End of the Keel

Much of Britain's film-producing industry would have blacked out long ago but for the help of the government's National Film Finance Corp. It backed 60% of the films made in the last five years, and lent the industry $28 million out of a special revolving loan fund. Fully half of this total went to British Lion Films (makers of such recent critical successes as Breaking Through the Sound Barrier and Captain's Paradise), founded by Sir Alexander Korda. The loan first fell due in 1951, but was extended so that British Lion would not be forced to cut production. Last week things looked so bad that the National Film Finance Corp. called the loan, and sent British Lion into receivership. (But not Korda's London Films, a separate company.)

When the end came, the Lion's roar was reduced to a barely perceptible bleat. Gone was the company's $3,374,000 capital. Gone, too, was $5,600,000 of the government loan. British Lion had suffered heavy losses on such films as Cry, the Beloved Country and Gilbert and Sullivan. Said Korda, echoing the famous last words of many a onetime Hollywood cine-mogul: "They may not have done so well at the box office, but. . . they were good."

British Lion's losses were blamed by National Film Finance President David Kingsley on "films costing more than they took in at the box office. It is as simple as that." British moviemen thought it was not quite so simple. They thought British Lion had died of an ailment that it shared with the whole British movie industry: an entertainment tax of almost 40% of box-office receipts. While dribbling subsidies in at one end, the government keeps draining off profits at the other, has collected $515 million in the last five years.

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