BRITISH CAMERAS IN THE WAR ZONES

Southland Times, Issue 24005, 21 December 1939, Page 14

BRITISH CAMERAS IN THE WAR ZONES

Early Difficulties For News Reel Men

British cinemas should now be receiving a regular supply of newsreel pictures from the Western front. Permission has at last been obtained to send a camera-man to France from each of the five British newsreels— Pathe, Movietone, Gaumont-British, Paramount and Universal. The men left London recently with all the equipment necessary for taking silent films. A Movietone sound van will follow later to service the five camera-men jointly, writes the film correspondent of The Observer, London. Expenses are to be paid by the newsreels themselves. Positions will be allotted to the various camera-men by rota, as has been the rule on all official occasions in peace time. Film taken will be sent back to individual companies and then shared out among the various newsreels. Censorship will be done promptly by the War Office or the Air Ministry, according to the material shot. OFFICIAL DELAY This arrangement should put an end to the natural .complaints of cinema proprietors in England and neutral countries that they are getting no firsthand reports of the war from Allied sources. The newsreels themselves are not to blame. All the companies, naturally, had made preparation for shooting in the eventuality of war. What they could not, and did not, forecast was the extent of official ukases as soon as hostilities should break out. Immediately on the outbreak of war in Britain, secret defence notices were issued in connection with newsreels. These were amplified on Septembr 10 by an act known as th Control of Photography Order. This new act, as one authority puts it, “wiped out everything the Defence people hadn’t thought of.” Shots of troops on the marchshots of troops in training—shots of

buildings designed for troops—almost anything, it seemed, might give information to the enemy. Several cameramen were arrested. In the absence of any other urgent news than war-news, the newsreel people almost saw their functions at an end.

In order to satisfy, temporarily, the crying demand of exhibitors for war news, the War Office, on their own initiative and at their own expense, went out and took their own war pictures. They shot, discreetly, troops on the march and troops embarking. These pictures were handed out to the newsreels for circulation, and in the absence of any other material a certain proportion of the first batch was issued. The second batch, of troops disembarking on the other side, was turned down as “inferior work.” GERMANY BUSY In the meantime Germany was busy sending out double-length newsreels to the neutrals. In one case they were shown, with editorial amendments, in England. Although made entirely for propaganda purposes, they were so full of “meat” that “they made my mouth water,” according to one authority in this country. Our ambassadors in neutral countries, seeing these, began to press more urgently for something from Allied sources. It was recognized more particularly that a certain freedom of reporting was essential for the Colonial markets and for India. Gradually authoritative pressure from home and overseas has brought about a modification in the rules restricting British newsreels. The Control of Photography Order still remains in being, but it is hoped that a committee will shortly be set up to waive its more hampering restrictions. In the meantime, home permits have been issued to newsreel cameramen, which will largely free them from interdiction by local police and A.R.P. authorities. Finally, permission has been given for the dispatch of cameramen to the war zones, where their work should amplify the records taken by the official French, photographers.

and still one of its finest actors when he is behaving himself.

In Barrymore’s latest battle with his fourth wife, Elaine, he disclosed that his famous profile has earned him 150,000 dollars a year since 1933, and, in the three years preceding, collected 1,000,000 dollars. He said he was paid 5000 dollars a week for seven weeks for his,role in “Hold That Co-Ed”; another 5000 dollars a week for three weeks m “Marie Antoinette”; and 6000 weekly or 18,000 dollars total for playing in “Bulldog Drummond.” This puts him among the highest-paid actors in the world today.