THE BRITISH FILMS BILL.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3380, 27 June 1927, Page 8

THE BRITISH FILMS BILL.

The debate in the House of Commons on the Films Bill lacked reality. On the one hand, Mr Snowden treated it entirely as a fiscal issue and demanded Free Trade as the only way. Mr Mac Donald abandoned his traditional Free Trade attitude and actually favoured a bounty to put the infant industry on its feet Freetraders and Protectionists both! . . . take note! But, of course, the real struggle is to come in Committee.

In the meantime, every sort of angle is being taken on the subject for all admit something must be done and the Films Bill is intended to implement the findings of the Imperial Conference. Bloc booking is universally condemned, but it has its uses in practices The quota system has a very large body against it, simply because there are big invested interests here. A new argument, however, which has real weight, seems worth consideration that Germany faced with precisely the same conditions and the same colossal output of trashy films from America, boldly took to a quota system and does not regret it. There is some life in the opposition to tlie silent drama as purveyed to the hicks, as witness the big British combine being launched here, with everybody of importance in the literary and dramatic world lending their aid. This has concentrated German attention on our Film Bill here and our move is being used as a lever by the German film industry, now badly suffering from lack of funds, to persuade the German Government to come forward with a. big subsidy.

There it is believed that the quota system is the only possible one for the film industry in any country outside America. The latter can exist by reason of her 16,000 picture theatres, which all play daily and some all day long. All the films that America exports are pure profit to her, and she can live by her home markets alone. Of no European country is this true.

Three years ago imported films came under the same luxury heading in Germany as liquors, perfumes, preserved fruits, and the like. The eagerness of German film manufacturers to export if they were to continue to exist made for the present basis of fifty-fifty, which was applied to films as it might have been applied to any other luxury article, and was, in fact, before the new commercial agreements were made.. The German film industry to-day would be dead without it, swallowed up like the French, Italian, and Snandinavian.

No country is proof against American business methods, which start by bribing exhibitors, as often as not, by substantial loans. The same business methods will kill any foreign film trying to get into America. Americans may buy aboroad if forced, but will not exhibit under favourable advertising conditions. Five big German films ran in America, without a pfennig profit. They were bought before the new agreement, which provides that America is not only forced to buy, but forced to show under usual conditions of advertising, ten- Gei’man snper-lms per year. Where other. German films go does not matter, but this question of prestige is vital for Germany; if in the long run the quota is to be maintained. Last year Germany imported 202 foreign films and showed 185 of her own, a discrepancy on the fifty-fifty basis which arose from not providing that films in the process of making must be finished within the year. The remaining seventeen will be finished and released this spring. As regards block and blind booking, Germany is convinced that they are necessary to make up for losses on unsuccessful films. German manufacturers are forced to cfo the same thing to cover losses. This evil cannot be entirely remedied. Poorer and cheaper films can be shown during hot weather and other periods unfavourable to picture theatres. It is the German view that England needs huge and very expensive studios for her films. In making films artistic atmosphere counts for much, and suitable stock from which film supers can be drawn is also a necessity. Paris is greatly liked by German producers, owing to the vast amount of Russian intelligence and artistry to be had for the asking. What Germany aims at to-day is not an individual film industry, which it believes cannot live by itself, but at a European film trust in which France, England, Scandinavia, Italy, and Germany drop their frontier barriers and duties, and unite to produce pictures with an appeal to all Europe as strong as the American appeal has been.