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November, ig2S
Film Recommendations by
The National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher
Associations
Mrs. Charles E. Merriam
Chairman, Better Films Committee
WE WISH to call attention to the very few Films which can be endorsed for the family. When you bear in mind that, at the start of our reviewing three years ago, we could endorse about one-half of the output, and that during the past year we could endorse only about onethird of the output, and that now the per cent is so low, that it approaches zero — we must surely realize that there is a great community problem confronting us, a crisis if you will.
I have before me a speech that Mr. Will H. Hays made about a year and a naif ago, and I want to quote briefly. He says : *'And above all, perhaps, is our duty to the youth. We must have toward that sacred thing, the mind of a child, toward that clean and virgin thing, that unmarked slate — we must have toward that the same sense of responsibility, the same care about the impressions made upon it, that the best teacher or the best clergyman, the most inspired teacher of youth, would have. * =!= * * y\j^ accept the challenge in the righteous demand of the American mother, that the entertainment and amusement of that youth be worthy of its value as the most potent factor in the country's future."
Please keep this quotation in mind and scan over the movie advertisements with me today, the new films which are just being released: Elinor Glyn's Six Days and Three Weeks, The Common Lazv, Griffith's The White Rose, The Merry-Go-Roimd, (advertised as a story of the voluptuousness of Vienna before the war), The Affairs of Lady Hamilton (which shows the illicit love aiYair between Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson), Flaming Youth, and West of the Water Tower.
The community does not allow books like The Common Law (which teaches that marriage is old-fashioned), in the public library — but the community does allow a producer to take this book and film it for our boys and girls to see, and it is made so beautiful, that any silly girl will say that it is more beautiful than any wedding she ever saw. Whose fault is it then if she emulates this? Why, the community's, of course, and that means you and me. And for the girl it means disillusionment and suicide. She pays for the sins of the community, which allows these things to be shown to her.
Take the case of Flaming Youth and West of the Water Toiver—S3iid to be two of the rankest books published in recent years. These films are just re
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