Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

APRIL, 1946 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE 23 lion dollars as its initial goal. The first phase of the plan is for the production of films in the non-theatrical field. During the war, production of the nontheatrical film rose from a struggling business to a major industry, primarily through the activities of the armed forces. In the next few years, the production of non-theatrical films, and particularly of attitudeforming films, will, I believe, receive its greatest impetus from the churches. When we stop to think that Protestant churches in America number 550,000, it is obvious what can be done with the nontheatrical film if we really stimulate this tremendous market. Now, exactly what kind of films does the Protestant Film Commission propose to produce? First — t h e Protestant Film Commission will produce films which promote many phases of the churches’ specific program, including its humanitarian and benevolent projects. This will include films publicizing the remarkable medical and educational work being carried on by the missionary enterprise at home and abroad, and showing how much the church is doing to remove the seeds of hatred and to spread a practical conception of the brotherhood of man. Second — the Protestant film commission will produce specialized films for use in the curriculum of Christian education. Third — the Protestant Film Commission will produce films which show the application of Christian principles to pressing problems in many areas of life. It is about the possibilities in this third phase of our production program that I want to talk today. The Protestant Film Commission is an official interdemoninational agency of the Protestant churches. Its organization embraces over seventeen different denominations and thirteen interdenominational agencies and boards. Obviously, we do not propose to produce films which deal with the superficial aspects of controversial issues or which champion any special political or economic point of view. We do propose to produce films designed to in.still those Christian attitudes which are basic to the solution of problems in these and many other fields. 1. The family is one of the first subjects in which the Protestant Film Commission will undertake the production of attitude-forming films. The Protestant churches are concerned with the future of this basic American institution. Today the family is subject to many stresses and strains. The radio, the movies, the automobile, congested living conditions in our large cities, and our passionate desire to raise our standard of living, all have had an impact on American family life. A film is needed to place the institution of the family in its historical perspective, and to trace the history of the family from the days when its integrity was guaranteed by its status as a self-sufficient economic unit. Films are needed to portray what there is about the family which is worth preserving, and to suggest ways in which the worthwhile aspects of family life may be preserved, despite the forces of change. Not only the family as an institution, but personal relationships within the family, including marriage and child psychology, are important subjects for films. In the field of child psychology, highly valuable films might be produced showing how maladjustments between parents or mistakes in parents’ treatment of children often result in serious emotional disturbances for the child. We are not likely, however, to give any comfort to the school of psychology whose reluctance to see the child emotionally disturbed prompts them to advocate that children should be coddled and spared any pain at all, at the expense of developing moral fibre. Films produced by the Protestant Film Commission should make a real contribution by synthesizing the thinking of both religious leaders and child psychologists on this subject, and helping parents to follow a balanced course. 2. One of the greatest contributions of the attitude-forming film is that the very fact of making a film about a problem often tends to clarify our thinking about it. It is this kind of contribution which we hope the Protestant Film Commission can make in the field of personal psychology. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale of the Marble Collegiate Church has said, “The principles of Christianity are in reality the subtlest form of psychology.” Leading psychologists have said that the real secret of avoiding frustration, preserving mental health, and attaining the fullest development of the personality — lies ill the realm of the spiritual. One of the things which we need desperately today is a series of films on the elementary principles o f psychology — o n subjects such as how the mind works, the relation between the mind and the emotions, why we decide to do the thing we do, and the role of the subconscious in motivation. The man in the street, and even you and I, do not adequately understand ourselves and the real reasons for our actions. Not understanding these things, we go through life