The Film Daily (1945)

10 Friday, August 24, 19 PCC Invites All Indies to Meeting (Continued from Page 1) tend the convention had been extended to national Allied, members of all its territorial units and that a similar invitation was being sent to all other independent exhibitors in the United States. From all indications, the Los Angeles meeting will bring, together the largest number of strictly independent theater owners in the history of the industry. It will not be, however, a joint convention of all independent units. The PCC conventions in the past have drawn approximately 800 exhibitors and the forthcoming one is expected to have an attendance in excess of a thousand. No conventions were held during the war period. Allied directors indicated that they probably would hold their Spring board meeting in Los Angeles in conjunction with the PCC convention. lA Probing Methods of Chi. Operator Officials (Continued from Page 1) instatement to membership in the union was disclosed here yesterday by Richard F. Walsh, head of the lA. "If there is a violation of the union laws we will take action," the lATSE president said. The projectionist, Ray Parker, is asking damages of $100,000 and an injunction against Local 110. In a cross-complaint filed in Chicago Superior Court, Ora D. Beggs, secretary-treasurer of Local 110, denying he had participated in any conspiracy to keep Parker out of work, accused President James Gorman and other officials of the operators' union, of conspiring since their election last year to dominate union activities. Beggs further charged that Eugene Atkinson, the business agent of Local 110, and his assistant, Clarence Jalas, had removed the records of the union from his control. He also said that members of the union had been threatened and intimidated and officers had voted themselves increased salaries and squandered union funds. NEW MEDIA OF EDUCATION fryEXT of the section of the report of the Harvard Committee on "General Education in a Free Society" discussing the place of the motion picture and television in education follows: WNBT Will Telecast Army Grid Games The Army Notre Dame football classic heads the list of gridiron contests to be telecast over NBC's Station WNBT this Fall. In addition to the Army-Notre Dame game on Nov. 10, the WNBT cameras will bring to New York viewers the Army Michigan game from the Polo Grounds on Oct. 13 followed by the Army-Duke game from the Yankee Stadium Oct. 27. WNBT also may telecast the ArmyNavy clash on Dec. 1. More important still, the needed boost to conventional texts may come through an extension and supplementing of them by films and television. In both there is much experimenting and postulate searching in progress. For their more sustained enterprises — language teaching and continuous courses of study — films and television alike require printed matter designed to have a live relation to the sound-motion presentation. The challenge to the text is given when the screen ceases to be a mere illustration or adornment to the language and becomes the equal or superior medium of communication. Something of a revolution is indeed taking place through these new means of bringing the world itself, and clarified versions of it, to us. Traditionally language deputizes for what has to be absent. It tells us what we might see or hear. But too often it gets in the way of, or replaces, all that could give it a meaning. "Through the words I have mastered, I have come to appreciate the beauty of the great outdoors," said a favorite "Pupils' Creed" written for eighth graders. Today there is a better chance of turning the poor pupil right side out again. Now that the things and events themselves can be brought to us, the role of language is reversed. Instead of words having to explain pr represent things, it is rather things, and actual processes taking place before us, which explain words or call them in question. In the making of a good instructional or documentary film the duties of language are searchingly looked into and the needless obscurities of traditional texts are exposed. A healthy criticism is started and language, gaining a rival in its new partner, has now new standards of lucidity to live up to. Chief Success in Teaching The chief success of sound-motion teaching hitherto has probably been in vocational rather than in general subjects. It is easier to judge success in a riveter's training than in morale building, for example. "Estiniates of time saved in training technicians for war industry and in the training of military personnel vary from 25 to 75 per cent," said the Commission on Motion Pictures in Education of the American Council on Education. Enough has been done in all_ fields, however, to show that the high hopes early expressed for those aids were not, after all, excessive. There is good evidence that they can greatly increase both clar■ty and interest of presentation ir nany subjects. Furthermore, lonr retention of content and of meaning 's