"THE BIRTH OF A FLUENCE."
In consequence of the new tax on imported films the Cinema industry in England has received a new fillip, and a wave of enterprise is passing over the studios. In place of the familiar—almost too familiar—American dramas we are to have English. No more of those square-jawed stern American business men at their desks, with the telephone ever in their hands and instantaneous replies to every call. No more police officers, also at their desks, giving orders like lightning and having them understood and acted upon as quickly. No more crooks clambering over the roofs of an express train. No more motor-car pursuits. No more Indians, no more cowboys, no more heroines in top boots.
And what is there to be instead? Not—I hear you cry appealingly—not panoramas of Zurich or Cape Town? No, not those devastating views of scenery, but home-made films "featuring" English performers, with an eye not only to entertainment but instruction. That is the new movie note. And for a start a wonderful picture has just been completed, under the title "The Birth of a Fluence," taking the Cinema-goers (as they are called) behind the scenes of a London daily paper.
Not a real paper, of course, for that would be telling too much, but an absolutely imaginary paper, yet like enough in many respects to a real paper to afford to the imaginative spectator an idea of how such marvellous sheets are put together.
No expense has been spared to get an air of verisimilitude into these pictures, at a private view of which we were permitted to be present.
Let us give a rough sketch of the film, which is some mile and a half long, or as far, say, as from the House of Lords to Printing House Square. But first we must remark that the unseen force which agitates all the documents and blinds of the various rooms shown is not due, as it usually is, to the circumstance that the pictures were taken in the open air, during a gale, but it symbolises the power of the Proprietor of the paper, who can by a breath make or unmake Governments.
The first picture shows the arrival of the Editor, a man of desperate mien, dark as a thunder cloud, ready to be affrighted by nothing, with instant disapproval of whatever he disapproves breaking through his alert, intellectual features. To him, stern patriot as he is, it is nothing that men do well. He is there, vigilant and implacable, to pounce swiftly and mercilessly on derelictions of duty. No one knows so well as he what is possible to a Minister and his Department and what not. They themselves, the Minister and his Department, are totally uninstructed in the matter. Truly a remarkable man.
The Editor opens his letters; touches bells, speaks through telephones, and generally proves himself to be more than a man, a Force. Imaginary as is the whole affair, no one seeing this film can ever open a morning paper again without a thrill, a foreboding.
Next we are shown the Proprietor leaving his private house by aeroplane to visit the office. We see him first alighting on the roof and then entering his private room by a secret door, from a secret staircase. Having removed his slouch hat and cloak and laid aside his dark lantern, he is revealed as a man of destiny indeed.
We see the mottoes on the walls of the room, such as "Always change horses in midstream"; "Always wash dirty linen in public"; "Any stick is good enough to beat a dog with"; "If you throw enough mud some will stick"; "Damn the consequences"; "Disunion is strength"; "After me the Deluge," and so forth.
Then the Proprietor begins to get busy. He too touches bells, and various assistants rush to his presence. The first is the Editor, and we watch the progress of a fateful interview, which is made the more understandable by legends shown on the screen. Thus, after a long course of lip-moving and chin-wagging on the part of the Proprietor, we read the helpful words:—
"The Twenty-three must go."
Then the Editor's lips move and his chin rides up and down and we read the words:—
"But suppose the old man is too clever?"
And so the epoch-making talk goes on and others are summoned to take part in it.
Next, as a guide to the paper's enterprise we are admitted to a meeting of the Cabinet, and are assisted, at last to unravel the mystery as to which Minister it is who gives away the secrets of that assembly, for we watch him in his various disguises on his way to the dark cellar where he meets the political representative of the paper, makes his report and receives the promise of his future reward. It is, we feel confident, this particular section of the film which will secure for it an amazing popularity, though all reference in the Press to Cabinet proceedings has now been made illegal for the duration of the War.
"The Birth of a Fluence," it will be seen, does not confine its energies to the office of the paper. So thorough is the scheme that various pictures have been taken—always, of course, at the usual enormous expense—at even distant places, where its activities, or the result of them, can be studied. For example, we are shown a section of the Front and the delight of the English soldier as he unfolds the paper and discovers that his country is still being goaded towards that healthy disintegration which must necessarily accelerate our victory. And we are even shown one of the paper's defeated candidates seeking the railway-station after the election; for it is notorious that, vast as are the paper's other influences, it is often unable to persuade an electorate to follow it.
The last picture, which also should be of particular interest to the public as proving how sacred the Fourth Estate holds the duty of providing it with accurate reports, shows the whole of the building draped with the habiliments of woe and the staff in deep mourning on learning that the secrecy of the secret session is to be callously and rigorously enforced by the Government. And in this state of prostration the personnel is left. So ends one of the most enthralling films that this country has yet invented.
"The Birth of a Fluence" would, of course, be more instructive still were there any paper that at all corresponded to the fantastic and incredible organ here illustrated. But of course a sheet that during the progress of an anxious war so consistently belittled its country and aspersed its rulers would be impossible. Still, enough verisimilitude remains to make an amusing half-hour.
Conscientious married M.P. (WHO UNFORTUNATELY TALKS IN HIS SLEEP) GAGGING HIMSELF BEFORE RETIRING TO BED AFTER SECRET SESSION.