LIFE OF A FILM

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1787, 27 July 1926, Page 7

LIFE OF A FILM

'GENERALLY ABOUT TWO YEARS. It 3s no easy matter for even a practised film-goer to see the films he desires to see. Certain pictures have an extended run at a West End Theatre; but not every film-lover cares to pay theatre prices. Films that are given a trade show only, though described then in the papers, remain in obscurity for months. Suddenly an eagerly-awaited piece ■appears in one's local cinema for three d,ays (/says Iris Barry in the London Daily Mail). If one cannot make the opportunity to see it then the chances are that one never will. The following -week it may perhaps be shown at some other accessible picture house, though generally it is only by ingenuity and good luck that it can be found. 'There have, however, been cases of people taking long train journeys to catch up with, an elulsive picture. It is small wonder that some call them movies The ultimate fate of films is a .matter of speculation for the general public. For some time after release the aver- < age film remains in circulation; copies are despatched to provincial and then to rural cinemas from the fireproof safes of War dour Street, and return thither in due course; If the film is above the average it, may continue to appear up and down the country for a fairly long time, even years. The best of all are, of course, re-issued, and enjoy a second •life. . Fairbanks' "Robin Hood" and D. W. -Griffith's " Intolerance" enjoyed mijmerous revivals. And the pictures of Charlie Chaplin go on-until they fall to pieces. Even now a, cinema near Leicester Square is reviving everv existing Chaßlin picture from the earliest times at the rate of one a week. Some of them are considerably over ten years old,. But the fate of ordinary films is different. .iA picture is scrapped after about two years, sold as junk, or melted down for the sake of certain constituents of the celluloid. There are in existence in England a few firms dealing in junk.' From their extensive library of old films can be hired early biograph dramas, the almost forgotten films of Mr and Mrs Sidney Drew, and of the still older Broncho 'Billy. Some of the picturete are incomplete: most of them are Spotty and flicker terribly.' And to anyone, seeing them to-day ithey are apt to prove excruciatingly naive and absurd.. If the pictures of 1936 are as vast an improvement on those to-day a s the current films are over those of 1916 they should be admirable indeed.