Exhibitors Herald (1927)

14 EXHIBITORS HERALD October 22, 1927 EXHIBITORS HER ALB GJie independent ^Blm Qrade ^ aper Martin J. Quigley, Publisher Editor Published Every Wednesday by Quigley Publishing Company Publication Office: 407 So. Dearborn St., CHICAGO, U. S. A. Martin J. Quigley, P resident Edwin S. Clifford, Secretary George Clifford, Asst. Treasurer Member Audit Bureau of Circulations Copyright, 1927, by Quigley Publishing Company All editorial and business correspondence should be addressed to the Chicago office Other Publications: The Chicagoan and Polo, class journals; and the following motion picture trade publications published as supplements to Exhibitors Herald: Better Theatres, every fourth week. The Studio, every fourth week, and The Box Office Record & Equipment Index, semiannual. Vol. XXXI October 22, 1927 No. 6 Mr. Hearst Advocates Censorship IN a signed editorial recently appearing in the Hearst newspapers Mr. William Randolph Hearst makes an appeal for federal censorship. Nothing more surprising —and inconsistent — has taken place since the dawn of the question of motion picture censorship. Mr. Hearst is — or has been — one of the outstanding intellects of his generation. As a publisher, and one of the world’s greatest, the question of censorship in the abstract is one with which he should he thoroughly familiar. As a motion picture producer, which he has been directly and indirectly for many years, it would be expected of him to have an intelligent understanding of the question of censorship and motion pictures. But Mr. Hearst in his pronouncement for federal censorship reveals himself in an almost inconceivably absurd position: He acknowledges the failure of all forms of censorship which have yet been tried, yet bases hope on a miraculous performance by a board constituted under federal auspices. He says that censorship has failed because it has been “discouragingly unintelligent.” Yet he would give to censorship a greater scope and authority, apparently on the assumption that it would suddenly and magically become intelligent. He states that in censorship there is always the tendency to eliminate something no matter how wholesome the picture may be, “the idea apparently being that a censorship board must censor under any and all circumstances.” This latter point, eloquently proclaimed by Mr. Hearst, would seem to he an argument lifted out of the text of a tract against censorship; but no, it is incorporated in his plea for federal censorship. It would almost seem that Mr. Hearst, a towering genius for more than a score of years, is beginning to get a little woozy. If -X* is Mr. hearses voice, now added to the shrill pleas of the professional reformers for federal censorship, is a particularly unwelcomed annoyance at this time. His pronouncement for federal censorship is a severe blow to the industry and it could not come at a more inopportune time. Mr. Hearst must know — unless the fiction writers’ picture of Hollywood has left a devastating mark upon him — that federal censorship would only add to the abuses of the practice without any corresponding benefits either to the public or to the industry. It would, of course, standardize to some extent the abuses of censorship. But standardized abuses strike us as no more desirable than unstandardized abuses. Mr. Hearst, who has always been a great advocate of the sanctity of state’s rights, would now take this right of censoring motion pictures away from the several states. But here again the old Hearst intellect does not seem to he functioning; the states are sovereign in their police powers and even with a censorship law on the federal statute we would have the same old state and local censorships, only added to the expense and machinery of a national board. Censorship, in principle, is either right or wrong; sound or unsound. Censorship has failed because it is an impossible human task; because it is an attempt to legislate morality into the people and because it tends to make the world’s greatest instrument of entertainment a political football. Censorship is wrong in principle and it is unsound in every operation it ever has had and ever will have. By merely changing its form from city or state to national does in no way cloak it in any new righteousness. If Mr. Hearst’s word prevails and we have a federal censorship law the industry will face a trying day. All the political abuses of censorship will be multiplied. In addition to national censorship we will not only have the existing local and state censorships hut we will have a great many more. Every community will argue that if it really needs federal censorship it also should have its own local censorship. The producer’s job will not be half done when he has only made his pictures conform with the national regulations. In the midst of all of this there will he the same old evasions open to producers who make stuff that the censors object to. The censor hoards will be influenced by court orders or by other means and the cause of wholesome entertainment will he handicapped instead of promoted. 48 * * WE believe that Mr. Hearst is genuinely interested in promoting the cause of wholesome entertainment, but he is taking the wrong means to this end. The record shows that throughout his production activities he has intensified upon sound entertainment to the exclusion of the questionable. So Mr. Hearst’s sincerity, so often questioned, may be assumed in this case. In his argument for federal censorship Mr. Hearst introduces the name of Mr. Louis B. Mayer and refers to Air. Mayer’s recent statement on the desirability of purer films. This leads us directly into an added word to Mr. Hearst, lest he suspect that we believe there is nothing wrong with the present moral standard of pictures because we are opposed to censorship and want to see rather less than more of it. We do not question Mr. Mayer’s sincerity in pronouncing for cleaner films but if we did not know him as well as we do we would be driven to the belief that when the producer of “The Flesh and the Devil” and “Twelve Miles Out,” for two passing examples, makes a statement on cleaner pictures he is talking for effect. Pictures need cleaning up — and a lot of it— but at Hollywood and not Washington. Producers are naturally impelled primarily by the zeal to make greater entertainment. This zeal must be tempered by a realization of moral considerations. The effort which Mr. Hearst has put forth on federal censorship could with far greater profit to the cause of more wholesome entertainment be expended within the motion picture company with which he is affiliated, leaving censorship agitation in its accustomed place in the hands of professional reformers. “The Trade Practice Conference,” by Martin J. Quigley — Page 17