Hollywood Filmograph (Jan-Jul 1930)

20 May 24, 1930 Will H. Hays Talks to Foreign Trades Council "The Film as an International Salesman," Biltmore Address In a speech which he traveled 3000 miles to make, Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, addressed the annual convention of the National Foreign Trade Council in the Sala d'Oro of the Biltmore Hotel at 10 a. m. Wednesday, on the relationship that motion pictures bear to world trade. The title of his talk was "The Film as an International Salesman." Declaring that motion pictures exert a profound influence upon the buying habits of mankind, Mr. Hays pointed out that 250,000,000 people throughout the world go to picture theatres in the state of mind that a master psychologist would deem ideal if he wanted to make an impression upon them. "We are laying the keels in Hollywood today," he said, "for the largest trans-oceanic fleet that ever sped down the ways. More than two-thirds of the motion pictures in the world are made in the United States; our pictures occupy more than that proportion of the total world's screen time. While this is true, more than onethird of the newsreel pictures shown in American theatres last year were of scenes and events in foreign lands. Americans traveling in Europe spent $950,000,000 last year in the markets of those countries, a total increasing at the rate of nearly 10 per cent per year. Our motion pictures carry American ideas abroad, but quite as much they bring ideas of foreign interest to America. As a matter of fact, they bring Berlin to Boston, Paris to Pittsburgh, and London to Los Angeles, while they are displaying the products of every nation of Europe to all of South America and all of the Orient." Although the sales influence of the films is inestimable, Mr. Hays emphasized the fact that it is merely a byproduct of the picture industry. "The primary purpose of the theatrical motion picture," he said, "is to entertain. When a producer has accomplished this purpose wholesomely he has performed his major responsibility. I would not want any producer, either here or in any other country, to make entertainment pictures with the remotest idea of any commercial promotion or propaganda." The commercial value of the films, as he indicated it, lies in the subtle power of suggestion emanating from the screen, and scarcely a day passes without confirmation of new trends in purchasing arising from this source. A large number of firms are producing industrial films, according to Mr. Hays. The output is nearly 100,000,000 feet per year— all available now with the deveolpment of the portable talking picture machine. "This product," he said, "will serve the specialized needs of foreign trade more effectively and efficiently than an army of trained men." Just a little tete-a-tete while waiting to film a scene for "Holiday," Pathe's screen version of Philip Barry's stage success in which Ann Harding is featured. From left to right, Norbert Brodine, chief cameraman; Mary Astor, Director Edward H. Griffith and Edward Everett Horton. In discussing the magnitude of the motion picture business itself, he said: "We call on 276 distinct other businesses for material to carry on our business — some unexpected, such as using more silver than any customer in the country except the Government mints for coining." Other figures quoted to indicate the extent of the industry included a total capital investment throughout the world of $2,500,000,000; an annual consumption of 1,500,000,000 feet of positive film; the handling through exchanges of 28,000 miles of film every day; the insertion of 15,000 pieces of motion picture advertising copy in publications daily, and an annual advertising bill of nearly $100,000,000. "The history of the industry," Mr. Hays said, "is an Arabian Nights tale, for no story for the screen is half as dramatic as the story of the screen itself. "Two axioms of interest to those considering the fundamental elements of foreign trade," he continued, "are recognized in the motion picture industry. The first is that art knows no boundaries; the second is that trade follows the film. "American films have sometimes been criticized in foreign countries on the ground that they are the missionaries of American culture and thought. The truth, of course, is if they had been but that they would not have attained their world prominence. They are highly regarded because of the very fact that they have been developed without any taint of propoganda or selfish, nationalistic, commercial aims. A recent American film laid in France is being acclaimed in a score of countries across the world, presenting an alluring picture of that country to countless millions in America and abroad, from the northern tip of Siberia to the southernmost village of South America. "Films exert the same influence on buying that a well-dressed woman exerts when she walks down the Champs Elysees, Regent Street, Unter der Linden, Fifth Avenue, or Hollywood Boulevard. No one would call her an advertisement, even though a thousan women look deliberately at her gown and hat and make mental notes to guide themselves in their own purchasing. The influence is the influence of suggestion only. "The influence of the motion picture is exactly the same. Films show attractive people in attractive costumes, wearing or using something which is obviously giving pleasure. Immediately there is created in the mind of the observer a desire for the same article. It may be a Paris afternoon frock that Mary Pickford is wearing, a London golf suit on Richard Barthelmess, a German automobile in which Milton Sills rides, or the Spanish shawl which adorns Dolores del Rio. It may be an electric sewing machine, or the Italian draperies on a set, an antique chair from Lisbon, or a barber's chair from Chicago. No doubt the article is peculiarly fitted to the individual player, something that adorns that player and which the player himself or herself adorns. "The film's influence on trade in this country, selling America to itself, is manifest to everyone, and it is one of the most important factors in our new American idea of purposeful and planned prosperity. Ask any smalltown retailer and he will tell you of the influence of pictures. The farm housewife sees a new labor-saving device and she purchases it. Her husband sees a new threshing machine. Their daughter gets an idea for a new dress. The son of the house discovers the type of overcoat he wants. In a slightly less degree the same influence is operating all over the world. "Millions of people everywhere see in the movies articles of true distinction to which they might otherwise be strangers. They come to comprehend standards radically different from those to which they have become accustomed, and the desire for possession is often aroused. Thus new business is brought into being and new currents of trade are set in motion. So does trade follow the film, but it is everybody's trade and the manufacturers of every nation benefit. "Personally I believe that the audible motion picture is destined to be the greatest instrument ever placed in the hands of man to promote world peace. My boy, of picture age, knows how the people of France live, how they celebrate their holidays, whG their national heroes are, what the President of the French Republic looks like. The small boy in Italy knows his neighbors in Greece. The Chinese know America. The boys of Eton are acquainted with their British brothers in Australia and Canada. "When I was a boy, England was to all intents and purposes a place on a map. I knew the facts of our war with England. I could tell you about George the Third, about Cromwell and the date of William the Conqueror's appearance in England. I had read of Nelson and his famous pledge of an Englishman's duty. Today children recognize St. Paul's Cathedral, the Thames, the Houses of Parliament the minute they are flashed on the screen. They have heard King George speaking. They have listened to the Prince of Wales. Ramsay MacDonald is not a name, he is a living personality — as famliiar to them as the man next door. "The prosperity of world commerce is absolutely dependent upon the maintenance of world peace. As business men, we may get rather tired of the abstract discussions of this subject and of the slow progress it makes in the parliaments of nations. But it is nonetheless a fundamental essential to world prosperity and world business. The business man must be as surely a protagonist of world peace as the owner of the corner grocery store would be of neighborhood peace if his community were subject to intermittent riot and bloodshed. "In any event, in whatever phase of its usefulness you may regard the motion picture, whether as bringing happiness to 250,000,000 of our fellowbeings weekly throughout the world, or whether as the salesman of the world's goods — we find it a steadily strengthening contributor to the entire commercial and social well-being of the world." i 5t! i ' [is ]i p It! Art