Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1954)

PHDMETHEUS: HOLLYWOOD BOUND (Continued from Page 5} The argument that the entertainment screen can be used as a great social weapon in the destruction of such ])roblems as abortion, v.d., prostitution and the like, savors of so much wistful day-dreaming. It is occasionally urged by am averick picture maker who has pretty pictures of the profits to be garnered from the lurid and the sensational. If the motives of these men are as pure, and as altruistic, and so devoted to the betterment of society as they protest them to be, why do we never have a picture based on, say, the problem of heart disease, the greatest social menace of all? Code's Philosophy At any rate, getting down to fundamentals, let us examine the Code philosophy of screening out certain categories of evil, like an undesirable dross, from films. In the minds of many people lurks the suspicion that the tendency to shy away from forbidden themes is traceable to a virginal squeamishness about facing up to the ugly "facts of life". This shadowy conviction is based on a misconception of the structure of the Code Office itself. What is forgotten is that the Code is a document produced by the Producers. It was created by the picture makers, is financed by them, and could be abolished ]jy them by simple fiat. The authority that is enjoyed by the Code Office is derived from the motion picture com]>anies alone, and the Code staf¥ can deal only with those elements of morality, decency, and propriety which are inserted into the Code by the producers themselves. Derivatively, therefore, one who charges that the Code operates in a messianic mood to protect audiences from "reality" is saying that it is the motion picture industry as such which labors under this compulsion. Such a concept is ridiculous on the face of it. For Better or Worse? .Sam Goldwyn has recently been applauded for calling for Code revisions which will bring it into step with "changing times". This sage old picture maker did not explain whether times were changing for better, or for worse. On the heels of his demand, the cjuestion is beginning to be asked whether the Code authorities have an open mind about revisions. The question is not pertinent. W hether the Code people have an open mind or not, they have neither the authority nor the responsibility to change one perior or one comma in the Code. They are not custodians of the Code, any more than they are custodians of public morals. The Code custodians are the presidents of the major motion picture com])anies. The Code authorities have only been entrusted with the job of administering it. Aside from this, the fact that the average first-class film costs as much as a ten story apartment building has an ini])ortant bearing on the ultimate content of films. In order to mass produce such an item, and make money, it is necessary to rely on a mass audience. The so-called "mature" audience which supports the product of the legitimate stage is not nearly large enough. According to "Variety" the total audience for all stage production-^, both on Broadway and on the road for the year 1951 was twenty-five million paid attendances. The motion picture industry must play to more than twice this total each week in order to stay alive ! Mass audiences mean family audiences. What are proper themes for exclusively mature audiences may be, and are, completely unfit for family audiences. Common sense alone tells us that if mothers of families once get the idea that neighborhood theaters are filled with subjects like sex-perversion, abortion, dope addiction, and venereal disease, the picture house will quickly lose, and irrevocably, its appeal as a place to which people can go "en famille". This, of course, would be financial suicide. Next, what the dreamers and purists, who argue in favor of a completely undestricted screen, overlook, is the rudimentary fact that films are a vehicle for giving simple currency to certain classes of vice, which in due course makes them seem more familiar and commonplace. From there, it is only a short step to regarding them as less noxious, more acceptable. "Vice is a monster of so frightful mien. As to be hated needs but to be seen ; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face. We first endure, then pity, then embrace." The Code takes this axiom of worldly wisdom into account. It states, in its section dealing with sins of sex: "Pictures shall not infer that low form of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing." Note how it aligns the key words "common" and "accepted" side by side. There is a further, practical angle to this same consideration. Despite the protests of some people that it is salutary to flush evil out of the cellars in which it lurks, there is the counter consideration which only impossible idealists would fail to take into their calculations. That is the fact that by bringing certain topics up for uninhibited inspection, it is possible to focus the attention of the curious and the irresponsible on them, and to morbidly stimulate their imaginations in a socially destructive manner. Films on Dope The motion jjicture industry has gilt-edged evidence of how this can happen. Take the case of dopeaddiction and dope smuggling. In the first instance, the Code contained a clause barring from films all references to narcotics whatsoever. After two decades of keeping an iron-clad lid on this subject, however, it entertained an invitation from the Commissioner of Narcotics of the U. S. Treasury Dept., Mr. 11. j. .\nslinger, to open up the screen to certain types of stories which would show government agents tracking down dope criminals across the world, in collaboration with the agents of other nations. The ])icture which resulted was Columbia's "To the Knds of the Earth". The theme was found to be cominerciallv e.xciting, (Continued on Page 15) Page 14 FILM BULLETIN February 8, 1954