Exhibitors Herald (Dec 1921 - Mar 1922)

ebruary 11. 1922 EXHIBITORS HERALD 59 Reformers are people who take your money and give advice. The only thing we need to destroy our civilization is a few more reform-From "Columbia Record." PUBLIC RIGHTS LEAGUE Screen Message No. 41 The assertion that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" applies very directly to the work of fanatical reformers. The public must keep alert or it may some day awake to find that it has been robbed of the freedom that America stands for. Wickedness Older Than Fil ms Rupert Hughes, .veil known author ind scenarioist. :ook a number of hot shots at censorship in a lecture on "The Future of fhe Motion Picture" at the Bushwick high school in Brooklyn. The writer, who has an intimate knowledge of motion picture production, invaded ,the stronghold of New York censorship as spokesman for the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry. It was in Brooklyn last year that the censorship agitation originated and led to the enactment of the lawcreating the state censorship board. L Mr. Hughes characterized the film censorship boards as "sausage machines" and said that it is eminently unfair that film productions, on which months of painstaking effort have been spent by authors, actors and directors, are obliged in several states to be ground through these machines before the public itself is allowed to see the result of this serious, intelligent and painstaking effort. "The motion picture studios are really laboratories where people work as earnestly as in many other laboratories in the world," said Mr. Hughes. "These people are not gypsies. They are earnest, conscientious people working hard and exercising self-denial and strict attention to their art. The comedians, or clowns of the screen, work like chemists to get the exact formula which will produce an explosion of laughter. Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and other notable clowns are in reality great dramatic artists, all working just as seriously and earnestly as any other professional workers in the world." Mr. Hughes paid his respects to the William A. Steffes, president of the Minnesota division of the Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America, has just placed his order for seven sets of the series of PUBLIC RIGHTS LEAGUE slides. A convention of Mr. Steffes organization has been called for the second week in April, and the president is now hard at work to make the get-together one of the largest in the state. President Steffes states that he endorses the movement for creation of joint boards for settling grievance cases. He looks for an early repeal of the music tax law, and relative to film rentals, he says that if they don't come down "we will all have to close up." Other officers of the Minnesota organization are vice-president, Theodore L. Hayes; secretary, Fred Larkin, and treasurer, A. A, Kaplan. New York censorship commission. "In New York we have a nice middleaged lady who is paid by the State to cut out from films what she considers damaging to the morals of the community," he said. "After she has sat for eight hours watching pictures in the projection room it is really remarkable that her family even speaks to her when she goes home at night — if it were really true what the censors tell us they find in some of the films. Just think of her state of mind, after looking at the horrible depravities that censors tell us are in the films. "If the motion pictures have the effect upon one's mind that the censors tell us they have, the average censor should be taken out and lynched after a week of looking at these terrible things they tell us exist. Of course, though, the pictures do not have the effect upon one's mind and upon one's actions that the censors attribute to them. » * * "Pensylvania has spent millions of dollars on censorship but I defy anyone to go to Philadelphia and find any cleaner pictures there than that are shown elsewhere, or any less depravity and crime than is found elsewhere. Certainly the motion pictures cannot be blamed for crimes and evils that have been existing since the creation of the world. "Censorship cannot keep children virtuous. In England years ago they found two little girls eight years old. who for more than a year had been kept in solitary confinement in cells, as punishment for theft. But this did not stop theft in England. Crimes come from the inside; not from the outside. "A clergyman once told me that he would rather have his daughter in a motion picture house in the evening than sitting alone at home with her thoughts. "When anyone tells you that something you may see will ruin your heart or soul, tell him that he is talking nonsense. When they tell you the motion picture is the cause of wickedness, tell them that the motion picture is twenty years old and that wickedness existed long before that. * * * "It took thousands of years to break down censorship in order to get public schools. During that time very honorable people gravely said that if you let ordinary persons read, it would ruin them. Of course, that, in the light of what has happened, was absurd, but the same character of people today are saying that it will ruin the public to see motion pictures that have not been passed through the censorship 'sausage machine.' " Mr. Hughes' address was one of a series of lectures that are being given in the public schools of New York through an arrangement between the board of education and the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry. Other speakers in the near future will be D. W. Griffith and Paul H. Cromelin. An interesting film program was shown in conjunction with Mr. Hughes' lecture, the pictures for which were donated by company members of the National Association. These pictures were: "The Sunshine Gathers" and "Neptune's Daughters" by Prizma, Inc., and "Speed" by Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.