THE TASK WHICH LIES BEFORE
THE PROPAGANDA FILM
STUART LEGG
The realist film can create a
living interest in work and the
problems behind our systems
of industry, transport, com
munication, and public utility.
The commercial cinema fails
to bring these subjects to the
screen.
commercial publicity began in this country in the late
nineteen-twenties. First efforts were un-coordinated
and clumsy. Publicity managers, preoccupied with the
problems of sales-increase, were inevitably influenced
by the appeal methods of the well-tried poster and
press advertisement. They expected the film to be a
tame addition to the battery of existing advertising
media. Film producers, seeing in the new use of film
an added source of finance, were glad to obey their
sponsors' every whim. The cinema became lined up
with the other "quick-return" methods with little or
no investigation to determine whether its persuasive
powers lay in the direction of short-term advertising.
Under these conditions the advertiser's demands came
first. The film itself became a matter of secondary
importance, a vehicle for putting across an exhortation
to buy the goods in question. Inevitably, a formula
was established for the "good advertising film," and
the formula was that of the sugared pill. The publicity
scenarist found himself faced with a set of conditions,
invented by no one in particular, but with which his
script, if he wanted to get it accepted for production,
must comply. First, his film must not be more than
500 feet (about five minutes) in length, since exhi
bitors would not devote more than that amount of
programme-time to advertising matter. Second, he
must have an intriguing and preferably misleading
title at the beginning, and a slamming slogan at the
finish (this latter largely dictated by the current ads.
of the client). Third, he could fill in the space between
title and slogan with any crazy story he could think
upbut the more the film resembled the opening of
an ordinary programme picture the better. Fourth,
on no account must he mention or even hint at the
product advertised until the final slogan should take
the audience by surprise.
This method of approach was based on insufficient
study of the potentials of the film medium. It pre
scribed a moving poster, with all the limitations of
the poster and none of its advantages. It failed to
realize that film is an instrument governed by its own
laws and demanding conditions widely different from
other advertising forms for its successful operation.
Moreover, the belief that a good publicity film must
have high entertainment value implied that its stan
dards of production must equal those of the feature
film. The feature film of the time (just before the
coming of sound) had attained a remarkably high
standard of constructional and technical competence
the publicity film, limited in production resources, had
not. Further, the whole approach was based on faulty
psychology, for it failed to take account of the resent
ment of an audience tricked by the sugared pill.
The problem had been tackled the wrong way round.
In their efforts to satisfy the sponsors the producers
endeavoured to fit the new baby into the old, ready-
made clothes. They did not realize that commerce and
industry could not only open up a vast and rich field
of new material, but could also provide the basis for a
new form of cinema.
In 1929 there appeared a film which was to lay the
foundations of the English propaganda cinema. This
film was "Drifters," made by John Grierson for the
Empire Marketing Board. In essence Drifters was
a straightforward account of the herring industry. It
explained fishing methods, it dealt chronologically
with the processes of catch, market and distribution.
But into his main narrative the director wove the
intense drama latent in the everyday lives of the
drifter's crew. His conflict was the age-old conflict
between man and the sea; his issues, the struggle to
206 drag a staple food from the nets and the rush for a
THE HARNESSING OF THE FILM AS AN INSTRUMENT OF
