and dozens of other quality actors can all lodge a title in a filmgoers's mind, even without publicity, and open a picture very well. If they seem to do so less successfully than their American colleagues, it is most likely that they are robbed of the press and publicity coverage they deserve. 6. Gangster films give the most realistic depiction of modern Britain. A hard one to disagree with, this one. For Britain does seem to have a knack for looking at criminals with a cold, hard, accurate eye. But, despite the pervasive sense of a country swamped by crime, these cruel flicks in no way reflect the reality of life in Britain for most people today. They only seem so valuable because there are too few engaging films dealing with more conventional people. That is the mystery, or crime, that there are not many more convincing movies about ordinary society. Is it so dull that it can't make great cinema? Or is ordinary society not interested in seeing films about itself? 7. Britain is only good at period pieces. There is no denying that the country has a canny way of looking at its past, and it is not short of a few centuries of past to look at either. So it is not surprising that it churns out a fair number of them. Is this a flaw? As Julius Caesar might have said: Did the Greeks not write about their past? Was that not honourable? There still needs