Motion Picture News (Apr - Jun 1914)

THE MOTION PICTURE NEWS 23 TEST KEYSTONE CENSOR LAW IN COURTS Injunction Fight Looms on Horizon and Manufacturers Refrain from Asking for Examination of Pictures to Be Able to Make Legal Issue of Situation— Censors Aiticipate Battle and Hold Back — New Construction Ideas special to The Motion Picture News Harrisburg, Pa., May 28. A FIGHT to a finish against censorship of motion pictures in Pennsylvania is planned by manufacturers whose films are marketed extensively in this state, and the first skirmish will come June 1, when the new law under which the recently created board of censorship will operate becomes effective. The law prescribes that all applications to, have pictures examined must be made two weeks in advance of the date of the release of the films for exhibition purposes. Despite this provision practically no applications had been made on May 17, or two weeks before the date on which the board declares it will begin making arrests of ' exhibitors who display pictures not containing the mark of approval of the Pennsylvania board. Obviously if the law is to be strictly enforced on June 1 there will be no pictures that have passed muster of the censors on that date and the exhibitors all over the state will be subject to arrest and heavy fines, amounting to $50 for first offense and $100 for each subsequent offense. IT is explained now, however, that it was the deliberate intention of the manufacturers to refrain from applying to have pictures passed upon within the prescribed two weeks' period so that the film-makers will be in a position to raise a legal issue at once to test the constitutionality of the law. It is learned from a reliable source that it is the purpose of film manufacturers to seek an injunction, probably in Philadelphia, restraining the censors from making arrests and from enforcing the law in any way. Just what form the application for an injunction will take has not been learned here, but it is believed to be the intention of some of the manufacturers to apply for a temporary injunction the moment the board makes its first move to enforce the law. Under such an injunction made permanent, it is held exhibitors could continue to display pictures without the mark of approval of the Pennsylvania board, pending a final decision of the courts as to the constitutionality of the law. Under this plan, the manufacturers believe, it will be possible to go on exhibiting pictures not passed on by the Pennsylvania censors for at least one year and they hope ultimately to knock the statute out entirely on constitutional grounds. IT has been intimated from an unofficial source that the members of the Board of Censors themselves are acquainted with the intention of the manufacturers to fight the constitutionality of the statute. It was intimated to-day that the members of the board feel so certain that they will be prevented by injunction from making arrests and from requiring "9exhibitors to display the certificate of approval that they are not taking any very active steps to be prepared to examine films. It is pointed out that the task of censoring all the new films that are introduced in Pennsylvania would be a gigantic one for the two censors, as there would be from 30 to 40 to be examined daily, but that despite this the board has not publicly designated any places for examining films. IF the law actually becomes effective in this state, the burden will rest chiefly on the manufacturer of films. They are the ones who must submit the films for examination and thej' must pay a fee of .$3.50 for each film examined, whether it is accepted or rejected. The applicant to have a film approved must also stand all the expense of examination, which includes providing quarters and apparatus for the showing of the pictures in Harrisburg, or at such other places as may be designated by the board. The fight in Pennsylvania, based on the constitutionality^ of the act, is likely to be one that will have bearing on the subject of state censorship in other commonwealths, and for that reason is likely to be of national importance because it is intimated that an effort is to be made to show that state censorship is in conflict with federal statutes. SOME new ideas in the construction of motion picture theatres that have been brought to the attention of John Price Jackson, Commissioner of the State Bureau of Industry and Labor, and which may be adopted by that bureau as models for use in regulating the construction of other theatres in this state, are being introduced by J. M. Lenney in a new picture house he is building at 1426 and 1428 Derry street, this city. Mr. Lenney, in addition to having experience as a manager of motion picture theatres through the operation of his photoplay theatre, 5 and 7 North Thirteenth street, is a contractor and builder, and he believes that the plans on which he is constructing his new picture house will serve not only to make it as nearly absolutely safe against fire and panic as is possible, but also so attractive to patrons as to insure far greater box-ofiice receipts than if the house were built upon the lines of the ordinary picture theatre. Some of the radical departures from the ordinary methods of construction that Mr. Lenney has introduced are that the screen will be at the front of the building and the booth for the picture machine at the rear. The main entrance will be beneath the screen. By this plan, Mr. Lenney says, the patrons on entering the house will have less distance to walk to reach the best seats. Moreover, the musicians will be seated in the front part of the theatre and will thus be in a position to attract persons from the street who might not be induced to enter if the music were so far away as the rear of the theatre. THE placing of the machine booth at the rear, Mr. Lenney argues, will isolate the one possible source of danger from fire and relegate it to that part of the playhouse which is not occupied by patrons. Mr. Lenney believes that the greatest danger of fire and panic in picture houses lies in the fact that ordinarily patrons, in case of an emergency, will head for the main doors through which they entered, in the efforts to escape, no matter how many side and rear exits may be provided. With the booth in the rear, the greater part of the audience, in making for the front or main doors in case of fire panic, would be going in a directly opposite direction from the usual source of danger — the picture machine. To add to the safety of the house, it is to have no galleries and nothing