Box office digest (May-Dec 1946)

The Sex Office I y I ( “] r I The Industry's \J I V J I \ I Distinctive Publication trouble sdbead An Editorial by Robert E. Welsh It is becoming rather obvious that the industry is on the way to increasing headaches over the censorship problem. Only the fact that legislative bodies are in most cases too burdened now with more irritating post-war problems holds back the flood of censorship agitation that is in the bubbling stage. And, while not so clear, it may also be stated with fair certainty that it is not the pictures being made, but the advertising, that is building up the menace. All of which is a rather peculiar situation. * * * You can say that if the pictures did not have something within them to prompt the advertising, then there would be no printed and pictorial allure to cause objections. But that isn't the true story. On the screen it is possible to present many of the so-called “facts of life” with something of subtlety, good taste, and always by some means or other with the moral that evil ways do not pay. Those same “facts of life” lifted out for the advertising man’s ringing phrase — sometimes it is a Leering phrase — or the artist’s pen, take on something of the lurid. So the advertising creates the agitation that the picture might never prompt. But what is the advertising man to do? * * * Selling pictures in any key city center is a hotly competitive proposition. There are so many other fellows after the same quarters and dollar bills that you are seeking. If all of you advertise that you are offering “the greatest picture ever made,” that leaves it a dead heat. Star values are an automatic factor about which you can do nothing. So you have to dig into the picture itself — what’s there to lure that jingling coin? Romance? Well, you might be willing to advertise it as a beautiful romance. Music and melody? You might be satisfied to declare the beauties of the grand music and melody. But there is that other fellow down the street. The “romance” in his picture has become “torrid, pulsequickening” scenes. The artists illustrating his ads seems to have been overstrong on anatomy. So it becomes an endless chain. The English language is prolific in words and phrases that can sell to emotions. Particularly the emotion at which most of the selling is aimed. There are endless combinations of the word and the illustration. Either word or illustration can be harmless in itself, and packed with dynamite in the combination. What are we going to do about it? Certainly we can’t blame the advertising men. They are paid to SELL. Their jobs won’t last very long if they let the other fellow monopolize the easiest way of selling. And that is the trouble about the whole matter. Selling sex and worse is the EASIEST way of selling the public. Yes, that's the same public that eventually complains and complacently accepts censorship. * * * There could be a solution of some sort in having the controlling chains adopt some code of good taste and a set of standards. That solution goes on the rocks against the possibilities it opens to the unscrupulous operator outside the controls. Perhaps he could be brought into line by a newspaper-chain agreement that would apply the standards to all theater advertising. We would hate to be the fellow asked to evolve the code. But something must be done. There are storm clouds on the horizon. And it would be a shame to have increased rigid production censorship slapped on the industry by Federal, State and municipal bodies, not because of the pictures, but because of the advertising. DISTRIBUTOR’S BATTING AVERAGE FOR ’46 1. PARAMOUNT 5 Releases 164 2. UNITED ARTISTS 4 Releases 162 3. MGM 10 Releases 141 4. WARNER BROS 4 Releases 141 5. 20TH CENTURY-FOX 8 Releases 127 6. RKO-RADIO .10 Releases 127 7. COLUMBIA 13 Releases 102 8. UNIVERSAL 11 Releases 100 9. REPUBLIC 8 Releases 85 10. MONOGRAM 1 1 Releases 83 11. PRC 5 Releases 78 93 Releases