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A Lesson In Liberty
(News Note — Will Hays provides Americanisation pictures aboard
ship for immigrants
entering U. S.)
The Matter With the Movies
VERY little while some volunteer Columbus discovers anew what is the matter Jj^ with the movies. No two discoverers seem to be in agreement, but they all are confident that they have solved the problem.
Take it by and large, it would seem that the real trouble with the movies is the audience. That's at least a new point of view. Most of the blame generally goes to the
producer the sordid, grasping, pandering producer. Most writers seem to feel that the
producers deliberately hold production to a ow level, that they purposely, for some not very lucid reason, insist upon cramming down the visual throats of a defenseless public a succession of cheap and tawdry plays, ignoring the clamor for better things.
Loud critical outcry is made against "cheap westerns", jazz plays, and the eternal triangle. "Artistic" presentations are lauded to the skies, and pointed to as an ideal to be aimed at.
And most commentators do not realize that the profits on what they decry is what makes possible the occasional revolutionary picture. The pictures Broadway critics acclaim as great seldom make net profits. They may gross considerable sums in the cities, but the small town manager is afraid 6i them. He knows that whatever his patrons may say they want, what they really desire s precisely the much decried same old thing.
Thev are used to these familiar plots. They know them by heart. They know just when to laugh, to cry, to thrill. They can watch them without the slightest mental effort and obtain relaxation, much as they know when to respond to the familiar jokes of the vaudeville comedian.
They will turn out in droves for what they know will be a repetition, and they will remain away in equal numbers from the really worth while production.
As a matter of fact the producers are raising the standard of production, but they must do it so gradually that the public does not realize that it is being educated.
The producer would prefer to make all high class productions, but they must supply the popular demand to cover the losses on the unusual play.
The producer knows, because his books tell him, that while the public says it wants something different, it will not support such efforts in profitable numbers.
The matter with the movies is mostly the audience.