Letter: Unseen films

Sir: Contrary to your report "Cinema screen surplus threatens movie revival" (6 November) our cinemas are not at risk from lack of product but from lack of imagination. It is certainly true that any industry that relies on one single source of product is putting itself in an impossible position. By its obsessive diet of blockbusters and star-vehicles, the British exhibition industry puts itself at risk of starvation when the supply runs low.

For many years, the rest of the film industry has pressed for one screen per multiplex to be devoted to a wider range of films, to enable us to develop a wider and more robust, audience. One rare and welcome example is at my local Odeon, which has allocated one screen, one day a week, to non-mainstream releases.

However this is a mere drop in the ocean and there are still many good but unshown British and overseas films which could turn a useful profit for the cinemas, with imaginative marketing. After all, without intelligent marketing who would have expected profits from such offerings as a comedy about the Holocaust and a video ghost story that doesn't show a ghost?

Despite such examples, neighbouring multiplexes continue to show identical programmes, while I know of a number of good entertaining movies which languish unseen in this country because distributors and exhibitors are unwilling to put the thought and effort into marketing and showing them properly.

CHARLES HARRIS

London NW3