BRITISH FILMS—PAST AND FUTUREAuthor(s): HERBERT WILCOXSource: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 112, No. 5095 (JUNE 1964), pp. 514-522Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and CommerceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41369388 .

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BRITISH FILMS- PAST AND FUTURE

A paper by HERBERT WILCOX, C.B.E.

read to the Society on Wednesday 26th February 1964, with Robert Clark , M.A.y LL.B.y President , British

Film Producers' Association , in the Chair

the chairman: It is particularly encouraging to me as President of the British Film Producers' Association to see so many people here this afternoon. The film industry has been particularly in the news in the last few weeks, what with the selling of British Lion and other things, and to-day Mr. Wilcox is going to tell you some of his ideas on the future of the British film industry.

My main job this afternoon is to introduce Mr. Wilcox, but that is quite superfluous. He is such a wonderful publicity agent himself! When I first came into the film industry very many years ago one of the first people I met was Mr. Wilcox. I had to work out a deal with him when we built some studios which the British Dominion Film Company took over. I am sorry to say that they ultimately burnt down ! Mr. Wilcox has played a part in the development of British films which I sincerely believe has not yet been fully recognized. Through all these years when entertainment tax has been a very heavy burden on the industry, and when there was no easy fund and no other form of subsidy, Mr. Wilcox was one of the few people who kept the torch aflame for British films. When the historians come to do their job they will assess his place as being one of high rank and merit.

I should just like to say in passing that I am delighted to be in this wonderful hall. I never knew it existed when, about forty years ago, the Society failed to give me a prize for a submission I made in shorthand and typewriting !

The following paper was then read .

THE PAPER

I have been asked to address you on the Future of British Films, but before attempting to analyse and přophesy the future, let us take a look at the past and the present.

Since the United States has always been the will-o'-the wisp market for British film producers, let us go to Broadway in 1914. In that significant year the only full-length films showing on Broadway were British - produced by an American, George Loane Tucker. They were The House of Temperley and The Christian . The Americans at that time were completely sold on the shorter film ranging from ten minutes to half-an-hour in length. That was 1914. What would have happened had international events taken a different course is anybody's guess, but from 19 14 to 1918 the British were otherwise engaged, and the American producers, having seen the results of the Broadway runs, adopted the policy of full-length pictures, the production of which was largely developed before they entered the First World War.

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JUNE 1964 BRITISH FILMS - PAST AND FUTURE

D. W. Griffith was, of course, the pioneer, the father of them all, and he made the mammoth pictures, Intolerance , Birth of a Nation , Orphans of the Storm , all with great themes and conscience. However, whilst he was making these films, mass production of cheap (largely outdoor) pictures was initiated at Santa Barbara and Hollywood was born.

Meanwhile, so little British production was active that when I came out of the R.A.F. in 1918, with no trade behind me and nothing to do, I invested my gratuity of £117, as a Captain in the R.A.F., in a distributing company at Leeds.

Our organization, which included Victor Saville, was responsible for selling American films on commission. When I say films, we sold them 102 at a time entirely on the synopses supplied from America, and for two years ahead Yorkshire exhibitors were showing these American films - that is, when they were produced, which was not very often. The forward booking period at that time was on average about two years, but increased to as far as three years. Only Cecil Hepworth and George Pearson were busy making films over here, apart from the occasional individual producer like Maurice Elvey.

In 1919, having observed how successful our first British product, A Peep Behind the Scenes , was, I decided to make British films myself. My first was The Wonderful Story by I. A. R. Wylie, which cost me £1,700, or approximately per cent of the hire of the set dressings of The Courtneys of Curzon Street . The Wonderful Story was an enormous critical success, meriting a leading article in The Times and a cartoon in the Kinematograph Weekly , our leading trade journal, the caption of which said 'America Beware'. The Wonderful Story , when played at British cinemas, probably reached the lowest gross ever recorded !

