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]^58 JUVENILE DELINQUENCY and sell the product. To induce tlie potential patrons to got out of the house and down the street to the theater. In these days of comi^eti- tion, motion-picture advertising must be especially striking and eiiec- tive and appealing. It must convince m a line, m a word, m an illus- tration, and it must convince quickly. All these are perfectly understandable designs and ends, as i am sure this committee fully realizes. But they are also the root, I am afraid, of some of the misunderstanding about him advertising copy. I^Iotion-picture advertising naturally is not expected to tell the story of a film. There is not space, there is not time. And if there was it would still be an error to do this, because it would take half the fun out of seeing a picture, if you knew the whole story m advance. And the advertising would thus defeat its own purpose. What it does seek to do and what it should do is to convey the spirit, the atmosphere, the feeling, the general impression of the photoplay. This is fair. This is proper. This is accepted advertising practice. It is neither misleading nor misrepresentative. , , ^ , . , In another advertisement you might see a young lady touching her ear with a particular brand of perfume that is designed to entice her date to a marriage proposal. But we all know that this doesn t assure that the girl, by buying the perfume, will get the good-looking man in Such comparisons are endless. I mention them in the hope that all persons will keep these things—these elemental factors of advertis- fncr—in mind in speaking about and in judging motion-pictiire ad- veT-tising. I think it would lead to better mutual understanding all around. . „ , , ^. . -. Now let me cret back to the direct operations of the advertising code administration. We handle a steady flow of all kinds of advertising material. Only a relatively small proportion of this ever causes us any real difficulty. *. .1 ^i j The greatest part of the copy is readily passable. At the other end of the scale is a small number of items, which are readily unpassable. This too creates no great problem in reaching a decision. In between is a sort of a gray zone. It is copy that is not so very laro-e in volume, that is on the line between acceptable and nonaccept- able, under the code. Some of the copy in this area can be satisfac- torily revised with minor changes, and can be passed on resubmission. In deciding on this material in the gray zone, it is a matter of my judgment, as my responsibility as the director of the code administra- I have to make decisions that are sometimes not easy. I have to interpret the rules as I believe them to apply to the specific aclvertise- ment You can see that I am like the umpire m baseball. He may not be the most poinilar fellow in the world but the game couldn t be played without him. , , . . ^ . I believe the ]n"oduction code and the advertising code have im- measurably aided the American motion picture m reaching its present hio-h state This is true, because the industry's long-established sys- tem of self-regulation fulfills ethical and moral principles and aspira- tions that reasonable men everywhere welcome and support. In concluding, I am convinced that, in selling the product, motion- picture advertising approved by the code administration, by and