Motion Picture Commission : hearings before the Committee on Education, House of Representatives, Sixty-third Congress, second session, on bills to establish a Federal Motion Picture Commission (1978)

174 MOTION nC'iUilE COMMISSION. tions of the city. The gentlemen on that committee were profes- .sional men as well as men in business. Every city has its regulations in regard to decency, immorality, etc., and the smaller thelown the more stringent the authorities are. The constable is much more officious than the chief of police in the larger cities. Again, the mood of the censor would have a great deal to do with his opinion. Before dinner he would be liable to reject many films that would look different on a full stomach. Think for a moment of the work entailed upon a censorship of five men, as pro- vided in the bill. The present production amounts to from 150 to 200 reels per week, and it would take from 8 to 10 hours every day to see them only once, and anyone looking at films continually for three hours w^ould be nauseated and unfit to censor anything. Of course, you can go in a theater and see pictures for recreation, where there is an intermission, without feeling that way, but if you have to sit and look at pictures over and over again, not from the standpoint of amusement, but to see whether they are proper pictures, you will become sick at the stomach after you go through six or seven reels. That is true, because you will be looking at them from a different standpoint entirely. The majority of the present-day films are taken from standard books, accepted maga- zines, and newspapers. If the scenario could be censored, it would be all right, but after thousands of dollars have been spent in pro- ducing a picture that loss is irretrievable. In regard to children visiting theaters, we restrict them in the downtown places, but in the residential houses, which are patronized by their parents, they are allowed to go when in the company of adults. But what a crime w^ould be committed if this source of education were eliminated from our young! Now, answering some of the canon's remarks. Dr. Chase stated that " It was significant that the General Film Co., the largest pro- ducers, had no representative at these meetings." We take their service and other services. But the General Film Co. are the men who first fostered the national board of censors, and they feel that their good efforts were not appreciated. But w-hat have they to lose? Absolutely nothing. The money they may have to pay or the losses incurred by them will be paid ultimately by the exhibitor, and they know it. If a film costs $100, we are charged a percentage of profit on $100. But if, by reason of extra expenditures, it costs the ex- change $inO, we will pay not alone the $150, but the percentage on the $150. How wnll the authorized censors ever know that the pic- ture censored is not changed? If they are stationed in Washington they may see the censored pictures as they are dictated, but in Cali- fornia the picture may be entirely different. The 96 or 98 per cent who arc now accepting voluntary censorship are all right, but the occasional outhnv would not be guided by anything. If he is crooked, you can not protect yourself against him except by the police of every city. He goes only where the police do not know him. Section 11 contains this provision: That no motion-picture film which has not been licensed by the commission, and which does not bear its seal and is not accompanied by its certificate, shall