BRITISH FILMS

Taranaki Daily News, 2 August 1930, Page 10 (Supplement)

BRITISH FILMS

OUTLOOK ENCOURAGING. CRITICAL PERIOD FOR ,TRADE. There arc distinct signs that th® British film industry is entering upon, a more- prosperous year than it haA hitherto experienced, although, at the same time, the next nine months will prove a critical period for the trade in many directions, states a writer in. the London Morning Post, Several of the large corporations have decided to embark on. ambitious / schedules of production, and the di-, reeling boards of other companies have under° consideration big programmes which, ir realised, will be the means of putting the industry on the interna? tional map for tlie first time. A kind of tempered optimism expressed by representatives of tho trade to whom I have spoken. An official of one of the leading firms—the pioneer of talking films in this country —stated that the outlook was very encouraging.” . ,„ . . “The time has now arrived,” he added, “when we shall be able to get more for our products in the foreign r field than ever before” This firm will produce this year twenty feature full-length talking pictures—five of these will .be what are. known in the trade as “outstanding supers”—which will, it is hoped, ba produced in French, English, German, and Spanish. Two other important corporations are. each scheduled to produce this year twelve full-length talking picture®. “Our policy -for this year has been. con-, centrated upon the production of bigger, and better pictures,” said ft representa-. tive of one of these corporations to me, “and the question of producing multilingual films is now under consideraThere is. however, considerable difference of opinion'in the trade as ra-o-ards the commercial value of these multi-lingual films. One opinion ex-, pressed was'that the language difficulty; and the enormous time spent in producing such pictures rendered cnem scarcely worth the trouble ahd expense. “I am not very hopeful of trying to _' interpret the national spirit of foreign countries by this medium." said one expert. “The trend in the European trade will be for every country to make its own pictures.” I gathered that on a conservative estimate, the year’s production of leadBritish full-length talking films by the big companies and independent producers will, according to present plans, be approximately between 50 a-d 60. I was informed at the Board of Trade that this estimated figure could be regarded from data in possession of the ' board well below the actual production figure for the year. “On the whole, there has been an enormous improvement since the coming into force of the Quota' Act, I was told. It was pointed out, however, that there was' littl e hope as yet of ’British productions finding their way in any quantity into : the, Americaai market, since American interests. . were doing their level best to keep Great Britain OUt - ’ ' ’ .4. 2? ■ 4. Although there are indications that the British industry is becoming more firmly stabilised, producers are warned, that the Americans are not worrying so much now about exporting their films to this country as fighting to obtain control of as many picture houses in Great Britain as possible, with the object of dominating the industry indirectly. a