MONEY Ministry as movie mogul
NICHOLAS DAVENPORT
So Mr Crosland has decided to extend the life of the National Film Finance Corpora- tion. He did not say what sort of life it would have—whether it would be confined to an invalid chair or whether it would be able to hobble about on crutches. His detailed proposals will not be disclosed until the autumn. By that time Mr. Jenkins will tell him how much money an austere Trea- sury will allow him. I doubt whether it will give him the £6 million the Corporation is asking for. It will be lucky if it gets half.
The decision is to be deplored. I am not against government money being gambled in moderation on British films, provided it is done in the right way. In my opinion the right way is to commission each year a select British producer-director to make a film on any subject approved of by a panel of distinguished writers and artists which would be likely to do credit to the British film industry. One a year for five years would be ample as an experiment; each budget would have £1 million as a top limit; five years would try most of the talent available. The objection to having a National Film Finance Corporation open to everyone complying with the rules is that it tends to finance those who are not good enough to secure commercial finance else- where. I know that the NFFC claims to have financed a few young producers who would never have had a chance commercially and I do no doubt that it found an occasional winner (like Ulysses). But it has been an ex- pensive way of doing it, as the millions it has lost testify. And an able accountant- administrator like Mr John Terry is not the man who can pick out likely artist-producer winners, as he would be the first to admit. My way would be less costly for the Trea- sury and would bring more credit to the British film industry.
If you look at the record of the NFFC you will blush at the thought of so many ghastly films, which have brought discredit to the British name, being financed by public money. They far outnumber the creditable ones. Yet administratively the Corporation has done well to have lost only a little over £5 million in the course of more than twenty years. During this period it has
financed over 700 feature films as well as . hundreds of 'second features'. With an ini-
tial revolving fund of £6 million, soon reduced to £3 million by the loss of the loan to Korda's old British Lion, it man- aged to grant loans to film producers total- ling almost £28 million. This was quite a feat. It was achieved by reducing tht -loss on the old British Lion to £1.8 million through the sale of shares in and dividends from the new British Lion and by making £3 million profit on the comparatively few films which were successful. This in spite of the fact that it paid over this period no less than £2% million in interest to the Government. The Board of Trade compels it to pay interest on money which has been lost and which is irrecoverable. In-commer- cial life this would have been written off long ago. If interest on fictitious money
John Bull will be back next week. were excluded, the Corporation's loss of £150,000 last year would disappear. If its life is to be extended it can only be as a cripple if it is to catry the weight of a lost £5 million.
But I contend that it is quite unnecessary to extend its life. The character of the film business is changing and the NFFC has no longer any apparent function to perform. In the last twenty years the annual attendance at cinemas has dropped from 1,500 million to under 250 million. Young people simply refuse to fill the vast old theatres to see ghastly, old-fashioned make-believe films. But the new, smaller theatres—especially the two-tier type—are usually full when they show the more modern hide-nothing type of film. It is at last dawning on the two big cinema managements — as Pictures and Rank—that they have got to become up-to- date if they are to stay in the film business. The old-fashioned management of AB Pic- tures has happily gone; the company has been taken over by EMI and is run by men with a theatre-nose who have announced a £10 million production programme. Rank, under Mr John Davis, is, I am told, at last prepared to spend more on film production of the many millions it makes out of Rank- Xerox. I hope Mr Davis will 'give youth a chance' as the AB Pictures intend to do.
Then there is Lord Goodman, the new chairman of the new British Lion Holdings Ltd. He is also chairman of the Arts Coun- cil—at the beck and call of every artist in the country—and he has announced an am- bitious film production programme. He has
the Boultings and Launder and Gilliatt in his organisation and last December took over Tudor Productions, which is entitled to a large share of the receipts from a number of films produced by the Boultings. Much is expected of the Goodman incursion into our national film life. There is Mr John Woolf, of Romulus Films, the most suc- cessful of our independent film producers. He produced the Carol Reid version of Oliver which looks like having a long theatre run—a happy result for a film cost- ing many millions. This was financed by the American giant—Columbia Pictures. With all this healthy activity in film production, where is the need for NFFC?
This brings me to the important subject of American film finance. As the resources of the NFFC declined, so the proportion of British first 'features' financed by American film companies increased. It was 75 per cent in 1965 and 1966 and approximately 90 per cent in 1967 and 1968. No one here wants to see our national screen dominated by the Americans but they have undoubtedly been useful in financing some of our best pro- ducers and directors. For example, they are now financing the expensive David Lean - 'our top director as Lawrence of Arabia and Dr Zhivago proved—who is making a film in Ireland. I have a fatherly interest in David Lean because when I was engaged in the finance of the Shaw-Pascal films he was Our cutter in Pygmalion and our assistant director in Major Barbara. He is the only English director I know who could he allowed to spend as freely as he pleases. So the Americans have their uses. And as long as the Eady levy at the cinemas is kllowed to go on subsidising American fin- anced British 'first features' they will not take their money away from England, al- though they will have less available in 1969/ 70. So what with American money, Rank, AB Pictures, Lord Goodman and all, why do we need NFFC backing for Tom, Dick and Harry?
ffolkes's industrial alphabet
Lis for Lockout
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