Submitted by
Mark Fuller
Unhappy Choice
From: Daily Graphic
2 November 1946
There will be widespread indignation at the choice for the first Royal Film Performance last night of a picture which might have been made specially to appeal to Isolationist and Anti-British sentiment in the United States. The committee of film trade representatives responsible for the selection could surely have found a film which was not only a British production, but was also British in spirit.
Old feuds, old grudges, old hatreds are revived in one scene of this film in a manner which is entirely unnecessary and irrelevant to the development of the plot. Ancient charges against British "imperialism" which, for the most part, never had any real substance, are paraded - and no defence is offered. So an impression is conveyed well calculated to confirm and strengthen whatever false ideas of this country and its history Isolationist propaganda may already have implanted in American minds.
We believe that the great majority of Americans will, like the British people, be able to assess the picture suggested by this part of the film at its true worth. But there are in the United States to-day certain elements which will be only too eager to exploit it. A film of this kind can contribute nothing to international understanding. It is a pity that it should cross the Atlantic carrying the cachet which comes from its showing on such an occasion as last night's.
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