verv few full-leiigth films this year which had the war as a background, said a Wellington film exchange representative yesterday. Light coined,!, sophistication and a smattering of historical drama were the main ingredients of films to be released during the coming 1- months, and he doubted whether war stories would be filmed in any great numbers till the world was nt pence again. “The general trend will be tor entertainment of a lighter type,” he said, “aimed to take the minds of the people away from the war. It is interesting to note that a poll was recently taken in the United States as to the views of producers ou the type, of picture most welcomed by the public. The result was overwhelmingly in favour of non-war pictures.” The public would get all the war pictures they wanted, he added, from the newsreels and from the films released by the British Minisjry of Information. Out of 3-1 pictures produced by M.G.M. to be released in New Zealand this year, only two had a war theme. The war bad not so far affected the supply of American and British films into the Dominion, he added. Despite the obvious handicaps, British producers were still going strong, and ho had not heard that the war bad caused any decrease in the volume of British film production.