Harrison's Reports (1933)

48 Raft $25,000 per picture.) But his activities will not, in my opinion, last very long. There is no room in the industry for such policies and for persons who undertake to produce pictures without the knowledge of the fundamentals of picture production. These fundamentals are: ability to understand what is suitable story material, and capacity to put such material into pictures at the lowest cost possible consistent with quality output. As far as knowledge of drama is concerned, my opinion is that he has none. As far as executive ability is concerned, all I can say is that, in my opinion, his theatre acquisition and later his theatre conducting policies, has brought Paramount to the present position. DOES THIS ADVERTISEMENT COMPLY WITH THE HAYS CODE OF ETHICS? The following lines appear in a Paramount advertisement of “Shame of Temple Drake,” inserted in the trade papers; “A Love Story Understandable to Every Woman . . . This Girl . . . Frail . . . Troubled . . . Whether to Give Herself to Save Her Soul, or Give Her Soul to Save Herself . . . Pulsing With All the Emotional Power of ‘A Farewell to Arms.’” And Mr. Zukor told me that the script of “Shame of Temple Drake,” the new title of “The Story of Temple Drake,” founded on William Faulkner’s “Sanctuary,” has been “purified.” And the evidence of it is, he asserts, the fact that it has been approved by Dr. Wingate, formerly Chief of the New York State Censorship Commission, now a fatly remunerated employee of the Hays organization. I wish I had the power to force every one of those who think that a picture cannot be entertaining unless there is dirt in it to see the British picture “Be Mine Tonight,” released by Universal. There is not a single situation where dirt is even implied. And yet, in my picture-reviewing career, I have not felt so much pleasure, so much thrill, as I felt when I was looking at this picture. And the story is very simple. CATHOLICS ARE ASKED TO BOYCOTT PICTURE THEATRES Reverend Henry F. Hammer, in a vesper conference at the St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Sunday afternoon, two weeks ago, stated that the motion picture industry is destructive to Catholic idealism. “Motion pictures could be high and noble entertainment, a potent factor in education and relaxation after hard labor,” he said, “but instead they present scenes inspired by bad, low, sinful, immoral and degrading thoughts. . . “If your grocer sells you merchandise that dissatisfies you, you promptly return it to him and threaten to buy elsewhere. Since the motion picture industry is primarily a business, the only way you can achieve better and cleaner entertainment is to decrease the attendance. A materialist can always be reached through his pocketbook, and motion picture producers are materialists. . . “The laity can accomplish the cleaning of the screen in two ways. One is by direct boycott, letters to the managers of picture houses refusing to patronize un-Christian, unCatholic films, and the other is by devotional prayer.” Father Hammer made it plain in his sermon that, since the neighborhood film theatre is the centre of recreational life, it is an obvious place to begin putting on pressure. Let now the Hays’s and the Milliken’s and the Herron’s and the Du Bra’s, and their Better Films Organizations, offset the harm that will be done by the attitude of the Catholic Church towards moving picture theatres. Twentytwo million Catholics will obey the suggestions of the Reverend Henry F. Hammer and those of them who live in your neighborhood will keep away from your theatre. Thus you will be made to suffer for something over which you have no control. The Catholic Church has been very tolerant towards moving pictures. Up to this time very few Catholic Clergymen have spoken against the dirt that is dragged into the pictures hy the ear. But, judging by the late outbursts of several among them, one is led to believe that their patience has been exhausted and that from now on they will join the other forces that have been trying to bring about the cleansing of the screen ; and since there has been no radical change in the production personell, and since the minds of these are still what they were, we can expect no improvement in the moral tone of the pictures. You will thus see your customers dwindle to nothing. You cannot expect the March 25, 1933 American people to continue their apathy when the producers are becoming bolder every day. It is getting to a point where parents do not allow their children to go to the picture theatres at all, and themselves are compelled to stay avvay, for fear that, if they go, they will have to take their children along. I am writing the Reverend Henry F. Hammer informing him of the fact that you are helpless as to the quality of pictures you show, and that the place to begin is at the studios; and since the producers will not change their views, it will be necessary for the Catholic Church to join us in our campaign for the enactment of a bill such as S. 3770 into a law. Call on every minister and priest in your towm or your neighborhood, make it clear to him that you are not responsible for the dirt that is being produced, and give him to understand that you are merely a victim of the moving picture producers. A CORRECTION In the review of the Warner Bros, pictures “42nd Street” and “The Keyhole,” I stated in the footnotes that these two pictures are suitable for children. Most of the dirty jokes in “Forty-Second Street” are put over cleverly ; so children and adolescents will not understand them. But there is one wisecrack (about the flagpole) that is too vile to go unnoticed by adults. This joke does not help the picture at all except with dirty minds. Warner Bros, should do well to cut this dirty expression out. In reference to “The Keyhole,” there is a scene in the beginning showing men coming out of the different rooms in a hotel, frightened, because they were told by the hero over the telephone that the hotel was about to be raided. They were in the rooms with married women. Children may not understand this, but most adolescents will ; and since many of you are careful not to show pictures with such doings I thought of informing you of it. Let me make a comment also on another picture, “Sailor's Luck,” Fox. This one, too, has a joke that is, I believe, one of the dirtiest heard. I am referring to the “crack” about Chinese “Street Cars” running horizontally. I can say no more — see the picture for yourself. The picture reeks with sex, particularly in the situation where Dunn, who liad engaged a room for Eilers in a hotel, is shown testing the bed springs ; also a later scene where Jory runs his “paw” down Filer’s back, stopping it over the waist. A REASON WHY PEOPLE STAY AWAY FROM PICTURES In the review of the Columbia picture “So This is Africa,” which appeared in the February 25 issue of Harrison's Reports, as well as in the editorial that appeared in the issue of the week that followed, I stated that for vileness, vulgarity and coarseness, the screen had not seen a similar picture up to that time. In the review I deplored the faet particularly because Wheeler and Woolsey had always appeared in pictures which were more or less clean and that people who detest vulgarity and coarseness in films would be attracted by this picture out of a belief that it was of the caliber of the other pictures of these stars. In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, of March 12, Nie. the columnist of “The Week’s New Films,” e.xpressed himself as follows about this picture under the subheading, “Jungle Dirt”: “Offhand, without trying to be unfair to some of the other Hollywood output, we would venture the opinion that ‘So This is Africa,’ at the Missouri, is the world’s dirtiest picture. Unfortunately so, too, for Wheeler and Woolsey. the stars, are prime factors with the younger cinema customers, and a lot of them will be attracted to the theatre by the names. Some of the smut will be over ffieir heads, but a lot of it will register unless the censors get busy tod.ay. The story, a satire on Africa hunt films, is certainly funny, and many of the obscene gags are very laughable — but don't take your wife.” Yet when a star revolts and refuses to take part in such material, the producers, with the blessing of Mr. Hays —the man who was employed hy the producers to assure the churches that everything is hotsy-totsy with pictures — suspend him, and moreover they make it impossible for him to obtain employment with some other company. Any wonder, then, that people have stopped going to the picture theatres? HARRISON’S REPORTS