Exhibitors Herald (Dec 1919)

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H X H I B I T ORS H K R A L D FIGHTING INTOLERANCE OF CENSORSHIP The I ndustrys Struggle to Maintain Freedom of Speech in Motion Pictures By GABRIEL L. HESS llllllllllllllllllll!l!IIIHIIIIIM ■fi f*>\. ' '■ motion picture indus ...-r try held the line hard in rrt £ 1919 against these forces >> I yjt of intolerance which are trying to foist censorship fjf(y|is'vS of pictures upon the 1 -^jp American people. It has | J been mi easy task. In 24 7* —J States bills were intro duced which had for their purpose the censorship of films before production. That in each of these states the obnoxious bills were defeated is a testimonial to the solidarity of the industry when its very existence is threatened by misguided bigots who would repress and stifle this great new art. But the fighting is not over yet. No man who believes in a free press and in free speech, who believes in the principles on which this government was founded and has endured, can have a doubt of the ultimate outcome. The question of censorship must he explained to the people, for when they once understand the great principle involved, what it means to them, there will be no doubt about the position they will take. And the exhibitor must join hands with the producer and distributor in getting that necessary explanation to the people. * * * There is no mystery about why and how these campaigns for the censorship of the moving pictures get their inception. It is a manifestation in psychology. In all times and in all climes there have been men and women obsessed with the idea they had the mission to mind someone else*s business. They are the ones who go around trying to extract the mote from the eye of their neighbors when they in fact should be paying an excess baggage charge on the beam they are carrying in their own eye. For years there has been a truism that there are three things which every man believes he can do better than the people whose business it is to do them. One is to edit, a newspaper, another is to run a hotel, and the third is to manage a theatre. To these three must now be added the fourth, the production of moving pictures. There are persons who think that when they advocate censorship of moving pictures they are starting something new. The idea had its inception in the paleozooic age when the first pollywog tried to tell the second pollywog what he should do and how he should do it. That was intolerance, and censorship of the tilms. as well as the censorship of the press or the stage or the pulpit is intolerance. If it has seemed a little hard on those of us in the industry that we have been compelled to light against this intolerance we should hear in mind that the development of the moving picture is a new art. And every new art has had to wage this warfare against intolerance. The men who are crying so loud for censorship today are the prototypes of those men who smashed the first printing press. While the more intelligent exhibitors have realized from the start that the tight against censorship was one in which they had a vital interest, too many have felt that it was a matter in which only the producers and possibly the distributors are concerned. The exhibitors may be certain that censorship before production will have two results in which they are vitally interested. Pictures will be poorer, and they will be more expensive. * * * The pictures will be poorer because it is impossible to stirle a great art without reducing it to the level of mediocrity. The director will be forced to produce a picture which will satisfy the censors rather than one which will appeal to the people. It is manifestly impossible for any man to do his best work under such conditions. The splendid pictures which are being produced today, and which are tilling the theatres of the exhibitors of the country will be succeeded by those which will reflect the oppression of censorship. It is GABRIEL L. HESS Goldwyn executive and chairman of the censorship committee of the V A. M. P. I. obvious that a picture which has to run the gamut of censorship will cost the exhibitor more than a free picture. Every intelligent exhibitor knows there is a censorship on moving pictures today, but it is the only censorship that should ever be tolerated, it is the only one which can be permitted in a free country. It is the censorship of the good moral people who go to the theatres with their children for the cheapest and the best form of amusement the brain of man has yet conceived. If any theatre would dare to show an obscene or an immoral picture it would soon be without enough patrons to support it. This is the kind of censorship we have for the press, and if the people do not like the utterances of any particular newspaper thev stop reading it. * * * How can the exhibitors assist in the tight which the industry is making against censorship before production, which in the last analysis is their light ? The petition is a most effective weapon to use against censorship, whether a national, state or municipal law is proposed. As soon as a censorship bill is introduced have the proper petition circulated in the theatres and in the business places. See the legislators personally and have your influential friends see them, hind the man or men who have the most influence with the local legislator, and get to him through them. The exhibitors will find in the tight against censorship they will have the cooperation of their local editors. The censorship of the film presages the censorship of the press, and this is known to every intelligent editor. W ith the censorship of the press and the film there would be little left of our liberties. Let the exhibitors go to the editors of the local papers and ask for their support against the intolerance of censorship in any form or way. * * * In the screen itself the exhibitors have one of the best weapons to wage this warfare against proposed censorship. Slides should be used at every performance in every state where the censorship tight has been started. Educate patrons in that way, for when the people realize just what censorship means, when it is brought home to them that this is an insidious attack on their liberties, they will be found opposed to those meddlesome bigots who are advocating censorship. Our great industry must be aggressively united in this fight. Every man, be he producer, distributor or exhibitor, must do more than his bit, he must do his all. We must not think that just because we are everlastingly right in our opposition to censorship that it will not require an effort to defeat it. But we cannot fail if we pull together, and that is what we must do to our utmost to protect the industry we have developed. Frederick Sullivan to Direct Christie Films The Christie Film Company has secured Frederic Sullivan, moving picture director and stage manager, as one of the new directors who will guide the destinies of the Christie Comedies, according to Al E. Christie, who is now supervising the production of all Christie one-reel comedies and Specials in two-reels. The acquisition of Mr. Sullivan will give the Christie's an opportunity to allow the other directors, Al E. Christie, Scott Sidney. William Beaudine and others, to alternate in their production activities with more time for preparation of stories. Art Director for Capellani John D. Braddon has been engaged by the Albert Capellani Productions, Inc., as the art director for "The Fortune Teller," the picture which Marjorie Rambeau is now making for Pathe. 107