Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

FILM AND RADIO GUIDE Volume XII, No. 4 28 tially visualize answers to questions requiring completion by the class ; that it may call for responses in unison ; that it may repeat a commentary without the accompanying scene, leaving the screen black and requiring recollection of the scene; that it may develop creative thinking by presenting two possible endings to a story and asking which is better ; that it may secure emphasis b y flashing scenes or words on and off repeatedly; and that it may provide drill by alternating words without scenes and scenes without words. Always the test of success is a measure of the ability of the device to stimulate cerebration and participation on the part of the student. What remains is to produce a few thousand films embodying these devices. 53. PETITION IN EQUITY: United States of America, v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., et ol.. Defendants. By Lamar Hardy and Paul Williams. Washington, D. C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1938. Pp. 119. Includes a history of the motion-picture industry in concise form, down to 1938, based on scholarly investigation of the branches of the industry, its competitive conditions and trade practices, and conclusions which the petitioner offers as a basis for important changes in the American system of distributing and exhibiting photoplays. 54. PHOTOPLAY, THE. By Hugo Muensterberg. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1916. Pp. 232. A pioneer study of the psychology and the aesthetics of the silent motion picture. Chapter IV, on “Attention,” contains a classic discussion of the significance of the closeup. 55. PHOTOPLAY APPRECIATION IN AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOLS. By William Lewin. Foreword by Walter Bornes. New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1934. Pp. XV, 122. Principles a n d methods of teaching photoplay appreciation, based on large-scale research in seventeen states. A basic monograph, describing what has been called “one of the most important enterprises undertaken in a decade in the public schools” (Ashville, N. C., Times). 56. PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE MOVIES, A. By Deems Taylor, Marcelene Peterson, and Bryant Hale. 350 pp. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1943. In spite of a number of errors, which will no doubt be corrected in subsequent editions, this is a useful aid to the study of photoplay appreciation. The volume presents about a thousand halftone reproductions of stills with annotations, which carry the reader, after a fashion, through the infancy of American films, and thence over the subsequent periods o f development. The treatment is popular rather than critical or scholarly. 57. PRESENTING SCOTLAND: A FILM SURVEY. By Norman Wilson. 36 pp. Illustrated. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh Film Guild. 1945. Here is a valuable account of the Scottish documentary film movement, which was begun by John Grierson and which has produced a considerable array of pictures during the past 15 years. To those of us who have followed the work of Grierson and h i s contemporaries — Paul Rotha, Mary Field, Stuart Legg, Alberto Cavalcanti, John C. Elder, Arthur Elton, to mention only a few — it is gratifying to read Mr. Wilson’s statement of the aspirations of Bonnie Scotland for a permanent place in the cinema sun. The land which gave us Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Louis Stevenson may before long produce a film genius of similar stature. To provide a solid basis for development, Mr. Wilson recommends the raising of a fund for the establishment of a Scottish School of Cinema, to be part of one of the art colleges. After perusing Mr. Wilson’s list of nearly 100 films of Scotland, we are 100 percent for his plan. 58. PRODUCING SCHOOL MOVIES. By Eleanor Child and Hardy Finch. New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1941. Pp. xii, 151. Illustrated. Monograph (or rather duograph) No. 12 in the notable and growing series sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English, this volume is the most complete and practical handbook dealing with the creative and technical elements o f 16mm movie-making as a phase of the teaching of English composition in direct relation to audio-visual education. The authors are members of the Greenwich (Conn.) school system. Co-author Finch, a past president of the NEA Department of Secondary Teachers, and editor of Secondary Education, is a leading authority on progressive aspects of secondary education. 59. PROJECTING MOTION PICTURES IN THE CLASSROOM. By Francis W. Noel. Washington, D. C.: American Council on Education, 1940. Pp. vii, 53. Illustrated. The fifth in a series of studies of motion pictures in education, dealing specifically with an experimental program of exploration of ways and means of using films in the curriculum of the public school system at Santa Barbara, California, an evaluation center of the Motion-Picture Project of the American Council on Education. It deals with the arrangement of physical conditions, the selection of equipment, and the training of personnel, including student operators. The author was for