Undaunted, I made a film entitled Trapped by the Mormons , but the Censor objected to the title, thinking it might cause offence. I changed it - with his blessing - to Death Before Dishonour . The three artists in the cast became great stars: Victor McLaglen, Clive Brook and Evelyn Brent. Their combined salaries for the picture were £70. I see, according to Darryl Zanuck, that Elizabeth Taylor should not expect more than the £670,000 she has already been paid for Cleopatra'

This was the 1920s - a barren period for British films - so much so that for

approximately a year I was the lone producer over here. The cinemas were showing almost 100 per cent American films, which reached this market at an absurdly low cost, since their production costs had been recovered in their own domestic market.

I endeavoured to broaden my horizons and went to Berlin, where great films

(which were penetrating America) were being produced. The Germans had artists like Emil Jannings, Werner Kraus, Pola Negri, Conrad Veidt, with out- standing producers like Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch and Murnau. I made Chu Chin Chow in Berlin and then moved on to Vienna to make films there. In those days, pre-quota, they rated as British films and did well here, but had literally no success in the will-o'-the wisp United States.

In a further endeavour to break into that market I decided to raid their star talent and brought over the first silent picture star to reach England - Mae Marsh, D. W. Griffith's top star. Her reception in England outshone anything that the Beatles might have experienced in New York. You must remember that in those

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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS JUNE 1 964

days it was not even a voice, it was a shadow, which came to life, and the scene at Waterloo Station when Mae Marsh arrived has, I am confident, never been sur- passed for crowds.

She starred in Flames of Passion - a quiet little piece. However, this did not set the Thames or the world on fire, but at the première performance at the Oxford Music Hall, the theatre caught fire and we rushed everyone out in time to prevent any casualties. The publicity was prodigious. My friend, C. B. Cochran, sent me a telegram, 'Congratulations. What a showman'.

It was shortly after this that the quota idea was born and, despite desperate lobbying by the Americans, was passed in the national rather than in the economic interests of the British film.

Then followed the disgraceful period of British quota films made purely and primarily by American distributors to meet the quota Act and mainly exhibited in cinemas while charladies were still sweeping up the orange peel and peanut shells from the evening before. These films, costing a maximum of £6,000, were often exported and unfortunately they were assessed in America as the contribution we could make to the film industry throughout the world.

Then came talking and sound pictures, and with it our great opportunity. Within a week of The Singing Fool being shown in New York, I was on my way, and having seen it went on to Hollywood to study the situation. I was so impressed with the potentialities that I stayed and made the fifth talking picture ever to be made anywhere in the world. It was made in ten days and as a result I obtained a licence from the Western Electric Company to equip a studio in England. I bought from John Maxwell half of his existing silent studios at Elstree and installed sound. My company was the British and Dominion Film Corporation, and these were the first sound studios to be completed in Europe.

I was aware that with the change to sound and talking we had the edge on the Americans and had talent galore. Films had found their voice and I was convinced that the voice of Britain would be more acceptable than the voice of America.

I went ahead and secured stage plays and stage artists: Tom Walls, Ralph Lynn, Jack Buchanan, Sydney Howard and many others. Hitchcock, at the same time, saw the great opportunity and hit on a new line in suspense. He was making a film called Blackmail , and immediately he switched over and made it into a sound instead of a silent picture. The first film I made there with Charles Laughton, also his first, and Dorothy Gish was entitled The Wolves. This, for your information, was the first 100 per cent British sound film ever made.

The stage play period was enormously successful, particularly in the markets of the Dominions and our own domestic market, where these films were given substantial preference over the Americans. Records were broken throughout the British Empire. Rookery Nook ran for over a year in Sydney, Australia, and in one theatre in London brought back its cost, £14,000. The total profit from showings all over the world was approximately £150,000. In the United States it brought back - nothing.

