England Better Prepared Than America e cinema to-day is terrified of television, writes C. Ay Lejeune to the "Sunday Observer You see evidences of that terror in every evasion, every refusal to ce-operate. With few exceptions, contract artists of the big American studios are barred from making television apbearances, The use of film for television is made, not impossible, but very, very difficult, The way to an understanding is beset with delay equivocations, embarrassments.
Two newsreels, Gaumont and Movietone, have come to the help of the television authorities. One or two enterprising companies have provided cartoons for the television programmes. A certain amount of old film has been obtained for use in dramatic broadcasts. But on the whole the effect of television on the nema industry has been to evoke "curses, not loud, but deep.
The attitude of the American firms towards British television service is, perhaps, understandable, The day may very well come when the cinema magnates in America decide to get local possession of this new magic and menace. Absolute monopoly of their stars and stock will then, conceivable be, an advantage to them.
In England, however, things are different. Television is already a State service, a State amenity Us audience is still small, its funds limited, but it has the authority, the goodwill that the British cinema needs.
Television a Saviour If I were British film producer or renter at this moment, with foreign competition strong, with the bottom dropping out of the home market, I should welcome television as a heaven-sent saviour. I should not only allow but force my contract artists to appear regularly in front of the television cameras. I should dust off all the old films, short and long, from my vaults, and allow the television people to take [their pick of them Television is the key to all the entertainments of the future.
Nothing is going to stop its progress; nothing is going to limit its ultimate effi-cie The film industry may handicap and harass it, boycott and outlaw it, but in the end the film industry will have to succumb and work with it Once the American entertainment industry ready for such a dual combi nothing in the world will prevent its triumphant drive forward. For once, just once, in our history, we English are ready before the Americans. Why in thunder can't we have the courage, the initiative, pool our resources, and jump ahead to prosperity now
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.