AN AMERICAN ATTACK.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 2 December 1925, Page 2

AN AMERICAN ATTACK.

ON BRITISH FILM FIELD. 50 MILLIONS TO BUY THEATRES. The film industry in Great Britain appears to be on the point of being swallowed up by the energetic attack on it being made by the Americans. At a meeting in the’Criterion, Dr. Fowler Pettie, who presided, declared that besides the theatre which was being built a stone’s throw from where he was standing (the Paramount) three others on central sites in the West End were now* planned —all to be run by American producers in competition with the regular exhibitors. American film magnates were ready to spend up to £50,000,000 to acquire cinemas in Great Britain. , The meeting, which was of the Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association, passed unanimously a resolution calling upon the General Council of the Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association to take immediate and effective steps to remove the growing evils of block-book-ing and the control, direct or indirect, of cinema theatres throughout this country by manufacturers, renters, and producers. It was alleged that not only did the block booking- prevent small independent producers from snowing their films, but what was exhibited here was often more or less forced on renters before they had seen the films sent them by the wholesale American firms. Dr. Pettie s aid the Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association was unable to prevent b'oek booking, and assistance had been sought from the Government to make the practice illegal. He had no doubt that the Government was prepared to legislate if only to keep out of the country films which had. an unwholesome effect on the young mind. Something i s being done none too soon in a direction in which action has long been called for —better censorship of film posters. At Birkenhead Licensing Sessions the justices warned the cinema proprietors that they must exercise more discretion in the scenes depicted in their posters. But America is not taking British'* opposition lying down. It is announced to-day that Mr Herbert Wilcox’s film, “The Only Way,” in which Sir John Martin Harvey played the lead, has been' refused for distribution in the United States by First National Pictures, the important American renting firm.

This fihn was understood to he preeminently an example of Anglo-Ameri-can co-operation. The English branch of the First National obtained considerable publicity because “The Only Way” was the first British picture to he sponsored by an Ameriacn firm. It appears that First National in America has exercised the right to reject the picture on “screen inspection.” Mr A. E. Bundy, Mr Wilcox’s partner, say s to-day that the film was made on the initiative of the First National. which was to distribute it everywhere but in America- There was an implied obligation that it should he distributed in America if it was in any way a good picture, and First National was, therefore, moraUy hound to take it on for America. All this talk by Americans of reciprocity in film business, he said, is just talk. American distributors won’t touch British pictures, good or bad, although it is a fact that the American public want them. First National say that “The Only Way” is deficient because there is no American star in it, hut nothing was said about that during production.