The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

The News Chat id THE appointment of Will Hays to the presidency of the motion pic- ture industry is easily the most bsorbing bit of news in the theatrical eld. It is provoking acres of print in ewspapers and periodicals of every escription. Speculation rages as to rhat will come of it. Nothing can be nown until there comes an official state- ment of plans and intentions; even then ttle can be known until said plans have een worked out. Possibly they can- ot be. For the past year or so the movies ave been receiving a series of unmerciful )lts, both literary and financial, which ave been amply earned and were long verdue. Box-office records shriveling; leatres closing by hundreds; actors and ctresses thrown out of work in droves; alaries of stars still permitted to twinkle ashed to a point where it is no longer Vise to print the figures; production reatly curtailed; studios closing right nd left (even Famous Players, Metro, t.calart, and others reported as having but the doors of their celluloid mints); erious magazines printing violent criti- sms; censorship bills threatening pas- age in numerous states; in short, the lighty industry, as a whole, shuddering efore the dark uncertainty of its im- lediate future, head down between its houlders, wondering if it will still be ere when the storm has passed. This is the situation to be gleaned from re movie magazines themselves, the rgans of glorification which are vital rgans in the body of the huge industry. )ne feels clearly the general tone of nxiety, even of dread bordering upon inic. And now comes Will Hays! The /hole public—that is the part of it that interested—is agog with curiosity as o what Hays will do. He will unques- ionably try to do what he has been hired d do. And here is the crucial point of he whole matter—do the men who hired him know what needs doing? They certainly think they know or they would have kept their $150,000 in the bank. They would hardly pay such a doctor's fee if they were not pretty confident of a cure, or what they suppose to be a cure. But the suspicion is justified that the movie magnates are going after the pimples on the patient rather than the internal conditions that caused them. For instance, they may figure that a. high tariff on foreign films will cure the necessity for competition with them ( in artistic achievement; they may think it wiser to pour out money to defeat cen- sorship legislation than to elevate the quality of their product to a point where the public will cease to think of censor- ship; they may imagine that moving the niovies bag and baggage from Holly- wood to Long Island will somehow soothe the ruffled nation. If this is the sort of thing they want done, the politi- cal prestige and organizing genius of Will Hays will be powerful factors in doing it. But such measures are not a solution; they are actually added aggravation. It is mere postponement of the operation clearly called for by this first serious attack suffered by the industry. Certain leaders of the industry know this—we hope Will Hays knows it too. If he does, and if he and the leaders mentioned are free to act upon their own diagnosis, the appointment of Mr. Hays will be a milestone in motion picture progress. Otherwise it will be relatively an insig- nificant episode. £/-m iTOTION Pictures e6—Produc- VI tion " is the title of a course -»*▼-■• n ow being given at Columbia University by Rowland Rogers, Ph. B., J. D., and associated courses on Photo- play Composition are offered for the spring term. The entrance of the motion picture into the curriculum of Columbia is a logical