improved, sometimes in a measure great enough to be decisive. Stu dents cease to feel that they are being "slidden back by a perpetual back-sliding" on their steep path to understanding. There is reason to expect especial advantage from these aids in the attack on illiteracy. Films to teach and support early steps in reading are near the bottom of the ladder. It would be rash to say how far up the movie can go. Certainly the parts it can play with good effect are many. Films serve particularly well as awakeners of interest. They can present a theme, biographic, historic, or moral, with a massiveness of impact which for a while would make the impulse to continue by non-conventional methods all but irresistible, were these methods appropriately related. That is almost never the case. The exceptions are movies which profess to be well-known books "in film form," and too often in these so much violence has been done to the original that reading "the book of the film" is commonly disconcerting. As a rule the values which gave the book its permanent interest are replaced by more instant and transitory lures. There is nothing in the nature of the medium, however, to cause this. The fault is with the director's defective ideas of his function. On the Documentary Side On the documentary rather than on the theatrical side things are different, and numbers of excellent pictures have been made, many of them on "human geography" in the widest sense, — occupations, regions, social problems, co-operative cultures. Strangely little in comparison has been done in a documentary fashion with history. Theatrical pictures exploiting famous personages are of course frequent, but the use of the tremendous resources of the medium to put, say, Renaissance Europe on the screen with the aid of Erasmus' "Colloquies," for example, could be an immense educational eye opener. Charles Reade's "The Cloister and the Hearth" could supply a framework upon which a thousand details of custom and craftsmanship, living conditions and social structure could be mounted. A thread of adventure would not be lacking. A rich contemporary background of reading, music, qnd art would not be hard to provide. Numberless opportunities in fact await producers aware of educational aims and with enough imagination to pursue them. The movie has nroved itself to possess the power, if there is the wisdom to use it. NSS Drive Honors Eonfor Detroit— An Arvid Kantor Testimonial Drive has been launched here bv National Screen Service, to run until Dec. 31. Event is a tribute to the local branch manager, who is currently vacationing in Minnesota. Film Potentialities Weighed by Harvard (Continued from Page 1) instructional instrumentalities um the heading, "New Media of Edu tion." Climax sentence of the section films' usage declared: "The mo has proved itself to possess the pc er, if there is wisdom to use it," a prefaced this assertion with 1 statement that "numberless opp tunities in fact await produci aware of educational aims and w enough imagination to pursue ther The report linked television w motion pictures in discussing instri tional possibilities on the prem that both incorporate audio-vie factors, but the Harvard Commiti comprised of Paul H. Buck, cha man; John H. Finley, Jr., vice-cha man; and Raphael Demos, Lei Hoadley, Byron S. Hollinshei Wilbur K. Jordan, Ivor A. Richar. Phillip J. Rulon, Arthur M. Sch singer, Robert Ulich, George Wa and Benjamin F. Wright, were r so enthusiastic over the medium radio, noting that "it has the defe< of blindness, though great skill constantly displayed in overcomi; or diminishing them." (For text of Harvard Commit! report section on films, see colum two and three.) I i Detroit Censor May Seek Legal Definition of Powei Detroit — Lieut. Charles W. Snydi Detroit police censor, issued t Police Department's first stateme yesterday explaining his position the censorship of news subjects, f( lowing a challenge by the Ci' Rights Federation over cuts on t: hanging of several Nazis in "Mi danek Death Factory." Snyder said: "I do not believe t fine men of the picture industry wl demand restoration of those scenj in order to fill their money boxes! and said children should be protectj from seeing them. Snyder concedes possible need such scenes for war propaganda, h believes Americans have not need' it. He challenged "Maidanek" as b ing a short subject produced in Ru sia and distributed by Russia owned film company, not a newsre as advertised. The film is without cuts. Snyd' threatened to seek legal power handle censorship of news or factu' films in the future. "Pictures of fo eign origin containing such unnece sary scenes will have our most dil gent supervision," he said, "ai should situations such as this occi too frequently, we shall appeal to court of justice for legal authoril to handle the matter in the propi manner." Exit. War Worker Shows Massillon, O. — ^^Downtovra theatei here have discontinued the Thursda morning shows for war plai workers,