FILM-FLAM IN PICTURE ILM

NZ Truth, Issue 1128, 14 July 1927, Page 6

FILM-FLAM IN PICTURE ILM

Germany Makes A War Flicker And Shows What's Not

Germany, after several efforts, has at last produced 'the film— i or rather, the first part of three—in which she explains to her o^wn satisfaction who, began the war and why, and who won it and how.

ALL. things considered, It creates a sort of wonder that she should have gone to' so much trouble and expense. Naturally, every country has its own ideas as to the struggle and its waging, and not even the League of Nations could be trusted to arrange a grand composite display m which all the nations took a share. Parts Required , Perhaps the ideal would be ior Thomas Hardy „to do the prologue, 'the diplomatists to explain the antecedents/ the French to do the attack; the Russians the horrors, Germany the casuistry and the propaganda, the Indian Army the desert campaigns, the Anzacs Gallipoli, the Turks the sniping, a committee of "Tommies'Vto do the trenches and the humor, a ditto of officers the ceremonials and the picturesque, our Navy the blockade and the submarine crimes, Fleet Street the iniquities of censorship and America the closing voluntary of collecting the "dibs." But who is to coax these different actors into the scheme, and who wants to sit through it when it is done 7 Apparently there is no doubt m Germany that the thing will succeed; so that there is evidently some factor behind it, either -of novelty or purpose; We rather fancy it must be purpose, because although the general verdict around the film world is that the war has had its day from the picture standpoint, the producing company is not only to run the show through Germany, but even with discreet suppressions and alterations, to send it round the world. , There is the cloven -hoof, after all, you see. When the ex-Kaiser appeared on the sheet, he was. loudly applauded at the first performance, so we can realise that the "scrap of paper" element and

the claque were not altogether wanting. -.7 ' "" Let us see. 'Where' and why the alterations aforesaid will have to be made before this work of art and ingenuity -leaves the Fatherland to face the buffets of a critical and enlightened world. From Diagrams .In the first place, the bigger scheme of the war has been put m the form of clever diagrams built up from material In the State archives, while for the sensational element, the designers have relied, either on tit-bits from individual memory or else scraps from popular war-films which have already seen the light: It is when; you come to the "panel legends" that you realize that the whole business is. , not', a world-survey of the war, but a phantasmagoria of Germany's heroism, innocence and endurance. .' One of these staggering slogans is: "Not even Germany's adversaries today dare to "say that she causeu the war" and if this does not pass.the palm for endurance on to the audience, wo give it up. There; is all the usual sentimental, "scharmerei" and sickly "Gefuhlsdeuseiei" m the way of idyllic German pastorals, and when mobilisation begins; of course, Fritz comes last and the naughty French, and Russians and British are a long way' ahead. Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria stops the French attack on the frontier, the .Boche collapse on, the Marne is neatly eyaded, and the all-important American market is catered for by the way iii which Germany submits at the close to the fact that the "•• overwhelming | power of the U.S.A. is thrown into the scale. '.. .'''.'■. •''- ■'■'. ' I-Ioch! hoch! The comedy. is over.— - From "N.Z. Truth's" Special ' London Rep.^ .'.■"■ , j