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BEN SHLYEN
Publisher
Editorial Offices : 9 rockefeller plaza, new york cfiY ; Publication Office: 4804 e. 9th ST., KANSAS CITY, MO., Hollywood'. 6404 HOLLYWOOD blvd.; Chicago-. 332 s. Michigan blvd.
ASSOCIATED PUBLICATIONS
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY
Member
Audit Bureau of Circulations
Vol. 35
June 17, 1939
Number 4
William G. Pormby, Editor; Jesse Shlyen, Managing Editor; J. Harry Toler, Modern Theatre Editor; A. J. Stocker, Eastern Representative; Ivan Spear, Western Manager.
MAURICE KANN
Editor-in-chief
LOUIS RYDELL
Advertising Manager
KILLED BY INERTIA
BACK in the days when the current excitement, such as it was, swung around the Motion Pictures Are Your Best Entertainment drive, one of the outgrowths was a series of discussions dealing with the need for a central committee to pretty this industry's front with the public.
The talks were serious enough at the time. They even reached the point where the
most likely candidate to head up the works was practically determined. But the boys got busy on other matters and nothing happened, thereby perpetuating again the old and revered
film policy of letting well enough alone until the finger is about to bear down on the trigger.
You can mark that down very definitely on the regrettable side. Regrettable not only because the need was apparent then, but because it appears to be on the up, rather than the down, grade ever since.
Having been bumped off once by sheer inertia, resurrection lines up on the impossible side. We hope mightily we are wrong in leaping so inevitably at any kind of a conclusion in an industry which frequently surprises itself and those in it by abrupt changes of heart and mind.
However, there is no mistaking the conviction that far too much of the inner squabbles and the inside workings of the business are finding their way into newspaper columns where it would be far better if they never appeared. The reasons have been touched upon by this page on several occasions and have been pretty obvious right along anyway.
All of this has no bearing whatsoever on freedom of action or of thought. Any company or any individual ought to enjoy the exercise of that right without interruption. And that, incidentally, applies very directly to the trade press as well. Yet, in the exercising, it is important and practical not to develop too much of a blind spot about a specific or a particular issue. It ought not to be too much to expect from responsible quarters a long-view realization of the value of presenting this business to the outside world as a harmonious enterprise seeking to move forward as one solid unit for its own further advancement.
The once contemplated committee to mould outside policy was to function along this line. You might call it a form of censorship which is exactly what it would have been. However, we think any quick review of some of the statements widely published in the last couple of years will indicate, and quickly too, that a check is required to halt or reduce the flow of loose talk.
The committee to handle this sort of job, apparently, is out. But matured judgment is not, or ought not to be. The idea is to get it into working condition and to make it stick. Not an easy order to fill in a personality business like this, but not an impossible one, either.