Mintzberg and McHugh

lacked the denition, appeal, and sense of urgency of the previous mission, and without Griersons presence, they were not to be realized so easily. Many of the NFBs realized strategies changed shortly after the war. Affected by government austerity, staff levels dropped, as some lmmakers quit and others were let go, and the rural circuits were replaced by lm libraries; the focus on theatrical distribution declined and, most notably, the overall content focus disappeared: rst defense and then industry strategies faded, with only a small content strategy, in social environment, continuing until 1948. Grierson left behind a well-trained staff at the NFB, all ready to go but not sure where. And so they went everywhere. In 1948, twenty-seven of the thirty-seven lm-content categories were represented; during the next two years trickles peaked at over 80 percent of all lms produced, and the year after that, lms in focused strategy categories reached an all-time low of 10 percent. The NFB, without focus or purpose, let the market dene purpose. Filmmakers became particularly responsive to the numerous lm ideas suggested by the Canadian public. Moreover, the proportion of sponsored lms rose, as attention turned from war themes to government department priorities. Helping to explain this responsive posture were the pressures exerted on the NFB in the late 1940s. Vociferous complaints from the private lm industry of unfair competition led the NFB to avoid lms on specic subjects in favor of more general ones. Moreover, fueled by anticommunist feeling in the US as well as the NFBs own reputation for unorthodox behavior, the NFB Red Scare erupted. The RCMP issued a questionnaire requesting information about fellow employees and eventually produced a list of about twenty suspects, people who had been outspoken. Some were red and others resigned, with disastrous effects on the lmmakers willingness to take risks (Salutin 1978: 20). Ross McLean, who had lured Grierson to Canada to do the original study and who joined the NFB in its early years, had become its second commissioner in 1945. As an insider, McLean was well liked by the staff, but he did not try to impose his own ideas, and power naturally diffused down the hierarchy, at least to managers at middle levels. In 1949, the Board of Governors replaced McLean with Arthur Irwin, a former magazine editor with no lm or government experience. The appointment caused a furor among the staff, which viewed him as a

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