Juvenile delinquency (1955)

208 JUVENILE DELINQUENCY 3. Each production manager of a company belonging to the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc., and any producer proposing to distribute and/or distributing his picture through the facilities of any member of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc., shall submit to such production code administration every picture he produces before the negative goes to the labora- tory for printing. Said production code administration, having seen the picture,, shall inform the production manager in writing whether in its opinion the picture conforms or does not conform to the code, stating specifically wherein either by theme, treatment or incident, the picture violates the provisions of the code.. In such latter event, the picture shall not be released until the changes indicated by the production code administration have been made; provided, however, that tile production manager may appeal from such opinion of said production code administration, so indicated in writing, to the board of directors of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc., whose finding shall be final, and such production manager and company shall be governed accordingly. Mr. Shurlock. Yes, whenever the industry generally and the board of directors in particular feel that certain amendments are advisable, the get the board of directors together and approve such amendments, which are then put into the code. Chairman Kefauver. Anything else, Mr. Shurlock ? Mr. Shurlock. May I make one additional observation inasmuch as Mr. Mooring's statement has been referred to of this afternoon? I would like to say a few words in that respect. Mr. Mooring was very gracious about me personally yesterday, and I would like to be equally gracious about him. He is a very intelligent reviewer of pic- tures, and he is a very sincere and honest man whom we know per- sonally and whom we admire. I'd like to say first of all that inas- much as Mr. Mooring stated categorically that the Production Code Administration has been lax in its operations recently, I want to cate- gorically deny that. Mr. Mooring cited a number of pictures as being code violations in his opinion. If I may, I Avould like to explain how impossible it is and how dangerous it is for an outsider to pass judg- ment on the code operations, and our reasons for approving a picture. Now, Mr. Mooring spoke twice about the picture Not as a Stranger. He evidently was very much concerned about a certain scene in which an act of adultery was indicated, by a cross-cut to some horses paw- ing the ground. The producer insisted this particular element was vitally important to the proper moral understanding of the point he was making, xldultery of course, is a sin, and the producer says, "I want to suggest that people about to commit adultery are, to use the standard phrase we always use, giving in to their animal passions. That is why I want this counterpoint of the animals." He wanted to completely deglamorize adultery, the very point we try to make in code operations. Movies are often accused of glamorizing illicit sex. It is rather ironical that in a case in which a producer sets out to de- glamorize the act and to pass a moral judgment on it, a moral con- demnation on it by associating it with animal passion, that we are accused of violating our own code. I want to say again that we are still as careful and as conscientious as we ever have been in the application of this code. Chairman Kefauver. "Well, Mr. Shurlock, I think I should say frankly to you that Mr. IMooring's criticisms, whetlier you agree with them or not, he is intelligent and sincere and it represents a fairly good cross-section, what he had to say of hundreds of letters and things that we are getting through our subcommittee. I mean a lot of people are thinking along the same lines. I am sure you are aware