After Grierson: The National Film Board 1945–1953

After Grierson: The National Film Board 1945-1953 PETER MORRIS Designed by John Grierson in 1939, fashioned by him during the war, the National Film Board grew from a modestly planned coordinating agency to one of the world's largest film studios with a staff of 787 in 1945. Its achievetpents were remarkable: the release of over 500 films in five years; two propaganda series (The World in Action and Canada Carries On) released monthly to theatres in Canada and abroad; the establishment of non-theatrical distribution circuits that were international models; and, not least, the training of a group of young Canadian filmmakers . By 1945, when John Grierson resigned, the NFB could justifiably claim that Canada has ''assumed a commanding position in the. use of this great medium of human communication."I But Grierson was not universally admired. Some perceived the NFB's films as being direct propaganda for the party in power, or that they were espousing left-wing (if not outright communist ) views.2 Even the federal government itself was, at times, distressed by the films' dabbling in foreign policy matters and the general internationalist stance of many of them.3 Any possible confrontation with Grierson himself was avoided when he resigned.4 But the controversies and the ill feeling that had been generated during the war carried through the post-war years. Under Film Commissioner Ross McLean (Acting until 1947, then fired in 1949), the NFB went through its most troubled period. The end of the war brought inevitable reductions in staff and budget.5 And most of the experienced British and American filmmakers left with Grierson , leaving the young Canadians to develop their own programmes. But it was the attacks on the NFB by individuals and groups outside it that initiated a crisis. There were accusations that the NFB was harbouring left-wing subversives, that Journal ofCanadian Studies Vol. 16, No. I (Printemps 1981 Spring) it was wasteful and that it was a monopoly which threatened the financial interests of commercial film producers.6 These attacks climaxed in an article in the Financial Post in November 1949.7 This article focussed the charges of the NFB's detractors and fueled a "red scare" scandal that led to the firing of Ross McLean, the appointment of Arthur Irwin as Film Commissioner, sweeping changes in the structure of the NFB, a new National Film Act and the eventual return of the NFB to the politicians' good graces.s Not far beneath the surface of these attacks were what one contemporary rtewspaper editorial bluntly characterised as ''the most powerful movie interests in the world, located in Hollywood .' '9 Those interests were suspicious of McLean's alleged interest in moving the NFB into feature films and television. McLean had also lobbied to decrease U.S. domination of the Canadian film industry and even proposed the imposition of a quota system based on the British or French models.10 Hollywood's answer was the infamous Canadian Cooperation Project. This has been fully discu~sed elsewhere,11 but it is worth noting that the lone Canadian official to raise his voice in protest was Ross McLean. One can only conclude that it is not coincidental that the orchestrated attacks on the NFB in general and on McLean in particular should have reached a peak at the same time. Nor was it coincidental that when Arthur Irwin took over as Film Commissioner those attacks quickly dissipated. Arthur Irwin's primary concern seems to have been to steer the NFB away from political contention and to reorganise it on modern bureaucratic lines. Though he speaks in an interview of "restoring public confidence" in the Board,12 it is clear that he is referring to the confidence of Ottawa politicians. (The "public" seems never to have lost confidence in the Board, as the supportive letters and briefs submitted to the Massey Commission give witness.)13 Irwin was most pleased during his tenure that the Board's estimates were speedily passed in Parliament and that, by 1952, "there was absolutely no opposition to the Board at all. "14 3 The Films The dominantI5 approach during the war years was characteristically Griersonian: the exposition is essentially...