FILM INDUSTRY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21357, 10 June 1931, Page 14

FILM INDUSTRY

EFFECT OF THE SOUND FILM THREATENED WORLD SHORTAGE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, May 1. According to Mr G. A. Atkinson, the film critic of the Daily Telegraph, kinema owners are threatened with a serious and possibly disastrous film famine. “ Many of our kinema theatres,” he writes, “ will be compelled to close next autumn and winter, for longer or shorter periods, unless they can put on alternative entertainments. In this remarkable and unparalleled situation there is a great opportunity for the really efficient and not too costly British film.” Kinema theatres in this country have now reached a point where they need available supplies of 500 good talkies per annum. It is doubtful if they will be able to count this year on more than 200, of which 40 or 50 will be British. CAPITAL. NEEDED. The famine is already upon the American. kinema owner, as indicated in the current issue of the British kinema owners’ official organ, the Kinematograph Times, by its Hollywood correspondent, who says: ■. • “Never in the history of the business has there been such a shortage of product. Theatres are hammering at distributors to accelerate releases. Distributors are urging Hollywood to speed up production. Hollywood is imploring bankers to furnish the necessary finance. “The situation is so serious that all artificial barriers and tariffs between one theatre chain and another are down. The famine has reached a point where many theatres do not know to-day whether they will have anything to project on Monday. “Unless Hollywood finds an unexpected extra £10,000,000 for production within six months there will be no reserve fund of films.” RESTRICTIONS OF LANGUAGE.

Had the famine occurred in the days of silent films the situation could have been saved by “reissues,” but talkies do not seem to have much re-issue value, and technical improvements and changes swiftly put them out of date. It become obvious that there would be a famine as soon as the single-feature programme failed to- suffice for a week, but kinema magnates are one degree worse than the Bourbons, in that they learn nothing and forget everything. The restrictions imposed by the English language caused America to produce fewer films, owing to'the shrinkage of her non-English markets. The same restrictions also caused a * shrinkage in our film supplies from foreign countries. Theatres, meanwhile, have increased in number, but theatre owners are acting precisely as if the same number of films were available as in silent days. CHANCE OF BRITISH FILMS.

“ My opinion is,” says the Daily Telegraph critic, “ that the theatres, during the next 12 months, will be able to absorb many British films in excess of current estimates of output, and that tlje industry is urgently in need of pew finance. “These ‘famine relief’ films should be put immediately in production, as the shortage will apply to all Englishspeaking markets, but there is no absolute guarantee that they will obtain distribution in America, despite the famine there, as there is no evidence that American audiences take kindly to British talkies.”

A remarkable will has been left by M. Flaissieres, the late Mayor of Marseilles. In this he instructed his heirs that the utmost simplicity should be observed in regard to his funeial. ho formal notices were to be sent to his friends, nor even announcements of the funeral made in the press. The body was to be cremated, and in order not to waste, the coffin was to be placed directly on the metal plate used in cremation. The ashes were to be flung into a common grave and covered with a layer of earth. There was to be no memorial, even of a temporary nature, the grave being left unmarked. “I wish to sleep,” the testator added, “ the eternal sleep, mingled with the air of Marseilles, my adopted city, and to rest with the general mass of its admirable population. I beg my friends to see to it that my name does not figure on any street sign or commemorative tablet.”