WARNING SHADOWS [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sia.—I am
astonished at Sir John Heaton's letter in your issue of last week, in which, after showing that he has a clear appreciation of the merits of the film Warning Shadows, he ends by calling it " a degrading atrocity from Germany." The plot of Warning Shadows is, briefly, that a party of people are shown, as in a vision, the evil thoughts which are in their own minds, and the consequences of those thoughts if ever they should be translated into action ; so, when they awaken, they take warning and put away their jealousies
and suspicions. What could be more moral ? Admittedly, the bulk of the film consists in the vision of the terrible things that might have happened, hit if Sir John Heaton objects to this, by how much more must he object, for instance, to the death scene in Othello ? Sir John Heaton is evidently not an Aristotelian, or he would not write as he does of a piece whose very subject is the catharsis which a dream may bring to the dreamer, and which therefore the film as a whole
-should bring to the audience.—I am, Sir, &c., N. T. S.
Tor: FILM INDUSTRY.—Mr. E. F. Howard Gaye writes :- Los Angeles, California, is the moving picture capital of the world. This city has a population of one million. Thousands of that million find occupation in the film industry, the fourth largest industry in the United States. During many active years' work in the studios of Hollywood, California, I have learned that, since the pioneering days, -America has looked upon the moving picture business as almost her own. I doubt whether German films will ever have a wide sale in the U.S.A. ; but if German producers can secure a large portion of the trade outside America, that country's
• supremacy may be seriously threatened. The production of British films in English studios is at a very low ebb. There is very little being done at present, and many studios arc idle. It seems a great pity to me that an industry which ranks fourth of all the industries of the United States, and gives direct and indirect employment to thousands of people there, can find no counterpart in England.
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