I IREACH OF TRUST Sik.—It is not my intention to challenge
or debate the points made in your most interesting article on CL shortcomings of commercial television in Britain. Ti is principally the duty of such TV broadcast- Ina companies as are inclined to wear the shoe you have set before them. I am not inclined to quibble With your less than enthusiastic regard for the quality of those films made by my own company. It is an opinion which, whatever the measure of 4greement, is sincerely respected. I must, however, contest the suggestion that these films are not Aside from the legal registration of the producing ecirnpany and its product, it may be worth noting thOtt, of all the company's permanent executive, cjeative and technical personnel, 1 am the only non- Titon. In producing over 160 half-hour films for ,ty, it was only on the rarest occasions, and when ',lie play expressly required it, that we engaged Inreign artists. The vast majority of our stories were 9f British origin, and all but a very few were put Into final play form by British writers. . If you had the varied national settings of the plays In mind, would you also say Romeo and Juliet was n°t an English play because the Characters and stetting were Italian? Would you say that because Ipton sells tea in bags in America Lipton's tea is not British'? Was Selfridge's store cons.dered Ameri- 111 when the founder was alive? Should Lever Lrothers be thought not British because of the way ; Int soap is packaged, advertised, exploited and sold America? Like any manufacturer, we attempted In produce for the widest possible market. The cconomics of film making, whether for the cinema 9r TV, are such that catering to the special tastes c:f Only a section of the world audience is not feasible.
compromise is essential for survival. We therefore tined to produce a series which, although British in „esign and execution, could find a market as accept- le in the United States, the Commonwealth and Europe as in Britain. That this is easier said than done is proved by the fact that, in spite of stubborn resistance, ours were the first British TV films to be successfully exhibited in the US. In fact, I believe ours were the first British series to be shown at all —successfully 9r otherwise I I must confess that our greatest difficulty was that large sections of the American public thought them too British. I cannot speak with the same conviction or authority about any of the other TV film-producing companies which have since been set up here, but those films which my company produced—good, bad or indifferent—were, by every normal standard, British, unless, of course, my being American can- celled out the contributions made by all the others.
Then again, perhaps Hennessy's cognac brandy is not French after all.—Yours faithfully, 144 Piccadilly, WI
DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS
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