Pictures in the Fire
By ROY and JOHN BOULTING
THERE is probably more nonsense spoken and written about films than any other subject available to horno called sapiens. Let any one of our more sober-sided legislators stand up in the Mother of Parliaments to address the nation on the British film industry, and it is almost certain that, to the knowledgeable, he will make an ass of himself. It would appear that our law-givers and pundits rely for their information far more on the gossip columns ('Starlet Dives Naked. Into Pool': 'Susie Blank Divorces Ninth Husband': 'Bertie Bull Signs Million-Pound Contract') than they would have us believe, or, indeed, we had ' dared to suspect. It also leaves us wondering whether they make the same sort of nonsense of other industries.
Now all of this occurs to us as a result of a recent leader in The Times, calling for the closure of the National Film Finance Corporation with arguments, not only begging the facts, but com- pletely ignoring them, followed a few days later by a petulant echo from the Financial Editor's desk at the Spectator. Where the former may be regarded as further evidence of a great newspaper in decline, the latter can only fill the more in- formed with dismay. Mr. Nicholas Davenport (if we are not mistaken, at one time the late Sir Alexander Korda's Ambassador Extraordinary to the City of London) may not, in fact, be the authority he, perhaps, considers himself, but he has been in, out, and round about the British film industry for long enough to make his naiveties and distort ions inexcusable.
The difficulties, of course, cannot be ignored. Here is a fundamentally creative process in enter- tainment which achieves fulfilment only by resort to industrial organisation. Unlike other industries, however, organisation, after a certain given point, does not proceed to a production line. Each film is a prototype. There are no constant factors, save sound stages and equipment. Not actors, nor story, nor settings; nor, for that matter, labour and materials. Because of this, there is no certain way of assessing what a film is likely to earn in relation to what it is going to cost. Baffling, this, for the layman. Frustrating, too, for the accountant- economist mind, anxious to reduce the complex to a simple industrial formula. Agonising for the film-maker, certain only of his' own uncertainty, the one figure without a pretence to all the answers.
But it is this—plus punitive box-office taxation; inordinate money-lending, contingency and com- pletion charges; continuing inflation of studio costs in labour and materials, against a back- ground of sharp decline in revenue—it is this that makes film production the hazard it is today; and not, as Mr. Davenport (and, for that matter, the National Film Finance Corporation), would have us believe, simply a question of high fees to stars, producers and directors. This last is merely head- line stuff. It may get the space but does not help us find a solution.
On the question of star salaries, for example, we should be very surprised to learn that Mr. Jack Hawkins—as Mr. Davenport suggests—had, in recent years, been paid £30,000 for a single film by a British company. Mr. Hawkins, we know, can and does command sums well in excess of this from our Hollywood competitors. With a domestic market many times greater than ours as well as established distribution throughout the world, they can afford such expenditure. But, today, such a fee would never be considered by a native film company; nor—Mr. Hawkins being a reasonable man as well as a fine artist—would it be expected. But it is this kind of assertion—erroneous and quite inexcusable—which, given the authority of print, engenders a completely false impression and prompts the reader to throw up his hands and mutter, 'These damn film people!'
Mr. Davenport, in his compound of fact and fiction, half-truth and untruth, regards it as fortu- nate that the resources of the NFFC are coming to an end. Why? True, apart from three million pounds lost beyond recall in the old British Lion Company, it has cost the public purse a further sum of approximately £200,000 per annum during the ten years of the NFFC's existence. But is this such a high price for British film production? Can the Government be accused of squandering public resources when during the same period it has been able to milk the industry of over three hundred million pounds in entertainments tax alone, an increasingly large proportion of which had been earned by the home product? Is there really a case for closing the Corporation down and saving the NFFC's remaining two million pounds when, over the last three years, on a steadily rising scale, British films have earned and returned to this country over twenty million pounds in foreign currency?
Whatever the wording of the Act, whatever Mr. Davenport suggests to the contrary, the real pur- pose of the legislation embodying the NFFC was to prevent a complete collapse of British film- making. It was not an act of grace so much as enlightened self-interest. It was to prevent the domination of our screens by Hollywood. It was to prevent an increase in our remittances to Holly- wood. It was to prime the pump. What is more, it succeeded. When one measures the pittance now grudged against the vast benefits which have accrued to the Treasury (cultural values apart) it will be seen as one of the wiser governmental inter- ventions of the post-war years.
If Mr. Davenport's response to the Corpora- tion losses are those of a Dickensian capitalist. his remedy for the industry's ills is far more con- temporary : yet another committee. 'An advisory panel to choose subjects which would make good film entertainment' (how easy he makes it sound!). 'and add to the national prestige' (here is a job for Mr. Striped-Pants, OBE; or Dr. Manvell, if his many other functions permit; or perhaps Mr. Davenport, himself, might be glad to serve?). 'And then commission the best producers, directors and artists to make them.' The films, of course, as Mr. Davenport points out; would have to be 'better awl less costly.' Apparently, they would also have to be much bigger 'like the Ten Commandments' (which cost $10,000,000! ). Remorseless logic, this. And, no doubt, should Sir Carol Reed or David Lean's 'factory efficiency' (daily screen-time) fail to improve from week to week, a firmly worded memo in quadruplicate from the Panel would instruct them to pull their talented fingers out !
A last word. The film industry is not 'a dying industry.' it is an industry in transition. Certainly, so far as production is concerned, with more and more TV being filmed and large-scale experiments in toll tele-film about to be launched, its horizons are expanding, rather than the reverse. But until the present phase is over, the NFFC will probably continue to lose money;.and if is right and proper that the Government should allow it to do so, for its profits on the over-all operation are indis- putable. The investment, today, pays off in the future. The boat may have a slight; even a con- tinuing, leak, but this is no reason for kicking the whole bottom out —and sinking with all hands!
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