The next phase moved out of the theatre to historical subjects and some realistic productions. For my part I made Nell Gwynn and Queen Victoria- both world- wide successes. At least, Nell Gtoynn would have been but for the intervention of

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JUNE 1964 BRITISH FILMS - PAST AND FUTURE

the American censor who, amongst other objections, felt that Charles II should have married her.

Meanwhile the Americans were making enormous progress and breathing down our necks with brilliant and scintillating musicals: Maurice Chevalier, Jeannette Macdonald, the M.G.M. musicals. This synthetic but extremely entertaining line of product more than held its own in our own domestic markets, whereas we were getting nowhere in the States. The battle was on, and then came 1939. Again a significant year. Again it was war. For a time everything in the British film industry stopped dead. The cinemas were closed and it seemed as if it was the end of the industry, but like everything else, normal conditions soon prevailed and the British film industry was soon to enter one of its greatest phases. Despite shortages, hardships, the Blitz, the call-up, In Which We Serve , The First of the Few , Target for Tonight , One of Our Aircraft is Missing , Piccadilly Incident , Henry V - it seemed that we needed the pressure and challenge to bring out the best, and they certainly brought out the best.

At that time we were on top, at least in our Empire markets. After the war, probably as a result of so much restraint on cinemagoers, came the gay romantic period and the wonderful Ealing comedies, The Lavender Hill Mob , Passport to PimlicOy and Spring in Park Lane , and The Courtneys of Curzon Street - all record breakers in this market and which, but for a punitive entertainment tax, would have rendered unnecessary the Eady money or the establishment of the National Film Finance Corporation, which, incidentally, has done a magnificent job in keeping the industry alive and on its toes.

Then, probably owing to the fact that the people who sat in the one-and-nines were earning more money per household than the aristocrats, and did not know how to spend it, 'they* decided patronizingly to take an interest in the working class, and the kitchen sink and off-stage lavatory noises period had arrived. It has had a great run.

This position was worsened by the 'X' Certificate film, which I have no hesitation in saying has probably done more to kill the cinema as a family entertainment habit than TV, Bingo or Bowling Alleys rolled into one. The 'X' Certificate has attracted the cinema hooligan, and the cinema hooligan has driven the family audiences away from the cinema.

The kitchen sink period is on the way out. What is on the way in? Our Chairman, Robert Clark, who has done so much for British films and is

probably the most sincere supporter of them (he was largely if not entirely res- ponsible for The Dam Busters being produced), and is now President of the British Film Producers' Association, is much more qualified to answer this question, but since the object of this exercise is for me to address you on the future of British films, I am going to have a bash, even if I am wrong.

In my opinion the ordinary British film, with its stereotyped plot and cast, is already as dead as a doornail. And once again we must look to wider horizons.

In my opinion again, except for indigenous comedies and small realistic films of localized interest, British films in five years from now will be stone dead. From their ashes will emerge great international pictures and the best of both worlds :

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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS JUNE 1 964 films comparable to The Bridge on the River Kwai , Guns of Navarrone, Lawrence of Arabia and Tom Jones and, soon to come, the story of Becket - as British as they could be, with great British actors and a great American producer with the know-how and, not unimportantly, all the money he needs.

That I think will be the pattern. We have our greatest chance. Our artists are accepted throughout the world, our accents, even provincial and cockney, are understood. (In New York I sat through an Ealing comedy and understood about half, but gathered the other half from the acceptance and laughter of the audience.) Our themes and traditions are of world-wide interest.

It seems a happy marriage. I endeavoured to do it once myself, with R.K.O. in 1939. On many occasions the Rank Organization has endeavoured to do it. But I think now it is coming of its own volition and from the place whence it should spring, the cinema public.

If this happens, who knows? We have the ability, we have the artists, and even that dare-devil element, the City of London, might participate in finance. The objective, I am afraid, will take some time. Perhaps five years, or more.

I wish it could happen tomorrow.

