Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb 1914 - Sep 1916 (assorted issues))

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72 MOT [OX PICTURE MAGAZINE line, occupying the vague and undefined area between the good and the bad, must each be handled on its merits. A subject, apparently, may be of questionable propriety, yet it may be shown in such a way and to a special audience and be quite unobjectionable. On the other hand, a subject in which the element of doubt is most remote may be so exhibited — it may be advertised luridly and suggestively with questionable posters, all designed to create a false and suggestive atmosphere — that it should be forthwith suppressed. The authorities, civic associations, parents, ministers and all from whom the cleansing of moral conditions is expected, should keep everlastingly on the lookout for such exhibitions and see that they are prevented. It will not be difficult to locate those exhibitors by whom questionable exhibitions are of frequent occurrence. They should be kept under surveillance, exactly like the man whose habitual practice is the circulation or printing of indecent literature. They should be subjected to the same suspicion and distrust as other moral criminals. Under rigid prosecution, the makers of unlawful films and the exhibitors thereof will soon find that they are engaging in a business as undesirable and unhealthy as counterfeiting or the misbranding of food products, and that the consequences of detection will be as relatively severe. How shall the moral standard be kept high? Canon Chase says: "Let me (or what amounts to the same thing, men and women who think as I do) — let nti decide what shall be put out. If I think a film is fit and proper, / will let it be shown. If I think it is objectionable, it must be forever suppressed. And in order that there may be no doubt about the matter, in order that even the most supersensi The law, not censors, must detect and punish guilty exhibitors and film manufacturers. tive child shall not be offended, in order that everything may be absolutely and completely mild and sweet and pure and wholesome, I will take particular pains to exclude everything that is suggestive of violence or pain or sin or cruelty. I do not want pictures to show the world as it is — a world of stress and toil, a world in which the weak are crushed and the strong exalted, of blood and sweat and groans and pain, of justice and injustice, of sorrow and suffering, of sin and retribution — no, I want to paint the world of the poet : of fields of daisies, of prattling children and cooing doves, of dreams, of song and music." Ah! Canon Chase, God grant that your dream might come true ! But not until men and women change, not until human nature itself changes, will it be realized ; and until then, as practical -men, we must solve our problems along practical lines. N o w, as opposed to the worthy Canon, and with precisely the same general objective in view, I say: "Let the film-producers put out such subjects as they think are worthy of their art. Leave it to them to tell the story, to draw the moral, to uplift or edify or instruct. Their natural aim is to appeal to the largest possible audience. Unless Canon Chase asserts that the Americans as a people are immoral and perverted, he must admit that the natural inclination of the film-producer — from purely selfish reasons — is to make his films decent and elevating. Immoral and objectionable films — that is, real!}/ immoral and objectionable films — are, therefore, not to be ordinarily expected ; they must be the exception, and not the rule. Treat these immoral and objectionable films, when they do appear, as criminal subjects and their producers and exhibitors as moral lepers, and punish them severely, preferably by imprisonment.