IF MR. FAIRBANKS can sell this sort of thing for
dollars, more power to him. My concern is merely that the label 'British' should not be put by others to misleading use. For example : this week, repeats of no fewer than five Fairbanks filmlets are being put on by Associated-Rediffusion. At some later date, when a protest is made about the increasing Americanisation of television programmes here, statistics will be produced to show that most films shown are British. In calculating the figures, these Fairbanks films will be included not with Holly- wood Westerns and crime stories and dramas, where they belong, but as home produce. Yet they are no more 'British' in this sense than were the old 'quota quickies' which used to be made and distributed around cinemas; neither, I am sorry to say, are they much better.
Previous page