DISCUSSION

MR. william weedon (Head of Television, Macaulay Advertising Ltd.): Mr. Wilcox has very gracefully failed to emphasize his own work. I don't think any of us should let this occasion pass without recalling pictures such as Victoria the Great and Sixty Glorious Years , which were in their time truly great, with wonderful costume and colour. I am sure we should all like to say, 'Well done, all the way'

mrš. máry stocks : I should like to ask a question about location. None of the great films that Mr. Wilcox mentioned had their location in the United States. Tom Jones , for example, was in Britain and made full use of stately homes and ancient towns, Lawrence of Arabia I think was in the Middle East. What future is there for films of that sort in terms of location? After all, we are not going to be able to change our climate and we have not much elbow room.

the lecturer : Climate and its qualities to film-makers are debatable wherever you go, and so I think we are no worse off than any other country on the whole. On the other hand, I think the big American producers welcome the opportunity of using real locations as against building them ; the reality adds anormously to the production.

MR. a. bunker : Mr. Wilcox by implication condemned the quota quickies. I should like to try to get some sort of an admission from him that the worst characteristics of the 'quickie* are still seen in a considerable number of British productions that are to-day awaiting exhibition in our cinemas. The great tradition of British film production which Mr. Wilcox emphasized is rather spoilt, and has been retarded, by a parallel stream of very poor 'B' productions. Is there an awareness of this deficiency in British film making?

the lecturer: I don't believe personally that the circuits would refuse to show anything which had box office appeal. I cannot believe it. But on the other hand I have an advantage over you - you didn't see early quota pictures.

MR. bunker: About 1934 I became aware of them. the lecturer: They were late vintage. You should have seen the early ones! By

and large I have not seen a really bad British film for a long time.

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MR. kenneth s. allen (Associated British Picture Corporation) : Last year I was privileged to go to Venice, where some of the best critics of film making in the world were assembled. They were unanimous that never before had Britain ever shown such a collection of first rate films. They had long thought of England as a country making whimsical little comedies of no international value, or big epic films that somehow just did not quite come off, but they were thoroughly encouraged by the three films submitted at Venice, and by the news of other films in production.

mrš. máry ADAMS, o.B.E. (Member of Council) : Can I tempt Mr. Wilcox into some discussion of the relationship between the British film industry and the British tele- vision industry? I agree with Mr. Wilcox that the future of the British film industry lies partly in the great international film, but I should like to hear his view about the need to fill the television screens in this country and abroad with films, British films.

the lecturer: I think it is very much a matter of economics. You cannot spend the money on the television film that would justify sending it all over the world. You can spend perhaps £10,000, but what can you do for £10,000? I have recently had experience with my wife in a television play. It was wonderfully well done, but no allowance was made for error. In my view not more than twenty films a year being made here are of the calibre that will satisfy these world markets. I think you could get a reversal between the American television companies and the British television companies, but that is what they all seek but never get. I do not think there is any chance at all of marrying the two because they are poles apart financially.

mrš. adams: I agree that £10,000 is a very small sum of money, but I think there is room for the manufacture, not of epics, but of run-of-the-mill films, using the talent of writers, actors and directors which I think is pre-eminent in this country.

the lecturer: If you are regarding the making of television films as a nursery for British films, then I certainly agree that much outstanding talent has emerged from television - group talent. You have it in America, for example, with the boy who did Marty. But I still maintain that for financial reasons you cannot marry the British, or any film industry, with television.

MR. т. s. lyndon-haynes, A.R.P.S., M.B.K.s. : The public has developed new habits so far as the cinema is concerned. It has already the main contra-attractions of B.B.C, and commercial television and, by the end of the year, pay-television will make another network bringing the total to four.

I feel that unless there is a marriage in the immediate future between British film production and television and unless it is effective and co-operative at every possible opportunity, then the outlook is as dire as Herbert Wilcox thinks it is.

