The Manufacture of Films
The public is only aware of a crisis in the film industry when old films are resurrected at the local cinema. The industry itself is acutely aware of the crisis long before this stage is reached, and now That half the studios in the country are idle it is vigorously canvassing remedies for the situation. A conference which was held in London this week and attended by workers engaged in every branch of film manufacture, restated the simplest and most familiar remedy ; this is that the makers of films should be allowed a much larger share of the ultimate profits than is available for them at present. This could be done in one of two ways, either by reducing the slice which is taken by the distributors or by a lowering of the entertainment tax. " The division of box-office receipts should be revised," said Sir Laurence Olivier, "and it is desirable that the Government should plough back a proportion of the tax into the industry." Of course it is desirable, just as it is desirable from the point of view of the ordinary citizen that the Government should plough back into his own pocket some of the taxes of which he is directly and indirectly mulcted every year ; it is fair to assume that the film industry, like the citizen, is a better manager and a better guardian of its own interests than is the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But what, presumably, must be called the spirit of the age is against any solution so simple. The spirit of the age prefers a solution similar to that suggested a week earlier by Mr. Tom O'Brien, the general secretary of the National Association of Theatrical and Kine Employees, that the Government should make an immediate loan of up to 120 million to the National Film Finance Corporation. But in present conditions a loan on this scale is unlikely, nor would it necessarily prove a solution for the industry's problems. These have been analysed often enough ; if a solution is ever found, it will probably combine further loans with improved methods of production and distribution and, perhaps, an adjustment of the quota, not forgetting, of course, the need to produce good and inexpensive films.
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