Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1963)

Viewpoints AUGUST 5, 1963 / VOLUME 31, NO. 16 it Critic Speaks far the Defense On the perimeter of movie business, but unattached to it, lies the province of the film critics who write for the public press. A recent Viewpoint here suggested that our industry cease firing buckshot at every reviewer who pans a picture and strive for more amenable relations with the press. This has drawn interesting response from some of the country's foremost critics, not the least of which is the following waggish comment by Jesse Zunser, Executive Editor and Motion Picture Editor of CUE Magazine, the New York weekly. To the Editor: I appreciated your extremely interesting and perceptive editorial (STOP TRYING TO 'CURE' THE CRITICS). I have read it twice, and want to congratulate you on your calmness in appraising the matter (under the pretty feverish circumstances that must have inspired it), and the good writing in it. There are all sorts of critics, as all sorts of hardware dealers, sausage makers, plumbers, publishers and editors. Some let their jobs go to their heads; some are surly, sarcastic, bitter, had fights with their wives (or husbands) and take it out on the customers or clients or readers, or kick the dog and bite the cat's tail in frustration and revenge. Most of us try to be intelligent, balanced, fair — and unless we're on a deliberately snooty magazine (you can name them better than I) don't attempt to chop up a picture just to get across to the reader how damn smart and witty and clever we are. We know that pictures cost a helluva lot of money to make — in dollars, in sweat, tears, heartbreak and anguish generally. We don't enjoy murdering such pictures when they are honestly made. We don't enjoy ruining an investment, hurting producers, writers, actors, exhibitors — and, incidentally, maybe keeping the public from seeing the general relationship of that film to the people as a whole. When a critics gets angry at some films — as I do, for example, in the enclosed proof of an article in next week's (Aug. 10) Cue — it is not because I hate movies — but because I love them, and I want to see good ones, and I would like to see the standards of films raised, not lowered by unscrupulous, fast-buck guys who have crawled into the business and don't give a damn how they get that fast buck. I want to be able to send more of Cue's half-million readers to the movies — and I want to be able to tell them they will enjoy the picture and they can take their kids and recommend the picture to their friends. None of us wants to be a censor, but do you think the way to movie popularity is for a producer to turn out pictures portraying prostitution as a fine profession for girls to get into, that immorality is great fun and can be cleaned up in the last thirty-seconds of a picture by "repentence?" That salaciousness in theme, in inverted moralities presented to kids who can't separate logic from illogic, is good for the movie business? Remember the old gag, the old vaudeville gag about the cop who arrested the victim of a robbery for being on the site at the time? Or Zero Mostel's classic World War II imitation of the isolationist senator who demanded: "What were the Hawaiian Islands doing in the Pacific Ocean, in the first place?" . . . A maker of a lousy movie cannot blame the critics who tell the people he's trying to grab that his picture is really a lousy one. They (the critics) may be wrong occasionally; they're only human, though many might argue this point, too, but they're trying desperately to be honest, fair, decent, moral — and not be hated. We all want to be, like Willy Loman, li-i-i-ked . . . And result: Everybody hates poor little, sweet little fellers, like Very truly yours, JESSE ZUNSER. a picture that might give them an evening's honest relaxation. A good laugh is needed by all these days (in comedy); and fine dramas stimulate the mind, add to our understanding and knowledge and, we hope, goodness. It is no pleasure to pan. Movies, however, are one of the few things in this world sold like a cat in a bag. A customer doesn't know what he's paid for until he out on the sidewalk again — too late to say, "We wuz robbed." The fantastic exaggerations of motion picture advertising — the implied lies in sex-angled advertising — glamorous billboards, lobby displays, publicitypromoted columnist items, phony interviews, etcetera, etcetera, are designed not to tell the reader the truth (obviously, there are many exceptions), but to lure him into the theater and get his dollar. Under these circumstances, the honest critic who describes a picture honetly is — heaven help me ! — a public servant, and a benefactor, and maybe the exhibitor should give him a medal. They are not, as is sometimes supposed, a part of the motion picture industry, although they may love many of the guys and gals in it. They are a part of the newspaper (or magazine) business; they are reporters, writer, and critics — I hope in the larger sense — critics of the film, of the substance of the film, of the idea and philosophy behind the film, of BUITETIN Film BULLETIN: Motion Picture Trade Paper published every other Monday by Wax Publications, Inc. Mo Wax, Editor and Publisher. PUBLICATION-EDITORIAL OFFICES: 1239 Vine Street, Philadelphia 7, Pa., LOcust 8-0950, 0951. Philip R. Ward, Associate Editor; Leonard Coulter, New York Associate Editor; Berne Schneyer, Publication Manager; Max Garelick, Business Manager; Robert Heath, Circulation Manager. BUSINESS OFFICE: 550 Fifth Avenue, New York 36, N. Y., Circle 5-0124; Ernest Shapiro, N.Y. Editorial Representative. Subscription Rates: ONE YEAR, S3. 00 in the U. S.; Canada, $4.00; Europe, $5.00. TWO YEARS. $5.00 in the U. S.; Canada, Europe, $9.00. Film BULLETIN August 5, 1943 Page 7