The production budget figures that he mentioned are low. The average half-hour television film costs twelve and a half to fourteen thousand pounds. A recent pay- television film cost forty thousand pounds, its length being fifty-five minutes. The film industry must gear itself to supplying television, whether it is the B.B.C. , commercial or, more especially, pay-television. I think, indeed, that pay-t.v. is the only thing that will keep the British film production industry going in the guise that we know it, otherwise it will contract to an operation producing a few super-colossal pictures to be exhibited on a theatre basis for long runs. In any case this is the shape of things to come as far as the cinema itself is concerned.

miss francés clark (Unitalia Film Delegate for U.K.) : Mr. Wilcox spoke of the future of the British film industry being in the international field, and he specified several films that have been made with American participation. Could he give us his views on the possibility of co-production with the Continental countries, and, if this should come about, how it might alter the pattern of film making in this country?

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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS JUNE 1 964 the lecturer: I think that if the Americans or the British make a film on the

Continent they tend to impose their views on the Continental producer. That has not applied in England so far. We have the common denominator with the Americans in speech, we have the background and the tradition which Americans admire so much. The joint Continental pictures, magnificent as they are, are American pictures viři^h Continental facilities.

MR. Derek c. davidson: Have you any views on the actual presentation of pro- grammes in British cinemas to-day - the actual way in which they are presented to one going to be entertained? Do current methods have anything to do with deterring people from going to the cinema?

the lecturer : That depends entirely on the product. Something like South Pacific , or one of these big films, shows and sells itself. I don 4 think there is really anything you can do about the showing of the picture in the ordinary cinema at the moment. It is, I agree, possibly the most backward element in the whole of the industry.

MR. charles Samuel-green : Is British film making for ever going to be an integral part of an entertainment industry, or is there some other type of film making, or some adaptation of the idea of entertainment, which would allow British film makers an enlarged scope?

the lecturer : So far as I understand the question, I don't think there is any chance at all for an ordinary British film - I mean any chance of getting its money back - unless it has got a great potential outside appeal as entertainment.

MR. John haggarty: I wonder if the British film audience has been correctly appreciated? Millions are staying away from the cinema because of television and the intellectual stimulus it provides. Television has induced millions to crowd round the set to watch Ibsen, for example, it produced audiences of six million to look at programmes about the stars. Unless the British cinema can put on more daring and more stimulating productions you will never get the audience outside the home. It is not simply a question of occasionally putting on something like Bridge on the River Kwai ; in any case we can only afford so many films of that quality. Surely what the British film industry needs, if it has to have a future at all, is a steady supply of a more varied product than we are getting now?

the lecturer: When you talk about a steady product, if you mean a chain of fifty-two pictures a year, it just is not possible. There is a very different public mentality now. I feel that if we can concentrate on some great international subjects we shall be very much better off than in trying to provide a steady stream. To start with, facilities for the showing of the steady stream have disappeared. The cinemas are not there ; we have lost nearly fifty per cent of our cinemas. The habit as such has also been very much hurt by hooliganism. With the best intentions in the world, I don't believe that you are going to see the sort of variety and novelty that you are hoping to see in your local cinema.

MR. davidson : Returning to the question of presentation, there was a magnificent production of Der Rosenkavalier screened at the Royal Festival Hall - no smoking, no fodder-flogging, and the hall was full every time the film was put on there. It was shown at Bournemouth with a top price of Ss 6d, and people travelled many miles to see it. They felt conditioned, as if they were in an opera house. Then the curtains opened, and what did they see? A screen filled with a gigantic pan of frying sausages in full colour, followed by an enormous brassière advertisement, when, in fact, the audience were expecting the commencement of an opera. That is enough to turn people away from the cinema. One year later the same film was put on in Southampton, and the top price there was 21s - as against 8s 6 d in Bournemouth and 1 $s at the Festival Hall.

