Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1952)

Is The Movie Code Too Rigid? William Wifler fak* CaMny c{ Production Code £c Jkat ttlcrieA Can declaim Ike lost' Audience CxcluMHe % BULLETIN ?eatut>e By Leonard Coulter William Wyler makes sense. He is one of those producers who has been trying to make so-called "adult" films, as witness "Place in the Sun" and "Detective Story". And he intends going on that way: at least, as long as such a policy gets results at the boxoffice. But if he, and his Hollywood colleagues, are successfully to use their skill in luring the "lost audience" back to your theatres, they need every ounce of encouragement they can get from the exhibitor for their efforts to secure a revision of the Production Code. A producer's job, Wyler says, does not end when the picture has been cut and edited. He has a responsibility to assist in its promotion, and to help carry it forward until the point at which it reaches the public. In other words, he argues, with costs constantly rising, and revenues declining, the producer must join with everyone else in squeezing the last drop from the potential. Balaban Approves More 'Down-Beat' Films These ideas, and many others, he outlined in New York recently, whither he had come to arouse interest in "Carrie", his latest picture, which is based on Theodore Dreiser's "Sister Carrie" and which will be released through Paramount, who staked him to the tune of more than $2,000,000 for the job. Wyler said that when he last discussed future prdouct with Paramount's President, Barney Balaban, the latter told him that the company was not as strongly opposed as it used to be to what are known as "downbeat" pictures. Both "Detective Story" and "Place in the Sun" fall in that category. Said Wyler: "When I was making 'Detective WYLER He Makes Sense Story' someone said to me that I ought to change the ending, and let the husband and wife go off together to live happily ever after. This person wanted me to make the ending what he called 'entertaining'. If I had altered the ending the result would, in my judgment, have been just the opposite of entertaining." Movie business today, in Wyler's judgment, is about in the same position as the legitimate theatre 30 years ago. Poorness of product at a time when movies were developing rapidly, closed many of the theatres, but the good plays survived and the "legit" lived on to prosper. With the right quality product the motion picture industry — producer and exhibitor — will flourish likewise, but freedom to make the right kind of product, and to show it, is vital. And that is what the industry lacks at present. Says linen Office Adopts Mme Liberal I ieu There was no censorship trouble with "Carrie". One of the reasons is that, according to William Wyler, the Breen Office, which administers the Production Code, is becoming more liberal in its viewpoint In other words, it is interpreting the Code more generously, and paying regard to a producer's intent. This is a move in the right direction, for rigitl application of the Code would be disastrous for the industry. Pictures need interpretation, in the same way as a law needs it in the courts. (Continued on I'age 14) BREEN OFFICE TO WYLER In what might be construed as a direct reply to William Wyler's comments anent the Production Code, the office of Code Administrator Joseph I. Breen last week issued a warning that it would be dangerous to lower radically the industry's voluntary moral standards. Speaking for the Breen office, public relations officer Jack Yissard declared: "It was exactly such thinking in the face of declining boxoffice during the depression that brought the need for self-regulation on the industry in the first place." Those who heard Mr. Wyler discuss the subject did not receive the impression that he was suggesting a general lowering of moral standards. He was asking only the opportunity to deal intelligently with mature subjects on an adult level. FILM BULLETIN— An Independent Motion Picture Trade Paper published every other Monday by Film Bulletin Company. Mo Wax. Editor and Publisher. BUSINESS OFFICE: 35 West 53rd St.. New York, 19; Circle 4-9159. David A. Bader, Business Manager; Leonard Coulter. Editorial Representative. PUBLICATION—EDITORIAL OFFICES: 1239 Vine St., Philadelphia 7. Pa.. Rlttenhojse 6-7424; Barney Stein, Managing Editor; Dick Newton. Publication Manager; Robert Heath, Circulation Manager. HOLLYWOOD OFFICE: 459 Haverford Ave., Pacific Palisades, Calif., Hillside 8183; Jay Allen, Hollywood Editor. Subscription Rate: ONE YEAR, $3.00 in the United States; Canada, $4.00; Europe, $5.00. TWO YEARS. $5.00 in the U. S.; Canada. $7.50; Europe. $9.00. FEBRUARY 11, 1952 5