The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

Page 96 The Educational Screen served the New York City schools. Boone, rebuffed but not discouraged, told me of plans he had for building a laboratory and studio near his home in Oakland, New Jersey, for the pro- duction of school films. The project materialized to an extent, and then all at once Boone flared into the news in an extraordinary way. He appeared as an American champion of that dis- concerting new health cult which had reached the United States chiefly from Europe. He was a nudist. He ad- vocated nudism, organized nudist camps in New England, edited a nudist magazine and posed in his birth- day suit typewriting an article on the subject. When Ilsley had a conviction he followed it through. Protests naturally arose in the Ponds Reformed Church of Oakland, where he was re- serve pastor, and he was asked to re- sign. The consistory at first declined to accept the truculent form of his resignation, but ultimately yielded. At this writing Boone is still a nudist leader, executive secretary of the American Sunbathing Association at Mays Landing, New Jersey, and his bitterest detractors must confess that he has maintained his dignity with greater success than one would have believed possible in any situation thus reduced to its barest facts. More on the Church Supply The public received its first inkling of one of the earliest important at- tempts to organize the distribution of religious films in October, 1922, when the Christian Herald appeared with an article asking an audience for proving the relationship of motion pictures to the church. In November it was learned that the magazine was forming a com- pany "to meet the abuses of the motion picture industry." A library of diver- sified films had been selected, it was .said, and additions were being made. A few months later, in April, 1923. Graham C. Patterson, publisher of the Christian Herald, formally announced the organization in New York City of the Herald Non-Theatrical Pictures. Inc. Its plan, sponsored by the Chris- tian Herald Company, was stated as to supply "wholesome pictures for all the family" through branch offices in twenty-five cities, to centers outside the theatres. It was to be strictly non-sectarian, and Patterson said emphatically that the enterprise had no connection with any other film concern of any sort, and had not agreed to supervision by any dictator, supervisor or boss—which may or may not have been a dig at the lately instituted Will Hays Com- mittee. Hays, doubtless, in accordance with his now familiar practice, had promptly proffered the assistance of the M.P.P.D.A. Patterson did claim, however, that his project had received the endorsements of parent-teacher organizations, community, church and educational movements. A year or two later, a few regional libraries were still advertising "Herald Pictures," but the effort, on the whole, was apparently not appreciated by those on whose behalf it was made, and Patterson sensibly decided to end it. As far as it went it was a con- structive experiment, but Patterson made the mistake, it seems, of expect- ing the churches to pay adequately for the service, just as so many others have taken for granted the united pur- chasing power of the schools. Graham Patterson was a busy man, with manifold interests in other directions, a large proportion of them in aspects of social service undeniably of greater im- portance than non-theatrical pictures. The Christian Herald experiment dismissed, he went on to other activities, becoming so immersed in them that the earlier adventure became a memory in outlines only. In December, 1942, when I asked him to supplement my own recollection and research, he was publisher of the Farm Journal, a periodical with more than two Graham Patterson was like the nur- sery-tale man who sprang into the bramble bush. He jumped into non- theatricals and, seeing what hap- pened, he jumped right out again. and one-half million circulation, issued from Philadelphia. It took time from his immediate duties to refresh his memory concerning that enterprise of twenty years before. Then he wrote me as follows: "I would certainly say that this operation was not started in antasr- onism to the movies, but in cooper- ation with them. My own feeling was that those in the Motion Pic- ture Industry were honestly striv- ing to improve the character and moral tone of their entertainment. Their selection of Mr. Will Hays was a good one, and I had his ac- tive support in the move that I was making to enlist tlie interest of church people in the better class of movie entertainment. It ^vas rec- ognized that many of them -were opposed to movies "as such,' just as they were opposed to cards and dancing, rather than to the abuse. It is quite possible, although I do not remember the sales material, tliat we tried to obtain the coopera- tion of churches everywhere on the basis of competing with the movies, although we did emphasize the religious films, one of which— 'Joseph's Coat'—was in full Tech- nicolor. I would like to add that in many of the localities where churches were enrolled as cus- tomers, they had the full coopera- tion of the local moving picture theati-e men. "It wi'.s my conviction that if the dirintian Herald would organize <'hurches and societies to show films, we could have: first, re- ligious films, and secondly, selec- tions from the large group of highest character films, like 'The Covered Wagon.' etc.. and show them to the church people. In the case of religious films we had a series of Bible films that were 'fair' and would cost several hundred thousand dollars to produce. We had also a library of educational films that technically speaking were rather mediocre. And lastly, we had a group of very fine Para- mount classics. Arrangements were made with the Paramount people for those films that had a perma- nent character and were through with their runs, at a very nominal rental. We were given the choice of several hundred such subjects. In other words, we had the active cooperation of Paramount, who were anxious to have the true value of good films demonstrated to church people everywhere. "The main trouble with the whole operation was the question of equipment, fire standards and exper- ienced operators actually to show the films. My recollection is that we had about 300 or 4 00 churches that were cooperating with us, and a large number of these had to discontinue on account of the poor character of the portable machines, local fire rules, and similar tech- nical difllculties. The entire matter was so long ago that I have lost most of the detail, but the net of it is that we could not make a financial go of it on account of the laclv of technical advances at that time in so-called non-theatri- cal equipment." Now, if Patterson is correct in his ascription of the trouble to faulty condi- tions of exhibition, one cannot say that his adventure ended because churches would not pay sufficiently well for his service, although I feel that "300 or 400 churches that were cooperating" would not, in the nature of things, have sus- tained the enterprise very long unless their number materially increased. But anyway, the reason Patterson presents bears out the assertion at the start of this chapter, that all factors of exhibition must operate smoothly and in unison, or exhibition as a whole will pay the penalty. The Rev. Frank E. Jensen, a clergy- man who had put motion picture ap- paratus permanently into his own Chicago church, who was an incor- porator and vice-president of the Federal Motion Picture Council in .Xmerica, and who, in 1926 (the same year of the legal constitution of that body), became editor of the "Church and Pictures" Department of Educa- tional Screen, had a matured plan for supplying churches with reels when tlie Harmon Religious Films Founda- tion unintentionally forestalled him. Nevertheless, he solicited expressions of interest from the readers of Educa- tional Screen as late as the issue of June. 1926. He described the plan then as one which called for no selling of stock or private profit, and "as sim- ple as conducting the church itself." It purported to cover production of new films and purchase of existing ones, as well as distribution, and twelve stories were said then to be in prepa- ration. Here is how simple it actually was: One thousand churches were to (Continued on page 119)