International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jul-Dec 1929)

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the truth, because in the course of the prosecution the alleged influence of the cinema disappears. The moral standard of American films, moreover, is such as to exclude any possibility of corruption. Of 620 films produced in the United States in 1928, 33.70 % contained neither criminals nor crime. In 33.80 % the criminal ended in prison, in 10.40 % he repented of his evil doings and tried by good conduct to regain the approval of society, in 4.90 % the corporal chastisements applied constituted an admonishment rather than a punishment. Add to this that, according to the statistics of Dr. Hoffmann himself , the maximum number of murders in the United States was reached in 1925, and from that period there was a decrease or a slump, while exactly at the same time the slum films were placed on the market. Another point that claims consideration is the number of seats placed at the disposal of film frequenters. Rochester and Memphis have about 15,000 seats for each 100,000 inhabitants, but the former has an average of 3 murders for every 100,000 in 1928, compared to 60.5 for the latter. Portland, with 20,171 seats, has a proportion of 5-1 murders to 100,000 inhabitants, while Portsmouth, with 7.871 seats, has 17.9. Davenport 17.9 Iowa, Ottawa, and Somerville with about 20,000 seats, have a quota of 1.5, 1.4 and 1.0, while Detroit with 19,000 has 16.5. Los Angeles with 24,339 seats counts barely 4.7 murders. There is not, therefore, nor can there be, any correlation between crime and film frequentation. This is proved by students of great value such as George W. Kirchway, for years Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Columbia, later on director of Sing Sing Prison and finally Chief of the Criminology Bureau of the New York School of Social Work. William Healy, in his volume Delinquents and Criminals, compiled from the data of an enquiry relating to over 4,000 cases in Cleveland and from the reports of the Baker Foundation of Harvard University, Cyril Burt for England in his work on the Juvenile Delinquent, the psychologist Phyllis Blanchard, author of the volume Children and Society, the medical psychologist Dr. Louis E. Bisch of the Medical Polyclinic School of New York, Carleton Simon, alienist of international fame, for twelve years psychiatrist of the Police Department of New York in a study on Crime and Cinematography, and countless others. The conclusion at which Carl E. Milliken arrives is that there can be no relation between cinema and crime. That the crime wave, if such it may be called, in America is attributable to other reasons, such as prohibitionism, immigration, increase of wealth, insufficiency of legal and penal preventive and repressive measures. On the other hand the American industry has for some time past been carrying on a campaign of rehabilitation of the cinema that has not failed to take effect. 313