Extracts from The Ypres Times Cinema Supplement.
113
irrelevant, because half the staff of film-producing companies joined up in the first
year of war. The remainder were all but swept away by the military tribunals, who
reserved their most oracular and humorous utterances for the unfortunate film-producer.
One was told by a London tribunal that they would be glad to see his business closed
down for good." Another was told that the Entertainments Tax was the first step in
the direction of shutting up cinema theatres for the rest of the War." No section of the
country had such experiences before military tribunals as the unhappy makers of films,
and a business which might be employing a quarter of a million persons, and many millions
of capital, was thus almost totally destroyed. The result was that America seized the
opportunity to grab all the world's film-markets, and the British film-producing industry
returned from the War to find its rivals solidly entrenched everywhere. We owe it to the
War that the development of cinematography, which is a British invention, should have
passed almost wholly into alien hands. That is the greatest moral and material disaster
in our commercial history, but it is not irretrievable, and it is the duty of the nation to
help in restoring to the film-producer that industry which, owing to a misapprehension
of its national importance, was shattered by the military tribunals during the War.
Although our film-producers were almost wiped out, our cinema theatres nevertheless
were carrying on with their work as public tranquillizers," under the guidance of
their corporate organisation, the Cinematograph Exhibitors' Association, led by Mr. W.
Gavazzi King, their veteran general secretary and most able spokesman.
Proceeds of special performances were everywhere set apart for the benefit of local
war funds and charities. Many cinema theatres were temporarily loaned for billeting
and storage purposes. Ten thousand lantern slides were prepared, distributed and shown
■on behalf of the National Relief Fund. The exhibitors even produced their own recruit
ing film, entitled You! with the aid of the old London Film Company, from a scenario
written by Mr. Max Pemberton. Permission was given by the Association to advertise
nearly every War Fund on cinema screens, and it is estimated that the casual collections
made in cinemas exceeded £50,000, while recruiting for the Forces, for munition workers,
and methods of quick training, were all aided by special films and lantern slides.
A curious film prepared in 1916 came from America and was called Our American
Boys in the European War." It was produced on behalf of the American Ambulance
Service and illustrated the work done for the Allies by American ambulance volunteers
and aviators. It was notable because there was shown with it a copy of one of the last
public utterances made by ex-President Roosevelt, from which I quote the following:
The most important thing that a nation can possibly save is its own soul, and these young
men whose deeds we have been watching in this film have been helping our nation to save
its soul, and, as a whole, the nation has been thinking of saving everything else except its
soul. The nation has been preaching Safety First.' These boys have been thinking of
the safety of the soul first. There is not an American worth calling such who is not under
a heavy debt of obligation for what they have done. These men have been true to
American ideals. I Want you to aid them, particularly for the sake of our own souls."
This film showed that American volunteers were serving in France and Belgium two
years before American troops fought an independent engagement in the War.
The cinema industry's greatest effort during the War was the presentation to the nation
of a complete ambulance unit, for which the sum of £37,000 was raised on Cinema Day,
mainly through the organising genius and boundless energy of the late Dr. Ralph T. Jupp,
founder and managing director of the great circuit of halls known as Provincial Cinemato
graph Theatres.
When the Government, now fully converted to the value of cinema theatres, mooted
the idea of an Entertainments Tax, the cinema theatres readily accepted the suggestion,
and even worked out the details of the scheme through which they were to be called on to
make a huge, monetary sacrifice for temporary purposes which have since become
permanent