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MR. charles Samuel-green: I wonder if I might try and elucidate my previous question by giving a personal example. Last week I was the guest of a university film society where they showed films made for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. They were beautiful films and most entertaining as well as educative - the best kind of propaganda to help people understand that Britain is leading the world in using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Afterwards I asked the secretary of this organization whether he showed feature films sometimes. He said yes, but that his members much preferred the sort of thing we were seeing that night.

Admittedly they are a rather special type of audience, but still it is an audience that is increasing all the time ; and perhaps in the future there may be a bigger demand for this type of what I should still call entertainment, well made films in colour with an immaculate spoken commentary. So I should like to repeat my question to either Mr. Wilcox or the Chairman - is British film-making doomed for all time to be part of a popular entertainment industry?

the chairman : I think the British film industry must basically be an entertainment industry, but I do think films of the educational and interest type have also a big future, and that future will probably become more apparent with the development of the next B.B.C, channel, which will stimulate compétition. Ultimately I should imagine the type of film you have in mind is the type of product which could interest pay television, where audiences are able to choose what they want to see.

I think the film industry attracts to itself too much unnecessarily harmful publicity by talking too much in public about its problems. The fact of the matter in my opinion is that the future for British films is terrific ! The most encouraging sign is that over the last three to four months the decline in cinema-going has been arrested, and in fact in certain situations the tendency is the other way. I think that we are really at the level from which attendances will henceforth increase. And these attendances are being stabilized and tending to increase because of the exceptionally good crop of pictures that we have been having in the last six months. All of us in the industry get quite excited when a film like From Russiat with Love comes along and does very good business, but we are equally delighted when another film called Stitch in Time seemingly does even better in many situations. It is just this type of competition that we need in the business to make it really worth while.

I do not think cost has everything to do with entertainment. If people make films in which the public are not interested they are just unlucky, and it does not matter how much they have spent on them. We have had too many examples of films which have done very badly even though they cost enormous sums; equally we have had films produced on moderate budgets which have done very well. If British producers concentrate on the job of making films, and divest themselves of the urge to appear in the Press, they will make some headway.

I do not know whether I, as your Chairman, am entitled to contradict you, Mr. Wilcox, but I am going to do it. Mrs. Adams raised this question of television film. This is one field in which the British film industry has fallen down. It should never have allowed itself to lose an important place on the air. In the beginning it was quite understandable that television contractors had to buy their material in the cheapest and best possible markets, but once commercial television was established the whole situation changed. Unfortunately for the film industry in this country that has not been quickly recognized by television contractors. In the early days of commercial television it was quite impossible for a British producer to make films for television with any hope of getting his money back, but now, owing to the competition among television interests in this country arising from the demand of the public (and the public are always the final arbiters), there is a demand for a better class of British half-hour and hour films. The pressure of demand has been such that television contractors are tending to pay for these films sums which make this form of production

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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS JUNE 1 964 more possible, especially as we are finding that so many television stations are being created throughout the world. If you take a hundred pounds here and three hundred there you are almost reaching the difference between what you can get in this country for your film and what it costs to make ; the next step after that will be to get on to the profit margin. It is there that united effort is required by all - trade unions, producers, independent contractors, the B.B.C, and everyone else - because it is essential for this nation to get its products and its ideas across to all the uncommitted nations throughout the world.

So you must forgive me, Mr. Wilcox, for differing from you. The next part of my task is a much easier and happier one, and that is to thank you for your address. Whatever any of us think of you - and from time to time I have had cause to think much of you, sometimes good (and sometimes you thought exactly the same as I) - all of us have a tremendous appreciation of your courage, and of the part you have played in our business. We hope that these films on which you are still working will be tributes to you when they come before the screen again.

The vote of thanks to the Lecturer was carried with acclamation andt another having been accorded to the Chairman upon the proposal of Sir Ronald Nesbitt-Hawes , a Member of Council of the Society , the meeting then ended .

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