July 12.
The letter of "¥.O-¥." appearing in the correspondence columns of today's issue raises a very per tinent point with regard to the production of British films in Shanghai, and it may be said at the outset' that, though past experiences of British films have not been entirely successful, there is, however, reason to believe that, given a proper opportunity, productions from Elstree and places like that should stand just as good a chance of securing popularity as those pictures which come from America. There have been in the past sporadic attempts to produce British films in Shanghai, and experience has shown that where the film was a really good one it obtained just as satisfactory support as its American competitors. If memory serves right, the first British productions to be shown in Shanghai appeared occasionally at the Embassy. Later, at somewhat rare intervals, similar pictures were shown at the Carlton and, within the last two years, attempts have been made to run a house exclusively upon British products. It is an open secret that this latter attempt was not successful and apparently has now come to an end. But it does not appear that the quality of the British picture was in any way responsible for the failure. Indeed, while of course the pictures shown varied in quality, as they do with the American productions, "there is evidence in the attendances recorded at the Lyceum Theatre that British films were developing 2 public of their own and might, in the course of not too long a period, have firmly settled themselves in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.