MAGNITUDE OF FILM INDUSTRY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3138, 9 October 1922, Page 2

MAGNITUDE OF FILM INDUSTRY.

How the Americans have outstripped all compctitarw in the production' of cinema: films was told by Mr Alder Anderson in the London Daily Telegraph. Incidentally the writer mentions the enormous number of people who throughout the world! day by day patronise "the picture" and the vasbneas or" the production enterprise. He writes:—

"Every day, a.ll over the world, an audience aggregating scores of millions is imbibing new impressions, and often, unconsciously, adopting the point of view set forth by the makers of the shadow plays. A film above the, average may mould and guide opinion to an enormous extent, at any rate, the opinion of those who have no fixed standards or traditions to follow. That the British film industry still occupies today a secondary position is l , therefore, greatly to be deplored. The report of the Cinema Commission of Inquiry, presided over by the Bishop of Birmingham in 1917. estimated that the number of attendances at picture theatres in the course of that single year was for the British Islets alone, 1,075,875,000. For a hrge proportion of this formidable total, the screen, it may bo assumed confidently, supplies almost all their mental nourishment. As nine out of ten of the films exhibited arc made in America, with a subtle tendency to exalt Americanism of every description, it w no* wonder that American influence is spreading in all directions. This knowledge alone ought to stimulate our producers to do as much and more! in so vast a field. "There is still another important consideration which should weigh equally in the balance. In other lands, including the British Oversea Dominions, where the picture-going habit lias been most strongly developed, and. whore practically none but American films are ever seen; the weakening of British prestige might be exacted to proceed still more rapidly. And such is found.to be actually the case. The result, as the Americans themselves point out, is reflected in the statistics, (showing an increased export trade from the United States to countries which formerly went elsewhere for certain articles' they require. Some of the Latin South American communities, for instance, have recently, it is said, began to purchase their clothes in New York, instead of looking exclusively to Europe as hitherto, so much impressed have they been by the sartorial perfection of the screen actors and actresses of Los Angeles; a striking confirmation of the axiom laid down by the head of one of the leading British producing concerns that 'trade follows the "How is it, it may well be asked, that our producers have thus allowed themselves to be thrust so far into the background? They were first in the field, and had a long start of the United States. At least one British producer has been actively engaged in making films for nearly 25 years. Not infrequently, as many as 50 copies of* film he had turned out were despatched across the Atlantic for exhibition' in Americam theatres. When the war broke out in 1914 the capital that had up to then been invested in cmema. theatres in the United Kingdom amounted approximately to £18,000,000. At that date, two of the largest American film-producing firms—to-day huge organisations employing thousands of people and with a network ol' branch offices extending all over the <dobe—-were still in their early infancy. The irony of the thing is that both" frankly admit that they learned their business from the European producers, whom they have since so completely outdistanced." , ~ ~ ( The'writer then enters into details of how some Americans commenced the manufacture of moving picture films, and begged, borrowed, or bought their knowledge from British or European producers. He then goes on to say : "The indebtedness of the American film industry to Europe, and perhaps especially to tints country, would thus appear to be bevond dispute. Several of the leading American producers have even expressed the conviction, after personal experience, that on the whole Europe is the more favorable field for making films. For sonic time the legend was sedulously spread and repeated here that, owing to its dull climate, this country could never hope 1o compete with California, where long spoils of bright sunshine could confidently be relied upon. Such an objection, however, is no longer valid, since it lias become more and' more the practice to produce films almost entirely inside the studios by artificial light, the apparatus for the production of which has now been brought to a very high pitch of perfection." Mr Anderson's main purpose is to stir the British to action to recover their lost position and acquire a great profit-giving enterprise. He concludes: "The complaint often made that the British film producer is grieyously handicapped owing to the fact that the American producer has at his doors in the 16.000 theatres in the United States a market about four times, as large as that in this country, is less cogent than it seems at first sight. At present approximately one-fourth of the habitable surface of the globe, some 13,000,000 square miles, as the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty pointed out the other day. is included in the Empire. Over 400,000,000 people are waiting to welcome films made in this country if our producers will only give them what they want. Our film producers have thus, if they will only seize the opportune moment, a world audience oF almost inconceivable magnitude."