Hollywood Spectator (1931)

16 Hollywood Spectator For three days running I have noticed an old man leaning against the building not far from the Spectator offices. He is a horrid fellow with an expression of asthmatic melancholy and a glance that is nasty and prying. He appears to be looking for something, and until this moment I have been unable to fathom the object of his search. Now I know. The man is compiling statistics! Sweetness and Light ▼ V Comes to my desk a righteous publication from London called The Methodist Times. It is as sweet as a faded rose, and as depressing. The movies, says this journal of uplift, are in a terrible mess, in consequence of which the establishment of vigilance committees is urged, in order that the good people of the empire may be saved for Wesley. On page two of the publication under the snappy and alliterative title of Sin and the Cinema, a wild-eyed reverend, whose name is Dr. Percy Dearmer, gives us his views on the situation. The amazing nobility of his ideas and the Christian love expressed in them are worthy of reprint. “Such humanity as these films depict,” says the reverend gentleman, “would not be worth saving, could have no future, might as well be destroyed as the failure of Creation, the only quite ignoble thing alive on the earth.” There is a great deal more by this holy fellow, and he concludes with a horrified account of the rebuff of a deputation seeking stricter censorship at the hands of Home Secretary Clynes. The latter gentleman stated that he considered it the duty of parents, not the state, to guide the cinema attendance of their children. So disgusting an attitude throws the Reverend Dr. Dearmer into a fit and provides excellent reading. Salvation in Sheffield ▼ V Those who consider that the United States is in a horrible condition at the hands of uplifters and reformers, should find comfort in the case of British censorship, recently brought to a head at a meeting of the redoubtable Sheffield city council. Warner Brothers’ Outward Bound was banned by the British Board of Film Censorship because the picture deals with the after-life. The censors over there feel that only those churches known to possess architecturally perfect diagrams of heaven should be permitted to deal in such shadowy matters. But when the film was billed in the noble city of Sheffield the local government displayed alarming tendencies to allow the picture to show. Whereupon Alderman Frank Thraves, chairman of the local Watch Society, precipitated a fight, and although To-day’s Cinema gives a serious recital of this epic of the censors, I found it quite funny. ▼ V Councillor H. Morris moved that the picture be shown. His chief reason was that the neighboring town of Barnsley had shown the film, and had billed it as “the film banned in Sheffield.” Mr. Morris intimated that this action placed Sheffield in a decidedly sniffish position, and he didn’t like it a bit. He also commented sourly on “Yankee rubbish.” Councillor Mrs. Longden said that she hated awfully to go against the B. B. F. C., and Alderman A. Barton, in heated opposition, declared that people should be free to view whatever films they wished. This novel idea Alderman J. G. Graves found quite loathsome. He stirred his audience with accounts of sex pictures, and emphasized that these passionteasers were exhibited to people who sat “in the dark” while viewing them. ▼ ▼ Alderman E. G. Rowlinson wished to heaven that the government would take over such nasty business bag and baggage, and leave the Sheffield City Council to consider more serious matters. As things were becoming really hot Alderman A. Smith came forth with a bomb shell. The city council, thought Alderman Smith, could hardly ban a film which it had not seen. After a few ticklish questions Mr. Thraves of the Watch Society manfully admitted that he was among those who had not witnessed the production he sought to ban. In the end Outward Bound was given a clean bill. Thus was a great crisis met in the ancient town of Sheffield, and thus was civic righteousness vindicated. Pictures at U. S. C. ▼ ▼ From the University of Southern California comes the announcement that a course in the making of motion pictures is now under way at the Metropolitan College under the direction of Dr. Boris V. Morkovin, who is a member of the advisory council of the National Committee for the Study of Social Values in Motion Pictures. Some two years ago the University announced its courses in screen writing, acting, and cinematography. Since that time it appears that the project has languished, although The Academy is presumed to have it under a protective wing. I have browsed around the University from time to time, and during the last year have made several efforts to obtain an announcement of the course. At its inception a rather complete catalogue was issued, but it is now out of print, and no others have been supplied. I think that many students who were attracted by the glowing possibilities of a course sponsored by The Academy are due for a sorry time of it. One can inquire at the registrar’s office, from practically any faculty member and among the students without result. No one knows anything about it. The Bureau of Appointments, so far as I know, has only the slenderest contact with studios, and the whole project seems disorganized and nebulous. About My Dog ▼ V Mr. Beaton has given me permission amounting almost to a command to disagree with him whenever I feel that I have good cause. I rarely will have an opportunity to contradict him with such finality as at present. In a previous issue of the Spectator he mentions my Airedale pup and his desire to make its acquaintance. It is no Airedale at all, and although it weighs only nine pounds, it is not a pup. My dog is a toy Boston bull. I tried to straighten out the matter with Mr. Beaton at the time we were discussing dogs, but he was somewhat perturbed because I sat on a tiny yellow kitten that had curled up on the most comfortable chair in his library. Under these distressing circumstances I can understand that his slip on the breed of my pup is not without excuse. Nor must this SPECIALISTS IN INSURED INVESTMENTS ANNUITIES LIFE INSURANCE The Logan Agency BARNETT BLDG. HEMPSTEAD 2352 HOLLYWOOD CALIFORNIA