The Film Renter and Moving Picture News (Jul-Aug 1922)

August 26, 1922. THE FILM RENTER & MOVING PICTURE NEWS. ? STRONG SEX STUFF ON THE SCREEN. Miss Shackleton’s Amusing Deductions. ie BLASTING A WAY INTO “BIG MONEY.” ISS EDITH SHACKLETON has been unburdening her soul to the readers of the ‘' Evening Standard,” and the subject of her trouble is the She objects in the strongest possible terms to Just Film. what she calls *‘ strong sex stuff "’ of the pictures. listen to her:. “‘ There tan be little hope,’’ she says, ‘‘ for the future of that poor, half-demented foundling of the arts, the film play, until the film-watching public takes its education into its own hands by beginning to express approval or disapproval in film theatres. No class of purveyors is more blatantly sure of itself than the film-makers and distributors. Merely to look at their trade journals is to get a deafening sensation of confident clamour. ‘Were are real box-office attractions,’ they scream, ‘ pictures that will drag them away from the parks, the ball-game, and other outdoor amusements ’; or ‘ Let us help YOU blast your way.into BIG MONEY.’ ‘‘ They are so sure that they know. ‘ This film will be a great success,’ I heard a film-man declare lately to an inaugural gathering which included only one woman. ‘ It has a YO per cent. woman appeal.’ The only woman there had not been conscious during the show of any unusual wear on her heartstrings. ‘How do they know?’ she asked another film-man; ‘ how do they know whether the public like their films or not?’ ‘ They don’t know,’ said he; ‘ they have no way of knowing. The public takes what comes as though it were the gentle rain from heaven.’ ”’ Hunger v. Love. And, again: ‘‘ On film-makers the Freudian blight has settled thick and hard. They have evidently accepted enthusiastically the theory that the human race spends most of its time in thinking about sex, and wants to go on thinking about it when it goes to the pictures. This sounds terribly luxurious and dangerous to the Puritan. . . When a passionate scene is interrupted, so that the screen may he occupied by a picture of a girl’s mouth about ten feet wide, and looking rather like a mountain range on a sketch map, the tendency must be rather to put the beholders off kissing for the rest of their days. ‘‘Tt is not true that most. men are thinking how tired they are of their wives, or that most women are wondering how to win their husbands back. | Most men are wondering how to keep their jobs. Most women are wondering what to make for dinner to-morrow. _ Your most determined Freudian will surely admit that hunger is even a more dominant human force than love.”’ Google Can Sex Subjects be Ostracised? Miss Shackleton appears to be a lady of pronounced views, and is apparently not favourably impressed with kinema entertainment generally. She is, however, quite right in her denuneiation of ‘‘ Strong Sex Films.”’ They are, and always have been, unacceptable to the great bulk of the British kinemas. Pictures with the predominant sex flavour have always been in limited supply in this country. There is no real demand for them. And no kinema that caters for the family circle ever books them. But it is quite a different matter to class films with the sex or domestic interest prominently developed, and produced with tact and delicacy, as salacious and vicious. The drama of real life, with its heart interest, its passions and its humanity, is as acceptable to picture-goers as it is to the public who patronise stage plays or read fiction. Take away the sex interest in film dramas, and you confine the scope of the moving pictures to travel, crime, or adventure. It is neither desirable nor possible. “Because this lady purist ran across @ particularly glaring instance of the salacious subject it is no reason why the majority of sex or domestic pictures—generally produced with great care and delicacy —should be ostracised. What the Public Want. Miss Shackleton is apparently anxious to ascertain whether the manufacturers of films know what the public want, and asserts that no class of amusement caterers is apparently so sure of itself as the film producer. One answer she got was to the effect that the producer did not know, and had no way of knowing. This assertion is wrong in substance and in fact. The maker of films is very much in the same category as the maker of soap or any other commodity. He depends entirely on the goodwill of the public. If the latter does not like his product they do not buy it;.in the case of the kinema they cease their patronage when the bill is not to their liking. And through the retailer the manufacturer soon knows whether certain brands of his make are likely to be popular or otherwise. The kinema public is not by any means as inarticulate as Miss Shackleton and others would have us believe. It may not in all cases get the plays it wants, and it may tolerate many pictures which fail to interest, but in ‘the long run it calls the tune. The kinema manager who studies his patrons very soon knows what they like or dislike, and naturally he does his utmost to meet their desires. We can assure Miss Shavkleton that the ‘‘ half-demented foundling of the arts ’’ has come to stay, and, despite the carping of selfconstituted critics, is destined to be the greatest purveyor of genuine entertainment that the world has ever known.