The film daily year book of motion pictures (1933)

stations are now regularly carrying speeches volunteered by various club leaders on motion pictures not merely relating interesting news about the motion picture industry but going into specific detail in the recommendation of pictures currently showing at the local and neighborhood theaters. All of this, of course, costs the exhibitor nothing and could not be purchased at any price. Its value lies in the fact that it is utterly disinterested. This type of cooperation is capable of great expansion. (4) Newspapers. Within the past two years social-minded groups have succeeded to a slight degree in securing space in newspapers for the publication of lists of recommended pictures. This publication, of course, is not in the advertising columns of theater sections but in the club column or in the news items listing the activities of the local organizations. More than 300 daily papers are now carrying this service with varying degrees of regularity. The national leaders of some of the public groups are now conducting a somewhat intensive drive to increase the number of newspapers cooperating. Schools Many attempts of local managers to secure cooperation from schools have proved unfortunate. The school officials, of course, have to be extremely sensitive about attempts to commercialize the school in behalf of any profit-making enterprise. But a successful formula for securing the cooperation of the schools approaches the matter entirely from the school teacher's point of view. It assumes that: (1) Unless she knows something about the current entertainment programs in the neighborhood theater, she does not know what is in the minds of her pupils, an obvious disadvantage to successful teaching. (2) Frequently the motion picture showing at the theater has definite usefulness in the school curriculum. The teacher of English literature will want her pupils to see "The Bridge of San Luis Rey," "Arrowsmith," etc. The teacher of American history ought not to miss the opportunity presented by the exhibition in her neighborhood of "Cimarron," "Alexander Hamilton," "Abraham Lincoln," "The Big Trail," "The Covered Wagon," etc. Box-office results of the use by the teacher of this formula are immediate and gratifying. In a small experiment tried in the neighborhood of New York with "Cimarron," there came to one theater during the week the picture showed, more than 2,500 pupils from a single junior high school. It has been reliably estimated that each school pupil results also in the attendance of at least one adult member of the family. When the grammar school or high school pupil comes home with the suggestion: "Teacher says you ought to take me to see such and such a picture," there is no peace in that family until the picture has been seen. (3) The conscientious teacher is coming to see her responsibility for developing in her pupils a discriminating taste for motion pjcrures just as she has done for years in other forms of art, music, painting, etc. From this point of view a teacher is potentially interested in any motion picture of artistic merit, even if it does not relate definitely to her curriculum. Churches Some of the influences which tend toward a hostile attitude on the part of preachers and church leaders are: (1) Traces still existing of the Puritan conception of amusement as something pleasurable and therefore probably wrong. (2) Exaggerated opinions of the offensive character of motion pictures, largely coming through hearsay and sensational advertising. (3) More or less definite recognition of the motion picture theater as a successful rival of the church particularly on Sunday evenings. This feeling is accentuated by the average minister's impression of a general decline in moral standards during recent years and the ineffectual efforts of the church to cope with this tendency. (4) The impression that the approach to the church on behalf of motion pictures is solely for the purpose of inducing favorable attitudes, disarming suspicion and seeking to get prominent church leaders to line up as it were on the side of motion pictures. This state of mind has been a serious obstacle to cooperation with all the groups, and the more recent progress has been largely due to successful efforts to show the mutual advantage in such cooperation. It is especially important that in dealing with them the local exhibitor must convince them of his good faith and honesty of purpose. (5) Notwithstanding these obstacles definite progress is apparent. The appropriate church activities that are helpful to the box-office are: (a) Definite recommendation in church calendars, on bulletin boards or by verbal announcement from the pulpit of specific motion pictures current in the city during the following week. At first preachers are naturally hesitant to do this but the number of those who thus recognize responsibility for guiding the motion picture taste of the members of their congregations is rapidly increasing. (b) The use of visual aids in the church program in terms of current motion pictures. |JI NEWSPAPERMEN EVERYWHERE READ THE FILM DAILY 661