Harrison's Reports (1932)

Entered aa second-class matter January 4, 1921, at the post office at New York, New York, under the act of March 3, 1879. Harrison’S Heports Yearly Subscription Rates: United States $15.00 U. S. Insular Possessions. . 16.00 Canada, Alaska 16.00 Mexico, Spain, Cuba 16.00 Great Britain, New Zealand 16.00 Other Foreign Countries.. 17.60 35c a Copy 1440 BROADWAY New York, N. Y, A Motion Picture Reviewing Service by a Former Exhibitor Devoted Exclusively to the Interests of Exhibitors Its Editorial Policy; No Problem Too Big for Its Editorial Columns, if It is to Benefit the Exhibitor. Published Weekly by P. S. HARRISON Editor and Publisher Established July 1,1919 PEnnsylvania 6-6379 Cable Address : Harreports (Bentley Code) A REVIEWING SERVICE FREE FROM THE INFLUENCE OF FILM ADVERTISING Vol. XIV _ SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1932 No. 22 TEN YEARS OF WILL H. HAYS — Article No. 3 In last week’s article it was proved that Mr. Hays’ influence in state as well as in national politics is, so far as this industry is concerned, a myth, and that his religious influence has brought upon this industry nothing but grief. Let us now discuss his other acts in his ten-year “czaring” over the motion picture industry. In engaging a nationally known person to head their organization, the producers had in mind to have such a person speak for the entire industry and to assume all the responsibility for its acts before the public. The public took this act seriously ; those who felt that all was not well with the moral tone of the pictures were pleased, for they now had some one to address their objections to, instead of to the entire industry in a general way. During the first years, Mr. Hays was able to placate these objectors by stating to them that he had been in the industry only a short time and had not had an opportunity to study every problem in it, but that he would see that the objectionable features were removed as soon as he got to them. These good people waited year after year without seeing the promised for improvement come. Assurances put forward by Mr. Hays had no longer any effect on them, for they felt that they meant no more than did his former assurances. They began to realize that Mr. Hays had no authority, no power to bring about an improvenrent, and began to tliink of adopting other means to bring about the condition they prayed for. One of such means was censorship. The disgraceful revelations of the fact that Mr. Hays had on his payroll church leaders intensified this desire of theirs for Federal censorship, a desire which was eventually crystalized in the Hudson bill. Seeing the danger from such a growing demand for Federal censorship, Mr. Hays, after protracted deliberations with the members of his organization, decided to check this movement by a counter-stroke ; and a few days before April I, 1930, he issued to tlie press his famous Code of Ethics, accompanied by an explanatory statement. Part of that statement read as follows ; ‘The adoption of the Code,’ Mr. Hays declared, ‘marks the latest and greatest step taken by the motion picture industry in the direction of self-government, to the end that the entertainment, educational, and informative values of the theatrical screen shall conform not only to the best standards of this art but to the wholesome instincts of life * * *. For the past six months * * ♦ the most intensive study and labor have been devoted to the formulation of the Code that would meet the conditions created by the introduction of sound on the screen.” Notice that the formulation of the Code of Ethics Mr. Hays attributes to the advent of sound. I shall not call your attention to pictures such as “West of Zanzibar,” taken from a play once he banne<l called “Congo,” in which a father deliberately tries to revenge himself on a man by having this man’s daughter contract a venereal disease from an afflicted person, the woman later proving to be his own daughter; I shall not bring to your memory the theme of the Warner Bros, picture, “The Secret Flame,” in which a mother deliberately poisons her invalid son so as to give her eldest son a chance to have the heroine ; I shall not remind you of the “Suicide” pictures that have been produced during his regime in an effort to prove that not the advent of sound but outside agitation against such pictures was the cause of the adoption of his Morality Code — I shall be fair enough to confine myself to discussing the after-Code pictures in an effort to help you determine for yourselves whether the after-Code pictures have been less filthy, less demoralizing, than the pre-Code pictures. To do this candidly and convincingly, it will be necessary to take a few of the Code principles for comparison. Under the caption. “CRIMES AGAINST THE LAW,” the Code says : “These shall never be presented in such a way as to throw sympathy with the crime against the law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire for imitation.” I don’t want to tire you out by presenting many cases where this principle has been ruthlessly violated: I shall give you only a few. “The Public Enemy” is one of them; the crime was made attractive in it and the murderers and racketeers were not punished by the law for their crimes ; they were killed by other gangsters. “Quick Millions,” Fox ; the dynamiting of the buildings and the destruction of other properties is so thrilling that it inspires to imitation. A coldblooded murder is committed, too. In “Two Kinds of Women,” Paramount, drunken women, blackmail and a murder are the “entertaining” features. In “Letty Lynton,” the heroine is shown poisoning the man she had lived with but she is not punished for her crime, for it is justified — he had been pursuing her and since she ran the risk of losing the hero, whom she was about to marry, she poisons her exlover. Even the District Attorney winks his eye at her crime : although he knows that she. her mother, and her fiance had been lying, he does nothing about it. As a last example allow me to call your attention to “Scarface.” In my reviewing career I have not seen a more demoralizing gangster picture, for the chief character is a cold-hlooded murderer and a licentious person. He murders even his sister’s husband whom he had suspected of being her lover. This scum of society had a peculiar moral code — it was well for him to degrade the sisters of other people, but he killed in cold blood the man who, as he thought, had disgraced his own sister. As far as showing no crime on the screen that would “inspire others for imitation” is concerned, let me call your attention to the fact that, in five out of ten cases, where either murder or safe-blowing or any other sort of robbery is committed, the villain is shown wiping off his gun as well as the places his hands touched, so as not to leave any fingerprints. It is the best crime teaching method that could he invented; it beats the books a thousand miles. Any wonder that the gangsters nowadays are so young? Under the same general heading, in subdivision 4, the Hays Moral Code says ; “The use of liquor in American life, when not required by the plot or for proper characterization, will not be shown.” Mr. Hays has certainly invented platitudes to give the producers latitude in the use of liquor. What does he mean by “required by the plot.” and “for proper characterization”? In “State’s Attorney,” the hero is drunk all the time except the morning after he had married the wrong woman ; and only for a short time. There is hardly a society or gangster picture made nowadays but that the liquor flows like water. And there is no justification for its use. Under the heading, “SEX,” the Code says : “The sanctity of the institution of marriage and the home shall be unheld.” This will certainly make the bones of the dead creak in protest, for there is hardly a society drama but that the marriage institution is vilely desecrated. Husbands are shown keeping women on the side, and wives being kept by men. The only pictures where this does not happen is where Jackie Cooper, Tom Mix with his horse Tony, and a few western stars, appear. Under another sub-heading, there is said : “Adultery, sometimes necessary for plot material, must not be explicitly treated, or justified, or presented attractively.” I begin to believe that Mr. Hays does not see any pictures, even though he makes his living out of the picture industry ; at least he has not seen the Paramount picture, “The World and the Flesh,” with George Bancroft. In that picture the director, in order to make sure that the spectators would not miss what the hero was going to do to the heroine, shows him unbuckling his belt. The damnable part about this is the fact that George Bancroft is adored by adolescents, and when a picture of his is shown they flock to it.