The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

4pril, 19^3 Newer Issues in Motion-Picture Situation 161 which are to be let loose on the public in any year? This would act as a deterrent to those companies which specialize in these fields, and whose productions are destined for the most part, for the poorer neighborhoods and the small town; the slapstick comedy and the serial being intended mainly for children. During one week last fall a single Cincinnati film exchange had some sixty serials in circulation in the theaters of this locality. Apropos, a survey of motion picture houses, made in Cleveland, showed that thirty-four out of the seventy-three houses which were operating at the time of the survey, were using serials. It was only by accident that the industry discovered the financial asset of wholesome motion pictures. You remember what a furore "Humoresque" made several years ago. Here was a simple mother story, and yet it was a tremendous money maker. Since then a similar theme developed in "The Old Nest," and "Over the Hill," demonstrated the perennial interest of the public in the less artificial and spectacular things. Good, clean comedy-drama is very popular, especially for week-ends in neighborhood theaters. If production were attuned to the habits of the thousands of normal families who crave recreation at week-ends, and who desire to share their pleasures with each other, and there were a plentiful supply of subjects at hand which were wholesome, entertaining and informative, an additional clientele of our best people would be added to present-day patrons of the screen. The whole business today is on a false basis — the largest revenues coming from the first-run houses, which generally are transient theaters in the urban centers. The needs and aspirations of the great body of the American people are subordinated, for the most part, to programs of the commercial traveler type, the kind of thing Broadway concocts for the small-town visitor. The Responsibility of the Exhibitor Now, what responsibility has the exhibitor— the man who runs a theater? Local organizations of the public are apt to vent their displeasure on him alone, when he is really only a buffer between them and the absentee who made the picture, or is responsible for the terms and conditions of its distribution. Here you are likely to find a small replica, with but few exceptions, of the type that controls the industry at the source; most often a person of meager background. He has been steeped in the jargon of theatrical advertising and taught to play up the sensational — thanks to the publicity methods of the industry. A few of the largest theaters have broken down this attitude, and have developed artistic presentation and a high-class program in its entirety, but they are exceptions. Most people do not know that the exhibitor is not a free agent to pick and choose what films he shall exhibit, especially if he changes his program often. The home office usually sells a season's output to a purchaser and requires the purchaser to sign for a "bloc" of films, as it is called. Some of these may be good, some bad, and some indifferent. Some may contain a few stars who habitually play in slightly dubious themes. I remember the feeling of futility which overcame me when I was first confronted with this ironclad rule after taking over the operation of a suburban theater here in Cincinnati. It certainly works a hardship for the exhibitor who has the welfare of his audience at heart. Its reason is the desire of each distributing company to serve each theater with which it does business one hundred per cent. Censorship and Enforcement The demand for some sort of control over the content of motion pictures arose simultaneously with their growth in popularity. The public went in for legislative control through censorship, state and municipal, secure in the fond belief that all would be right once a law were gotten on the statute books. They did not even pause to see if any means of enforcement were provided in order to carry out the rulings of the censor's office. You all know that in Ohio, so far as intent is concerned, we have a law which gives our censors wide powers. In most states where censorship is established, films may not be rejected unless there is something radically wrong with them, such as obscenity, indecency, immorality, inhumaneness, sacrilege, or a tendency to corrupt morals or incite crime. But in Ohio, all moving pictures, according to the law, must have positive virtues; they must be moral, educational, or at least, of a harmless and amusing nature. In spite of these good intentions, and of the industriousness of our censors, the cold fact rema-.ns that our Ohio law has no teeth — no enforcement power — and that most state censor laws lack the same power. In our state it seems ir be an omission in the framing of the pr-'sen; law. May I quote what the New York Commis